Ford Ranger News

Which Mitsubishi do you wish would make a comeback? Pajero? Lancer?  Well, Mitsubishi is currently undertaking a massive overhaul of its Australian line-up with several new models to come to fill the gaps. So while they're at it we’ve put together our wishlist of cars they really should really revive or bring here. The changes to the Australian Design rules (ADRs) in March this year meant Mitsubishi had to axe three vehicles from its local lineup.  These were the ASX small SUV, the bigger Eclipse Cross SUV and the Pajero Sport off-roader. This leaves Mitsubishi with just two cars on sale in Australia — the Triton ute and Outlander mid-sized SUV. Meanwhile Toyota has 23 models on sale.Now we're not suggesting that Mitsubishi needs another 21 models, Ford is managing just fine on pretty much the Ranger, Everest and Mustang, but I definitely think there are some essentials the brand could use and a few dream cars while we're at it.Probably the most obvious model Mitsubishi needs right now is the Pajero. Yep once-upon-a-1990s the Toyota Prado and Mitsubishi Pajero wrestled for dominance all over Australia, from the outback to suburbia. The Pajero eventually lost the battle and was axed by Mitsubishi in 2020 … or so we thought! Imagine the comeback. Just when the new generation Prado had arrived and was still gloating, the Pajero could make its return. Sure the Pajero Sport is coming back in 2026, but that’s a Ford Everest rival. The beauty is Mitsubishi could easily plonk another, posher-looking SUV body on the ladder frame and call it the Pajero. And they’ve already got the badges made up. You just just take the “Sport” bit off. Think of the savings.Next on our wish list is not really a car that would sell in high numbers, but it'd be the halo car in many ways the brand needs so badly right now —  a reborn Lancer, and yes, with an Evolution grade as well. Or maybe just a standalone Lancer Evo XI. I think we’re up to XI, I can't remember but I tested the very final one in 2015.Back in the final glory days of Ford Falcon versus Holden Commodore there were two other tribes going to war: Subaru WRX v Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. These days the WRX lives on, but it looks so lonely without the Lancer EVO to play with.Finally, and given the number of grey imports we see of this car, Mitsubishi needs to add the Delica people mover to its Aussie line-up. What’s not to like about a high-riding all-wheel drive six-seater van?A sixth-generation of the people mover is expected in the next two years and whether it looks anything like the futuristic and silly Delica concept Mitsubishi revealed at the 2023 Tokyo Motorshow is yet to be seen.A wishlist for Mitsubishi could go one forever, who wouldn’t want to see the Colt come back, or the Cordia Turbo? Or the 3000GT?In reality the ASX will be back and so too will the Pajero Sport, and that might be all Mitsubishi needs as it faces bigger problems.  Challenges like how on Earth will it adapt to a rapidly changing market that’s been inundated with excellent electric vehicles from brands which hardly existed five years ago. Currently Mitsubishi doesn’t even sell one purely electric vehicle in Australia at all.

There’s a new number-one seller in town. The Ford Ranger has run down the Toyota RAV4 at the halfway point of the yearly sales race.

The Ford Ranger plug-in hybrid ute does not have a very long electric driving range, and it’s something that’s been a sticking point for some since its launch earlier this month.

Ford recalls versions of nearly every model it has sold since 2022.

Ford's Ranger Super Duty undercuts big American trucks as ultimate dual-cab for hardcore applications

