Toyota is reportedly severe about providing a smaller, doubtlessly car-based ute which might slot in beneath its present pickups.
“We’re taking a look at it,” Toyota USA chief working officer Mark Templin advised Bloomberg.
“We might actually do nicely in that section, so we’re attempting to do it,” stated Cooper Ericksen, a senior vice chairman in command of planning and technique at Toyota Motor North America, in a separate interview. “It’s a matter of timing.”
It’s unclear whether or not Toyota’s extra compact ute would have petrol, hybrid or electrical energy.
Nonetheless, Bloomberg stories Toyota engineers have been spied testing the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz – each car-based unibody utes, not like Toyota’s body-on-frame Tacoma and HiLux – close to its technical centre within the US state of Michigan final yr.
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A smaller ute would slot into the corporate’s US lineup beneath the Tacoma, which changed the HiLux – identified there because the Pickup – again in 1995.
The present Tacoma is a more moderen car than our HiLux, using on the TNGA-F ladder platform that’s shared with fashions just like the Prado and providing a turbocharged four-cylinder petrol-electric hybrid powertrain.
By launching rival for the Maverick (pictured above) and Santa Cruz, Toyota might supply US patrons a extra reasonably priced ute. Whereas it might not have fairly the extent of off-road and towing functionality because the HiLux or Tacoma, it might supply a extra car-like driving expertise.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz has been a reasonably regular if not huge vendor within the US, with 32,033 gross sales final yr, however gross sales of the Ford Maverick rose 39 per cent to exceed 100,000 annual items for the primary time.
The ultimate tally was 131,142 items, which pushed it nicely previous the Ford Ranger. Ford bought 46,205 Rangers within the US in 2024, inserting it third in its section and nicely behind the top-selling Tacoma (pictured above), which posted 192,813 gross sales.
This mooted new Toyota ute would seem like completely different to the HiLux Champ launched in Southeast Asia, which is a boxy, ladder-frame, extra back-to-basics counterpart to the HiLux that undercuts it on value.
Toyota has additionally confirmed it’ll launch an electrical ute in Europe by 2026, doubtlessly pointing to a manufacturing model of the unibody EPU electrical ute idea (above) revealed on the 2023 Tokyo motor present.
There have additionally been stories out of South America that Toyota will launch a car-based, hybrid-powered ute in Brazil in 2027 resembling the EPU idea.
Whether or not this car shall be a Latin American-only product – equivalent to unibody utes just like the Ram Rampage and Chevrolet Montana – or be moreover provided in North America and different markets stays unclear.