AbleGuy
Officious Intermeddler
Not being a fanboy of Fords, reading this news release warmed the cockles of me heart.
I haven’t been this excited since they figured out how to keep M&M from melting too quickly!
www.thedrive.com
The rugged Toyota Tacoma has stood proud as the best-selling midsize truck in the United States for decades. Now, the company hopes to replicate this success with a smaller, unibody modeldeveloped to take the Ford Maverick‘s lunch money.
“Decisions have been made. The question is when we can slot it in. It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ at this point. We’ve studied it a lot. We’re dedicated to it. We’re going to figure out how to make it work,” said Cooper Ericksen, the head of planning and strategy for Toyota’s North American division, in an interview with MotorTrend. He added that the truck, whose name hasn’t been announced yet, has been in the works for years.
It sounds like Toyota has already laid the truck’s foundations. The model will ride on a version of the modular TNGA platform found under most of its existing vehicles, to absolutely no one’s surprise, it will be offered with hybrid power. Don’t let the car-derived bones fool you, however. Toyota stressed that “small” and “tough” aren’t mutually exclusive.
“If we do this, it is going to be a Toyota truck. It needs to have certain capabilities and attributes and functionality. It needs to be a workhorse,” Ericksen explained. Luckily, Toyota has proven time and again that it knows how to make a dependable small pickup.
It’s too early to provide pricing, but taking on the Maverick head-to-head will require offering a truck with a Maverick-like base price. For context, Ford’s smallest pickup starts at $30,535 including destination, while the cheapest Tacoma will set you back $33,085. We’re not discounting the possibility that Toyota will try to undercut the Maverick’s price by a not-insignificant margin instead of trying to match it.
After all, the brand has high hopes for its entry-level truck: Its data suggests that selling 100,000 to 150,000 units annually isn’t far-fetched, and that’s only on the American market. Toyota’s global presence is much bigger than Ford’s, so it could leverage the benefits of economies of scale to bring costs down. Perhaps tellingly, Ericksen said that “affordability is one of the biggest headwinds” facing the car industry.
Click link to story to continue reading the article …
I haven’t been this excited since they figured out how to keep M&M from melting too quickly!
Toyota’s Maverick-Fighting Small Pickup Confirmed, ‘Not a Matter of If’ but When
To feature a unibody construction and hybrid power, the truck has apparently been in the works for years.
www.thedrive.com
Toyota’s Maverick-Fighting Small Pickup Confirmed, ‘Not a Matter of If’ but When
To feature a unibody construction and hybrid power, the truck has apparently been in the works for years.The rugged Toyota Tacoma has stood proud as the best-selling midsize truck in the United States for decades. Now, the company hopes to replicate this success with a smaller, unibody modeldeveloped to take the Ford Maverick‘s lunch money.
“Decisions have been made. The question is when we can slot it in. It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ at this point. We’ve studied it a lot. We’re dedicated to it. We’re going to figure out how to make it work,” said Cooper Ericksen, the head of planning and strategy for Toyota’s North American division, in an interview with MotorTrend. He added that the truck, whose name hasn’t been announced yet, has been in the works for years.
It sounds like Toyota has already laid the truck’s foundations. The model will ride on a version of the modular TNGA platform found under most of its existing vehicles, to absolutely no one’s surprise, it will be offered with hybrid power. Don’t let the car-derived bones fool you, however. Toyota stressed that “small” and “tough” aren’t mutually exclusive.
“If we do this, it is going to be a Toyota truck. It needs to have certain capabilities and attributes and functionality. It needs to be a workhorse,” Ericksen explained. Luckily, Toyota has proven time and again that it knows how to make a dependable small pickup.
It’s too early to provide pricing, but taking on the Maverick head-to-head will require offering a truck with a Maverick-like base price. For context, Ford’s smallest pickup starts at $30,535 including destination, while the cheapest Tacoma will set you back $33,085. We’re not discounting the possibility that Toyota will try to undercut the Maverick’s price by a not-insignificant margin instead of trying to match it.
After all, the brand has high hopes for its entry-level truck: Its data suggests that selling 100,000 to 150,000 units annually isn’t far-fetched, and that’s only on the American market. Toyota’s global presence is much bigger than Ford’s, so it could leverage the benefits of economies of scale to bring costs down. Perhaps tellingly, Ericksen said that “affordability is one of the biggest headwinds” facing the car industry.
Click link to story to continue reading the article …
