The 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro Is The Ultimate Midsize Turbo Hybrid Off-Road Truck

As the best-selling midsize truck in America, the Toyota Tacoma is a very important part of the midsize truck segment. Now, a couple of months ago we had a chance to drive the fully redesigned Tacoma out in California. However, Toyota didn't have the TRD Pro or the Trailhunter with the i-Force Maxx powertrain ready for us to drive yet. However, today we're actually out here in San Diego, California, really close to the Mexico border to finally get behind the wheel of the Tacoma TRD Pro and the Trailhunter. As you guys know, this vehicle comes standard with the i-Force Maxx hybrid powertrain. It has even more capability versus the TRD off-road, and it also has a look that really just shows off the beefy capabilities of this all-new generation. So the big question I want answered, if you guys have been looking for the ultimate Tacoma in terms of capability, power, and efficiency, has Toyota managed to create that with the all-new TRD Pro? Stay tuned to find out. So it's crazy to think that it's been nearly a decade since Toyota first showed off the TRD Pro version of the Tacoma back in 2015. And what started out as kind of an experiment for Toyota really turned into a huge sales success. Because if you guys are an off-road enthusiast, this trim level of the Tacoma has always been in hot demand. Dealers simply can't keep them on the lot. So now that we're finally seeing the all-new version of the TRD Pro, I have to say, in this ice cap exterior color with all the black accents in the red interior, this is exactly how I would spec out a TRD Pro for myself. But let's go ahead and talk about some of the styling changes between this Tacoma and something like a TRD off-road or a limited trim. We'll also try to get ahold of a Trailhunter later to show you a brief walk around of that vehicle. But you can see every version of the Tacoma comes standard with full LED headlights. The TRD Pro does get a slightly upgraded LED where it has LED daytime running lights, LED turn signals, which is nice. You also have the Rigid Industries LED fog lights down here at the lower fascia. And then being a TRD Pro, you also have their heritage-style Toyota grille here where it spells out Toyota boldly at the front. You have their forward-facing camera here. You have nicely parking sensors. All of them come standard with Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, which is also a nice touch. And then the hood, as you can see, has a hood vent here and a heat extractor, although I don't believe it's actually functional. It's all part of the look. This hood definitely looks a little bit more, you know, bulging up versus a regular Tacoma. It really gives you a commanding view of the road as well. And it makes this truck feel more like a half-ton from behind the wheel versus like a regular midsize truck. Now you can see with the TRD Pros, you also get more, a better approach angle, and you also have that TRD stamped skid plate underneath. All of them come with the, you know, the skid plates and bash plates underneath as well. And then Toyota also managed to widen the track and also increase the ground clearance. You have a maximum of 11.5 inches of ground clearance. That's between an inch to a half an inch more versus other versions of the Tacoma. You also get the Fox 2.0 racing shocks. That's unique, of course, to the TRD Pro. The Trailhunter model will have the ARB suspension by Old Man EU. It's a slightly different look. We'll talk about that later on. Now you guys probably noticed just how much wider this truck is. It's around 77.9 inches wide, so just shy of 78 inches. It's about an inch wider versus other versions of the Tacoma. We'll talk about the powertrain specs later on during a separate powertrain clip. But let's go ahead and move over to the side profile of this new truck. Now, first of all, you probably noticed the cab configurations. Toyota offers the Tacoma in like an extra cab, for example, and this double cab configuration. If you guys want a TRD Pro, it only comes with the five-foot bed. So you have a five-foot shorter bed, which means the overall length of this truck is around 213 inches long. Its wheelbase is just shy of 132 inches long. If you guys go for the six-foot bed, the longer bed, it is available on the Trailhunter. That's going to have around a 226-inch long overall length. You can see the wheels of this particular model here. This is exclusive to the TRD Pro. So you have this kind of 18-inch matte black finish wheel with the red TRD accents. It's a 33-inch tall Goodyear Wrangler Territory mud terrain tire. It all looks fantastic. You can also see the red shocks along with the Fox upgraded suspension with this truck. It really just kind of shows off the beefiness and the capability. I think one of the reasons why people love the TRD Pro is just the overall look of this vehicle. You can see the fender flares. They are painted in a gloss black that's unique to the TRD Pro. And as you can see... How's it going, Roman? I've got a quick in-and-out question for you. Okay. All right. Yeah, go ahead. This is what I've been thinking, okay? That truck, which we own... Yes. Yeah, that's what you do. $45,000. This truck, $65,000. It is a good deal more. Is it worth it? I'll let you ponder that and I will get out of here. I'm going to have to ponder that, but I do see where you're coming from. Now, you guys will have to let me know in the comment section below if you think there's a 20 grand difference. Keep in mind, the i-Force Maxx powertrain is an additional $4,000 extra. So that gives you the additional power and the efficiency if you guys are comparing the two. Now, going back to the styling changes, you can see the TRD Pro is the only one that gives you the two-tone roof combination. So you have the black painted mirrors here with the integrated turn signals and cameras. These are not power folding though. I would have thought Toyota would have put that considering the off-road capability and just this truck going through narrow passages. You can see the roof is painted black, which I love. This is an additional charge. You also get a standard sunroof. Toyota does not offer a pano roof on this truck. I also love the fact that there's really no chrome trim. You have black painted door handles here. The limited will give you a chrome accent on the door handle. Then you can see over here on the rear, more of those black painted wheel arches. Let me know in the comment section below if you guys like that. On this white exterior color, it definitely stands out in either a good or a bad way. It just shows off that striking contrast, which is nice. Now looking at the rear of the truck, you can see you can tell it's a TRD Pro because it has TRD Pro stamped along the back. There's also an i-Force Maxx badge here with their new Beyond Zero badge here to show that it's a hybrid powertrain, which again is exclusive to the TRD Pro. This model also has a steel rear bumper by ARB. I'm It looks really good with the red painted accessory recovery hooks. The tow hitch, as you can see here, is included in this model. It will tow a maximum of 6,000 pounds, which is pretty nice. Then looking at the bed, you can see this model includes a power opening and closing tailgate, which is nice. A spray-in bed liner it looks like is also included, or that may actually be part of the composite bed. Then you can see with the five-foot bed, Toyota says the payload capacity of this model here is around 1,420 pounds. Now there are other versions of the Tacoma that's going to offer around 1,700 pounds of payload, but it all has to do with the gross vehicle weight. You can see, being that this is a hybrid, you're probably wondering, does it have any actual power? Now here you can see there's actually USB outlets. There's two USB-Cs and an actual 12-volt outlet, which is nice. There's also a little bit of storage here. On the other side, you're going to find a 400-watt household 12-volt outlet, which is also a nice little touch. However, if you guys are looking for something like a Pro Power on board that Ford offers on their hybrid systems, Toyota doesn't do that, sadly. Although they should, they should offer a little more power options. As you can see here, the bed certainly is useful. It has LED lighting. It has the usual cargo areas. But if you guys are kind of looking for a six-foot bed, that's what the Trailhunter is there to give you a little bit more of that practicality. Now moving on to the interior of the all-new 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro. As you can see, we switched to this ice cap exterior to the circuit red leather interior because I really wanted to show you the red. It's unique to the TRD Pro. And as you can see, how could you not notice these seats? These are the IsoDynamic seats, which are unique to the TRD Pro. They have the TRD badging stamped on the actual seat back. This seat, what it means is it's an air over oil or oil over air shock absorber system. And we'll talk about a little bit more how the seats work when we get into the back seat. These seats are also a combination of a power and a manual adjustment. They also are heated and ventilated, which is nice. However, you don't have a memory seat function. I believe that's included if you guys go for the limited trim, but let's go ahead and get inside. Now this vehicle has around 11.5 inches of ground clearance. There's no sidesteps. So getting into the truck requires a little bit of a jump to actually get in for somebody shorter like myself. But as I get in, hoist myself in and shut the door, the door has a nice solid sounding thunk. Remember, this is built off of the TNGAF architecture. Now here's the key fob for the vehicle. Every Tacoma comes standard with the company's push button intelligent access key with the usual buttons here for unlock lock. You can also open up the tailgate, which is power. There's a panic function. Toyota also offers their digital key as a phone, as a key, as an option package on upper trim or on lower trims, or it's available standard on these trims here. And unlike the Ranger where it comes standard again, it's kind of nice how Toyota is including those features. You can see there's a start stop button here, which is red accented to show that you have the TRD model. And then when you turn the vehicle on, because this is a hybrid, the TRD Pro only comes with the I-Force Max powertrain. It starts up in a slightly different way where the engine kind of whirs to life without the traditional starter noise. And then you can see here, the TRD Pro comes standard with all of the great tech features. So you have a fully digital 12.3 inch cluster, and then you have a 14 inch center screen here. And it definitely looks massive in the dashboard configuration of the Tacoma. And I just love this overall look. This is essentially the same interior as what you're also going to find in the new Toyota 4Runner. If you guys haven't had a chance to see our 4Runner video, be sure to click on the link in the description below, where you can also watch that, but let's go ahead and talk about some of the materials. On the door panel here, you