Signs of the times
The New York Times is reporting that Toyota is planning to stop production of it’s Tundra truck and Sequoia SUV for three months this year to adjust for decreasing demand (Toyota Scales Back Production of Big Vehicles). They have also decided to re-purpose a new plant in Mississippi to manufacture their hybrid Prius instead of trucks.
I think this is a fantastic move for Toyota who, in my opinion, misjudged the market when the revised their truck lineup to make the Tundra and Tacoma trucks larger. This is especially true of the Tacoma, I owned a 2004 Toyota Tacoma and absolutely loved that truck. I thought it was sized perfectly. The new Tacoma is larger, but doesn’t really add any more utility. It seems as though Toyota made the truck larger for the sake of making it larger. I would have preferred that they focused on making the existing truck better, not just bigger.
