I want a small truck with a 6 foot/ 2m bed, and regular cab so the vehicle is still a reasonable length that can fit in a parking space. 3/4 ton or 1 ton suspension like on some of the old small Toyota trucks would be ideal. I'd like to get this small truck with a few safety features like air bags that are missing from the 70's - early 90's Japanese trucks that otherwise fit the bill.
I don't understand why automakers seem incapable of building a small truck anymore. There are smaller cars that pass safety testing, so that is not it.
My understanding is that there are a few factors, but two of the dumbest are the "chicken tax", which is a 25% tariff imposed on imported light trucks, and the CAFE standard calculation for allowable miles per gallon without paying a fine. That calculation has a bug that makes it so the larger your vehicle footprint, the fewer miles per gallon your vehicle needs to output to qualify. So, perversely, it ends up punishing smaller vehicles and rewarding giant trucks, which is not what it was supposedly intended to do.
It seems like being all-electric should get you around that mileage requirement, so it's possible that that last one is not as much of a factor. But that is the conventional wisdom about why they won't sell an actual compact truck in the U.S. market, despite the fact that all those old Toyotas and Rangers from the 90s are still being kept on the road because people love them.
Ten years ago there were an array of new vehicle maker regulations, particularly around fuel economy, that scale based on vehicle weight. The vehicle weight bar for purchasers to receive business expense tax relief was also set high. These ended up being a perverse incentive toward making trucks larger and heavier than ever, while lacking proportionate power (because of fuel economy). The result is comically large trucks getting stuck on tiny obstacles.
Now that large trucks have settled in consumer perception as the new and shiny, it's a self-enforcing vicious cycle regardless of regulatory reform.
Because people aren't buying a truck for the truck. They are buying a truck shaped car as a status symbol and so they prioritize cab space vs. bed space.
> I want a small truck with a 6 foot/ 2m bed, and regular cab so the vehicle is still a reasonable length
The 2024 Tacoma will be available with 2 doors and a 6 foot bed. It won't be a "regular" cab, more like the slightly extended cab from back in the jump seat days. But no jump seats, just storage cubbies.
I guess a lot of it is the commitment to 4 doors, 2 full rows of seating. For a long time I didn't understand why pickups were so popular (didn't pay attention to cars at all), being so impractical for moving people -- until I realized that modern pickups are full-size SUVs inside, plus a short bed.
I've read it's much easier to build a large/standard truck with a big motor than a small truck with a more efficient motor because of the current EPA rules. The rules don't make a lot of sense but I'm no expert, only what I've read/heard from the industry.
Largely automakers don't make a lot of long bed trucks because they don't sell. Ford/GM/Ram all make long bed trucks but they only really sell for fleets.
But if you check out the Ford Maverick you can put 3/4 of a ton in the bed, and you get modern safety features.
I'm with you. My personal desire is for a Japanese body-on-frame truck with a 6' bed, two doors, jump seats/a small back seat (but no third/rear door(s)), some kind of 4wd, that can tow 5000+ lbs.
I totally agree. I have an older Ford Ranger and I hope it lasts forever because I don't see a newer truck on the market that fits your description and has as much utility as my little Ranger with a 6' bed.
I've been wanting this exact product for years. Decades now. I don't need power or towing. Nor do I need to transport anyone else but me and one other. But I do want a long truck bed -- 6 foot!
They're not incapable of building this truck, it's just the market doesn't want it. There simply aren't enough of us wanting this truck for the automakers to make it.
This seems like Toyota spent some time with a cgi artist just to release some pics so they can say "see we are doing cool stuff" and nothing else. No specs, no price, no timing / dates, basically this is just a bunch of nothing with some images.
and "In five years we're going to have batteries that are 10 times lighter, 10 times faster to change and 10 times cheaper. Wait five years before you buy!"
>"In five years we're going to have batteries that are 10 times lighter, 10 times faster to change and 10 times cheaper. Wait five years before you buy!"
I did not read the article but in the current state of battery technology and charger availability that seems the prudent thing to do, especially so for pickup trucks.
It is a concept truck, unveiled at the Japan Mobility Show. If you attend the show, you can check it out in person. Or watch the many videos about it on YouTube.
Tesla style steering yoke. There's a good reason we ended up at a steering wheel for this many years IMO. A yoke is worse in every way except in "look at me I'm a special snowflake" and "I'm not actually a car". Such a thing should be an option. I'd rather have round doors or a TV screen as a windscreen than a yoke. Hard pass.
