Toyota has begun a long, slow drip of teasers for an all-new 2024 Toyota Tacoma pickup. America’s best-selling midsize truck, the Tacoma is due for a redesign. The latest drop confirms that it’s coming and that it will get here with hybrid power.
When Toyota posted a photo of a pickup silhouetted against the stars to Instagram last month, we guessed that the 2024 Tacoma was breaking cover.
Toyota confirmed that this morning with a notice that the Taco truck “is all-new for 2024 with electrifying i-FORCE MAX performance.”
In Toyota lexicon, that means a hybrid is coming. Toyota uses the i-FORCE MAX name on the hybrid version of its Tundra full-size pickup. There, it describes a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 with an electric motor, making a total of 437 horsepower and 583 lb-ft of torque.
That seems like too much power for a midsize platform. So we’re guessing Toyota has reused the name for something more size-appropriate, such as the 2.4-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder and electric motor combo found in the 2023 Lexus NX350 hybrid. It’s good for 239 horsepower in that application and could probably put out a bit more retuned for a pickup.
The announcement came along with a photo. It doesn’t show much – just a tailgate above a cloud of dust. But that tailgate is labeled TRD Pro – the name of a well-known off-road-specialist trim. It’s shaped much like the tailgate of the current Tundra, with a faux spoiler built into the gate itself in scratch-resistant tailgate-liner material.
That fits in with last month’s teaser, which suggested a boxier, more muscular truck.