Ute sales in Australia have been ballooning out for years now, but it seems the bubble for this has already popped following consecutive months of declining sales.In May 2025, sales of pick-up and cab-chassis 4x2, pick-up and cab-chassis 4x4, and even pick-up and cab-chassis over $100,000 were all down compared to the same month last year and year-on-year.This means not only sales for Thai-made utes like the Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max, among others, are down, but also larger, typically North American-made full-size pickups like the Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-150 are down.It’s the second month in a row where all the ute segments have experienced a drop in sales both year-on-year and compared to the same month last year.This follows a downward trend for overall new vehicle sales. It’s expected new car sales in 2025 won’t beat the record high of 2024.Utes that have experienced some of the sharpest downturns in sales year-to-date (YTD) include the Ford F-150 (534 sales, down 35.5 per cent), Ford Ranger 4x2 (1299 sales, down 47.3 per cent), KGM SsangYong Musso (882 sales, down 41.8 per cent), Nissan Navara 4x2 (162 sales, down 67.1 per cent), Ram 3500 (5 sales, down 81.5 per cent), and the Volkswagen Amarok (2434 sales, down 37.8 per cent).Sales of utes like the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux gained a considerable amount of popularity during COVID times and when the instant asset write-off scheme threshold was higher.Utes have historically always been popular in the business and fleet space in Australia, but over the last decade or so they’ve become more popular for private buyers.This is evidenced by the Ford Ranger, which is more popular with private buyers in 4x4 guise.The Ranger and HiLux have been tussling for the top position for the better side of a decade now, with the former claiming the podium for the last two years.As previously reported, Toyota Australia Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations, Sean Hanley, said the dominance of dual-cab utes will come to an end this year and an SUV could be the best-selling car for the first time ever.This SUV could be the Toyota RAV4.In May, a total of 4003 examples of the RAV4 were sold. Despite this being down 27.4 per cent on the same month last year, it was still the third best-selling car for the month, behind only the HiLux and Ranger.“We already know that the number of ute models available to Australian buyers will expand rapidly,” said Mr Hanley back in January.“They’ll be competing for an overall ute market that is likely to remain steady, which suggests that the average sales per model will come down as a result.”“It may be, and I stress maybe, that an SUV could rise to the top of the national sales charts in the next year or two, and just maybe that SUV will be a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid.”Toyota has since unveiled a new-generation version of the RAV4 which is set to arrive locally in the first half of 2026.At this stage it’s unclear whether this will impact the potential of the RAV4 achieving the sales title in Australia this year, though at some point production of the current model will wind down to make way for the new model.

Ford Australia has just launched the highly anticipated Ranger plug-in hybrid, with the Blue oval soon to boast two plug-in hybrid models in its commercial vehicle range.

Australian new-car sales were resilient in May despite economic headwinds.

Are you an owner/driver of an Isuzu N Series, Fuso Canter or Hino 300 small truck? Then this might be for you, because Ford is banking on breaking into the light duty (LD) truck class with something completely different to the cab-over chassis norm with the coming Ranger Super Duty.

