Toyota engineer: We're making Tundras, not war

At least for a time, Toyota will have the newest full-size pickup on the market late this year with its first full redesign of the Tundra in 14 years.

Yet the Japanese brand — which nine years ago used a Tundra to tow the space shuttle down a Los Angeles street — has no interest in jumping into the pickup wars that have raged in the segment for decades among the Detroit 3, says the vehicle's lead engineer.

"We're not trying to catch up" with domestic competitors, Mike Sweers, the executive chief engineer for Toyota's trucks, told Automotive News last week. Instead, Sweers said, "We're trying to make the next-generation Toyota truck. We have our own unique standards, and making a truck that will meet our [quality, durability and reliability] is really the ultimate goal."

The 2022 Toyota Tundra — which was scheduled to premiere Sept. 19 in a 60-second commercial during "Sunday Night Football" and will make its first public appearance during Motor Bella near Detroit this week — doesn't have a tailgate that does fancy tricks or an on-board generator that will provide emergency power to a wedding.

What it does have is an improved and overbuilt suspension for off-roading, an electronic system to keep a trailer straight when backing up, an optional hybrid powertrain tuned to add extra towing power and a composite bed intended to keep damage to a minimum for those who use their pickup for work, Sweers said.

"Do we have the most bells and whistles and gadgets? No, we'll never be that company," said Sweers. "But do we have an indestructible truck, or an overbuilt truck? Absolutely."

Toyota is moving all of its body-on-frame vehicles onto a single, unified platform it calls F1. Under the unified platform, the front portion of the platform is shared, as is the rear, with the size of the center box altered for different wheelbases, Sweers said.

The first vehicle to make the jump was the recently launched next-generation Land Cruiser, which is no longer sold in the U.S., while the Tundra is second, to be followed by the Sequoia, Tacoma and 4Runner in the U.S. Other global body-on-frame Toyota vehicles, including the popular Toyota Hilux pickup, will also move to the new platform.

Sweers, who has been with Toyota since 1990 and lead engineer on the Tundra since 2010, said the redesigned pickup benefited from the new unified platform strategy because it enabled additional off-road capabilities borrowed from the Land Cruiser, while the Land Cruiser picked up additional towing capacity. Though fuel economy numbers aren't yet available, he also promised the Tundra's numbers will be "competitive," given the engine switch from the current 5.7-liter V-8 to a turbocharged V-6.

Sweers, who operates a farm in mid-Michigan and spent more than 18 months on assignment in Japan developing the F1 platform, said the biggest factor that will drive the next-generation Tundra with customers will be the pickup's durability, something buyers rely on. He said as development started, Toyota repurchased a current-generation Tundra that had been driven more than 1 million miles by a customer and tore it down, looking for any items that wore and could be improved.

"Our customers take great pride in getting 500,000 or 600,000 miles out of their truck," Sweers said, "and I need to protect for that [many miles] or more."