Get out of the way diesel! Toyota Prado petrol-electric hybrid SUV coming to Australia as soon as 2024
Toyota Australia appears certain to add a petrol-electric hybrid to the new-generation Prado 250 Series SUV line-up as soon as this year.
The eagerly anticipated new heavy-duty large off-roader launches mid-2024 with an updated mild hybrid version of its predecessor 150 Series’ 2.8-litre turbo-diesel engine.
The 2.4-litre ‘i-FORCE MAX’ petrol-electric hybrid was initially put on the backburner for Australia, but that now appears to have changed.
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Toyota Australia sales and marketing chief Sean Hanley told motoring media this week it can be expected on-sale here “sooner rather than later”.
“We don’t have a [launch] date, we are just investigating the potential of whether that powertrain would be suitable for our market.
“It’s part of our overall decarbonisation and multi-pathway strategy. It would be an outstandingly good attribute for our product line-up.
“Speculatively, we would like to do it sooner rather than later, but we don’t have a date.”
When it does get here it will be the first hybrid (as opposed to 48v mild hybrid) added to Toyota’s line-up of top-selling line-up of utes and large SUVs.
But it won’t be the last. Fuel consumption and emissions has become a critical focus for Toyota Australia as the federal government’s new CO2 reduction standard looms with substantial fines for polluting vehicles such as large SUVs and utes.
The high-performance hybrid makes 243km/630Nm compared to the diesel engine’s 150kW/500Nm.
In US spec it averages 23mpg, which translates to 10.2L/100km and 236g CO2/km.
The current diesel Prado 150’s diesel engine averages 7.9L/100km and emissions of 228g CO2/km. Fuel figures for the Prado 250 have yet to be announced.
The hybrid will likely be more expensive than the diesel, although pricing has yet to be announced for the five model Prado 250 range.
However, between the diesel and the hybrid there’s little doubt the re-designed Prado 250 will carry-on the 150’s dominance of the large SUV segment.
There are likely to be substantial waiting lists for the 250 Series, as per other popular Toyota models like the RAV4 hybrid and Toyota Camry hybrid.
“Whatever it is [Prado 250 supply] it won’t be enough,” Hanley said.
“There are going to be thousands of people lined up to buy [Prado 250],” said Hanley.
Because of battery production limitations Toyota has a global supply restriction on hybrids. However, local sales share of hybrids keeps going up, with almost 40 per cent of the market leader’s January sales accounted for by petrol-electric powertrains.
That Prado 250’s hybrid system has already been seen with the HiLux-sized US-spec Toyota Tacoma ute and is expected to eventually come here in the Prado 250’s sibling, the Lexus GX.
The system includes a 35kW electric motor integrated within its eight-speed automatic transmission and a 1.87kWh NiMH battery pack to charge it.
