Toyota’s first electric HiLux clears rocks, ruts and a creek crossing with real composure. It just wasn’t built with weekend warriors in mind.
| PROS | CONS |
| – First proper leaf sprung EV in Australia – Very capable traction control system – Flat underbody makes cresting over hills a breeze – Physical Buttons Everywhere | – Range. It’s just not enough – Price. It’s just too high – No liner in the tub – Lower clearance means you may cop a few extra scrapes |
The HiLux has never needed a battery to sell in this country. Toyota is fitting one anyway and the result is the first fully electric vehicle sold in Australia to ride on leaf springs. It’s a dual-motor, all-wheel drive ute engineered for a customer who won’t be walking into a dealership off the street, it will be for mining operators running their own power generation, tunnelling contractors who’d rather not fit emissions treatment underground, and government fleets chasing zero tailpipe output on-site.
Toyota Australia has priced the HiLux BEV from $74,990 plus on-road costs for the SR dual-cab chassis, $76,490 for the SR dual-cab pickup and $82,990 for the SR5 dual-cab pickup, with premium paint adding $675 across the board. That’s a $17,000 premium over the equivalent diesel SR pickup with 48V mild hybrid assistance, making the BEV the most expensive HiLux in the range. Toyota itself expects private buyers to account for only around 5% of sales.
| Spec | SR Cab-Chassis | SR Dual-Cab Pickup | SR5 Dual-Cab Pickup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (excl. on-roads) | $74,990 | $76,490 | $82,990 |
| Power/Torque | 144kW / 468Nm combined | 144kW / 468Nm combined | 144kW / 468Nm combined |
| EV Range (NEDC) | 245km | 315km | 315km |
| Battery | 59.2kWh lithium-ion (NMC) | 59.2kWh lithium-ion (NMC) | 59.2kWh lithium-ion (NMC) |
| Standard Inclusions | 17in alloys, Bridgestone Dueler A/T tyres, cloth seats, dual digital displays, wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, 6 terrain modes, hill descent control | As per SR Cab-Chassis | Adds synthetic leather trim, heated front seats, LED headlights and tail lights, privacy glass |
Toyota prices it for fleets, not weekend warriors
Toyota is forecasting roughly 500 HiLux BEV sales in Australia this year, against a nameplate that typically moves around 50,000 units annually. It’s a deliberate ceiling aimed squarely at fleet, mining and government tenders rather than showroom walk-ins.
Every variant carries Toyota’s 5-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty. The traction battery gets its own 5-year cover, extendable to 10 years with an annual battery health check, plus an 8-year/160,000km guarantee against capacity dropping below 70%. Toyota says the vehicle has already logged months of testing on Australian mine sites in temperatures pushing 50°C, which tells you plainly who this ute needs to satisfy first.
Same footprint, new underpinnings
The BEV measures 5.32m long, 1.86m wide and 1.87m tall on a 3.09m wheelbase, identical to the standard dual-cab HiLux. A closed upper grille and aero-styled 17-inch alloys wrapped in Bridgestone Dueler all-terrain tyres are the giveaways from the outside.
Toyota has fitted a reinforced front subframe with beefed-up MacPherson strut coil suspension, and at the rear, a de Dion axle riding on leaf springs. The de Dion setup is the clever part. It’s a dead axle, a tube that locates the rear wheels and lets them keep a load-friendly, leaf-sprung ride without ever transmitting drive itself.
The electric motor mounts to the body rather than the axle and sends power to the wheel hubs through half-shafts, trimming unsprung weight compared with a live axle that also has to carry its own differential. Ground clearance drops slightly as a result, from the diesel’s 224mm to the BEV’s 218mm.
Braked towing capacity lands at 2000kg across the range, well down on the diesel HiLux’s 3500kg, alongside 750kg unbraked and around 720kg of payload once a tray goes on the cab-chassis.
144kW, 59.2kWh and a questionable range figure
Power comes from an 82kW/206Nm motor at the front and a 129kW/269Nm unit at the rear, for a Toyota-quoted combined system output of 144kW and 468Nm, well short of what the two peaks would add up to on paper and a touch down on the outgoing 2.8-litre turbo-diesel. The 59.2kWh lithium-ion pack doesn’t get a stated chemistry, but a 3.76V nominal cell voltage points to NMC, the same approach Toyota takes with the bZ4X.
Toyota rates range at 245km for the cab-chassis and 315km for the pickup variants on the NEDC cycle. Quoting NEDC instead of the WLTP figure nearly every other new EV in Australia uses looks like a choice rather than an oversight, and independent estimates put the real-world number closer to 240km for the pickup and under 200km for the cab-chassis. Charging tops out at 150kW DC, good for a 10% to 80% top-up in around 30 minutes, or 10kW three-phase AC for a full charge in roughly 6.5 hours.
A cabin built to be used, not admired
Inside the layout is familiar HiLux: heavy on physical buttons, light on flourish. The digital driver’s cluster is clear if not deeply customisable, the landscape touchscreen runs wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto without lag, and the air conditioning still gets real switches instead of a menu. SR5 adds synthetic leather trim, heated front seats, LED lighting and privacy glass over the SR’s cloth.
A drive mode dial covers Sport, Normal and Eco on the bitumen, while a dedicated button unlocks six off-road terrain modes, including dirt, sand, mud, mogul and rock, alongside hill descent control and the option to switch stability control off entirely. A household-style 220V outlet and a 12V socket sit in the centre console, handy for tools on-site. Rear seat space suits adults well enough, with dual air vents, two USB ports and a top-tether child seat mount worth checking against your own capsule before assuming it fits. The tub gets a soft-closing tailgate on gas struts and tie-down points around the lip, though no bed liner as standard.
Five per cent of a battery, off the beaten track
Off-road, on a moderate course of rocks, ruts and a steep-sided creek crossing, I found the HiLux BEV performed better than its spec sheet suggests it should. Hill descent control held a set speed cleanly below 15km/h, and the traction control system read wheel slip and redirected torque almost instantly, without any help from a diff lock. Approach angle is manageable, though the breakover point sits a little low, so cresting a sharp climb will graze the flat underbody plate rather than a tailshaft, since there isn’t one to hang up on.
The entire uphill off-road section used just 5% of the battery, a genuinely reassuring number for the low-speed, technical work this ute is built for. It says nothing, though, about highway range with a loaded tray or a trailer on the back.
Thin competition for a genuine BEV ute
The HiLux BEV lands in a ute market where electrification has so far meant plug-in hybrids, not pure batteries. BYD’s Shark 6 has sold more than 24,000 units in under two years and remains Australia’s best-selling plug-in hybrid, with GWM’s Cannon Alpha PHEV and Ford’s Ranger PHEV both chasing it at higher price points. None of them carry the range anxiety of a pure BEV, because none of them need to.
Among genuine battery-electric utes, the field is thinner. LDV’s eT60 arrived first and never found buyers at its near-$100,000 price. Its replacement, the eTerron 9, is specced to embarrass the HiLux BEV on paper, with up to 325kW, 3500kg of braked towing and 430km of WLTP range from a 102kWh pack, but it’s still not on sale here. For now, Toyota is the only top-tier ute brand selling a factory-built, body-on-frame, 4×4-capable electric ute in Australia, even if it isn’t the most capable one on paper.
What the HiLux BEV proves is that Toyota can put genuine off-road engineering behind an electric drivetrain without starting from scratch. Whether that engineering reaches private buyers in meaningful volume comes down to a second-generation battery, a towing figure that doesn’t fall so far short of the diesel, and a range Toyota is willing to quote on the same cycle as everyone else.
