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Nissan
There’s a Fight a Brewin’
The 2016 Nissan TITAN XD, which made its world debut at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, is set to shake up the highly competitive full-size pickup segment when it goes on sale in the United States and Canada beginning in late 2015 - with a bold all-new design that stakes out a unique position in the segment between traditional heavy-duty and light-duty entries.
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Budd Stanley, Toyota and Nissan
There’s a Fight a Brewin’
The Toyota Tundra is king of the Japanese truck makers, but is that in danger?
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Nissan
There’s a Fight a Brewin’
The 2016 Nissan Titan will be powered by a 5.0L Cummins turbo diesel.
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David Dewhurst Photography
There’s a Fight a Brewin’
Early hints at the 2016 Tundra refresh have shown that there may not be a drivetrain update.
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Nissan
There’s a Fight a Brewin’
With the new Titan offering better power and fuel efficiency, it could move past the Tundra as the most dominant truck built from a Japanese-based manufacturer.
Story & photos by Budd Stanley, additional photos courtesy of Toyota and Nissan
Will Titan take on Tundra – and win?
We all know about the beat down grudge match that is being fought between the Big Three for half-ton pickup truck supremacy. It is fight that has become so bitter over the years that each side is guilty of some nasty tactics. Everything from creatively fudged numbers to fear mongering and commercials questioning ones manhood should you purchase a competitors vehicle is wreaking as bad as an American presidential campaign.
While Ford, GM and Chrysler clobber each other in an effort to sell more trucks than the other guy, we have another battle quietly brewing in the background.
When Toyota and Nissan jumped into the half-ton market, they both had delusions of grandeur, they were building better cars than the big three, why couldn’t they build better trucks and get a piece of the largest market in North America? Reality hit both manufacturers hard, as cracking the truck buyers’ habits proved difficult for a foreign-based automakers.
Of the two imports (even if both trucks were designed, engineered and built in the U.S.A.), Toyota better deciphered the North American full-size truck market, and has since enjoyed being the best of the rest.
However, as we rapidly approach 2016, it would seem as though we are coming to a turning point. There is a sense of uncertainty in the air, a sense of change, a primordial rising of ones senses and adrenalin when the detection of possible combat fills the air. There’s a fight a brewin’.
While Toyota and Nissan have always been quiet rivals, there was always a forgone conclusion, Toyota was just going to sell more Tundra’s than Nissan could Titan’s. But that could change soon.
While there was no “first volley” to signal hostilities in this rivalry, the ramping up of tensions was actually triggered by one side showing a weakness. Back in 2013, Toyota pulled the covers off its redesigned Tundra. While the truck received some bold new designs, Toyota chose to not fiddle with the two large V-8 powerplants that have been powering the Tundra for years. At that time, Ford, GM and Ram were all building highly fuel efficient, smaller displacement engines for their half-tons, putting Toyota at a disadvantage in terms of fuel consumption and towing capacities.
While that came as a surprise to many, there was word that Toyota might have an ace up their sleeve. Wards Auto reported that Toyota was talking to Cummins about getting the 5.0L turbo diesel, the same engine that will be in the new Titan when it arrives in dealerships this fall. Ward hinted that the Cummins powerplant could be implemented into the Tundra for its mid-cycle refresh in 2016.
Well, Toyota has given a select few a look at the refresh, and it is noticeably missing any powertrain updates. Mostly, the Tundra is getting a couple grille design changes and some trim package alignments.
Meanwhile, over at Nissan, the launch of the new Titan XD is full-steam ahead. We know for a fact that the 5.0L Cummins will be in the engine bay and Nissan will offer several trim levels from work, to off-roader, to a plush luxury truck. While we have no hard numbers on the 2016 Titan, we’re quite certain that it will have the Tundra beat in terms of power, towing capacity and even fuel efficiency. So what does this do to the market, will Nissan take Tundra’s spot as the number four full-size truck? Will it even take on some of the domestic market trucks? Does Toyota even have an answer?
That last question is the most poignant, because Toyota has to have an answer. The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is forcing them to, as it ramps up its CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations. In 2017, trucks will be required to meet fuel efficiency standards of 9.4L/100km, 9.0L/100km by 2022 and 7.8L/100km by 2025. Come 2025, all automakers will be held to a 4.3L/100km CAFE regulation spread across their whole fleet. Toyota’s strength comes from its fleet of extremely fuel efficient cars, backed up by a whole family of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and soon hydrogen powered cars, keeping the fleet average amongst the best for mass production automakers.
So, what is Toyota’s game play? Unless they are looking to swing for the fences, and drop the hydrogen bomb on the full-size truck market (a hydrogen powered truck is ambitious even for Toyota), they have several options. Toyota has a V-8 turbo diesel (the 4.5L 1VD-FTV) already in production that would need some fettling to become compliant with North American regulations. They have also been working hand in hand with Hino on a V-8 diesel in the past. Toyota were once dominant in the world of turbos when they were all the rage back in the 80’s, but a more likely possibility is they are working on an Atkinson Cycle version of the engines currently in the Tundra.
Toyota will be launching the 2016 Tacoma this fall, and it will be equipped with an Atkinson Cycle 3.5L V-6 in place of the outgoing 4.0L. It is quite likely Toyota are readying this same fuel saving technology for a V-8 to be implemented into the Tundra. In other Toyota’s, this technology has improved fuel efficiency by up to 30-percent.
Then we have the Nissan, which is a pseudo heavy-duty, “not quite a three-quarter-ton, but not a half-ton either,” type truck. Have they chosen this path because the Cummins isn’t quite what everyone had hoped? While the powertrain will most definitely produce a more powerful and efficient Titan, it might not be competing fuel efficiency-wise with the likes of the EcoBoost and EcoDiesel. While we don’t know what Toyota has planned, we will be one of the first to get our hands on the Nissan and will have the full rundown in a future issue.
Whatever the case may be, Nissan are going to jump into the fight before Toyota, and that could see a shift in power. The coming months and years should be quite interesting to watch when it comes to the imports. The domestics have now all made their beds, and they will likely all continue down the path that they have already chosen, whether it be diesel, turbos or high-efficiency gasoline powered trucks. With the imports, we still just don’t quite know. Let the competition for powerful and fuel-efficient trucks begin.