Toyota just BROKE SILENCE on their small "STOUT" pickup

0:00 I get asked all the time, where is the Toyota Stout? Where's Toyota's entry-level pickup truck? And some of you were getting your hopes up for this new small entry-level pickup truck to compete against the Ford Maverick, especially the hybrid, to be announced last week at Toyota's HQC 2025. I just call it Toyota Con. It's their mega conference of new and upcoming vehicles coming in relatively short amount of time. But it was crickets at Toyota Con this year on anything truck related for the most part. We got the new wave breaker color for the TRD Pros, but there wasn't as much of a peep about a new entry-level pickup truck. Where's this entry- level pickup truck that Toyota fans love? The Tacoma has grown

0:46 to monstrous size as well as its rivals over the years. There's no small pickup truck in America. And that's why the Slate BE is such an amazing idea to compete not only against a Maverick, but to give us a more affordable entry-level pickup truck option. Today, we're going to hit on Toyota and their trucks, mainly the entry-level truck. We'll also dust off the GR Sport Corolla Cross that we're not getting in America. You also have Toyota's hybrid plug-in hybrid assault as EVs aren't as desirable as many thought they would be. And also, we'll talk about nearly half million Toyota pickup trucks being recalled. Guys, if you're new to the channel, I cover car news every single day. If you just like cars, I would appreciate you guys subscribing and make sure to hit

1:33 that like button. Toyota executives say the Japanese automaker is listening to US dealer requests. Why are the dealer requesting it? Because the customers are requesting it uh for this smaller pickup truck than the Tacoma and of course way smaller than the monstrous Tundra. We're looking at it. Mark Templan. Now, I saw Mark Mark Templan last week at HQC. He did one of the press conferences. I'll go ahead and put a picture of him up on the screen for you guys. He is Toyota COO in the United States. And of course, Toyota executives still declined to give details on how far along the plans are when a tiny pickup truck could be launched. Toyota engineers were responded testing the Maverick in Santa Cruz near the company's technical center

2:19 in Ann Arbor, Michigan last year. I believe I remember speaking on that matter. They mentioned the electric pickup truck concept or the EPU that I brought you a walk around fall of 2023 with that truck. Now, yes, it is it would be incredible to have, especially the folding down Midgate, but with it being a um a fully battery electric, I just don't know how successful it would be. I know Kia's looking at, well, not only looking, but they have confirmed that they're going to be bringing electric pickup truck into the United States, but I guarantee you that if Toyota brought the EPU as a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, and a battery electric for those who want PEVs and Pavs, and a

3:06 hybrid pickup truck to have an alternative, a Toyota alternative to the Maverick, I think they would have a hit on their hands. But the EPU is kind of big. It kind of felt Tacomaomasized when I did a walk around of it. Obviously with a unibody skateboard platform instead of a body on frame, the EPU, but it didn't feel that small. Didn't feel as small as the Maverick, for example. Starting price of still under $30,000. The Ford Maverick sold over 131,000 units last year, up 39%. Guys, whenever you see huge jumps year-over-year in terms of sales, it's because there is no competition to that model. You might be saying, "Yeah, but the Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz has never

3:51 come with the hybrid. It's still a huge failure of Hyundai in my opinion." All right, it's not a bad truck. It drives quite well, and if you like the styling, great. It's very functional, but the bed's really small. And there's no hybrid. The Maverick still has no competition. Toyota needs to do something. Somebody needs to do something about it. Now, before we move on to the next article, the question is going to be, if Toyota makes this truck, where the heck would they build it. It has to be built in America at this point. They have zero available capacity in Mexico because the Tacoma takes up two plants there by itself. In the United States, there's no room in Kentucky. There's no room in Indiana that I know of. There's some room in Mississippi where they build the Corolla. And if this is on the the

