Live 2016 Toyota Tacoma Stream and Discussion

Who's to say that GoPro didn't call up Toyota and say "hey, we have an idea..." and fronted the design and implementation themselves. Toyota doesn't spend any money on that little R&D portion, and GoPro stands to increase its sales to new Tacoma owners.

Create new markets - Econ 101.

 

The true fanboi/fangirl purchasing schtick would be someone dumb enough to buy a diesel in a midsize truck (EDIT: in the US that is). And there certainly are plenty of those people around, so it is quite possible the Frontier/Colorado diesel options will peel away some clueless folks from the Tacoma crowd. Good riddance. A benefit would be if the diesel fanbois leave we might even see a few less of the "what you you think of my 9 inch block and spacer lift" posts over here on TW

 

Besides the Go-Pro mount the other big stride forward for the 2016 Tacoma is the..... Drum roll here... tri fold hard tonneau. I wonder how much thought and discussion went into that. I don't understand why, no I guess I do understand why, the manufacturers feel it necessary to offer items that are readily available through the after market with a hefty mark up. It's not like the go pro mount or the tri fold hard tonneau required big engineering changes, or needed to be added at some stage of assembly to make them seem more integrated. Oh and we now offer step rails, a series of tape graphics, a windshield sun shield ....

Why not spend some time and thought on something of substance that would be very hard to add from the aftermarket industry like an integrated trailer brake controller with trailer anti sway, one touch up and down windows....

All the technology, I have a hard time relegating the term technology to the electronics gadgetry but any way, for those that want it why not have a dock for your choice of device and not building in a poor imitation of what Apple, Google, Garmin and others do so well. 10 years from now that built in "technology" is going to be sooo out of date plus even now if you have say a nav. system problem the whole vehicle is tied up. Plus after warranty you pay how much for repairs/replacement of this old tech from the captive vehicle manufactures when a new tablet with better performance could be sourced from a competitive market place.

I think that vehicle manufacturers should concentrate on doing what they do best and allow the ever changing electronics industry do what they do best and collaborate to provide a platform to use a variety of phones, tablets etc in the vehicle.

 

We had midsize diesels (Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Ssangyong) in many of the overseas locations that the Air Force sent me. They were "okay." They started, moved people, and hauled stuff. Booooring! They were as exciting as wet bread. Performance was horrible, they were not fun to drive, and you had to let them get warm when it was cold. They normally had manual transmissions, and (almost) all of the gears were where the shifter said they were. They were functional, but they were all dogs.

Granted, the US Government doesn't exactly buy the most top-of-the-line vehicles. We never had issues with our Chevy or Ford crew cab long beds (except maybe with parallel parking). But those little diesels met the need, and we could leave them over there (because they'd never pass U.S. emissions). Would I buy one? Nope. Would I keep it if it was given to me? Probably not.

The requirement for diesel exhaust fluid, the upcharge for a diesel engine, and the significant increased cost of diesel fuel (in the U.S.) makes a midsize diesel a hard sell, especially now that the power and mileage improvements are very small over these new gasoline engines.

 

This. OMFG, I can't stand it when I plug my phone into a car USB port to power/charge it and the effing car hijacks the phone. Really, you think it will be better for me to navigate a 10,000 song library with your suck-ass poorly implemented car interface? I often bring a 12V USB adapter and analog AUX cable with me on trips just so I can actually power the phone and send output to the radio without having the effing car get in my way.

And nav in cars? Seriously? These systems are complete and total shit compared to what any phone will do on its own. I mean the in vehicle nav systems are so laughably bad I don't understand why the manufacturers even bother - except apparently there are dunces out there who will pay $1K to have a shittier version of what is already in their pocket (and which does a better job).

But anyway, if they want to poop half baked electronics features all over the inside of the cabin that's actually fine with me. The costs associated with them are very low and they make very high margin options packages for the company to profit from while keeping the margins on the actual useful parts of the car I will pay for lower.

 

I actually edited my post as you were posting to add "in the US" to it. Because diesels in a midsize really do still have a place in some markets in the world, namely places where you are still allowed to spew pollution all over the place and the taxes on fuel make diesel fuel cheaper for the consumer. Also just having higher fuel prices across the board makes diesel make a bit more sense since you can recoup the acquisition costs quickly in lower operating costs.

But not here in the US as you point out. The much stricter emissions regulations, cheaper fuel across the board, and the increased cost of diesel compared to gasoline in the US makes diesel a pointless exercise in something like a car or mid-size truck.

 

That was a frustrating point for a lot of us. Diesel was about the same price as gasoline in EVERY other country except my own. Seriously?!?

