Would You Buy a Hybrid Toyota Truck?
Toyota plans to offer a Hybrid Toyota Truck by 2025. But who will buy them?
When Toyota recently announced that they would offer hybrid and/or all-electric trims on every model they make by 2025, it was both surprising and unsurprising. Unsurprising because electric power is clearly the future, and Toyota has long been at the forefront of that shift. Surprising because every model means trucks and SUVs. And a Hybrid Toyota truck is a much harder nut to crack than a Hybrid or EV sedan.
After all, the folks that buy Priuses are nothing like the folks that buy Tacomas and Tundras. They don’t care about things like towing and payload capacity or off-road capability. Yet, all those things are a huge consideration among truck buyers. For their part, Toyota promises to offer “heavy-duty” hybrid systems for their truck lineup. But will buyers be convinced?
After all, truck buyers tend to be less concerned with things like gas mileage than car buyers. Aside from basic capability, which is the reason we buy trucks, there are plenty of other potential concerns here. How rugged and reliable will a Hybrid Toyota truck be? Will it run for hundreds of thousands of miles like its gas counterpart? And how often will the undoubtedly pricey battery pack need to be replaced?
Toyota truck owners have come to expect the incredible reliability that the brand has become famous for. Any hiccups in this kind of transition could seriously damage that reputation. Or, at the very least, make the Hybrid Toyota truck lineup a dud on the sales charts. Toyota will need to sell truck owners on other potential benefits, like using the hybrid system as an auxiliary power source, to make it viable. Otherwise, we wager that most folks will continue to stick with fossil fuels.