While I did not downvote you, the votes may be due to the fact that this is a concept car. Toyota is unlikely to produce the truck without a few tweaks towards normal production priorities, including normal steering wheels.
Your "hard pass" means you're unwilling to buy a concept car that isn't available for you to purchase.
Well, it is a concept after all. Most concept vehicles are a hard pass for me too but I guess people like them because companies keep making (usually) crazy concept cars all the time.
Also, the yoke is not a Tesla invention, F1 cars use yokes too, and with Toyota having a history in F1, this may be a nod to that.
I really don't get why everyone is obsessed with trucks. They are wonderful at hauling stuff and having a large bed to carry items. But the maverick bed is 54 inches... Might as well just buy a SUV. You can put the seats down and carry way more then a truck can, and they are about half the price.
The biggest advantage of a truck bed is the separation of the truck bed from the cab. I can haul mulch, or the nasty rotting wood from an old hot tub in the bed without getting the rest of the vehicle gross. Another advantage is unbounded height constraints, I recently got a heat pump water heater for my house and they recommend keeping them vertical because of the compressor. So I was able to strap it upright in the bed which isn't possible in an SUV.
Sure you can haul a lot of stuff in a mini van or SUV but largely you run the risk of ruining the interior which I would prefer not to do in my vehicles.
That is why I'm replacing my SUV with a Tacoma (other than that the SUV blew its engine). I tend to move a lot of outside stuff and with the Jeep I was making many trips with lots of buckets. Now I will be able to let them just dump a pile of mulch in the back and then just spray the thing out.
I recently demoed an old hot tub that came with out house which ended up having a bunch of mice nests in it. Took it all the transfer station then just hosed all the mouse poop out of the bed out afterwards, and was able to help a friend move a couch the next day.
And of course, it’s gray, even in the CGI they still chose a boring color! What happens to colored cars nowadays? Red yellow orange, how about purple?! I would drive a purple car! I have a red car and whenever I drive cars around me are either black, gray, or white, very depressing especially in winter.
In case this isn't a rhetorical question, read up about research which tries to link (car) color choices to the state of the economy for instance. It's pretty interesting really.
It's a concept, but ... the question is a) whether it'll just end up being a luxury lifestyle vehicle, or something that people like myself -- who could use a little truck for my farm that I can toss plywood and manure and woodchips and dump-garbage in etc -- can actually afford and use and b) whether it would even make it to the North American market.
I'm personally tired of the EV revolution being delayed by manufacturers insisting on tying it to high end or luxury-status cars. Until this trend stops, I'll stick to my beaten up Chevy Volt.
The huge cab and tiny bed seems to answer this question :)
Maybe, the non-commercial utility truck folks will start taking interest when 5-10 year old models enter the used market if they're still functional and proven to be durable. At least I will - My use case is basically hauling loads of (sometimes literal) crap around the surrounding towns where EV range is no concern, and where cosmetic body damage is unavoidable so tons of integrated sensors are bad. It is disappointing that there are no electric trucks priced accordingly to this use case as ICE sedans are better for long highway trips and I really only want a beater truck for local trips
Also would seem cool to be able to weld from the car battery but realistically would want a backup generator to avoid trouble
> I'm personally tired of the EV revolution being delayed by manufacturers insisting on tying it to high end or luxury-status cars.
Those are the only cars that have cost sufficiently inflated by nonessential niceties that some culling can free up the money required to buy battery for non-trivial range. ICE and gearboxes are ridiculously cheap compared car-sized batteries and at the lower end of the market there simply isn't much to skip outside engine and transmission.
This comment doesn't seem relevant to the article or small, electric truck concept in it. Could you connect the dots?
I will still respond - this is a popular sentiment, and there is plenty of truth in it for many "fancy truck" buyers. Still, because of the area I live in, there's a much higher mix of people that insist on buying the base trim level with the biggest bed and whatever payload/towing capacity they actually need due to their jobs or serious work they get done. I know a ton of those people, and only a handful that have fancy overpriced trucks that they use for commuting (and status symbols, or at least, how it makes them feel to be in a big truck). But yeah - that doesn't seem to be relevant to this truck.
The Ford Maverick is a smash hit. It reminds me of the Ford Escape hybrid back in the day. It is an entry level truck with a hybrid powertrain that gets compact car fuel efficiency (40 mpg!)
