Is Toyota's 2015 Tacoma offering strategic?

Tacoma is facing a serious challenge from F150. Toyota certainly has the means to make the Tacoma more modern and competitive, but it is letting the truck’s sales continue a multi-year slide this year for 2 good reasons.

http://www.torquenews.com/1083/philosophy-behind-toyota-holding-2015-tacoma-back-year

Do you find the offering as strategic?

 

Typos and two of the same reasons really hammer home his point...

 

Waht do you mean? I don't understand your post. Also, your post ia hard to understand.

 

There was very little of substance there.

And, there wouldn't be "noting" wrong with them taking out an ad to hire a talented sixth grader as a part time copy editor.

Toyota's per-unit profits are still substantial on the Tacoma...and I'd be interested to see what kind of labor costs they've saved by slapping them together in Tijuana.

Anyway, taking a "wait and see" to borrow what works from their competition, offer their own marketing gimmicks, run from what isn't working, and maybe even do something worthwhile with their upcoming redesign (whenever that might be) is probably a no-brainer.

 

Well I was just asking if you think the strategic is working.

 

Mainly just competes with the Raptor.

 

I dunno, if it was a Geo Prism maybe.

 

all successful models have multi year versions. They have to recover the RD that went into making the changes.

 

First, TorqueNews is pretty poor...almost every article they produce is simply a restatement of what's already available, or is some opinion piece like this that has no research done with it or credible sources cited and is full of grammatical and spelling errors.

Simply put, the reason Toyota hasn't updated the Tacoma in 10 years is because it hasn't had to. It still leads the midsize market, still gets repeat buyers (how many people on here have bought essentially the same truck from Toyota 2 or 3 times since 2005?), and up to this point hasn't received much competition in the midsize market, at least not enough to threaten it. The costs of developing an all-new truck have outweighed the benefits and potential increase in profits. I'm sure Toyota sees the midsize market as a slowly dying one, and figures rather than pump a bunch of money into a small and not-very-profitable market, let's ride our profits out until we are forced to do something.

Honestly, BESIDES size and in some instances cost (although that's becoming less of an issue unless you get a stripped down model), what are the reasons to buy a midsize over a fullsize truck? You get less space, less towing, hauling, capability, and power, and oftentimes worse gas mileage. And feature for feature, you're actually probably pretty equal on cost. Hence why the fullsize market is as strong as ever, and even Toyota is pumping money into the Tundra research to try and develop a new competitive truck to go against the Ford, GM, and RAM offerings.

 

Size is an important factor for me, maneuverability, aesthetics (the proportions look and feel right) and my Tacoma has all the capability I need at this time. The bigger is better mentality does not live here.

 

Its a toyota, frankly I don't think they care to much about the american market. Their selling enough here to keep them happy, they sell a proven product that has enough R&D into it they don't need to mess with it every 2 years.

Look into toyota tacoma sales over seas vs ford.

 

This is a great point. Its hardly worth it to buy a mid-size truck anymore. My 98 Tacoma is an awesome truck. Small, (but not too small) dependable, At the time it was way ahead of its class, and at the time it was cheaper and got more mpg's than a full-size. That's not the case anymore

 

There were typos in the article. And, on top of that, all two of his reasons to support his argument were the exact same. Just doesn't seem like very quality journalism.

Is that better?

edit: looks like you completely understood my statement, and I'm an idiot. Carry on,

 

I understand that we're all scared to death and have all shit our pants over a new GM product, but this article really isn't worthy of being read. I believe I saw Car And Driver post about this topic just yesterday, that's a much better article to discuss.

 

OMG the sky is falling!!!

 

In my mind, according to the articles logic:

If Jon Jones is winding back to throw a solid punch towards your face, you may as well just stand there and take the hit without ducking, covering, or swinging back. It's inevitable and nothing will stop it.

 

LOL

 

the tacoma competes with teh F150?

 

Raptors are wide, bloated POS'es. cannot go places I can stuff my taco.

 

First off, that article was so poorly written it borders on unintelligible. Second, I don't want a full size truck because I don't tow and I don't need all the space. If toyota or any other car maker put the kind of money that goes into an F-150 into a mid sized truck, it would be amazing.

Though I do realize I am in the minority because I am a city-dwelling outdoors type and trucks are made for the farm folk, right?