4:38 Toyota C platform, um, then possibly they could pos, but here's the thing. Why couldn't they why can't they just take the winning formula that is the RAV 4, especially the new Woodland model with that front end, convert that sort of body style into a pickup truck. I know it's probably at that point it might actually be as big on the inside, if not bigger than a Tacoma. So I guess maybe the Corolla Cross. So, if we go to the Corolla Cross or the Corolla, which are on the same sea platform, it's either Mississippi where they build the Corolla sedan, or it' be a joint project with Mazda at the Alabama plant where they build the Corolla Cross as well as the Mazda CX50. That would make a lot of sense to me. Heck, they're already

5:23 importing the 2 and 1 half liter hybrid powertrains for the CX-50 hybrid to Alabama. All right. So, both of them could have a small pickup truck from the Mazda and Toyota brands. Reduce R&D by having just a slightly slightly different model between the two brands. Really just styling. Like both brands have so many crossovers. And now Toyota introducing all these EV crossovers. How much how much do they really need? I'll let you guys talk it out down below. Speaking of that Corolla Cross, new GR Sport model added to the Corolla Cross. It's unfortunate it is not in the United States. It does not get any powertrain upgrades. It is still the 2 L hybrid which is 196 horsepower all-wheel drive. But I think it looks quite aggressive up front. I think it actually looks better

6:10 up front than the new RAV 4 GR Sport that is introducing GR Sport into the United States. Um also you have all these other GR Sport models. Let's talk about them. We don't get the Corolla Cross GR Sport, nor the Yurus, or should I say this is the Aqua. We don't get the Aqua GR Sport, which was used to be the Prius C. We don't get the Yurus Cross GR Sport. And we're never going to have a GR Sport Hilux. Why? Because Toyota uses TRD and TRD Pro for the United States uh body onframe vehicles. We're never going to see a Land Cruiser GR Sport. I guess that there could be an asterisk to that because of the Land Cruiser uh J250

6:55 available in America. This is the 300 series and we're not going to see um the Copen GR Sport. Obviously, that's a K car, but let me know what kind of GR Sports you would like to have in the United States. Really, the only one out of here that we would see would be this guy right here. I think it will launch eventually. It's just not this year because they've already splashed us with that refresh on the GR, sorry, on the Corolla Cross. Guys, hybrid leader Toyota is kind of pumping the brakes on EVs. Now, you might be saying, Kirk, they just came out with the CHR. They just came out with the BZ Woodland. Those aren't even on the market yet. The ES is going be um the BZ non4ex that just got refreshed is coming out probably late summer. That's coming out. How can you say they're pumping the

7:40 brakes on EV? They have to have a competitive EV lineup globally. You know, how much they will sell in the United States, I have no idea, but they really want to grow their plug-in hybrid. It seems like they got the EV thing nailed down at least with availability. And if that three row EV comes out in the next couple years out of Kentucky, what other EVs do they need? Maybe a small, tiny, cheap, affordable EV, who knows how well that would sell in the United States anyways. And so while they are starting to saturate their EV lineup, they got a good hybrid lineup. They're looking to expand plug-in hybrid by far the most out of any of their other powertrains, going from less than 3% last year to 20% of the US sales volume by 2030. So we're

8:27 going to see a 10-fold increase roughly of plug-in hybrid availability in the next four to five years. Now, if you missed my video yesterday talking about the Lexus RX plug-in hybrid, I don't know what they're going to call it. Toyota and Lexus are working on a 2 L turbo plug-in hybrid, a high performance one with 600 horsepower. That's one way to increase um the desiraability of plug-in hybrids is using it as a high-end performance model. And you could say Toyota's already been doing that with the Prime or the PV powertrains that we see like on the refreshed RAV 4. We're going to see much better plug-in hybrid availability on the new RAV 40. We see it on the Woodland model. We see it on the XSSE SE and the new GR Sport with uh