I am not particularly paranoid about crime but I can't understand the appeal of the pickup truck bed. My dad was a carpenter and never had anybody steal tools out of a 1970s boat car or a VW Rabbit that he took the back seats out of. I learned to drive in an underpowered F150 that struggled to make it up hills on the freeway. I thought it was hard to shift at the time and eventually discovered it was easier to drive a school bus or a pre-synchromesh tractor than to drive that truck. Multiple times he had people smash the windows on the bed cover and steal tools.
To the contrary for years the one vehicle on our farm was a Honda Fit and we never had trouble stuffing feed bags, sawdust bags and the occasional hay bale in the back.
My wife runs a riding academy, we might have the only one that doesn't own a big ass truck, but we might be the only one that was cashflow profitable (though not to the IRS) in the first year and every year thereafter.
A lot of people trailer horses 10-30 miles to state forests go trail riding, often to places where there is not only no electric service but no power line. (We have some really nice trails on our farm, and roads and trails to ride on right out our driveway)
Other people drive 50-100 to go to a horse show on many weekends. You might be able to find an electric outlet but not a fast charger.
The high end of horse trailering is that many people make a pilgrimage to Ocala, FL every winter which might be driving 1000 miles with animals that don't appreciate the stress.
For this application you really want the biggest vehicle you can get, the GMC Suburban has been a top choice for years. You need better range than this:
Anecdotally, my "fancy" 2500 Laramie gets plenty of hauling and towing use. A lot of people who buy these kinds of trucks like having the capability. I like knowing that if something big needs to get moved, or something messy, it can do that. Also 4WDing my way up into the mountain with my shooting gear is very nice.
The Ford Maverick, which is wildly successful, took the Escape innards, put a small truck bed on it, and then made the interior incredibly utilitarian. So utilitarian in fact that they give you 3D printer diagrams and attachment points to make your own accessories. Everything is inexpensive but hardy materials with tons of storage. The exterior looks exactly like a full sized truck, but smaller.
Toyota's small truck is choc full of gimmicks, futurism, with looks to match. This is exactly the kind of thing first generation EVs did which consumers hated, and most of the market has moved on from. Even Tesla stopped with the yoke. I dread to think how much Toyota will charge for this, I'm guessing starting $50K MSRP, even with the bZ4X struggling at $42K.
If Toyota were taking this seriously they just would have made it look like a baby Tacoma with a similar but cheaper/simpler interior and the bZ4X innards.
Readit News
This is an SUV that is vaguely truck shaped.
I want a small truck with a 6 foot/ 2m bed, and regular cab so the vehicle is still a reasonable length that can fit in a parking space. 3/4 ton or 1 ton suspension like on some of the old small Toyota trucks would be ideal. I'd like to get this small truck with a few safety features like air bags that are missing from the 70's - early 90's Japanese trucks that otherwise fit the bill.
I don't understand why automakers seem incapable of building a small truck anymore. There are smaller cars that pass safety testing, so that is not it.
It seems like being all-electric should get you around that mileage requirement, so it's possible that that last one is not as much of a factor. But that is the conventional wisdom about why they won't sell an actual compact truck in the U.S. market, despite the fact that all those old Toyotas and Rangers from the 90s are still being kept on the road because people love them.
Now that large trucks have settled in consumer perception as the new and shiny, it's a self-enforcing vicious cycle regardless of regulatory reform.
The 2024 Tacoma will be available with 2 doors and a 6 foot bed. It won't be a "regular" cab, more like the slightly extended cab from back in the jump seat days. But no jump seats, just storage cubbies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux
But if you check out the Ford Maverick you can put 3/4 of a ton in the bed, and you get modern safety features.
Deleted Comment
Putting that aside, if they thought they'd move the numbers to justify it, I'm sure they'd build what you want.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVHWLqhi98
The Prius is an amazing car, and probably responsible for the biggest portion of electric vehicle operation given the numbers.
Their philosophy, and it's backed by numbers, is that it's better to put a little bit of battery in a lot of cars than a lot of battery in a few cars.
They're dancing around the EV trend. They'll psy it lip service to sell in the US market, but that's it.
Toyota is not a fan of the EV. Given who they are they probably have good reasons for it.
I did not read the article but in the current state of battery technology and charger availability that seems the prudent thing to do, especially so for pickup trucks.
There’s ~0% chance that Toyota is going to release a mass market production car with a Yoke as its primary option.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/lexus-rz-steering-yoke/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agMrewRJTow
Your "hard pass" means you're unwilling to buy a concept car that isn't available for you to purchase.
