Toyota Land Cruiser Prado gets hybrid recognition from DOE

It’s been a few months since Toyota Motor Philippines launched the all-new Land Cruiser Prado.

While we can see that 4x4 enthusiasts in the country have embraced Toyota’s decision to make the model an off-road-focused SUV, there are still some who think the best experience is yet to come in the Prado courtesy of a more potent powertrain.

At the world premiere of the all-new Land Cruiser Prado, there were four powertrain choices announced by Toyota: a 2.4L turbo gasoline, 2.8L turbodiesel, 2.7L gasoline, 2.4L turbo gasoline hybrid, and a 2.8L turbo-diesel mild hybrid. As we all know, only the 2.4L turbo gas is currently being offered by TMP. But somehow, our recent discovery leads us to think the Prado could have another engine option coming soon.

We got hold of the most recent update of the Department of Energy’s recognized list of full hybrid vehicles and found that the Land Cruiser Prado is now on the list.

In fact, there are two LC250s recognized as hybrids on the list – one is called the Land Cruiser Hybrid, and the other has the model name Land Cruiser Prado. The reason for this could be because LC250s are being brought to the country by two importers – gray market dealers and TMP themselves.

The hybrid version of the Land Cruiser Prado significantly raises the performance of the off-road-focused SUV. From 281 PS and 430 Nm of torque in the non-hybrid, the combination of the 2.4L inline-four turbo and the hybrid system bumps up the figures to 330 PS and 630 Nm of torque.

Based on current laws, the Land Cruiser Prado having a hybrid also means you could use it 7 days a week since it’s exempted from number coding.

We know a lot of customers are still in the queue to get their units of the non-hybrid Land Cruiser Prado. But with a hybrid version becoming more and more of a possibility, that line could get even longer.