2025 Nissan Patrol shock for Aussie buyers: One area where the tough as nails new 4WD can't compete with the Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series | Opinion

Fresh off the back of its Middle Eastern debut, the hype for the new Nissan Patrol Y63 has been huge.

It is Nissan's fiercest competitor to the dominant LandCruiser 300 Series to date, and a well overdue upgrade for a car that is still selling relatively strongly in Australia.

There’s one area where the Patrol falls behind the LandCruiser in Australia though, and the answer to that statement lies between two dates: its global launch and its Australian release.

Even though the Y63 Patrol was unveiled in Abu Dhabi just last week, Australians won’t be getting their hands on a Y63 until the fourth-quarter of 2026 at the earliest, a staggering two and a half years later.

For the majority of enthusiastic buyers, that means you won’t be behind the wheel of a Y63 until 2027. By then the hype will have died down and you may have very well purchased something else.

In Nissan’s defence, the Australian market is a challenging one.

Not only are we comparatively smaller than two of the Patrol’s other biggest markets, the US and the Middle East, nearly 70 per cent of the world’s population drives on the left-hand side, whereas we drive on the right.

That makes it a fairly arduous task to tailor a car specifically to a market where sales will almost certainly be lower.

Toyota managed to get the LandCruiser 300 series in Australian customers' hands just six months after it was launched but it isn't sold in the US like the Patrol is, which would free up supply. 

Nissan's not alone launching cars in Australia years after it is revealed for left-hand drive markets. Toyota showed off the Corolla Cross for overseas markets years before bringing it Down Under and Volkswagen first promised its ID.4 electric SUV for Australia nearly two years ago but numerous delays have seen its local launch pushed back to the end of this year.

It was the same story for Australian buyers with the current Y62 Patrol, which launched all the way back in 2010, nearly three years before it officially arrived Down Under.

Since the Y62 Patrol’s global launch nearly a decade and a half ago, it has received two facelifts, a minor one in 2014, and the other in 2019.

It received a much-needed interior update this year, although the new multimedia touchscreen already feels out of date and aftermarket, especially when compared to what is available in the 300 series.

The upgrade we should have received was the 70-year anniversary edition, which was announced in 2021 as an exclusive upgrade for the Middle Eastern market.

It provided new 20-inch alloys, a chrome grille, quilted leather upholstery and a much more modern 12.3-inch integrated multimedia screen — one that actually looked like it came out of the Nissan factory.

Then there’s the question of how Australia’s new emission standards, set to start in 2025, will affect the current Y62 Patrol.

Vehicles riding on a rugged ladder frame – such as the Patrol – will fall into a special category that gives them more lenient emissions standards over passenger cars. But the Y62 Patrol will by no means fit under the federal government’s new limit of 210g/km of CO2 for 'category 2' vehicles by 2025, which decreases to 180g/km in 2026.

The Y62 Patrol has a combined CO2 tailpipe emission of 334g/km, compared to the LandCruiser 300 series' 235g/km.

Nissan is likely to introduce a hybrid powertrain for its flagship SUV, bringing down emissions considerably.

Nevertheless, impending emission standards present significant challenges for the Y62 Patrol, particularly when a $100 penalty is issued per gram over the legal target for each vehicle sold.

That could cost Nissan an extra $12,400 in taxes to the government per Y62 sold beyond January 2025, a price that may be passed down to the consumer given Nissan has confirmed production of the Y62 until the Y63 arrives.