Should Toyota bring the petrol-powered 300 Series to Australia?

Toyota came up with a surprisingly high-tech diesel powertrain for the 300 Series and has done the same for the 300’s petrol powertrain, not that you can buy it here in Australia ... yet.

Toyota Australia hasn’t offered the 300 Series’ petrol engine here because demand for petrol power in the 200 Series had dried up to the point where the 4.6-litre petrol V8 was no longer offered in the last two years of the 200’s showroom life, after dwindling to approximately two per cent of overall 200 Series sales.

The trouble with the 4.6-litre petrol V8 in the 200 was higher fuel use than the diesel, with no real performance advantage in its favour. It only offered an extra 28kW over the 4.5-litre V8 diesel’s 200kW, and its maximum torque figure of 439Nm was well short of the V8 diesel’s 650Nm maximum.

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And where the V8 diesel needed just 1600rpm to reach its torque peak, the petrol V8 needed all of 3500rpm to get to its torque peak. On the road, in general driving, the 200’s otherwise amenable petrol V8 always felt less energetic and responsive than the diesel V8 and barely managed to shade the big oiler in a pedal-to-the-metal contest.

So, when we’ll see a petrol engine back in the LandCruiser in Australia is difficult to say, but the 300’s petrol engine as offered overseas does make a convincing argument for performance-oriented buyers, or those wanting extra reserves of power for effortless heavy towing; something the 4.6-litre V8 didn’t do for the 200 and something that would not have gone unnoticed at Toyota Australia.

The petrol engine in question is a twin-turbo 3.5-litre V6 with a sizzling 305kW no less, a significant 34 per cent jump from the still-very-handy 227kW of the new 3.3-litre bi-turbo V6 diesel. A difference you would definitely feel under your foot.

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The 300’s turbo V6 petrol engine also makes the 5.6-litre V8 in Nissan’s Y62 Patrol look decidedly outmatched on paper. It may only shade the Y62’s V8 engine for maximum power (305kW vs 298kW) but the turbo V6’s maximum torque figure is 90Nm higher (650Nm vs 560Nm) and is already on tap by half (!) the engine speed – 2000rpm vs 4000rpm. That’s a serious torque curve and one that demonstrates these new-generation turbo-petrol engines are all about torque rather than power.

If we don’t see the petrol V6 in the 300 Series in Australia sooner or later, we will see it in a petrol-electric hybrid 300. Toyota has publicly announced that by 2030, if not earlier, there will be at least one ‘electrified’ variant in every model range.

Originally Toyota said this company-wide electrification milestone would happen by 2025, but has since pulled that back to 2030 saying that commercials, utes and 4x4s require extra development time compared to passenger cars, a field where Toyota is well abreast of the technology having made its first petrol-electric-hybrid passenger car, the Prius, some 25 years ago.

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Of course, Toyota could always make a diesel-electric hybrid for the 300 and satisfy its electrification pledge, but it appears unlikely despite the rumours of a diesel-electric hybrid powertrain for Hilux and Prado. Diesels don’t hybridise nearly as well as petrol engines due to their higher pumping losses – less energy to recover – even if it has been done.

The 300’s petrol V6 exists in hybrid form in two North American models – the latest generation Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUVs – built off the same basic platform as the 300. In both cases there’s a 36kW electric motor tagged on to the 305kW V6, the combined system output climbing to 326kW (Note: with hybrids you can’t just add the component power outputs together to come up with the system total).

The LandCruiser may not get the Tundra/Sequoia hybrid system but one with a more substantial electrical component than the 36kW electric motor and the small 1.9kWh battery, by switching to a plug-in hybrid design where a bigger battery can facilitate a more powerful electric motor.