As Toyota North America senior vice president Jack Hollis told Automotive News, their lineup “has a void below the mid-size Tacoma pickup,” and “the question is how can we fill it?” fill this void”.
The Toyota leader also shared that they are still monitoring the situation of the small pickup segment in recent times.
In the past, Toyota used to have a small pickup on the market, it was the first Tacoma (1995). However, when entering the second generation in 2004, the car was upgraded to the mid-size segment to better suit the needs of customers at that time.
Among the all-new models launched in 2021, the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz are both in the small pickup segment, and have achieved great success. The segment that has been forgotten by Americans for decades to follow large cars is now a trend. This is partly due to the fact that sedans and SUVs no longer hold the same unique position as before.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz was the fastest-selling model at U.S. dealerships for some time, while the Ford Maverick posted impressive sales growth that pushed it into a “scarce” situation, forcing Ford to temporarily stop accepting deliveries. New orders for cars until this summer.
Meanwhile, in addition to Toyota, another Japanese car company, Honda, is also “moving” for this race. The common point of Hyundai Santa Cruz and Ford Maverick is that they both use a monolithic body structure to optimize comfort instead of multi-terrain performance. It is worth mentioning here that Honda is the brand that “popularizes” the upper segment with the previous Ridgeline pickup, but the Japanese brand has never effectively taken advantage of this spearhead. The company is expected to launch its small pickup version in the near future. In fact, Honda is not difficult to launch such a model, they can either downsize the Ridgeline a bit smaller or can pick up the current ZR-V / HR-V.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: autopro.com.vn – Read the original article here