can see there's this nice leather stitching, where it has the contrast red stitching. It's nice and padded over here. Down here, you have more of that red leather with the contrast stitching. You also have some nice little grab handles here, which have kind of like a high quality, low gloss feel, where it also doesn't feel really slippery, which is nice. The door handles are just plastic accented. You can see the mirror or the windows are one touch up and down for all four, which is a nice touch. No power folding mirrors, actually. I'm surprised that Toyota didn't put power folding mirrors, considering the price point. You can see, looking at the steering wheel, the TRD Pro has a slightly more unique steering wheel to it, where you have the TRD badging. You have that red 12 o'clock position, and you also have the nice perforated leather. The wheel itself is essentially the same steering wheel on the Tundra, but again, slight tweaks here. You have a manual tilt telescoping adjustment, which is nice. You have all the controls here for your audio controls for the Toyota Adaptive Cruise, part of the Toyota Safety Sense 3.0. No paddles on the wheel. I'm actually surprised that there's no paddles on the wheel, but you can see you have some of the newer switch gear. That gauge display, you can also slightly customize it to where Toyota offers a different look and theme to the display. You can also change what you're seeing on the inside of the display as well by accessing the menus and the settings over here. So that's also pretty nice. And then over here on the dash, you can see you have a hard touch injection molded plastic on the upper portion. The TRD Pros come standard with the upgraded 14 speaker JBL sound, which also includes a little pop out speaker here, which functions as like a center speaker when it's installed. And then Toyota says that when you have it uninstalled or when you're using it, it can last for up to six hours and it can be submerged in water as well. So that's a really nice, cool feature to have. Over here in the center stack, you can see big knobs for your volume, for your dual zone climate control. You also have a heated steering wheel along with your heated and ventilated seats. That's a feature that you can't get on the new Ranger Raptor, for example. So that's something to keep in mind for the increase in the price for this vehicle. You can see there's also some carbon fiber look trim. I don't believe this is genuine, but it also looks really good with the kind of spelled out. I also love how the glove box is also red as well. You can see when you open it up, it goes into the dash. It's stamped, but not lime and felt. It offers a pretty good amount of storage. You also have additional storage over here, which is nice. And then going back to the native system here, you can see my phone was connected via CarPlay. I love the size of the screen. I think it just looks really modern, but it also just looks very sophisticated. You can easily read the icons and everything like that. So if I put the truck into reverse, you can see there's your full 360 camera, which gives you a parking sensors. It also gives you front and rear cross-traffic alert. You also have multiple different views for off-roading as well. You can also go into like a bed view, which is fantastic. This multi-terrain camera is kind of unique to the TRD Pro. You can even kind of circle around the vehicle. This is much better versus what I typically see in a lot of other Toyota products for their full panoramic 360 camera. So this is going to come in handy, of course, when you guys are towing and when you're planning to do some off-roading. So I love how Toyota has seriously upgraded that. Coming back over to the center console, you can see there's a big lever here, gear lever that controls the eight-speed automatic. There is a manual mode and a sport mode here. You also have a wireless phone charging pad here, which is nice, along with two USB-C charging ports. And I believe there's also two more charging ports up here, or one more charging port up here. So that's really nice how there's three up at the front. Down over here, you can see you have your electronic parking brake controller, and then you also have a lot of buttons here because this is the TRD Pro. So you have a drive mode selector here that allows you to switch between a sport, normal, and an eco mode. And then there's also the DAC and crawl control, which you can adjust. There's also a multi-terrain select monitor, which allows you to kind of switch between an auto, a dirt, sand, mud, deep snow. And all these, you know, multi-terrain systems now work along with the crawl control. They also work in four-wheel drive high and four-wheel drive low. That's a new feature. You can see the TRD Pros come with a part-time four-wheel drive system. So you have two high, four high, and four low. The Limiteds are going to have the full-time system. And then over here, you can see you can push that to give you your full 360 camera if you like, where it gives you that slightly useless perimeter scan. You have a locking rear diff on this truck, which is also included on some of the TRD Offroads. You have a stability or stabilizer bar disconnect, which allows for more real articulation. Surprised to see there's an empty button there. I'm not entirely sure what that would control. And then over here, you can see you have your cup holders. You have a nice padded center console armrest here. And if you open that up, it's a little bit on the shallow side, but it provides a decent amount of additional storage, which is great. And then above