Pickup trucks are finally getting small again. Toyota will likely join the trend soon. The brand will use the Japan Mobility Show (formerly the Tokyo Auto Show) to show off a compact electric truck. It’s officially a concept. But it looks close to production-ready, and recent trends have proven demand for such a truck.
So, we think this one is likely headed for production soon.
Small Trucks Were Near-Extinct
Automakers went nearly a decade without producing an actual compact truck. The smallest trucks Americans could buy for most of the last ten years were midsize pickups, almost as large as the full-size pickups of a generation ago. Today’s full-size trucks dwarf their fathers.
But, for the 2022 model year, two automakers went small again. Ford, long known for truck sales, introduced the compact Maverick. It’s been an automotive blockbuster – Ford has sold out of Maverick trucks long before the end of the production year ended all three years of the model’s existence.
Hyundai introduced its own compact pickup around the same time, the Santa Cruz. It hasn’t been as successful but is selling steadily. The difference may come down to the Maverick’s hybrid drivetrain or that Americans aren’t used to buying trucks from Hyundai.
But Americans Trust Small Toyota Pickups
Americans do buy trucks from Toyota, though. The brand’s Tacoma has been the king of midsize sales for years. Its full-size Tundra has never matched big trucks from Detroit automakers but has always been the best-selling pickup from a non-American automaker.
It may soon get a younger sibling. Toyota will use the Japan Mobility Show – which kicks off Thursday – to show off a compact electric truck concept called the EPU (possibly Electric PickUp).The interior of the Toyota EPU electric truck concept
Looks Close to Production-Ready
Concept cars don’t always become production cars. Many are treated as design studies, never intended for production, that let designers imagine the future of automobiles. But you can spot those, usually, by their outlandish and impractical features.The EPU lacks any such flourishes. Toyota could bring this design to factories with existing technology.
The concept truck uses a monocoque structure like the Maverick and the Santa Cruz, so it’s not likely much of an off-roader. But it looks perfectly suitable as both a family car, thanks to four doors, and a weekend project machine, thanks to a compact bed perfect for a few bags of topsoil and mulch.
That bed includes a creative tailgate that can unfold into a half-height bed extender.
The cabin looks simple and inexpensive, but that’s what you’d want if assigned to compete with the Maverick. The sole unusual feature is a yoke instead of a steering wheel – a staple of concept cars that almost always disappears for production.
Performance Figures a Mystery
Toyota has offered no performance figures for the truck. But compact pickups don’t sell because of outlandish towing figures or big horsepower numbers. Instead, Toyota notes, the fact that it’s built as an electric vehicle (EV) gives it “a low center of gravity for superior handling stability and ride comfort.”
Toyota sells one electric vehicle today – the bZ4X, which has not exactly hit Maverick-like sales numbers. But the EPU could make an attractive choice for millions of Americans who want a pickup that’s easy to handle in suburban settings and will never ask their truck to tow anything.
And the Maverick has proven that there’s demand for small trucks even in an F-250-crazy country, pointing to an easy way for Toyota to make the EV splash that has so far eluded it.
Chevrolet is reportedly working on its own electric Maverick rival. But if Toyota can bring the EPU to production fast enough, it will likely beat Chevy to the punch.
