Let’s help Toyota design the 4th Gen. Tacoma

Everyone here that thinks that Tacoma with a bazillion gears will somehow be the ultimate in truckage is wrong.
Look at some reviews of modern vehicles with 80 speed transmissions.
Most of the time they constantly hunt for the right gear. They don’t downshift unless you stomp on the gas pedal.

5 or 6 speeds are what’s right for trucks. Let mommy’s crossover have thousands of gears.

 

Nobody said more gears are better. It costs more to manufacture. It adds complications to an already complex technology. But it’s a necessity evil. The best gas mileage for any car or truck is about 2000 rpm at 65mph and the way to get there is have an adaptive transmission. That’s why CVTs took off so fast in recent years. Now if you haven’t notice fossil fuel is becoming increasingly scarce and one day it will be extremely wasteful to even use for personal transport. Wait, you said. Gas is still only $2.30 and we’ve got plenty. It’s plenty because everyone is cash strapped and short sighted. Well who cares, right? We’ve got plenty, let’s burn them all while I’m alive. Our grandkids will one day look at us like wtf. You suck out this black gold to do what? Burn it?
We are buying time so the batterry technology can catch up to the comparable energy density as gasoline however that’s still some way away. But possess a mentality of a 5.7L hemi with a 4 gears transmission pushing a full size pickup to go to the grocery store is not only outdated and selfish. It’s offensive.

 

Yeah I agree having 8-10 gears like we are seeing these days doesn't necessarily make vehicles more fun to drive. But with that many gears you can have massive OD gears for 9 and 10 which help with the EPA rating. And manufactures have been making concessions for years in order to get the fleet mpgs up. The 4th gen will most likely run on gas or a combination of gas/electric . But the 5th gen will be 100% electric.

 

You guys realize that our power grid has been failing for decades , right ?? It’s old and completely over taxed. Plug up millions of battery powered cars on their chargers and see what happens. Now add how nasty lithium mining is on the environment. Now add the fact of how bad used batteries are to dispose of. These are just a couple of the reasons of why electric cars are not the answer to replace gasoline powered cars. The list is EXTREMELY long. SMH

 

Gas is so much simpler.

 

Take a cue or two from what Jeep does w rubicons. Lower gear ratio, front sway bar disco, more aggressive tires, stronger rear axle and front diff, front locker, full skids. Call it the TRD PRO and let it be optioned with less expensive interior/tech options so that it might be accessible to those who want/need the added capability, but don’t care about/want to pay for luxury bells and whistles.
I continue to be impressed by what my girlfriend’s rubicon has been capable of both before and after we put her lift in. There are so many function-over-form options on it that I just don’t see other manufacturers putting into their OR trim trucks, and it wouldn’t be hard for any of them to take a couple cues from FCA/Jeep and give the people what they want, while taking a bite out of their market share.

 

I see no evidence of fossil fuel becoming more scarce. Oil exploration continues to find new deposits.
Nissan is the only manufacturer to use CVT transmissions on a large scale(though not for their trucks).
Your thinking that electric cars being used on a mass scale totally ignores the old, outdated power grid in this country. Not to mention the environmental damage the manufactur of electric cars causes.
I’m sorry you’re offended. Go drive your Prius and I’m sure you’ll feel better.

 

Hey, those excess kwh I'm getting from my array need to be fed somewhere, and it might as well be in the rig.

 

No not a full size, I'm not saying to add 4+ inches all around. Just an inch here and there and maximizing space efficiency which can be a problem for some with the way the can is currently.