me here, you can see a standard sunroof, which I believe is standard on the TRD Pros. So you can actually tilt and open this if you'd like to actually vent air. Remember, if you guys are looking at like a Ranger Raptor, for example, a sunroof is not available. So that's one of the reasons why the TRD Pro is more expensive versus its rival from Ford, like the Ranger. So that's something to keep in mind if you guys want those additional features. But let's go ahead and hop into the backseat, because I want to show you guys what the space is like with the isodynamic seats. Now, once you get back here, if you guys remember, the regular Tacoma already only has like 33 inches of legroom. Now Toyota didn't actually mention what the legroom figure is on the TRD Pros, but as you can see, this big area here takes up like another couple of inches. So I'd say this is probably like under maybe 30 inches of legroom. You can see, now you can actually take a look at the shock absorber system for the isodynamic seats. They actually offer, you know, slight adjustments here where you can actually, you know, tailor how much air pressure and oil, I guess, oil pressure you want. You can also adjust this to go from off-road to on-road. This is going to control lateral and vertical movement of the seat. So it's going to really help when you're off-roading. I'll take this vehicle out on an off-road course later, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But you can also see, getting back here, the red theme continues. You have that technical camo pattern, you know, embedded into the actual seat insert, which is nice. And then if you want to access some of the areas here, it looks like I can actually fold this down, which is nice. That allows me to get access to the speakers. And there's also the tools for the jacks, for the jack for the vehicle to jack it up. This window also slides open as well. But the hybrid battery pack actually lives underneath the rear seat here. Now, I haven't had a chance to actually open this, but it looks like this actually doesn't open up anymore. So that probably is the case because this, again, the battery pack lives underneath here. If I figure out how to open it, I'll show it to you in a separate clip. But let's go ahead and hop into the rear seat area of this, because you guys are probably wondering, how is the space for somebody my height? Now, let me get back here, close the door. You can see this is essentially where I'd have the seat to drive if I was driving this vehicle. And you can really see the space back here is really tight. I mean, even for somebody my height, my knees come very close to the actual seat back. There's not a lot of foot space underneath here as well, because again, these seats just take up a lot of extra space. If I wanted to sit back here and cross my legs, I can, but it's not the most comfortable thing. So that's something to keep in mind. If you guys are considering this trim and you need the actual back seat, you probably don't want to go for this model. You can see material quality back here. This is a hard touch injection molded plastic, not quite as nice as the front. It is padded over here, which is nice. I would have liked for them to extend the red leather onto this portion of the door panel like they do on the front seat area. You have a little bit of storage over here. You have still the one touch up down for the window controls, a little bit more storage at the lower end. And then you can see here in the middle seat area, I'm surprised that Toyota didn't want to include a rear center armrest. That would have been nice considering, you know, most people only have two people in their trucks. You can see there's also additional cup holders here. You have two USB-C charging ports, an actual power outlet, but as you can see, no heated rear seats and no rear seat air vents. I kind of wasn't expecting that given the position of the Tacoma. You can see headroom space is still pretty good. There's a nice little carve out here where the sunroof takes up space, but then they give you back headroom again. So overall, again, the Tacoma, the new Tacoma's back seat is already on the small side. Sadly, the TRD Pro kind of makes it even smaller. So that's something to keep in mind if you guys actually need to put adults in the back seat. So we've been waiting almost six months for Toyota to finally release the i-Force Max powertrain on the new Tacoma. Remember, this is the first hybrid ever version of the Tacoma, and it's also the most powerful production version of the truck ever. So this is a pretty important deal for Toyota. So now that we can finally take a look at the engine, Toyota even had this really nice cutaway where we can see a lot of the different components from underneath the hood. Let's go ahead and talk about some of the powertrain specs. So this powertrain is going to cost around $3,700 more versus the standard i-Force engine. And what you're looking at is essentially a combination of the 2.4 liter gasoline direct injection dynamic force turbocharged four-cylinder, but the difference here is the electrification part. So compared to the regular gas only version, there's an electric motor that's sandwiched here in between the eight-speed automatic transmission and this 2.4 liter engine. Now you also probably noticed the engine is mounted longitudinally, which is different versus the 2.4 liter hybrid powertrain that you find in like a Toyota Crown or Toyota Grand Highlander where that powertrain is transversely mounted. And there's only one electric motor that's sandwiched between the engine and transmission. The