For its third generation, the 2022 Toyota Tundra pickup truck got an overhaul from the ground up.
For that makeover, the Tundra underwent top-to-bottom changes inside and out.
There are three big areas where the truck has the latest tech of any Toyota vehicle: powertrain, towing and infotainment.
Powertrain
One of the powertrain options available on the new Tundra is a turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 that’s paired with an electric motor. This hybrid powertrain can net the driver 437 horsepower and 583 pound-feet of torque.
But the engine, dubbed the i-Force Max, doesn’t behave like the hybrid engine used in the Toyota Prius, which would run the electric motor in place of the gas engine under a set of parameters. Instead, power allocation differs depending on user-selected drive modes.
In an interview, Craig Herring, senior engineering manager of the Tundra’s powertrain, told Newsweek that the motor operates on a series of algorithms that determine the most efficient use case for the power source.
Front and center is a “power-based algorithm”.
“There’s a lot of different variables there that go into that,” he explained. “But one of the main, key attributes there is really the driver’s input or load requirements. So, based on their vehicle speed, how much are they pushing the gas pedal? How much power do they want? How much torque do they want to get to the wheels?”
Jay Sackett, the Tundra’s executive program manager, added that there are algorithms determining those things in every drive mode. “Not only is there an algorithm for normal driving, but there’s algorithms…across the different drive modes depending on what the driver is experiencing,” he said.
Because simplicity for the driver was a key focus in the Tundra’s development, Herring noted that the powertrain and design teams collaborated on how best to show customers where power was going and when, which he says isn’t part of their usual development cycle.
“A lot of the time the design guys don’t actually understand how the powertrain works and the powertrain guys don’t understand the design requirements,” he said.
Usually, the powertrain team thinks about how it wants to showcase power dynamics but not overload drivers with information. Extra in-vehicle work with the design team, he says, was the key to finding that balance.
Towing
The towing system has also been overhauled. Sackett, who oversaw much of its development, said that customer research showed that more people use the Tundra for towing than competitors’ full-size vehicles.
From the outset of the creation of the new-generation Tundra, he says, the goal was to make a “premium towing machine” that would give drivers “competent, natural performances”.
The Tundra comes with two tow modes, Tow/Haul and Tow/Haul+.
Those two modes were designed based on what Toyota saw as the average towing customer and the 95th percentile towing customer. The average customer, towing about 5,000 pounds (lbs), would use Tow/Haul while the 95th percentile, towing 12,000 lbs, would engage Tow/Haul+.
Tow/Haul mode increases the truck’s throttle response for towing things on the lighter side, like utility trailers or smaller boats. Tow/Haul+ makes for a more aggressive throttle response for hauling a larger box trailer or RV.
“We changed the shift points, we changed the throttle mapping, we changed the wastegate control to be able to give better engine response based on that total vehicle road load and trailer mass,” Herring explained.
Steering inputs, suspension stiffness and ride height are also adjusted for the weight and length of whatever you’re hauling.
Trailer Back Guide technology can assist drivers by directing drivers to make steering inputs in the reversing of a trailer, with the Straight Path Assist feature taking that a step further by automating those steering inputs to take some of the stress away from backing a trailer into a tight space.
Ford’s F-150 lineup of pickup trucks offers a Pro Trailer Backup Assist steering system and Trailer Reverse Guidance that’s similar to the Tundra’s Trailer Back Guide and Straight Path Assist. Towing packages on the 2022 Chevrolet Silverado and 2022 GMC Sierra allow for up to 15 different viewpoints from a number of rear-facing cameras to help with towing.
Safety features like blind spot monitoring have been extended to take a trailer into account. When a towing mode is active and a trailer is attached, the Tundra will adjust the car’s blind spot to extend six meters off the back of a trailer that is up to 60 meters in length.
Infotainment
Toyota general manager and chief engineer Brian Inouye oversaw the development of the new Audio Multimedia System, what the company internally calls “21MM”.
He told Newsweek that the aim was to correct some of the mistakes the company has made in the past with introducing new technology, which had a tendency to confuse customers and not blend well into the overall driving experience, traits that many Toyota vehicle reviews have noted over the years
“It has to add value for the customer,” he said. “That’s what we focused on. So we kept it simple. People ask ‘why don’t you do more apps and XYZ’ and we will over time. But we wanted to start by regaining customer confidence. We recognize and we heard you loud and clear from past platforms and here’s our best foot forward.”
A central feature to the new multimedia setup is the Intelligent Assistant. Akin to Siri in an iPhone - and other voice assistants being employed by other automakers - a driver can say “Hey Toyota” can perform a number of functions like finding a point of interest and navigate to it.
The voice assistant was built in-house, which means that Toyota can set the parameters on how fast it can respond and what information to give to the asker.
Inouye says that that allows the company to be “the traffic cop,” filtering out relevant information to answer a query. If the on-board unit can answer a simple question, there’s no need to search the cloud for an answer, which saves the driver time in searching databases.
A team at Toyota is adding new information to the system all the time, like jokes, math problems and health-related information.
Toyota continues to work on having the assistant anticipate driver needs. In the near future, if a driver would like to listen to a certain podcast on a commute or has a favorite place to stop for coffee, it will suggest those based on the regularity of those activities and time of day.
Inouye says that the goal is to reduce time spent answering “the million questions” about where you want to go and what to listen to, “so that you can focus on just your driving enjoyment.”
The system’s new User Profile feature can save personalized vehicle settings, including climate control info, in the Toyota App. Those profiles can extend across Toyota vehicles, not just the one sitting in the driveway.
The Tundra can also serve as a 4G LTE Wi-Fi hot spot with the ability to connect up to 10 devices at once.
Underpinning all of this, however, is six different subscription services. Toyota offers every new Tundra with 30 days to three years of free trials for the services.
The new multimedia system, and many of the new technologies that the company developed for the Tundra, will soon show up in other new vehicles in the Toyota lineup soon.
That includes the recently-revealed 2023 Toyota Sequoia, where the i-Force Max hybrid engine will be standard.
The Tundra is built on the company’s new TNGA-F platform, which will also serve as the base for the new Sequoia, as well as the Tacoma and Land Cruiser, and Lexus LX.
