When is another manufature going to de-throne Tacoma sales and force Toyota to innovate more? A D4D Tacoma would be the only update that would bring me back to the dealership.
Interesting question. My guess would be "never."
Remember about 20 - 25 years ago when there was fierce competition amongst the compact truck makers? You had Toyota, but also Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Isuzu, and of course Ford and Chevy (and this was before "Mazda" and "Isuzu" trucks became rebadged Fords and Chevies, respectively.) You even had Jeep for a few years selling the Commanche.
So what happened? Well, in short, everyone ended up emulating Dodge.
Remember what Dodge did with the Dakota? They introduced a truck that was in between a "Compact" and a "full sized." Sales took off, even despite ChryCo's less-than-stellar reputation for quality. People decided they liked the "mid sized" trucks more than the compacts.
Then a few other things happened.
* The price of fuel continued to fall, and fell all through the 1990s (there was a period of nearly a year around 1996-97 when I never paid more than $1.00/gallon for gas.)
* The SUV craze took off, boosted by cheap gas prices.
By the late 90's, Mazda, Isuzu and Mitsubishi had all given up on importing trucks. It was easier for them to re-badge a US made truck (Ford Ranger, Chevy S10 and Dodge Dakota, respectively) than it was to import them. It was also much cheaper and the US-built vehicles were already compliant with US emission and safety standards (my guess is that it was the air bag requirement that finally doomed imported trucks. It's no accident that the air bag requirement went into effect at the same time the importers stopped importing small trucks, circa 1994-96.)
Those that didn't re-badge (Toyota and Nissan) simply built factories in the US to make US-spec trucks that weren't sold elsewhere in the world (Tacoma and Frontier.)
Since they were making them for US customers, and since fuel economy was no longer an issue, they made the trucks progressively bigger, heavier, and more powerful.
By the time the Tacoma and Frontier hit their 2nd generation in 2005, most of the small trucks had morphed into mid-sized trucks. Not only were they bigger than the compacts, they were nearly as thirsty as a full-sized truck.
When I bought my Ranger in 1999, it was still the best selling compact truck on the market. The Ranger grew a bit in 1993 and again in 1998 with successive redesigns, but was always smaller than most of the competition.
The other factor that needs to be considered is profit. Car companies aren't charities, after all - they want to make money. Selling a bargain-priced car might lure a customer into the showroom, but it's not neccessarily going to put money into the pockets of the company. With the sale of high-priced SUVs falling, I think a lot of companies decided to push their more profitable full-sized line of trucks instead of less profitable mid-sized trucks.
I would argue that the Tacoma owes its position at the top of the heap not to any kind of superiority or quality, but simply because Toyota is almost the "last man standing" in the mid-size truck world.
Not so much in the sense that it has
no competition - it does, from the Frontier to the Colorado to the Dakota.
It's just that the companies that make those vehicles don't even
try to compete with Toyota on volume. Honestly, I think they just don't care because that market segment, mid-sized trucks, just isn't a money maker for them.
IOW, it's not that Ford or Nissan
can't make a better truck than the Tacoma, it's just that
there's no reason for them to try. Ford and Nissan are content to sell mid-sized trucks to their fewer customers and to make their money in other products: Full sized trucks and SUVs for Ford, compact cars, crossovers and luxury cars (through their Infiniti sub-brand) for Nissan.
And Ford's strategy is pretty shrewd: They're dropping the Ranger altogether, hoping to steer potential Ranger customers to either the Transit (small businesses) or to the more expensive (and more profitable) F-150 (construction companies and recreational users.)
A long winded answer, I know, but it is something I've been thinking about for a long time. Sum it up and ask the question: What is the market for "mid sized" trucks? I would argue that it's an ever-shrinking market and the limited number of choices that customers have now (as compared to two decades ago) reflect that fact.
