Tacoma Chief Engineer on PUTC

We have a suv and we have a pickup.

Why a pickup.
- Woodworking hobby. pickup used to haul wood.
- hiking, camping. Allows access to areas a car would not
- hauling yard debris to the firewise pit and dump. (summer place)
- and most import, I like pickups.

 

If people made purchasing decisions based on rational evaluation and choices then Super Bowl ads wouldn't cost $1M and the entire concept of commercial television and radio wouldn't exist, nor would almost any print media. Marketing is in fact very effective and it has everything to do with suspending rational analysis of purchasing decisions.

The world is full of products that are completely useless and expensive but people trade away significant fractions of their limited time on the earth by slaving away to earn money to purchase said useless crap. These products are easy to throw scorn upon because their uselessness is obvious and they have no discernible function. And many people easily avoid wasting money on them and mock those who do waste their money on them.

There is a huge class of products that in their most basic form do preform a useful function (cars, clothes, houses). However, there is significant profit to be made in getting people to by these products with all sorts of stuff tacked on that they don't need. Or, similarly, to simply increase ones market share even if the product being offered doesn't really match the rational needs of the consumer. Yes, someone does need a vehicle but you need to convince them to buy your vehicle even if it really isn't the most sensible vehicle for them.

My theory is that SUVs have been co-opted by soccer moms leaving insecure men feeling emasculated when driving them. This has left the truck as the "manly-man" vehicle for men with families. They don't need a truck really. They need a vehicle that preserves their self-identity. At the moment social perception guided by marketing has defined the truck as that vehicle. Watch any ads for trucks and clearly this is what the targeted demographic is. Contrast to the ads for SUVs which are clearly targeting women.

So while a truck is useful, and some fraction of the market is purchasing trucks to use them as trucks to haul things the majority are not. More importantly, the part of the market the manufacturers are targeting to grow into are specifically not at all interested in using them as trucks. So the sensible thing to do is make something that rides more like a car or SUV but provides the veneer of a truck because what is being sold is the image of a truck and not necessarily the practical utility of a truck.

Another obvious niche truck market often clearly on display around TW is the truck not as a tool to haul things, or provide off road access, but as an object perceived by the owner as a tool to successfully get girls to remove their panties. It isn't clear to me that this works at all having never tried it myself, but obviously a bunch of people are confident that it does and they support a thriving market of 6" block lifts and fake beadlock wheels.

Bottomline, don't assume your reasons for buying a product are the same as everyone else's.

 

Great post, my roommate is a perfect example of the bottom part about panties with the diesel lifted he dosent need. I for one have my tacoma so I can fuel my hobby and get my bike to and from the track every week, so I use it at least once a week. I will admit I was once lured into the idea that men drive full sizes and girls like big trucks and owned one for a brief moment, but realized it was too much for my needs and as you noted OP, there is no proof girls even know anything about trucks let alone will drop their panties for a big lifted one, and what kind of girls are those anyway.

 

So they are building the engine in Alabama huh....I wonder how well that will work. 1st year of a new engine, that hasn't been in any other production Toyota vehicle, and it is made in the US.....

 

I hate to say it but I think a lot of potential Tacoma owners are going to jump ship. I love the Tacoma but so far not too impressed with the gen 3.