Payne: Toyota Tundra i-Force MAX is a mean, green fightin’ machine

Posted by Talbot Payne on February 5, 2022

Carmel Valley, California — The best pickups are Swiss Army knives. From towing utility to off-road fun, today’s trucks offer a tall toolbox of capability.

Add the 2022 Toyota Tundra i-Force MAX to the list. MAX as in maximum hybrid performance.

I usually get my grins in the Carmel Valley region from driving sports cars at Laguna Seca, one of the country’s premier racetracks. But with a whopping, best-in-class 583-pound feet of torque and an independent rear suspension — specs you’d expect to find on a Dodge Viper SRT, for goodness sake — the Tundra hybrid was a hoot to drive through the surrounding hills.

Barreling along Carmel Valley Road, the 6,000-pound four-wheel-drive beast gulped asphalt, its composed chassis predictable as my left foot dipped into the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 hybrid’s deep lake of torque.

“Did you try SPORT-Plus mode?” grinned Toyota truck chief engineer Mike Swears after a returned from a day of misbehaving. Yes, I did, its quick shifts belting me in the back like — well, a Viper SRT — in order to MAX-mize torque.

Pushing the envelope of performance modes shows the expectations Toyota has for i-Force MAX. The first clean-sheet Tundra since the 2007 Stone Age, the light duty truck is a comprehensive remake learning the best Swiss Army features of pickups from Ram to F-150 to Silverado to Sierra.

The 2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid TRD Pro can two nearly 11,000 pounds, go off-road, and accelerate hard with its big twin-turbo V6 hybrid.

This is a mean, green fightin’ machine.

Like GMC, Tundra brings a muscled bod with meaty fenders and upright fascia — all snapped together in a bold style that will make LEGO fans drool. “Outta my way” shouted the big grille as I bore down on a line of traffic like a Humpback whale swallowing a school of fish. Toyota has been on a mission to get your attention with polarizing mugs (seen a Lexus RX grille lately? Yikes!) but cow catcher grilles work on macho, locomotive-sized pickups.

Macho has been the name of the game in pickup bed wars. After Ford rolled out its first all-aluminum body in 2015, Chevy Silverado threw down the gantlet. The bow-tie brand claimed its steel beds were tougher with hard-hitting ads that included dropped toolboxes and bears ripping apart aluminum cages. There was more testosterone in the air than a WWE bout.

With the added weight of hybrid batteries in his Tundra, engineer Swears looked long and hard at aluminum for weight-saving — but lost sleep over those dropped toolboxes. Toyota customers had already complained of scarring in their steel beds.

The 2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid features a composite bed for durability.

So Toyota went a third way: composites. Composites — though pricey — offered a handsome veneer, the strength of steel, the light weight of aluminum. And Swears’ team had years of experience with them in Tundra’s little brother Tacoma’s bed.

Tundra has also learned a thing or two from GM brands’ bed accessibility. The signature corner steps on Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are a 10 — easy, accessible. In the macho truck wars, no one can copy anyone else without losing face (F-150 for example, offers a complicated, stick ‘n’ step option). But Tundra offers a simple step that swings out from below as soon as the gate drops. Give ’em a seven out of 10.

From Professor Ram, Tundra learns a smooth, multi-link rear suspension.

The handsome interior of the 2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid echoes the exterior's bold, LEGO-like blocky style.

Climb inside (at 6’5” even I needed the A-pillar handles in the high-riding Tundra TRD Pro trim) and the interior follows Ford with a digital tour de force. Starting at $35K, Tundra trucks get Toyota’s typical standard suite of features, including wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, blind-spot assist, adaptive cruise control and auto headlights.

By the time you ascend to Limited trim — where the hybrid engine kicks in — the Tundra is slathered in goodies including hydraulic chassis mounts and crisp 12.5-inch instrument and 14-inch console displays. They anchor an interior that echoes the exterior’s LEGO look. I opened the panoramic roof to let the California sunshine bathe the cabin.

The 2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid sports big, all-digital interior displays.

The Toyota, true to its meat ‘n’ potatoes QDR mantra (Quality, Durability, Reliability), doesn’t match the Ford with luscious full-screen graphics and show-me toys like disappearing gear shifter and fold-down console desk. The cockpit is comfy, easy to navigate with cubby storage everywhere. Toyota prides itself on QDR, but it could use some of Ford’s obsession with detail. Six-footers like me sit close to the rear ceiling — a negative if a frisky TRD Pro driver takes to a country road — and the head-up display was difficult to read in bright sunlight.

The breakthrough here is the hybrid powertrain.

Squeezing the throttle, I shot past traffic with the 1.87 kWh nickel-hydride battery under the rear seats negating turbo lag with instant, diesel-like torque. Unlike a diesel, the twin-turbo V-6 kept howling at high RPMs. Grille like a Sierra AT4, performance like a Sierra 6.2-liter V-8.

Federal MPG mandates have put automakers in a vise. Toyota can weather the storm with its deep bench of hybrid Camry and RAV4 powertrains, but diesels have become a liability with their high-sulfur emission requiring the construction of an onboard chemical scrubbing plant.

So Toyota fashioned a one-motor (as opposed to two-motor in the Camry) system that does it all: low-end towing/fuel economy/open-throttle joy in one package. The system begs comparison with Ford’s hybrid F-150 offering, but the latter is more tech- and mpg-focused with its 25 mpg and onboard, 7.2-kW inverter so you can fire up the barbie at a tailgate party.

The Toyota mill is focused on good old-fashioned performance with a nice 45% torque boost over the outgoing V-8. I miss that V-8 roar, but the V-6 makes a nice song under the cane. What I missed more was the lack of sub-rear seat storage since that’s where the battery is stored.

The 2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid Capstone easily towed a 4,500-pound Airstream trailer with its low-end torque and high-revving V-6.

Tundra clean-and-jerked a 4,500-pound Airstream with ease. Then it got dirty off-road in TRD Pro trim with 33-inch Falken tires, three skid plates protecting the underbelly, and eye-catching orange paint.

Trucks are the new luxury, and Tundra Hybrid plays in a space more familiar to Lexus buyers. Not to mention F-150s, Silverados and Rams. The Limited Hybrid starts at $54K, nearly 20 grand north of the standard twin-turbo-V6 model. Want to TRD Pro? Get out $68,500 for my tester. At $75,225, you can have a Tundra Capstone.

Pricey, yes. But so is a $50 Swiss Army knife compared to the $12 pocket variety.

2022 Toyota Tundra i-Force MAX

Vehicle type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, five-passenger pickup

Price: $53,995, including $1,695 destination charge ($68,500 TRD Pro and $69,110 1794 trim as tested)

Powerplant: Hybrid, 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 with electric motor battery assist

Power: 437 horsepower, 583 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.7 seconds (Car and Driver est.); towing, 10,340 lbs. (Capstone as tested); payload, 1,600 lbs. (TRD Pro)

Weight: 6,010 pounds (TRD Pro as tested)

Fuel economy: EPA: 20 mpg city/24 highway/22 combined

Report card

Highs: Pickup presence; eye-popping, i-Force MAX performance

Lows: Interior lacks Detroit Three panache; no sub-seat rear storage due to battery

Overall: 4 stars

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.

Comments are closed.