Toyota HiLux Revo BEV concept review

The Toyota HiLux has been the best selling vehicle for the best part of a decade and now the Japanese giant has built a ute to take it into the future.

Australia’s favourite vehicle is headed for a huge transformation.

For years, Toyota has left an electric version of the HiLux in the too-hard basket.

But spurred on by ever louder rumblings from rivals, the car maker finally has a plug-in HiLux on the road.

There’s only one in Australia and the maker is keen to point out it’s a concept vehicle, but it’s a start.

The electric Toyota HiLux is just a concept, but it's a start on the company’s road to electrification.

The HiLux Revo BEV concept vehicle is undergoing local evaluation and Toyota invited media to have a brief test drive at the company’s short test and evaluation track at its Centre of Excellence in Melbourne.

The drive may have been brief but the merits of the BEV became instantly apparent.

Press a familiar push-button starter and the ute awakens with no sound. Switch into drive and put your foot down and the HiLux takes off with a near silent whirl of electric thrust, without the gruff and loud revving of a diesel engine.

The simple test loop we drove doesn’t replicate the hustle and bustle of city traffic, suburban streets or pockmarked country roads.

A few examples will be built for a share taxi trial in Thailand.

Instead a short straight allows you to get up to 100km/h from a standstill and it’s immediately apparent that the electric motor is more responsive off the mark than a diesel-powered HiLux. Our unscientific 0-100km/h test suggested the electric HiLux completed the sprint in about nine seconds, which is a fair bit faster than a stock-standard HiLux.

It is stable at speed and more planted through gentle bends than any HiLux we’ve driven before.

The track is mostly flat but the one ripple showed a fairly uneasy rear end that jumped and shimmied before regaining composure.

The steering is more SUV-like than ute, with sharper and lighter responses than are common in roadgoing HiLuxes.

The brief test drive revealed the best handling HiLux to date.

A range gauge showed 200km to empty when full, which gives a strong indication of the ute’s potential. Toyota Australia says this isn’t an official number as it’s just a concept car.

The brand’s local arm made it clear the vehicle is no certainty to make it into production any time soon.

A few versions will be built for Thailand, where they will be fitted with benches in their trays and take part in a taxi program.

But Toyota remains unwilling to commit to a launch date for an electric HiLux.

The brand’s reluctance is in stark contrast to other brands that have committed to electric power and in some cases given firm dates for launch.

Toyota has not committed to producing the electric ute for sale.

Ford has announced a plug-in hybrid version of the Ranger will land in dealerships from 2025, with an electric ute likely to follow by 2027.

The Volkswagen Amarok, which shares its underpinnings with the Ranger, is on a similar timeline and Chinese electric car giant BYD will have a plug-in hybrid ute by next year before a fully electric version arrives soon after.

Kia is also working on an electric version of its all-new ute that would likely land in Australia before 2027.

While Toyota Australia wouldn’t provide any technical details of the BEV, it has one electric motor mounted on the rear axle providing rear-wheel drive.

Outputs from the electric motor are a mystery, as is the battery size and capacity, but it is likely the maker dipped into its parts bin and borrowed elements from the coming bZ4X electric SUV that is already available overseas and due in Australia early next year.

Front-drive versions of the bZ4X use a 150kW and 266Nm electric motor fed by a 71.4kWh lithium ion battery.

The BEV’s batteries are stored under the floor and the concept has rugged leaf-spring suspension.

Overall, the Revo BEV is an encouraging sign from a brand that’s been slow on the uptake with electric vehicles, although a production version remains some years away.