and extremely popular.

These are not only some of the best selling trucks in

America, there are also some of the best selling vehicles

of any kind in the country.

Pickup trucks are perhaps one of Detroit's last strongholds

in the US car market.

In 2023, American brands sold nearly 2.4 million pickup

trucks, making up more than 15% of all new car sales.

But in one segment, Japanese Toyota outshines American

names. In fact, it outsells all of its rivals combined.

British grown up with it, and you kind of smile when you see

it in a.

Country obsessed with ever larger vehicles.

Toyota never stopped betting there would be a buyer who

preferred a smaller truck that would do what they

needed. Through the years, it has also earned a strong

reputation in desert racing and become a favorite of off

roaders and Overlanders.

That's just world domination.

That's what we're going in. I'm kidding.

Uh, in all, seriously, uh, we consider ourselves very

privileged, and we don't we don't take it lightly that the

success that we've had within the segment, that's largely

due to the loyalty that we had from our customer base.

Pickup trucks are not only popular, but profitable and

are thus a tantalizing opportunity for cash hungry EV

startups. Legacy automakers, especially the Detroit Three,

have pushed more aggressively into smaller trucks as foreign

automakers take the lead in other segments.

Industry forecasters expect there will soon be twice as

many truck models competing for the same share of buyers.

So how did Toyota win this market and is it at risk of

losing its lead?

There are four main pickup size segments compact midsize,

full size, and Heavy Duty and Detroit rules, nearly all of

them. The biggest sellers are the full size segment.

Ford, GM and Stellantis dominate, but Toyota is king

of the midsize.

The Tacoma is the ninth best selling vehicle in the US,

holding nearly four times the share of its next biggest

competitor. When asking industry insiders, even people

at Toyota, what accounts for Tacoma's success?

One word keeps popping up consistency.

We got into this segment listening to truck buyers,

what they wanted, and we kept giving it to them.

It's been incredibly consistent for a long, long

time.

Back when a lot of the competition left the market,

stayed the course, and I think we built a lot of

reputational rapport with our with our customers.

Toyota built its first truck, the G1, in 1935.

It began importing trucks to the US in the 1960s, and,

along with Japanese brands like Datsun and Nissan, carved

a popular niche in the compact segment.

Smaller trucks had been around before that.

As early as the mid 19 tens, Americans were buying Ford

Model T roadsters or Chassis and putting aftermarket truck

beds on the back.

The modifications popularity led Ford to introduce an

official factory built version of the Roadster pickup

in 1925.

Several more followed.

A lot of these early trucks would have qualified as

compact pickups, but American trucks grew over time as

vehicles tend to in response to customer demands, and by

the latter half of the 20th century, importers looking to

gain a foothold in the US saw small pickups as a way in, and

we found that to be a stronghold for us because a

lot of people didn't want either couldn't afford or

didn't want that big of a truck, especially depending on

where you lived, like a California, you know, you have

smaller parking garages.

At that time, American firms did somewhat serve the niche.

The Chevrolet El Camino and Ford Ranchero could be

considered examples, though.

They were really cars with beds on them.

It is telling that when some of these Japanese imports took

off in the 1970s, the main competitors developed by

American companies were rebadged versions of Japanese

trucks. Homegrown American rivals followed.

The original Ford Ranger and Chevrolet S-10 came out in

1983. Dodge followed in 1986 with the Dakota, and our

competitors throughout time have jumped in and out of the

segment. Our market share, um, I think over the last ten

years, our average share has been almost 43%, 43% of a

market share of anything.

That's pretty unbelievable.

Why? Because we were always there and we don't jump in and

out of things because we're there and consistently giving

the consumer what they're asking for.

Even today, there are more choices.

But no line is comprehensive.

As Tacoma, it's the only one you can buy with a long bed,

only one of two that comes with two doors.

Also one of only two that comes with a manual

transmission.

Toyota's really the only one that still serving the entire

market.

So consistency is one ingredient.

But the other bit of genius is recognizing that there is a

large market of buyers who would love to have some of

what a pickup offers, but don't need all of it.

I think that a mid-size truck shopper is in a very different

mindset than a full size truck shopper.

If you are really concerned with hauling a heavy payload,

if you are really concerned with towing a high figure,

then you're going to be looking at a full size trucks.

There's no point in building the midsize truck with the

highest towing rating.

Those people are just going to buy a full size truck

anyway. Midsize truck shoppers are trying to solve a

very practical problem.

And when you add Toyota quality, the sort of

reputation they have for long term reliability to, you know,

a comfortable truck that's good on the road that meets

that need. It's just really hard to beat.

The other thing that served Toyota well was its stellar

reputation for SR quality, durability and reliability.