Crown and the Grand Highlander have two electric motors, one at the front and then a separate e-axle. You can see there's a physical connection here between the gas engine and electric motor going to the rear driveshaft. Obviously you can see the battery pack lives here and it has a 1.87 kilowatt hour nickel metal hydride battery pack. So it's a small battery pack. It basically lives underneath the rear seat. And that's again, good to provide the electric power for the hybrid componentry. And let's go ahead and talk about the powertrain specs. I forgot to mention that when we were up here. So this powertrain makes a total of 326 horsepower and 465 pound feet of torque. That is a big, healthy increase versus the 278 and 200 or 317 that you get in the non-hybrid version. It all goes out through an eight-speed automatic transmission. So no CVT here or six-speed auto like you find in the Grand Highlander or in the Crown. Now Toyota doesn't quote a 0 to 60 performance. We'll get out on the road with a hybrid version of the Limited and see what we can actually do in the real world here in Southern California. And Fuel Economy Toyota just announced that the TRD Pro and the Trailhunter that I'll be focusing primarily on is actually ready to do pretty decent 22 in the city and 25 on the highway. I'm sorry, 24 on the highway. So 22, 24, about 23 combined. That is recommended to run on premium gas. You can obviously run it on regular. This vehicle has an 18.2 gallon fuel tank. So you're looking at around 400 miles of range between fill-ups. That's around 50 miles more versus what you're going to find in like the non-hybrid version. So you do get a decent increase in fuel efficiency, but what you really get is an uptick in performance. The max portion of the hybrid portion is designed to improve the performance as opposed to improve the efficiency. This vehicle with the I-Force Max powertrain can tow a maximum of 6,000 pounds. Payload capacity ranges from 1,400 pounds to around 1,700 pounds. The downside of course with all this complexity and extra components is the curb weight has increased. So a non-hybrid version of the Tacoma is probably around 4,800 pounds. This model here Toyota said was around 5,600 pounds. So that's a hefty 700 pound increase. That's going to obviously offset the additional power, but you are, in addition to the power, you also get better fuel efficiency. So for those of you who are looking for the ultimate in performance, you may want to consider looking at the I-Force Max powertrain. So here we are on an off-road course that Toyota has set up with the TRD Pro. Remember, this is the one that Toyota has designed basically for, you know, that serious off-roading where you want to go slightly higher speeds, which is different obviously from the Trailhunter, which is designed to do off-roading and also carry heavy loads. And for this little first part in the off-road course, Toyota actually said there's a little bit of a jump for me to do. So I basically need to get the speed up to 40 miles an hour and we're going to get some air on that little crest over there where it's a little bit darker color. So let's go ahead and see what we can do. Very nice. Honestly, I barely felt it because it's very sweet. And this you can rip up 40 the whole time. Okay. Yeah. So rally. There you go. So this little course here also gives us the opportunity to test out the, not only the suspension, but the isodynamic seats. Remember these seats have the ability to adjust the, or at least suspend you from all the bumps and such from the suspension in the actual seat. And I have to say this truck feels right at home in this kind of conditions. I mean, they basically told me I can go like 40 miles an hour down here on this little straight straight. And this is something that, or it's a reason why you're going to get the TRD Pro because you shouldn't do this in like one of the other Tacomas, like a TRD off-road. It just wasn't designed to do this kind of stuff. But this thing really feels like a mountain goat up here. It, it feels right at home and I'm loving every, every second of this thing right now. So we're actually at a location here. That's at a ranch, pretty much almost on the border of California and Mexico. So the views have been absolutely stunning. And now we're heading toward kind of the more off-road course area where we can test out some of the ground clearance, the articulation, the TRD Pro model has around 11 and a half inches of ground clearance. So it's a couple inches more versus the other trims of the Tacoma. And this thing, I've been waiting to drive this ever since Toyota first, you know, let me drive the regular Tacoma at the end of last year. The TRD Pro just has a much beefier feel to it. I mean, you can see the hood bolts in this thing. It's about an inch or two, I believe wider than the standard Tacoma. And you also have these big 33 inch tall all-terrain tires. You've got the beefy skid plates. I mean, this TRD Pro is designed to go head to head with the new Ford Ranger Raptor, the Colorado ZR2 Bison, the Canyon 84X AEV. And it just, it feels every bit as capable as those models. And you also get the fact that it's a hybrid vehicle. It's the only vehicle in this segment, the only truck in this segment that comes with this hybrid powertrain. And while I won't be able to take this one out on the road, I will be able to take out a limited out on the road. And we'll kind of show you that footage later on in the video. But I mean, here, this is where you can really test out the Fox suspension and it just soaks up the bumps nicely. The entire