Iraq, Qatar, the UAE, etc. don't necessarily have the same emissions standards. You spew black smoke? Good for you. Fuel is cheap - so what?

Europe was a lot different. Most of the time, you couldn't tell the difference between the diesel and gas motors until they pulled up to refuel. For the German makes especially, the diesels were a far more economical alternative. Then again, their fuel prices are much higher so economy (and environmental regulation) was the name of the game.

In the U.S., diesel is a racket. Someone call an organized crime unit.

 

Actually in Europe the emissions standards for pollution are weaker than in the US. Now they all drive smaller cars and so of course as a whole Europeans consume way less fuel than we do and so that means less CO2 emissions. But for pollutants like NOx their diesel emissions standards are way more lax (though that is changing). So in the recent past in Europe you could emit four times as much NOx than in the US. Diesels emit lots of NOx and it is more difficult to extract NOx from diesel exhaust than from gasoline engines. So that has been another mark against deploying diesel in the US, you have to have much cleaner emissions in the US than in Europe. This surprises a lot of people, sure we expect bad emissions in Africa or China, but actually for diesels Europe is quite dirty as well. And this is coming back to haunt them. Because Europe has unintentionally created big incentives for diesel cars there are of course a lot of them and they pollute quite a bit. So much so Paris and now London are both getting ready to ban driving diesels in their cities!

 

I forget that there are two halves to Europe. West is clean and tree-huggery. East is filthy and dirty. Thanks, Stalin!

 

I'm going to wait until the MSRP is released (MPG too), but I'm seriously considering a 2015 at this point. I'm underwhelmed with what I've seen.

 

I've been thinking about this a few years. Vehicles should just come with a blank screen. You plug in or (when bluetooth connects) and your phone screen is cast onto the blank screen. the size of the screens need to change in these vehicles my phablet is almost the same size.

Companies need to jump on the bandwagon of not using their in house operating system. throw Android in their and use the play store and apps. Google maps is updated regularly while I have to go out and by a dvd?

 

this can be done by lots of aftermarket decks already, and this year android auto and apple car play will do esentially what you are referring to, lots of auto manufacturers are jumping on board with it. Pretty sure its illegal to have the full phone on the screen while driving though. I have to bypass my parking brake wire in order to do it.

I currently have a pioneer nex deck that does this, but my note 4 is almost the same size so I dont bother anymore, I just connect via bluetooth and play what ever I want with my phone in a mount.

 

Ya Pretty much. I have a Nexus 6 and I usually find the address and sit the phone on the dash in front of the gauges.

 

Putting aside the sophomoric comment, the point was that Toyota can indeed put some nicer materials in this area if they weren't so concerned about their bottom line. The competitions lower dash and even the full size domestics have nicer materials in their trucks. This is 2015 after all. I could care less about wireless charging for a phone. Make it optional. But for close $40k price on a mid size truck a slightly better material content isn't much to ask for.

 

Exactly! They could have ditched the GoPro mount and instead had a slot for the smartphone and then either passed the cost savings on to the end consumer or added useful content the truck.

As far as the GoPro mount is concerned I have a feeling that will make for rather interesting warranty conversations down the line.

 

Paying $40k for the 2016 would be insane. I'm hoping for the lower end models to be closer to $30k.

 

It's a really nice truck with lots of features we wanted in our 2nd gen. But 35K-40K for a truck is alot of mulah! I paid 23K DO (tax and fees included) for my DC SR5 V6 2wd w/leather and tow pkg in 2006 for my 07. I know the days of cheap cars/trucks are gone but damn 40K for a truck! I rather buy an entry luxury car for 40K. Like we just got our dad a 2014 ES300h for 42K DO. Just to put things in prospective. With that being said, it is a really nice truck and I can see why people will fork over the cash to get one, maybe including myself lol.

 

I was quoted a 2015 TRD OR DCSB for $32k last month and decided to hold to check out the 2016. If the price of the '16 is close to $40k, I will go with the '15. I can see going up a little, but my limit will be $34k. Anything more and I'll be 2nd Gen owner.

 

Is that with the SR5 package and include taxes? Not bad taking in consideration of inflation. I need to get a second truck for my business but probably end up getting an 05-08 Titan since they are cheap and fairly reliable. Maybe when I can budget a new truck I will trade the Titan for a 4X4 Taco. Rather reinvest the cash into my biz than a new toy at this point. And believe I love my toys but they will have to wait a few years at least.

 

Wondering if it's because they added the GoPro Mount

Maybe they wanted to take away the ability for owners to add their own (Ram) mount for under $20