They are on the dealer lots!!!

They need to offer an option with a much smaller screen and big manual HVAC controls. Tesla really messed everything up by putting iPads in cars that are taller than the dash.

 

The instrument screen in the Gen 4 vs Gen 3 is light years different. The Gen 3 looks like a toy. Not hating on my Taco, I love it, but it is low tech. Wireless CarPlay, 360 degree camera, Safety sense 3, electronic parking brake, hold at a stop light are a few. Mechanically, more low end torque, rear disc brakes and coil sprung rear axle. Tacoma has always trailed in tech which is why some feel it is too much now, while they are in many cases just keeping up with the competition IMO. Not sure, but I hope it has digital key technology.
The 2024 Tacoma is probably the best looking mid size truck IMO.

 

WTF. There’s a $20K price difference between those two trucks!!!

 

Hard to name something that has not has a significant price increase in the last two years. Just going to the grocery store and seeing how little $100 buys compared to just a few years ago.

 

The Gen 3 dash looks like a Toy? Gen 4 looks like it was design by adult children who grew up playing with Transformers, it is a bit immature. The new Land Cruiser is so much better, more sophisticated and refined.

Wireless CarPlay would nice. 360 camera, don’t need, I know how to turn my head and look out the windows. Don’t like electronic parking brake, prefer a lever, same with the T-Case, but that was nixed back in the 2nd Gens. Don’t need safety sense, find adaptive cruise control highly annoying. It brakes hard at inappropriate moments, had people almost reared me because of it, so I quit using it.

Like how the chassis is specced. Do not care for the body or interior. It might grow on me, but is trying way too hard to look tough. The Chevy Colorado looks more like the natural evolution of what the Tacoma should be than what the 4G Tacoma does, it is chiseled without going to far. Tacoma needs to be edited down a bit. Colorado also has a nicer looking dash too.

 

To me, the Gen 3 dash looks like a toy or maybe not modern. Not a big deal, it is a truck. I think the Colorado looks fine as well. The new Tacoma and Colorado are much closer than the Colorado is to the Gen 3 IMO. I agree the new electronic are not needed but they making driving for me more relaxed. Why turn my head and twist my back when I can have a 360 degree camera showing me everything? I do agree with you on the adaptive cruise control, I do no use it either. Supposedly, Safety Sense 3 is much improved over 2. The Tacoma does have ginormous screen lol!

 

Gen 4 dash looks childish to me, waiting for it to say “Autobots, rollout!” I am a sucker for retro so maybe that is why I like the 3rd Gen. Have lived this long without a 360° camera, pretty sure I can live without it until I kickoff. Don’t even use my backup camera other than to hook up to my trailer. Guess turning around and looking out side and rear windows is a hard habit to break.

Supposedly 3.0 safety sense is better, don’t care for it now. Works a little better on the interstate, but nicks the gas mileage. It accelerates too hard after slowing, much smoother when I have control.

 

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw “turning around to look is too hard” was an image of some fat slob sitting in a recliner with his AI goggles on living life motionless because tech does everything for him while he’s fed and hydrated through an IV.

 

That’s not that surprising now a days. If you look at 2500/3500 trucks they can vary close to $70,000 depending on options. Even 1500 trucks can border 6 digit msrps.

 

Among developed countries the pedestrian fatality increase is exclusively a US issue. So my guess: a combination of bigger/taller cars, distracted driving, and an aging population. The states driving the statistics are retiree magnets.

 

There will be a day when people won’t even know how to drive, already starting to see it with young people refusing to get their license. Wonder what the world will be like when vehicles go full autonomous.

 

I'm 23 and grew up in a rural part of GA so driving was basically required when you turn 16. When I went to college (still in a semi rural part of GA but attracted many from the ATL area) I was shocked by the number of people who didn't drive and had to rely on other people to get them from point A to B. I just don't understand why you would willingly give up the only way to get where you want to go, when you want to...

 

It is a little different these days compared to how us old farts grew up, had to learn to drive when I was 10 to haul firewood up to the house from the lower part of our property, could barely reach the pedals.

We also had the burning desire to escape the house to go socialize, chase girls and party. Now all of the social escapes can be had in the palm of our hands, so no need to leave the house. If they do want to leave, just call an Uber, Lyft, etc. Suburban kids are becoming more like city kids.

There was a futurist named Jacque Fresco who envisioned a utopian era where machines did most of all the work for us, then we humans would sit around and discuss philosophy. But in reality we will just sit around and argue with each other why their way of thinking and life choices are wrong.

https://www.thevenusproject.com/

 

Here is a news story from a couple of months ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/business/boxy-trucks-suvs-pedestrian-deaths/index.html

 

I was around the same age the first time my dad let me drive his truck (1990 Chevy Blazer). I also drove 4 wheelers around the same age around dove fields and plowing up food plots for deer behind our house.

I wasn't too much into partying but we had to drive a good 20-30 minutes to the next town to do anything (we only had 2-3 restaurants in the county so options were limited). I feel like all of my friends still had that desire to out and socialize so everybody drove. I sorta feel like my age group was the last to have that which is sad. I now live in a pretty urban area (dont want to do this forever...) and I can see how someone could get around without a vehicle but I just could not imagine it for myself.

 

Truth! My kids saw getting their license and permit as freedom. In Texas, you can do parent taught and there is a log for 40 or so hours the parent has to sign off on. We actually did the driving and my kids got their licenses at 16 mainly because they went to private school and we did not want to drive them around anymore. My son and daughter have numerous friends that were in no rush to get their license, even into college. Also many parents just signed off on the log and so many of those kids have already had accidents because they did do the time behind the wheel.

 

Grew up in the country, had tractors and atvs, had to learn to operate those things more out of necessity for doing chores than for having fun. Though that didn’t stop us from having fun.

We would do field parties, still keep in contact with some of my high school buds, we were just reminiscing about that, surprised we didn’t die by all the stupid shit we used to do. So glad we didn’t have phone cameras back then, ha! Now they post all that stuff on YouTube and make money off of assjackery, who would have thought?

We live in a small town 30 minutes outside the city, have everything we need within walking/bicycling distance. We say we want to be back out in the country, but it is awfully convenient to be where we are now, can walk or ride a bicycle to my dentist, doctors office and grocery store.

 

That’s crazy that you don’t have to go to drivers education. Even the parents have take drivers ed here.

 

We didn’t have that either, could get our permit at 15 back in PA, sure things have changed.

Here in Idaho it is 14 1/2. Mainly because of all the agricultural.