Diesel power has a decade left to run, says Toyota Australia’s sales and marketing boss, who’s tipping both hydrogen and petrol models to replace diesels in local showrooms.
“Diesel’s not going to go anytime in the next decade, but beyond that – I think hydrogen will take over diesel,” Toyota Australia vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley, told media including CarExpert when asked about diesel’s long-term viability.
“I think there’s a culture of diesel in Australia … eventually I think diesel in – not the foreseeable future – but in the longer term, I can’t imagine diesel necessarily being a fuel of the future, because the reality is a petrol [vehicle] can do everything it can do – plus some.”
Toyota’s best-selling vehicle in 2023 was the HiLux ute, which has a predominantly diesel-powered lineup. This was overtaken as Toyota’s most popular model here in 2024 by the RAV4 SUV, which is now sold here only with hybrid power.
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The brand announced a plug-in hybrid version of the next-generation RAV4, due in showrooms in 2026, to be joined by a hybrid LandCruiser 300 Series, which is currently diesel-only.
Toyota Australia switched to hybrid power only on nine models in 2024, in what Mr Hanley describes as its “entire passenger car range and urban-oriented SUV range”.
Effectively, every model that offered both petrol and hybrid power – including the top-selling RAV4 – was moved to a hybrid-only lineup. The only purely petrol-powered passenger cars that remain in the local lineup are GR-branded hot hatches and sports cars, though there remains a raft of diesel-powered commercial vehicles and off-roaders.
Toyota Australia’s 163,491 sales from January to the end of August 2025 included a total of 83,323 diesels or 50.96 per cent of all vehicles sold, across HiLux, LandCruiser, LandCruiser Prado, Coaster bus, Fortuner SUV, Granvia people mover and HiAce van models.
“Turbo-diesel and turbocharged petrol internal combustion engines will still have a role to play for some time in Australia for particular applications,” Mr Hanley said.
“I don’t want people to think that hydrogen is suddenly going to be taking off between now and 2030.
“But in the 2030s, particularly that 2035 horizon, I truly believe hydrogen will be our future – and that’s where, I think, you might see a change of diesel technology … we’re setting up for that future.
“Why? Hydrogen’s clean, hydrogen has range, hydrogen infrastructure will be significantly better than what you have today, obviously. It’ll be more convenient, and it’ll be affordable.”
Toyota has been a leader in hydrogen in Australia, along with Hyundai, and brought the Mirai fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV) here in 2020, although it’s not available to the general public.
A batch of 10 FCEV HiLux utes were produced for testing in the UK in 2024, while a prototype hydrogen HiAce van was also developed and test-driven by local media in 2023, building in its FCEV tech developed since 2017, however production versions of either haven’t materialised.
“People are poo-pooing hydrogen from left, right and centre at the moment , because – it’s like any new technology, these things take time, infrastructure, sourcing green hydrogen etc.” said Mr Hanley.
“We have an abundance of hydrogen in this country so it’s kind of sad when I hear those stories, because to my mind, there’s a great opportunity for this country to be a leader, particularly in sourcing and also the take up.”
“However, the reality is … we’re very much invested in hydrogen – nothing’s changed – but it’s not a short-term investment.”
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