Consumer reports places Toyota at number two on its

list of most reliable brands.

Number one Lexus, which is also owned by Toyota, another

major analytics company, J.D.

power, has the brand up top as well.

Toyota's reputation for SRX shows up in the used

marketplace. Several models are among the best at holding

their value, topped by Tacoma second on the list.

We sort of staked our reputation to that, and that's

foundational to what is so important to the Tacoma is the

fact that when we provide those type of qualities, you

know, you get the benefits of residual value, you get the

benefits of of repeat customers.

And I'll say lifelong customers, if you will.

Dependability is not the only strength supporters cite.

Toyota has been known for making boring cars.

Even its chairman and former CEO Akio Toyoda has said so.

Tacoma, though, might be a rare exception.

A joke about a lot of SUVs and more than a few pickups is

that the only hills they will ever climb are the speed bumps

in the shopping mall parking lot.

But 42% of Tacoma owners say they take their trucks off.

Road at least once a month.

Active outdoor adventure.

We heard that over and over and over again.

The Japanese automaker has a long history with off road

racing, and is especially known for its relationship

with Ivan Ironman Stewart, the newest Tacoma, takes

design cues from this racing heritage.

Calty, Toyota's US design office, which develops

products for the American market, said it wanted the

latest Tacoma to be a badass adventure truck.

We always want to make sure it's a it's a tough, rugged

truck.

The brand has leveraged this racing heritage into its

products in other ways.

A lot of automakers have high performance lines or in-house

tuning shops. Bmw has M division, Mercedes AMG,

Hyundai N line.

Ford has performance.

Toyota's first such line in America was TRD Toyota Racing

Development, and for a long time it was somewhat unusual

in that it primarily focused on off road racing.

A few of the versions of Tacoma that are available and

that have been for quite some time, are TRD badged at the

same time when more than 40% of your customers are off

roaders, close to 60% are not.

Tacoma's eight trim levels prove the point.

Several are off road focused, but there is also a base

model. The SR5 engineer Sheldon Brown calls the jack

of all trades a more on road focused TRD sport version and

the higher end limited.

Historically, we haven't sold a lot of those trucks, and

maybe that was because, you know, we really didn't do

enough to differentiate it. So we really tried to make

that sort of, I'll say, the gentleman's off roader, for

lack of a better word, but more of the amenities that you

would get in a full size truck.

They haven't chased refinement as much, and they haven't

chased technology as much.

And and it's worked out in two areas.

One is that the consistency of the brand.

And the other thing is it's more in the scope of pickup

trucks and where you're going to spend money.

It's a little bit more entry level truck versus a full size

truck and truck buyers up until the last couple of years

were hesitant on technology, and truck buyers weren't

necessarily demanding cameras.

Now they are. But that wasn't the case 6 or 7 years ago.

Some features found on Tacoma's today, such as crawl

control, which helps navigate dicey off road driving, were a

lot cruder in earlier versions when compared with

competitors like the Ford Ranger.

Later iterations were polished up in response to the

threat.

Tacoma doesn't necessarily lead by having the latest and

most perfect forms of every piece of technology.

Tacoma leads by being capable, by being reliable, by

being what its owners know it to be, and by making sure that

it still has that connection.

But Toyota no longer has the pool to itself.

Even though sales have risen in raw numbers, share has

declined simply because there are more trucks in the space.

The interesting part about the midsize segment is, as we've

seen the new entries come in, you know, market share has

changed because of, you know, the total number of entries in

there, but actual absolute value in terms of numbers has

continued to grow because that market has just expanded.

Where I look at the segment and I wonder a bit about what

we think is happening in the future, is, is I'm not sure

how much more growth there is.

The pickup truck segments share of the new car market

has historically peaked at about 20%.

To really go above that and sustain that would not

necessarily impossible, but it would be quite surprising.

I think at the end of the day, while pickup trucks are

attractive and people like them, they have an open bed.

And just honestly, not everybody wants an open bed.

It's unclear how long Toyota can maintain its dominance in

this segment. It seems to have held off competition from

the Chevrolet Colorado, which has lost market share since

2019. But the Colorado did win Motortrend's truck of the

year award for 2024.

Of course, the newest generation Tacoma was not yet

available at the time.

Are they going to stay around? I mean, that's a

question. If they're going to stay around, they they were in

before, then they left and now they're back in and maybe

they'll leave again. I think the consumers are like, I

don't know if I can really trust that the other brands

are actually going to stay in the segment.

They've already left me once.

Then there is, of course, the big question on everyone's

mind what do you.

Do with electrification?

Toyota just created a hybrid Tacoma and that will get them

through to a certain point. But you know, the new EPA