Toyota Hilux 48V set to overtake Ford Ranger and VW Amarok

48-volt battery pack will give Mzansi's favourite bakkie 12 kW more power and 65 Nm more torque.

The Toyota Hilux 48V as shown at the State of the Motor Industry address at Kyalami in January. Picture: Jaco van der Merwe

Toyota South Africa Motors announced at the start of the year it would be adding a few electrified double cab derivatives to the Toyota Hilux range of bakkies.

Arriving any day now, these new derivatives, that are set to be known as the Hilux 48V, are not only being claimed to be more fuel efficient, but they are also said to accelerate faster than before. And this means they are going to ruffle a lot of feathers, including that of the Ford Ranger, VW Amarok and Isuzu D-Max.

Toyota Hilux 48V gets power bump

What Toyota Hilux 48V is in a nutshell, is the well-known 2.8-litre GD-6, four-cylinder turbodiesel engine that gets a little boost in power and torque from a 48-volt lithium battery pack that lives under the rear seat of the bakkie.

ALSO READ: Ford Ranger single turbo drills Toyota Hilux and Nissan Navara

Weighing in at only 7.6 kg, the battery pack is charged during deceleration, effectively regenerating braking energy that would otherwise be lost. When fully charged, this 48V battery can deliver up to 12 kW and 65 Nm through a motor generator to the engine.

Toyota Hilux 48V’s clever hybrid system put to the test

A non-mild hybrid Toyota Hilux 2.8 GD-6 produces 150 kW and 500 Nm. When The Citizen Motoring ran the Legend RS against the clock at Gerotek, the time returned was a somewhat disappointing 12.38 seconds for the benchmark 0-100 km/h time.

This time put the Toyota Hilux well behind the equally powerful 154 kW / 500 Nm, 2.0-litre Bi-Turbo Ford Ranger XLT that got there in 10.71 seconds. And the 154 kW / 500 Nm, 2.0-litre Bi-Turbo VW Amarok that produced a run of 10.38 seconds.

ALSO READ: WATCH: New Toyota Hilux GR-S shows off its rugged footwear

Ready to ruffle feathers

The 140 kW / 450 Nm, 3.0-litre Isuzu D-Max V-Cross also came in with a, better than the Toyota Hilux, 10.59-second run.

This meant that the everyday 2.8-litre GD-6 Toyota Hilux was the slowest four-cylinder of the mainstream bunch. Well, at least until the arrival of the specially tweaked 165 kW / 550 Nm Hilux GR-Sport (GR-S) that came along and got back to the top of the pile with a 10.32 second 0-100 km/h run.

But now, the Hilux 48V, with 162 kW and 565 Nm on tap for short periods of time is threatening to not only displace the Ford Ranger, VW Amarok and Isuzu D-Max, it might even jump the GR-S to go top of the four-cylinder turbodiesel bakkie performance charts.

Watch this space for the official road test!