Toyota EPU electric pick-up truck previews Hilux’s EV future

Amongst a broad diversity of electrical automobile ideas Toyota is decided to explain at this week’s 2023 Tokyo motor explain could be the five metre-long EPU – an fully-electric opt-up truck with many similarities to Hilux ute proportions.

Launched appropriate days before its bodily explain at this twelve months’s Tokyo explain, the EPU – which potentially stands for Electric Pick-Up – is a clear imaginative and prescient of where Toyota will snatch its midsized ute devices in the electric generation.

Toyota confirmed that the EPU is a “subsequent-generation mid-size pickup truck theory” with a “versatile deck house that caters to a broader vary of client purposes.”

Toyota currently sells two midsize opt-up trucks globally: in Australia, it’s the neatly-identified Hilux vary, while the related (however visually and mechanically positive) Tacoma is supplied in the American market.

Learn our explainer to realise the adaptations right here.

Both autos currently rely on combustion engines: mainly fuel in North The USA and diesel in various locations. In 2024, the Tacoma will comprise a sturdy turbocharged electric-hybrid powertrain called the i-Power Max.

That engine would possibly maybe maybe also in some scheme technique to Australia in the next-generation Hilux – expected around 2025 – however for now, Aussies indulge in to carry out comprise with the arriving near near forty eight-volt unruffled-hybrid Hilux role for launch in the arriving months.

Toyota is checking out a extremely early electric Hilux prototype in Australia at the moment, and Chasing Vehicles has pushed it: query our review right here.

However the EPU is fully electric – and admire the no longer too long ago-supplied Toyota Land Cruiser SE electric theory, it is monocoque and no longer a physique-on-frame automobile.

In that sense, the EPU is extra admire a Tesla Cybertruck or Rivian R1T, which can well be both monocoque (unibody) fully-electric opt-up trucks – even supposing neither is confirmed for an Australian launch.

The EPU will likely be the automobile to in some scheme reunify the Hilux and Tacoma name plates in a single electric automobile.

It is probably going that a production version of the EPU would possibly maybe maybe be supplied in markets with neatly-developed EV infrastructure.

For markets lagging on EV uptake, Toyota can be role to explain the potentially diesel-powered IMV-O ute theory at this twelve months’s Tokyo explain, however even the IMV-O would possibly maybe maybe also spawn an fully-electric variant later.

Dimensionally, the EPU is rather shorter than a peculiar-generation Hilux double-cab (5070mm vs 5235mm) – partly due to the the EPU has a extremely short bonnet owing to the truth that it would now not must equipment an engine.

The EPU’s 3350mm wheelbase is 265mm longer than that of a Hilux, while the electric ute is wider (1910mm vs 1855mm) and decrease (1710mm vs 1865mm).

That long wheelbase would possibly maybe maybe also honest composed enable the EPU to accommodate batteries of 100kWh or elevated for a using vary past 500km. Off-roading tech and capabilities weren’t prioritised in Toyota’s EPU announcement.

A sliding tray theory is clear in photography of the EPU while the shut to-production quality interior integrates two mountainous displays spoil up by a bodily direction selector – while steering is performed by yoke.

Toyota says the EPU combines “BEV quietness” with “a low centre of gravity for superior handling balance and traipse comfort.”

Internationally, Toyota is ramping up its electric automobile approach. The conglomerate has long been criticised for unimaginative movement to beefy electrification, noting that the Nagoya-primarily based mostly fully marque used to be a extremely early adopter of electrical hybrid powertrains.

Toyota now intends to promote no less than 1.5 million EVs per twelve months by 2026 – appropriate three years away – on its formulation to a purpose of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

For its share, Toyota Australia has committed to selling an electrified variant in every model lineup by 2030. It’s no longer identified whether the forty eight-volt unruffled hybrid Hilux counts as an electrified version of that automobile.