Where on earth is the Toyota Tacoma for Australia?Designed and developed expressly for the North American market, the series has served for over 30 years as the slightly larger and more comfortable cousin to the venerable Toyota HiLux.In fact, the two medium-sized utes were closely related until very recently, even as the Tacoma grew larger and more sophisticated over three generations, where it became the best-selling vehicle in its pick-up segment in the United States – a position held since 2004.Unveiled in 2023, the latest version prompted a high level of anticipation from industry analysts, since it was also expected to become the replacement for the eighth-gen HiLux, which celebrates its 10 anniversary this month.After all, the Tacoma’s timing was spot-on, with the newly-redesigned Ford Ranger ending the Toyota ute’s seven-year reign at the top of the Australian sales charts that same year (and hit number one again in 2024).It doesn’t take too much to figure out why people remain excited about the prospect of a HiLux-badged Tacoma for our market.Key attributes include a formidable presence brought about by its chunky styling, a vast array of grades including a Raptor-aping TRD Pro, huge interior space, sizeable load area, massive step up in safety technology and the availability of a hybrid powertrain option.The Tacoma trails Australia’s 3500kg braked towing capacity maximum yardstick by around 500kg, based on corresponding Canadian figures.That would probably change for our market, especially when you consider that today’s Tacoma is based on the same Toyota New Global Architecture – Frame (TNGA-F) body-on-frame “truck” platform that also underpins the J300 LandCruiser and J250 Prado 4WD SUVs.It is that connection that prompted much speculation over when – rather than if – the Tacoma would arrive in Australia, albeit wearing HiLux badges and possibly having Thai sourcing. After all, if they’re that closely related, wouldn’t they have interchangeable parts with models already offered in this market?As it turns out, Toyota will instead offer three distinctly different medium-sized utes – and it seems Australia will again miss out on the Tacoma after all… or at least, for now.Though unconfirmed officially, we hear from an internal source that a facelifted version of the existing, decade-old Mk8 HiLux will spearhead Toyota’s fight against the Ranger, BYD Shark 6 and co. from next year in Australia.About the only part of the Tacoma – which will remain North American only for the time being – we may see is a variation of its 2.4-litre i-Force turbo-petrol/electric hybrid powertrain, as it has been rumoured to be added to the HiLux facelift, as Toyota Australia starts its move away from diesel.Finally, as outlined previously, Europe, Japan and other lower-carbon regions are set to score the production version of the EPU (Electric Pick-Up) Concept Ute electric vehicle from the 2023 Tokyo Mobility show, though that’s also mooted for Australia too, as a flagship HiLux EV.So, what’s holding the Tacoma back for us?Mainly, it is only produced in Mexico, with annual capacity of around 250,000. And that’s about how many are soaked up in North America alone.Secondly – and this is a major reason – the Tacoma is only currently manufactured in left-hand drive (LHD) guise. And changing that makes no business sense.Typically, engineering for right-hand drive (RHD) in any vehicle program can add hundreds of millions of dollars to costs, and that appears not to have happened in this case. And it's not likely to in the future.Why? Even if Toyota could sell over 50,000 utes annually to match HiLux’s efforts last year in Australia – and that would possibly make us the fictional RHD Tacoma's largest market globally – that’s not nearly enough production volume to recoup development costs.That was reportedly one of the driving forces behind General Motors killing Holden barely two years after local manufacturing ceased in 2017, as there just wasn’t enough volume to justify the expense of changing LHD vehicles over to RHD for Australia. Even for a colossus like Toyota.Additionally, while the UK is another big RHD ute market for the brand, shifting around 30,000 HiLuxes last year, that's still not enough volume, while the vast majority of South African and Thai ute sales - the two remaining big RHD countries – are for more-affordable and lower-spec models. And cheap is not what any TNGA-F vehicle is designed to be.That’s probably the reason why the Tacoma is not earmarked to be built in Thailand, for now anyway. The existing HiLux fills that role far better.Thirdly, should it be green lit for RHD, the Tacoma would also be too expensive even in Australia, anyway, given its Mexican sourcing.This means the cheapest grade would probably cost a lot more than the current most expensive HiLux out of Thailand does. Which, by the way, is also where the Ranger, Isuzu D-Max, Mazda BT-50, Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton also hail from, while the Shark 6, GWM Cannon, LDV Terron 9 and others from China cost even less for what they offer.Tacoma would have no hope matching their prices. The upshot here is that achieving something close to the current HiLux's 50,000 sales annually in Australia would be wildly optimistic as a result.Lastly, with Tacoma sales in the first quarter of 2025 up nearly 180 per cent year-on-year in the USA, there is no incentive for Toyota to compromise production capacity to accommodate the relatively small volume required for Australia.Of course, this could change with the US federal government’s tariffs on non-US made products, that might lead to big price increases for the Tacoma in its main market.While still highly unlikely, that might open the door for RHD exports should US Tacoma sales consequently collapse, though these are still early days.That’s a long shot, and it’s fair to assume that the only way Australians might be able to buy a reasonably-priced Tacoma is if Toyota decides to add production to Thailand, or some other lower-cost base than Mexico. Or follow the larger Tundra ute’s example by having it remanufactured from LHD to RHD in Melbourne.So, no Tacoma-based HiLux, then.Which is a shame, as a ute version of the latest Prado – which what the latest, N400 model essentially is, complete with an i-Force petrol-electric hybrid powertrain – would sound like the HiLux that Toyota should be offering to its fanatically loyal Australian customer base.Do you agree?