The next generation of the Tacoma truck may inherit the part-electric powertrain of its senior cousin, the Tundra, as evidenced by this teaser pic showing the tailgate.
The image is far from revealing, but check out the ‘TRD Pro’ badge. Toyota puts it on off-road versions of mass-market cars, including the Tundra (see video). There is also another badge, which says ‘i-Force Max’. It is the name of the hybrid system powering the Tundra.
As such, we suspect the new Tacoma may come powered by the same 3.5-liter V6 assisted by a single electric motor and a ten-speed automatic transmission. It may even be based on the same TNGA-F platform as its larger counterpart.
The i-Force Max hybrid setup drives the wheels of the Tundra with 443 PS (437 hp / 326 kW). The Tacoma TRD Pro may get a slightly less powerful version of it, just enough to compete with the Ford Ranger Raptor V6 3.0 with its 397 PS (392 hp / 292 kW).
The launch date remains to be announced. An earlier teaser said ‘April 4’, but as we learned yesterday, it simply referred to the date of the next teaser.