6 even cooler things about the 2024 Toyota Tacoma

LOS ANGELES — When the 2024 Toyota Tacoma was revealed in May, Automotive News reported six cool things that the redesigned midsize pickup would feature when it starts rolling into U.S. dealerships in December. We had the chance to drive it this month in Southern California and dig deeper into the longtime segment champ. Now, here are six even cooler details about the Tacoma's first ground-up makeover in 14 years.

1. Death to blind spots

With a mix of new and established technologies, Toyota engineers and designers have made it possible for the driver to see — or at minimum detect — objects that would have been obscured from view in earlier Tacomas. For example, off-road versions equipped with an optional multiterrain monitor allow the driver to watch, via the infotainment screen, a combined image of not just what's around the pickup but what's under it as well. The technology uses images collected by the forward camera to extrapolate terrain as it's being passed over.

When towing, optional equipment extends the pickup's blind-spot monitor to sweep farther outward to include potential obstacles on the sides of certain trailers, making lane-changing safer. Available accessory equipment transmits a clear view from the rear of a trailer to the digital rearview mirror, making it far easier to back into tight spaces — potentially without the need for a spotter.

2. Isodynamic seat's child-assisted development
Toyota's cool new isodynamic off-road seat won't be available to the public until the i-Force Max-powered Tacoma TRD Pro launches in the spring. But the innovative off-road seat's development is a great story.

The seat uses built-in adjustable shock absorbers that work in tandem to keep the driver or front seat passenger's head in a central, nearly stable position, even as the Tacoma's body moves up and down or side to side over rough terrain. "It's about taking those peaks off and keeping you in-phase with the vehicle," explained Todd Muck, an executive engineer with Toyota Motor North America's R&D center in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Muck, who previously worked at Johnson Controls and has been with Toyota since 2004, developed the first prototypes of the isodynamic seat in his Lansing, Mich., home garage during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. "My wife and kids were holding parts as we were rolling them out" to try and find optimized shock angles, Muck told Automotive News. "The biggest trial and error was trying to place those shocks and have the seat function the way you wanted it to and the way you intended it to."

The finished results have been fantastic, Muck said. "We've had over 150 people through this seat" including top Toyota executives, he said, "and not one person has had a negative comment."

3. Toyota's first production use of a solid-state battery

The 2024 Tacoma will mark the automaker's first official production use of a solid-state battery in one of its vehicles — although it's probably not the use they'd like it to be given all the development work going on in Japan and elsewhere on advanced energy storage.

The battery isn't in the powertrain — it's in the JBL Flex Bluetooth speaker.

The speaker is integrated into the dashboard of some versions of the Tacoma and can pop out for external use, and it can be linked with similar JBL speakers. The small solid-state battery provides up to 10 hours of power, depending on volume level. The speaker also can link with either the vehicle or another Bluetooth source, such as a smartphone.

4. Catalytic converter now much harder to steal

According to Carfax, current Toyota Tacomas had the ninth-highest incidence rate of catalytic converter thefts among vehicles in the U.S. in 2022, up 15 places from 2021, reflecting their location and relative ease of removal. Toyota engineers tackled the problem by moving the converter into the engine bay, where it is protected it by its own shielding and the front wheel wells. The move was done in part to aid converter efficiency, Tacoma chief engineer Sheldon Brown said, but it didn't hurt that the new location made the expensive component far more difficult to steal.

5. Special Bilstein shocks have extra smoothing power

The Tacoma has historically been popular with off-road enthusiasts, at least in terms of pickups, because of its size and capabilities.

Toyota engineers worked with Bilstein to develop special monotube shocks for the TRD Off-Road trim that feature an external reservoir and what they call an "end stop control valve" to provide increased dampening at full force and better heat dissipation when the shock is under extreme use.

Along with a new stabilizer disconnect mechanism, enabled from a switch near the gear shift, the combined system will not only ease off-road shocks but help keep all four wheels in contact with the terrain.

6. Embedded high-lift jack points

Speaking of off-roading, all of the off-road vehicle trims have integrated high-lift jack receivers embedded into the bumpers. The receivers help protect the Tacoma's body when using a high-lift jack, a common and necessary recovery tool in certain rocky environments.