Why You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About Toyota’s First Electric Pickup Truck

Of all the major car brands, Toyota has been the most skeptical of EVs. Despite being the first automaker to find major success with hybrid electric technology with the Prius at the turn of the century, the Japanese giant has been slow to embrace fully-electric vehicles and makes just one EV today: the bZ4X crossover, which hasn’t exactly set the world on fire with its sales numbers.

But Toyota, slowly but surely, is coming around to EVs. The brand first revealed a concept of an electric pickup truck back in 2021, and now has revealed a whole lot more information about its electrified truck plans. Specifically, we now know what model it is, where it’s being produced and when it will arrive on the market.

Toyota’s First Electric Pickup Is the Hilux BEV

Toyota

For anyone hoping for an electric Tacoma, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Toyota’s first fully-electric pickup is instead slated to be a Hilux, a vehicle that’s quite popular globally but is notoriously not sold in America (we get the bigger, boxier Tacoma instead).

The electric Hilux, which for now is being referred to by Toyota as the Hilux BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) is currently undergoing testing under various conditions as Toyota prepares to scale up mass production of the truck.

“The more range I have to put on it, the more battery I have to put on it, which means the weight of the vehicle also becomes significantly heavier, which means the loading can be much less,” executive vice president of Toyota Motor Asia, Pras Ganesh, told Reuters in an interview this week. “So ‘Is it going to meet the customer’s usage needs?’ is always our biggest issue. We are always trying to understand what they do.”

The Hilux BEV Will Be Produced in Thailand in 2025

Toyota

While testing is ongoing, Toyota has confirmed that the Hilux BEV will begin mass production in 2025, and the plan is to manufacture the vehicle in Thailand, which is also the chief target market for Toyota’s first electric pickup. But why Thailand?

Well, for a few reasons. For one, the Southeast Asian nation is a major consumer of pickup trucks, with the style making up more than half of all vehicle sales in Thailand. Toyota also already has a massive manufacturing plant there, and the brand is facing stiff competition in the EV sector from Chinese models flooding the market.

“Our intention is to be producing the Hilux BEV over here,” Ganesh said of Thailand.

Don’t Expect Toyota’s Electric Truck to Make It to the U.S.

Ganesh hinted in his interview that the Hilux BEV could be exported to markets outside of Thailand, but the odds of the United States being one of those markets are slim to none. Americans don’t even have access to the plain ol’ gas-powered Hilux, so there’s basically no chance we’re getting the electric version. If anything, I’d expect the Hilux BEV to spread from Thailand to other countries in Asia and Oceania where the Hilux is already popular.

That, of course, is a major bummer. With EV pickup competition heating up in the U.S. with buzzy vehicles like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T and even the Tesla Cybertruck, Toyota is missing a major opportunity to utilize the Taco’s popularity to claim a chunk of the market while the segment is still young.

Oh well, at least we still get to enjoy the gas-powered Tacoma for the foreseeable future.

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