structure, remember it's built on the new TNGAF architecture. It just feels a lot more rigid, a lot more refined than the old truck. I mean, obviously you still get more, you know, some of the truck-like characteristics. It's still a body on frame. It still has a live axle in the back, but I really am impressed with the overall dynamics and the seats in this car are so comfortable. They really hold you in place nicely. They do take up space into the rear of the truck even more. But, you know, for those of you who want to do some serious high-speed off-roading, I can see exactly why Toyota put these seats in this vehicle. And I think it could be, you know, worth it to go for the TRD Pro, you know, especially if you're planning to do this kind of, you know, off-roading with the truck. I also kind of understand why Toyota only offers the TRD Pro with the shorter bed, the five-foot bed. If you guys want the longer bed, the Trailhunter can certainly give you that extra, you know, practicality and durability. But I just have the truck basically in four-wheel high right now. Didn't even play with any of the lockers or the sway bar disconnect. And it just kind of goes over this terrain with ease. It almost just feels like we're driving the truck on everyday terrain. Now, this little area here makes it difficult to see ahead of you because of the hood bulge, but you can see, there we go. I haven't scraped anywhere because, again, we've got almost a foot of ground clearance underneath here. But overall, I think for those of you who have been waiting for the TRD Pro, it might actually eventually be worth the wait for sure. Yeah, this thing really just takes the abuse like it's like, come on, what do you, like this is nothing for me. It does really well. That's the thing with Toyota, they've always done stuff like that. Yeah, no, I mean, they're always over-built and over-engineered, especially the Pro models. I can see why so many consumers want, they go after this and Toyota can't build enough of them, honestly. Now, this turn is going to be slow. It's steep, you'll see. Okay, yeah, I felt my stomach kind of leave. And you're going a little quick, I was like, he's going to have fun. Yeah, I'd say they've done good with this truck. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely worth the wait. People have been waiting for this TRD Pro and it's going to be hard to choose between this and the Trailhunter, that's for sure. I mean, the Trailhunter, I can see why it's around, but I still think that Pro might be the one that everyone's going to be chasing after. So here we are finally behind the wheel of the Toyota Tacoma with the i-Force Max powertrain. I have been looking forward to driving the hybrid version of the Tacoma since I first drove this car sometime last year with the base powertrain. Now, that engine was honestly fantastic for what it was. It's a really good replacement for the old V6. Now we're in this limited trim with standard full-time four-wheel drive. It's got an eight-speed automatic and it has 326 horsepower. So let's go ahead and see what we can get zero to 60 wise. We have it in sport mode for everything. We'll brake torque it. Ooh, definitely did not like that. Didn't like the brake torquing. We got 6.98 seconds there. Now again, it didn't really like the brake torquing, so I'll try it up ahead again one more time and see how that feels. But overall, what you essentially notice with this powertrain is the electric motor offers around 36 kilowatts or about 50 horsepower. And it basically tries to fill in the gaps when you're waiting for the turbos to spool up for the 2.4 liter engine. This time we're just going to floor it and we'll see what we can get here. This is on level ground. Ooh, it actually feels pretty good off the line. Smooth shifts from the eight-speed auto. 6.9 seconds there. Now that's it going slightly downhill, but 6.9 is actually not bad. I believe the last Tacoma that I tested back home was the SR5 with four-wheel drive. It had the 2.4 non-hybrid. That did it, I believe, around a half a second longer. So you do have additional weight, of course, by going with this powertrain, but at the same time, you also have that additional power. I mean, 465 pound-feet of that is a significant bump versus the 317 that you get with the standard I-Force engine. Now, again, most people probably won't necessarily need the I-Force Max powertrain, the extra power, but with this powertrain, you also get better fuel efficiency. This model is rated to get 24 MPG combined. 24 MPG combined is a pretty big deal. It's around five, four to five MPG better versus the non-hybrid model. So it's actually a pretty good amount. I'll have to wait until I get one back home to actually test one out to see what we can get in the real world. But I think for most people, that additional fuel efficiency in conjunction with the extra power could be enough to kind of sell you on going with the hybrid version. Now, this model that I am driving also is the limited trim, which means we do have the adaptive variable suspension. It's got the coil spring rear suspension, still a live axle with an independent front suspension. And in terms of the ride quality out on the pavement here, this limited definitely has a softer ride versus what I remembered in the last SR5 Tacoma. The Tacoma in general is built off of their new TNGA K or TNGA F architecture. It's a body-on-frame platform. Everything uses this from the Land Cruiser to the 4Runner, to the Tundra, to the Sequoia. And it definitely has a much more refined feel versus the prior generation. This car or this truck just feels a lot