9:14 320 horsepower and 50 miles of electric range and still really impressive. Probably 40 plus miles per gallon of hybrid efficiency once that EV range is depleted. David Christ, who is, you know, I saw him at the Toyota event, head of Toyota brand in North America. He also did the reveal, digital reveal of the Rav 4, which is pretty cool. We're going to grow our pave volume through the lineup over the next few years. All right. Well, the RAV 4, we have the Prius. What else? Well, let's keep reading. We love Pad Powertrains. We're going to increase perpetually increase the amount of miles you can drive in EV only range. Well, we're at 50 mi on the RAV 4 now, but they want to

10:00 keep going more. In yesterday's video, I mentioned that Toyota and Lexus are working on E-Ravs with 200 kilometers, which is a little over 100 miles of range, but after EPA conversion, it's probably closer to 80 to 90 miles of EPA range on fully electric. Now, Toyota's already doing revs in China, but those are essentially using BYD's extended range technology. We're looking at plugins across the lineup and it's more of a function of where we can build them and what is the product strength versus the competition. Well, we know Ford and Stalantis Ram and Jeep. Um, they're working on on heavy duty e-revs. Um, and you might be even saying Volkswagen with

10:46 Scout, right, is working on the -v side of things. Um, so you're going to have massive amounts of torque, massive amounts of horsepower, electric response, but without the range anxiety because you have a gasoline range extender engine on board. All right. Now, I have mentioned on the channel before that Toyota is working on truck platform plug-in hybrids. I don't know how e-revy they will be in terms of the engine just being a generator or if the engine's going to be more involved in actually producing power to the wheels like Toyota's current plug-in hybrids. So, if we're looking at plugins across the lineup, the trucks are absolutely being considered from the Tacoma to the Tundra and possibly going to the

11:33 Seoia and LX and stuff like that. All right. But I know for sure that Toyota is planning from from what I've seen is planning on to introduce a plug-in hybrid of the Tacoma and or Tundra by the end of this decade. I don't want to say timelines for sure because the timelines move around all the time, but yeah, with Chris saying Toyota wants 20% P have um penetration in the lineup by 2030, it's going to happen and the trucks is one way to do it. Now, if you look at the Lexus lineup, there was almost a 90% jump for the three Lexus Pavves. We know I haven't driven the TX

12:19 plug-in hybrid yet. I hear it's the best one. Of course, it is. Has a V6. Anyways, there's a TX 550H+. There's the RX450H+ and NX450H+. Waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for more plug-in hybrids enter into their lineup. Um, especially for that RX, you know, GR model, which is essentially a Mizo RR is what we were talking about yesterday. Chris finally said, "We're looking across the lineup saying how many powertrains can we offer on what products? We are going to increase the percentage of hybrids and paves." That would be a great way to to introduce that technology to that little Toyota stout pickup truck just like the Rav 4. Give it the RAV 4 powertrains.

13:04 You have 20, what was it? 226 horsepower and the front-wheel drive hybrid. 236 horsepower on the all-wheel drive hybrid gets you 40 miles per gallon and then you're going to have a 50 mile range pickup truck on the PV side and then get 40 miles per gallon once that runs out. That would be delicious and I would want that so bad. But where is it Toyota? I don't know. Cooper Ericson was also there at the event. I didn't get a chance to talk to him. I've spokeen to him many times in the past. I seen him at the IS uh launch IS-500 F Sport Performance launch edition um reveal at Sebring a few years back. I saw him at the launch of the BZ4X. Um and he's super smart, but he's

13:51 also really good at giving analogies for people to understand their products better. He's saying their power trains, they're trying to load the bases. They've got ice, they've got hybrid, they got plug-in hybrid, and then they've got an EV. So you just add another base on there. You could say someone's waiting at home plate and the chances of scoring successful runs is just a lot better when you're over when you're not overly committed in one category of powertrains. He seems to be really on board with pevs right now probably cuz he knows what's coming through the Toyota lineup in the near future with range and and power and what kind of products these are going to be fitting into. He said once people understand how Pavs work and their benefits, there's a massive swing in customer interest from traditional vehicles, hybrids and even some EVs. I

