A year ago, Toyota tried to calm doubts about its electric vehicle commitments when it held a media conference detailing future battery electric vehicles (BEV) plans. But that doesn't mean it will soon be transformed into a full electric car brand. It is also continuing to advance other sustainable powertrain technologies, and the two recently unveiled Hilux concept cars once again proves its multi-pronged strategy. The
Hilux Revo BEV concept pickup debuted a few days after Toyota announced its upcoming hydrogen fuel cell Hilux prototype. Instead of revealing the Hilux Revo BEV at a large car event or a dedicated starter, Toyota offers a preview opportunity this week at the 60th anniversary celebration of Toyota Motor in Thailand. It was a very quiet disclosure, without giving details of the power system, but Toyota President Toyota Akio used the opportunity in his speech to reiterate the company's multi-fuel carbon reduction strategy.
"I'm often criticized in the media because I won't announce that the automotive industry should be 100% committed to BEVs," Toyota admitted. "I believe we need to be realistic about when society will be able to fully adopt battery-electric cars and when our infrastructure will support them on a large scale. Because like fully autonomous cars we should all drive now, I think BEVs will take longer than the media would like us to believe in before they can become mainstream. And frankly, BEVs are not the only way to achieve the world's carbon neutrality goal. "
" Personally, I would rather pursue every option than just one, like emission-free synthetic fuels and hydrogen ," Toyota continued. "I still believe that hydrogen is the promising technology for our future, just like BEV."
The initial rendering of the Hilux H2 fuel cell pickup truck that Toyota Automobile Manufacturing (UK) is developing.
Toyota then talked about plans to continue to offer and explore various power system solutions, from battery electric vehicles to hybrid vehicles, to hydrogen engines and fuel cells. His words come after the recent announcement of the Cross Corolla for hydrogen engines and the Hilux prototype for fuel cells. The latter was assembled by Toyota Motor UK Manufacturing Company under the support of the UK Advanced Propulsion Centre.
Through collaboration with Toyota Motor Europe R&D Center and partners including Ricardo and European Thermodynamics, Toyota UK intends to adapt parts of the Mirai model from the second-generation fuel cell power system. It will manufacture the Hilux H2 prototype in 2023 and hopes to send it to small batch production after successful testing and verification.
Hilux H2 layout in Toyota's planned
Toyota is still relatively confidential about the Hilux Revo BEV, but we can see that it has installed a rear wing in the parking space, which is a conceptual logo that is deliberately designed. Toyota chose to showcase at its event in Thailand to pay tribute to the role Toyota Motor Thailand played in the early 2000s when it developed the global IMV platform and Hilux Vigo, a cornerstone of the company's efforts to globalize at the time.
Toyota disclosed the Revo concept car with another pickup concept car called IMV 0 and positioned the car as an economical pickup truck designed to "support economic growth and everyone's liquidity". After carefully observing the needs and lifestyle of potential buyers, it designed the small, utilitarian IMV 0 pickup concept and said it will be more than a year before it officially launches.
The IMV 0 concept car on the left side of the audience shows the vision of a small utility truck developed around the needs of Asian buyers
Hilux BEV Revo is described as being designed for different customers with different needs at the other end of the vehicle's power spectrum. This is not Toyota's first electric pickup concept. At last year’s BEV launch, Toyota showed off a durable electric pickup in more than a dozen other electric design studies as the backdrop for its plans to launch 30 new BEV models by 2030.
We will see how many hydrogen fuel models will be added to these BEVs by the end of the decade, and what Hilux has in it.
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