Also, the yoke is not a Tesla invention, F1 cars use yokes too, and with Toyota having a history in F1, this may be a nod to that.
Sure you can haul a lot of stuff in a mini van or SUV but largely you run the risk of ruining the interior which I would prefer not to do in my vehicles.
- Carrying oversized items (tall) with proper tie-downs
- Carrying oversized items (long) with proper tie-downs and lights/flags
In case this isn't a rhetorical question, read up about research which tries to link (car) color choices to the state of the economy for instance. It's pretty interesting really.
I'm personally tired of the EV revolution being delayed by manufacturers insisting on tying it to high end or luxury-status cars. Until this trend stops, I'll stick to my beaten up Chevy Volt.
Maybe, the non-commercial utility truck folks will start taking interest when 5-10 year old models enter the used market if they're still functional and proven to be durable. At least I will - My use case is basically hauling loads of (sometimes literal) crap around the surrounding towns where EV range is no concern, and where cosmetic body damage is unavoidable so tons of integrated sensors are bad. It is disappointing that there are no electric trucks priced accordingly to this use case as ICE sedans are better for long highway trips and I really only want a beater truck for local trips
Also would seem cool to be able to weld from the car battery but realistically would want a backup generator to avoid trouble
Those are the only cars that have cost sufficiently inflated by nonessential niceties that some culling can free up the money required to buy battery for non-trivial range. ICE and gearboxes are ridiculously cheap compared car-sized batteries and at the lower end of the market there simply isn't much to skip outside engine and transmission.
I will still respond - this is a popular sentiment, and there is plenty of truth in it for many "fancy truck" buyers. Still, because of the area I live in, there's a much higher mix of people that insist on buying the base trim level with the biggest bed and whatever payload/towing capacity they actually need due to their jobs or serious work they get done. I know a ton of those people, and only a handful that have fancy overpriced trucks that they use for commuting (and status symbols, or at least, how it makes them feel to be in a big truck). But yeah - that doesn't seem to be relevant to this truck.
I am not particularly paranoid about crime but I can't understand the appeal of the pickup truck bed. My dad was a carpenter and never had anybody steal tools out of a 1970s boat car or a VW Rabbit that he took the back seats out of. I learned to drive in an underpowered F150 that struggled to make it up hills on the freeway. I thought it was hard to shift at the time and eventually discovered it was easier to drive a school bus or a pre-synchromesh tractor than to drive that truck. Multiple times he had people smash the windows on the bed cover and steal tools.
To the contrary for years the one vehicle on our farm was a Honda Fit and we never had trouble stuffing feed bags, sawdust bags and the occasional hay bale in the back.
A small, cheap truck for light loads is what most haulers really need.
What lots of people buy instead is a symbol to defend their masculinity.
My wife runs a riding academy, we might have the only one that doesn't own a big ass truck, but we might be the only one that was cashflow profitable (though not to the IRS) in the first year and every year thereafter.
A lot of people trailer horses 10-30 miles to state forests go trail riding, often to places where there is not only no electric service but no power line. (We have some really nice trails on our farm, and roads and trails to ride on right out our driveway)
Other people drive 50-100 to go to a horse show on many weekends. You might be able to find an electric outlet but not a fast charger.
The high end of horse trailering is that many people make a pilgrimage to Ocala, FL every winter which might be driving 1000 miles with animals that don't appreciate the stress.
For this application you really want the biggest vehicle you can get, the GMC Suburban has been a top choice for years. You need better range than this:
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/ford-f150-lightning-elect...
The Ford Maverick, which is wildly successful, took the Escape innards, put a small truck bed on it, and then made the interior incredibly utilitarian. So utilitarian in fact that they give you 3D printer diagrams and attachment points to make your own accessories. Everything is inexpensive but hardy materials with tons of storage. The exterior looks exactly like a full sized truck, but smaller.
Toyota's small truck is choc full of gimmicks, futurism, with looks to match. This is exactly the kind of thing first generation EVs did which consumers hated, and most of the market has moved on from. Even Tesla stopped with the yoke. I dread to think how much Toyota will charge for this, I'm guessing starting $50K MSRP, even with the bZ4X struggling at $42K.
If Toyota were taking this seriously they just would have made it look like a baby Tacoma with a similar but cheaper/simpler interior and the bZ4X innards.