The next-generation Toyota Hilux has been delayed and will now make its debut in 2025.
An Argentinian dealer principal who recently traveled to the Tokyo Motor Show with Toyota top brass told Brazil’s Motor1.com that the new generation of the popular bakkie was expected to be launched in 2024, but the Japanese Toyota executives have now confirmed that we will have to wait one year longer.
“The international presentation [of the next-generation Hilux] will be in 2025, and hopefully it will be launched in Argentina in late 2025 or early 2026. That’s much longer than we thought,” said the dealer principal.
South Africa is a popular market for Toyota as the brand has held on to the top-selling position for a few decades, so we should be one of the countries that get their hands on the next-gen Hilux sooner after the global launch in 2025, rather than later.
To keep the new now almost 10-year-old Hilux fresh for the foreseeable future so that it can fend off the likes of the Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max, the automaker is planning on launching a mild-hybrid variant of the bakkie next year and it is investigating the feasibility of introducing a beefier GR-Sport derivative to our roads.
Everything we know about the new Hilux
The incoming ninth-generation Toyota Hilux is expected to move to an adaptation of the automaker’s new TNGA-F chassis that underpins the Land Cruiser 300 and the US-market Tacoma and Tundra.
With this, it will likely grow in size as the new platform boasts significant upgrades over the current architecture and allows longer axles for a wider and broader footprint, rear disc brakes to replace the drums used on many current-gen specifications, and outboard rear shock absorbers for more sway resistance and off-camber control.
As it moves into the more lifestyle-oriented arena, and the Hilux “Champ” looks set to assume the role as the brand’s new workhorse around the same time – i.e. late 2025/early 2026 – the next-gen Hilux is also expected to take styling cues from the more luxurious Tacoma and Tundra.
It’s widely anticipated that Toyota is not going follow the lead of Ford and bring V6-drive to its forthcoming Hilux.
Japanese publication Response reports that there will be two powertrains on the table, a 2.4-litre or 2.8-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-diesel hybrid, combined with a six-speed automatic transmission and of course, 4×2 and 4×4 options.
Whether this will be a traditional hybrid or a mild hybrid is unknown at present. There are also rumours that a battery-electric Hilux will be in the mix, and even one driven by hydrogen.
Toyota is currently testing the real-world feasibility of both a hydrogen and fully-electric Hilux and should they prove successful, they might make it into the production version of the next-gen model.
Australia’s Drive.com asked its subsidiary’s sales and marketing chief what the powertrain options would be between electric, hybrid, and hydrogen, to which he replied: “We are considering all of those technologies for Hilux. Obviously hybrid is the easy solution for us because we’re already doing it on other cars, but we don’t discount other technologies that may be more suitable for that car.”
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