smoother. And even though it's unloaded, it just has a more competent and compliant feel to it. The steering is quick, quick ratio, surprisingly. The vehicle changes directions surprisingly quick as well. It's just the suspension is tuned definitely softer. So you feel tons of body lean. Again, if I switch it over into its sports setting, I do notice that the dampers get a little bit firmer and it improves the handling responses a little bit, which is important if you guys are, you know, driving a back road like this. I mean, the Tacoma still will not let you forget that it's a truck that weighs over 5,000 pounds, but it can surprisingly hold its own. And I'm relatively pleased with the feel of this powertrain now in terms of the, you know, just the trade-off between going between gas and electric, just like in the Tundra with the I-Force Maxx powertrain, this hybrid, this hybrid system is definitely not able to drive this vehicle alone very far on electric only speeds. In fact, most of the times I'm noticing that the gas engine has to constantly step in and it just feels like, you know, it's trying to give you its primary propulsion. The gas engine feels like it's the primary propulsion here. Like in some other, you know, vehicles in the segment or other hybrids that I've driven, you can kind of feel that the electric motor leads off first, not so with the Tacoma. Now, when you do drive the vehicle at low speeds, this is where I'm kind of just slowing down here, just going at parking lot speeds. And it does show that it's driving an electric only mode, which is a pretty cool thing when it's an electric only mode like this, because this allows you to coast and save, you can save a lot of fuel here by just kind of driving the vehicle in its electric only mode. Except anytime I just go near the throttle, it wakes the engine up very abruptly and quickly. Although abruptly is not the word, it is smooth. The transition between gas and electric is relatively smooth. So I am appreciating, you know, how Toyota has tuned the eight-speed auto to work in conjunction with, of course, this powertrain. So let me just try here again. So I'm coming to a stop. You can hear the gas engine has turned off. Let's actually switch the drive mode here just to its eco setting and let's see how the transition is. So again, the battery is only 1.87 kilowatt hours. It's clear and we'll put our foot down again. I barely touched the accelerator and the gas engine wakes up. So just like in the Tundra and the Sequoia, of course, with their i-Force Maxx powertrain, you really are only getting mostly an assist from the electric motor. It's not really, you know, trying to power the truck on gas or electric power because remember, it only has like 48 horsepower from the EV side. So it's kind of thinking of it as like an electric supercharger that also boosts the fuel efficiency. Thankfully though, the eight-speed auto is smooth, responsive. It works really nicely. The engine itself has a nice sound to it. It tries to, again, sound a little bit more like a V6 engine, just like in the gas-only version of this vehicle. No paddles on the wheel for this limited trim. Switch it back into sport mode here. Put my foot down. If you guys want more sound, you're definitely going to be looking at the TRD Pro with its TRD sport exhaust. But overall, the limited grade definitely has more of that luxury refined feel. And I think for most people, I mean, the zero to 60 time in 6.9 seconds that I tested is quick enough, although it doesn't quite match the time that I got in like a Ford Ranger Raptor, which literally did it in 5.9 seconds. That was at elevation as well. So I'll have to wait until I get one back home to test to see what the actual, you know, performance figure is. Let me just try another zero to 60 here really quick. Remember, don't brake torque it. It doesn't like it, but once it gets going, shifts it around 6,000, 6.5 seconds there. So slightly improved, but again, that is more going downhill slightly. So I'll have to wait until I get one back home to really test out the zero to 60 performance. But I think in my preliminary testing, you could expect this model here to be about a half a second quicker versus the non-hybrid version of this powertrain. So with Toyota typically doing around 250,000 Tacomas in the US every year, obviously this is a really important vehicle for Toyota because it is the best-selling midsize truck here in America. It's essentially the truck that every other manufacturer is looking at. And before we close up this video, I thought I'd briefly show you guys some of the differences with the Trailhunter compared to the TRD Pro. Obviously what I'm showing you here is a unique trim because the Trailhunter is new and it has kind of similar like off-road capability as the TRD Pro, but Toyota has built this one to be more of an overlander. So the one that we're showing you here is painted in bronze oxide. And if you guys also notice how long it is, this has the six foot bed, which means the wheelbase is around 145 inches long. Its overall length is 226 inches long. So this is pretty close in length, something like a half ton pickup truck, like a Toyota Tundra in the CrewMax configuration. But I want to show you guys really quickly, the differences here, the Trailhunter has like a bronze finish to its 18 inch wheel. You still have a 33 inch tall Goodyear Wrangler Territory mud terrain tire. And unlike the TRD Pro, this has a different suspension by ARB and Old Man EU. So what this essentially means is you still have the off-road capability that you're expecting with around 11 and a half