except me I guess. I mean I don’t plan to buy one but im very interested to see what Toyota does with it. There are some things I see here that I like
First and foremost I think we need to give credit where its due, toyota claims to have put bigfoot detectors on the tires, which is a feature thats...frankly...long overdue.
They’ve also added Lift-up, which I assume is the new cross your heart seatbelt I’ve been hearing about that is supposed to support, lift and separate.
An interesting thing is the reversible deck board. It’s an interesting thought but truthfully has water been getting on the deckboard been a problem for anyone...ever? I guess the slick surface would be good for loading heavy gear and crap to preserve your carpets.
What I DO like and I think is important and a deeply underrated feature, Toyota has made conscious efforts to increase visibility by lowering door lines, and moving mirrors.
Oh, plus its got one of these things...which is probably pretty cool.
On the hardware side we know 3 things:
1. A dynamic Force 2.5 liter engine.
2. An 8 speed non-cvt transmission
3. “Dynamic torque vectoring”
For 1, we know its the A25A-FKS, found in the camry. Its capable of over 200 hp in that configuration and 40% thermal efficiency...which is nutty. Sounds like it could be a great engine.
In regards to #2 its the Aisin AWF8 and it’s also a crazy cool design, it has 8 distinct ratios from 2 planetary gearsets and is SMALLER and lighter than the outgoing 6. Its got very low 1st gear ratios but in AWD applications doesn’t seem to be geared for a lot of fun. 5.25:1 first gear but only 3.0:1 final. There is a version with a 3.2:1 final which would be great for the adventure model, but even still a 16.8:1 first gear is far off the pace of the already insufficient 20.9:1 in the Jeep single speed trailhawk models. Expect so/so results in terms of any kind of crawling ability.
3. This one’s a mystery, but from the looks of the RDM, it looks to be real torque vectoring. By the fact that they say it decouples I would bet its a GKN twinster or something like it. It’s like Honda’s i-VTM4 and it’s probably going to underwhelm.
It looks like Toyota finally figure out how to do exhausts though, so they aren’t hanging down and getting smashed into stuff. A full undercover means a nice smooth off road slate to avoid smashing low hanging bits. finally.
On the topic of off-roadiness, it now comes with the trendy “dial-a-terrain” systems for “enhanced escapability”...Neat... I suspect it’s just a matter of throttle and brake traction intervention logic and neither of them will work terrible well compared to just turning off the TC and sending it, which being a Toyota will be an insanely difficult prospect to accomplish on account of their “no TC off for you!” policy.
Last but not least, Toyota wisely bought stock footage from Utah to use in their promo. Good job (White rim, Hogback road, near hanksville respectively)
This is the end of the words I’ve written.