14:39 think EVs for sure. Um, hybrids is going to be tough because the strength of a hybrid is that you don't have to have the baggage of plugging it in all the time. All right. But you also are essentially you can run on fully electric 75 plus% of your time, which is, you know, it depends on how how expensive your energy is in your area. All right? If it's going to be a better fuel saving source than a traditional hybrid. But if your P have can out accelerate a traditional hybrid by leaps and bounds, gives you that flexibility, fully electric range and just offers a better driving experience, then yeah, it might be worth the added cost. Once we educate people, he says, by far the biggest swing from

15:24 all powertrains is Pv. It will go up exponentially. He told CNBC during a separate interview, Pv is really important for us. There are people that will consider a PV but not consider a BEV. But yes, you also have people that will not consider anything electrified. The problem I have with Pavs right now is that they are ex exorbitantly expensive to get into a RAV 4 PV. Not the new generation. We don't know how expensive those are going to be and if there's going to be a price reduction on the Pavs from Toyota, but they start 15 grand over the base model and 12 grand over a hybrid model. Well, you got to keep in mind it's now going to be standard hybrid. So, I bet this goes down to maybe the woodland is going to have available PB. I'm going to say it's

16:11 going to be about five grand more than traditional hybrid now on the RAV 4. So, let's say the RAV 4 starts at 33,000 hybrid. You could probably get a plug-in hybrid for about 38,000. That's what my guess is going to be. He talks about the price competitiveness of this Pav powertrain. He says it's like getting two cars in one. I completely agree because when I re review a Pav vehicle, I am essentially reviewing two cars. I review it with its electric efficiency and range um and charging on the fully battery electric end of it. And then I review it as a hybrid separately. So, it takes me about twice as long to review a plug-in hybrid because it's essentially

16:56 two cars or two different personalities in one. And then he's saying if it serves a compliance benefit, maybe we sweeten the pot a little bit on the price to get more people to consider it. Yes, he's saying that the new RAV 4 plug-in hybrid is going to be more affordable because they're getting probably green credits for it or they're not going to be charged massively for um having too much emissions in the carb states, for example. Lastly, Toyota is recalling 443,000 Tundra pickup trucks for lighting issue. This is on the reverse lights which may stop working. These are sourced from Hela Automotive de Mexico. Now it's probably Ha

17:42 Automotive De Mexico is a supplier. Toyota declined to comment on whether they have uh been accidents and injuries caused by the defect. All right, so they're sourcing these tail lamps from Mexico and with heat cycling um the seal be can become compromised. moisture can get in there and short circuits the tail light assembly. Of course, you'll be able to get them fixed at your dealer once you get a notice in the mail. But, uh, yeah, just another just another instance of Toyota having issues with their trucks. This one is very minor in my opinion compared to the twin turbo V6 issues that they're having with those throwing rods and whatnot. Anyways guys, I cannot wait to see you

18:27 in the comments in regards to the the small pickup truck and a potential plug-in hybrid of it and the large amount of time that we spent on Toyota's plug-in hybrid technology um just getting better and better and better and it will be growing more and more and more. Um, it makes total sense compared to to battery electrics with a lack of charging infrastructure in the United States or or a lack of sufficient charging infrastructure. All right, you can still take your plug-in hybrid on the highway, still going to be very efficient. Um, and you'll be having an EV experience in and around town. Plug-in hybrids to me, I mean, if they can get the cost down, they're kind of like the holy grail right now of powertrains until battery electrics are

19:14 no longer held back by charging times, charging station and and availability um and overall cost. But plug-in hybrids are awfully expensive as well. Hopefully Toyota can keep the price down and keep making them better and better. Thank you guys for watching. I'll catch you in the next one. Have a great day and peace.