The 2022 Ford Maverick remains red hot months after its launch, routinely ranking as one of the top-selling new vehicles on the market and even outclassing its big brother, the Ford Ranger, in that regard as well. As of right now, the Maverick doesn’t have any competition outside of the Hyundai Santa Cruz, however, which it is also easily beating out in terms of sales while conquesting Honda Civic owners at high rates to boot. Regardless, many other automakers – including General Motors and Volkswagen – don’t intend to get back into the compact pickup game for now, though Toyota might, according to a new report from Automotive News.
“There is space” in the Japanese automaker’s lineup for a compact pickup below the Tacoma, Jack Hollis, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor North America, told Automotive News. “The question is, how to fill it?” He went on to say that Toyota has “continued to look” at the newly resurgent compact pickup segment, “and we’ve continued to look for a long time,” Hollis added.
“Tacoma has been amazingly successful,” added Cooper Ericksen, group vice president for product planning and strategy at Toyota Motor North America. “But we’ve reached a point where we can’t get bigger, frankly, because of ‘garageability’ – the ability to fit it in the garage, and that’s a huge selling point. It’s undeniable that those products have a place in the market. And how big is that segment going to get? I don’t know, but it’s something that we need to be looking at and figuring out if it’s an area we should play in.”
Ericksen did make it a point to say that any prospective new compact Toyota pickup would need to be larger than the small trucks it built in the 1980s and 1990s, however. “That’s probably not what we need. We probably need something a little more spacious on the inside, more of an SUV-with-a-bed concept, so it’s really dialing in,” he said. “And the more that Ford sells, frankly, the more that Hyundai sells, the more we’ll be able to get good research on who these customers are, why they want this vehicle, and we’ll see if that’s the space that we want to enter into.”
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Comments
As thy say, “ imitation is the fondest form of flattery”.
Hopefully it’s not as cheaply made as the Maverick.
If it’s a Toyota there’s not much chance of cheap– made or priced. That’s why I jumped on the Maverick. I’m more focused on usability and cost to operate than bells and whistles to impress others. If Toyota comes up with a mid to upper 20s truck with close to 40MPG it’d be appealing to me but if it’s close to 40 grand and gets mid 20s MPGs, I have a Silverado that cost a lot less and gets close to that in gas milage.
Anyone who is going to invest into a new vehicle ground up now, is going to make it an EV. That will give them a head start on everyone else, especially with the popularity of the Ford Lightning.
facts say otherwise
I can’t thank enough for not delivering my Maverick that was placed back in October. I have owned 2 Toyota Tacoma’s in the past. They are 100 % better than a Maverick. Yes they cost more. 2 months ago I bought the Hyundai Santa Cruz. I am more than 100 % happy. My model was $800.00 cheaper than my Lariat. You can’t imagine all the safety features and self steering. Thank You ford again. I’ll take a vehicle made in Alabama over Mexico.
the thing with the maverick is it’s way cheaper, bigger, and as efficient as any compact or midsize hybrid crossover/suv, so at comparable MSRP it has no competition unless you are comparing a fully optioned lariat. if you don’t care about high trims, it’s starting price is also cheaper than almost any car except the spark/mirage/versa/rio/accent/Impreza. it even beats the efficiency of all those subcompact/compact cars.
garage accessabily is a must for my MAVERICK and egress for me would be great as I have arthritis in both knees. looking forward to aug 15 to place my order. at 91 I hope I will be lucky to own one.
Oh look, Ford Authority wrote an article about Toyota and mentioned the maverick in passing just because it’s supposed to be FORD Authority. It didn’t even tell anything. Straight from the article, Toyota has stated that it has been evaluating and monitoring the compact truck segment for years. So that makes the maverick reference pretty much moot. One thing the rest of the comments have right for sure tho, if they ever make one again, it won’t be cheap.