Hino closes gap to hybrid electric

Hino Australia continues to close the gap between its traditional and electrified trucks, with just $150 separating its diesel and hybrid electric 300 Series models. 

New in the top seat as Director of Hino Australia, Richard Emery is working to promote hybrid uptake, sharing his plans with Fleet HV News at a business briefing in Sydney recently. 

“I was a bit bemused when I got into the business, to learn that the hybrid had not been more of a focus,” he said.

“I think a lot of that was because there was such a price difference and there were issues around residual values that the fleet companies hadn’t really put a positive spin on.”

Since Mr Emery learnt the company had sold just 55 hybrid models in 2022, he set his sights on improving the number – drastically.

“During 2023 we ramped up the pressure and the training on the dealers, gave them more resources and information – so a whole lot of preparation work,” he said.

“We then rebranded it and remarketed it to hybrid electric, so people understand that if you’re looking at your ESG and your emissions, there is a product out there.

“We then delivered close to 300 units last year, which I could argue is a huge percentage increase (445 per cent) and we took even more orders on that.

“If we can keep that order momentum going, it’s not impossible that we can get to 500 next year. I don’t think we will get to 500 this year, we might get into the 400s though.

“I personally have an aspiration that the hybrid product should and could get to four figures, and that will be a combination of some big fleets who buy multiple but we’ve always been big in small to medium enterprises that have five or less trucks.”

Much of the hybrid growth comes down to pricing, which Mr Emery set out to improve last year, aiming to offer pricing that is on-par with diesel models.

“If we can get our lease rates virtually line-to-line on a diesel, because of maintenance costs, residual values and some special finance packages that we can put together for hybrid electric, that’s then a realistic option for some of those five truck businesses if they’ve got the right application,” he said.

Bringing the price of its hybrid models down saw Hino working closely with its finance partner, Toyota Finance, urging the provider to apply learnings gathered from its work in the passenger car segment. 

“We sat down with Toyota Finance and explained that they’ve have had years and years of experience with Toyota hybrid passenger cars now,” Mr Emery said.

“So we asked that with those learnings, can they re-look at how they build running costs, maintenance costs and residual, because they’re big factors in how you determine that (TCO) figure.

“The reality is they hadn’t touched those for four or five years yet they had lots of experience with hybrid, so they came back and said  ‘you know what, you guys are right’.”

The result was a lease price that was only around $150 more expensive per month, which Mr Emery says is a figure many operators offset with fuel savings.

“They re-did those prices in the middle of last year, around the same time diesel was going over $2, and all of a sudden all of the elements that build into a total cost of ownership for a diesel versus hybrid electric closed right down,” he said.

“We could go to dealers with a deal that was within $150 a month, and if you’re getting 20 per cent savings on fuel you’re getting that $150 back anyway.” 

Hino will also be condensing its expansive model range by around 40 per cent, ditching manual gearboxes in the process, as the brand moves to improve efficiencies ahead of its Euro VI transition. 

“We’ll pull our lineup back probably by 40 per cent, and of that 40 per cent half of that will be manual gearboxes because, every year that goes past less and less people can drive one,” Mr Emery said.

“There’ll be a transition over the next year and a half, and although it looks drastic, 40%, half of that will be manual and then there’s some other derivatives and wheelbase specifications that we’ll slowly extract out.”

Mr Emery knows a thing or two about refining a model range, having been involved in similar undertakings at other major OEMs, with 35 years of automotive experience under his belt.

“I applied that rigour and that discipline at Nissan, and we did similar things at Mercedes-Benz, so it’s something I’ve done before,” he said.

“Look, I started life in this business as a stock controller so that’s my trade, I suppose.”

His plans are backed by Hino Motors Limited (HML) in Japan, Mr Emery points out, citing the global need to streamline.

“From my perspective, that’s an issue Hino are having globally and we are aligned on that, both from an expectation from us and welcomed by Japan, because it just eases their work and allows them to concentrate on the trucks that really make a difference to us,” he said.