inches of ground clearance, but Toyota has tuned the shocks and the suspension of this vehicle to be able to withstand heavier loads better. So that's precisely why they offer the six foot bed on this model. If you guys want to put like a camper on top of it, or if you want to, again, carry more in the actual bed to do like overlanding things, to go camping, that's specifically why the Trailhunter model exists. I also want to show you briefly what the interior looks like. You can see this interior color is called Mineral, which is actually exclusive to the Trailhunter trim. It kind of has almost like a grayish, almost greenish tint to it with the bronze accents and contrasting stitching. The seats are still heated and ventilated. And as you can see, also, these are not the same kind of isodynamic seat that you get with the TRD Pro. There's also a slightly different dash trim on the actual dash where it kind of almost looks like a stone material, like a marble material, which is really interesting looking. It's kind of nice how Toyota offers like a slightly unique theme on the Trailhunter to kind of go with its more overlanding style. I want to also show you guys the backseat really quick on this model, because as you can see, without the isodynamic seat taking up space, you do have the full 33.7 inches of legroom. This backseat still, however, does not fold up because that is where the battery pack lives for the hybrid system. Remember, the hybrid powertrain comes standard on this model. I also noticed that the door handles here, instead of gloss black, they are just kind of a flat black. Same thing with the fender flares. And this area here just makes the truck look a little bit awkward, but because of the, you know, Trailhunter's increase in the length, I want to show you guys really quickly the bed. You still have this ability, obviously, to have the power folding or power opening and closing tailgate, but the Trailhunter has a really unique feature. And that's when you look over here. So if you guys remember the TRD Pro had like kind of an open area here where it had a USB charging outlet, but the Trailhunter actually includes a built-in air compressor. So that's really nice if you want to pump up bike tires or fill up the tires when you want to deflate them when you're, you know, driving in off-road or sandy conditions. This bed as well is the same composite bed and it can carry a max payload of around 1,720 pounds. So this is around 300 pounds better versus the Trailhunter or versus the TRD Pro trim. So again, better payload capacity, a little bit more space. I think a lot of people are going to appreciate that when you're actually, you know, using this for overlanding capabilities. Now, if you guys are looking to get your hands on the new, you know, I-Force Max powertrain of the Tacoma, what's it going to cost? Well, this is where the I-Force Max is obviously going to cost you more money. You can get the I-Force Max powertrain on a variety of powertrain or trim levels, but it starts at the TRD Sport trim. Toyota charges roughly $3,700 for the I-Force Max powertrain. And these are heading to dealerships basically now in the spring of this year. So the base price for a TRD Sport is around $46,300. Again, it's almost four grand more versus if you guys go for the I-Force non-hybrid powertrain. Now, if you guys want any of the specialty off-road versions that I showed you, the TRD Pro or the Trailhunter, this is where things get expensive, even for a Tacoma. I mean, if you guys are looking in this class of vehicle, you can compare it to like the Ranger Raptor, for example, the Colorado ZR2 Bison, the GMC Canyon AT4X AEV. The Trailhunter model is going to start at around $62,900. That's for the five-foot bed. That again includes the I-Force Max powertrain, includes the heated and cooled seats, the sunroof. This model here for some reason doesn't have a sunroof because it's an early pre-production model. If you guys want the longer bed, it's an additional $500, so $63,500. And then the TRD Pro, that's actually going to be even more expensive than this model. And I wasn't expecting it to be more expensive, but the TRD Pro will cost you at least $64,900. So that's plus a $1,400 95 destination charge. So you're looking at around $66,000 for the TRD Pro, around $65,000 for the Trailhunter trim, which makes this truck pretty expensive. It's a good $5,000 more versus a lot of its rivals. But as you guys saw with the performance that you get in the off-road situations, especially with the TRD Pro, with the acceleration and fuel efficiency that you're going to get with the I-Force Max powertrain, it could be worth a look. Also just keep in mind, it does offer some nicer features like the heated and ventilated seats, the sunroof that you can't get on the Ranger Raptor. So even though the Ford is a lot less expensive, it also doesn't have quite the same level of luxury equipment. So that could be something of a deal breaker for some consumers, but the Ford does have that twin turbo V6. So my hope is I can get one of these along or a TRD Pro along with a Ranger Raptor, do a comparison test. But with all that said, hope you guys have enjoyed my full overview on the brand new 2024 Toyota Tacoma in the TRD Pro and this Trailhunter configuration. If you're also looking to see the latest trucks I'm testing, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline Underscore Reviews. Like us on Facebook. And as always guys, please keep subscribing to the Redline Reviews YouTube channel for all the latest reviews. Thank you so much for watching. I'll catch you all in the next video.