We try to fact-check as much as possible during our article editing process. Such was the case this morning with Alex Dykes’ review of the newest Toyota Tacoma, and specifically the portion where he said that all manual Tacomas are paired with four-wheel drive.

There are two ways we normally check such a claim: an automaker’s media site, which provides detailed vehicle information (though not necessarily in a user-friendly format), and an automaker’s consumer-facing website, which contains all those fancy marketing words, pretty pictures and the typical “Build and Price” tool employed by virtually every full-line automaker as a way for us gearheads to waste time at our desk jobs on Friday afternoons.

However, while I was fact checking Mr. Dykes’ manual = four-wheel drive claim, the configurator said I couldn’t have a manual transmission on the Tacoma — at all.

Say what, Toyota?

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Toyota’s small trucks have long been associated with bulletproof reliability (and occasionally militant militias). Despite the Tacoma splitting from the legendary Toyota Hilux bloodline in 1995, the Taco (as some fans refer to their trucks) has continued Toyota’s rugged and reliable image. A big factor in the Tacoma’s long-term reliability is the Toyota’s philosophy to change: it should happen slowly and only when necessary.

Although the 2016 Tacoma is dubbed an “all-new third generation,” just like we see in the Camry, large portions of the design are carried over from last year’s model. This is excellent news for some, but may come as a disappointment for others. The changes are enough to keep brand loyalists happy, radical enough to be called a re-design, but sedate enough that folks eyeing a GMC Canyon may not be swayed by the lure of Toyota’s legendary reliability.

In a nutshell, Toyota swapped in a set of tried-and-true transmissions, fitted a Lexus V-6 under the hood, tweaked the frame with stronger steel and covered the truck in new sheetmetal. On the inside, we get a new dashboard, infotainment systems from the Toyota Highlander and a steering wheel from the larger Toyota Tundra. If you’re a Taco man, that’s all you need to know before you run out and buy one. For the rest of us, click past the jump.

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Toyota’s Senior Vice President for Operations Bob Carter has been quite the chatty cathy Thursday. According to Reuters, the automaker is planning to boost production of its Tundra and Tacoma to help meet demand for trucks next year, in part, because supplies of the trucks are so low today.

Toyota has roughly 20 days supply of its Tundra and only 10 days supply of its new Tacoma, which has sold like hell since it was introduced last month.

“If you were to ask any of our U.S. dealers what they want, I’d say every one of them would say ‘More trucks,'” Carter told Reuters. Or more Tacomas?

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Executives at Toyota say they expect extraordinary car sales to continue for two more years — although they may not be record-breaking years — before the industry finally slows from its current pace, Bloomberg reported (via Detroit News).

Low gas prices and a better economy will lead automakers to nearly 18 million car sales this year, which could surpass the previous record of 17.4 million set in 2000.

Next year may not be as good as this year, according to Bob Carter, senior vice president of operations for Toyota in the U.S., but it could be close. Even at 17.4 million sales for 2016, industry-wide, “you’re still going to see a smile on all of our faces,” he told Bloomberg.

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Toyota and PSA announced Tuesday that they would continue to build a van for European markets for light commercial and passenger duty and unveiled their newest Toyota Proace/Peugeot Traveller/Citroen SpaceTourer eggs.

The three vans, which look virtually identical short of their shades and faces, are all produced at PSA’s factory in Valenciennes, France.

While the Toyota version looks like one of those samurai crabs, it’ll likely never set foot in the U.S. and that’s a shame — commercial vans are the new hot thing for automakers, you know?

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Editor’s note: This is TTAC’s second-most popular review of the last 12 months. It originally ran February 26th, 2015. You guys (and gals, I assume) sure love your SUVs.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are road tests, and then there are off-road tests. In a typical road test, writers use the car on their daily commute, playing with all the features and determine which bother them and which don’t. There may be some family activities thrown in, like going on a weekend trip or driving around the soccer team carpool. Sometimes, they might attempt to verify the manufacturer-reported performance numbers and use their smartphone to record 0-60 acceleration times and lateral g-forces in the corners. Other times they might go to the hardware store and fill the trunk with bricks to cargo volume and payload capacity. But most of the time, writers just utilize the car for day-to-day activities, evaluating a product in the most mundane of circumstances.

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Our friends over at AutoGuide have a juicy story about a patent filing from Toyota that details a decidedly BRZ STI-looking drawing that may signal a performance variant on its way.

According to AutoGuide, the patent, which was approved in Japan, was filed by Toyota, but named Subaru-parent company Fuji Heavy Industry as its owner. The patent was approved so let’s get them on the lots already.

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Toyota will build the next generation RAV4 and RAV4 Hybrid on its new global platform in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada near the Lexus RX in 2019, the automaker announced Tuesday.

The plant, which recently lost production of the Corolla to Mexico, would receive a significant upgrade to the Toyota New Global Architecture line that could be used to produce other cars in the future. In a statement announcing the RAV4’s production, Toyota executives touted the Cambridge and Woodstock plants as the “North American hub for sport utility vehicles.” Read More >

I was driving along the other day and I realized something: the Toyota Highlander Hybrid is currently the most popular vehicle in North America.

Okay, this might be a slight exaggeration. For instance, I am told that the bicycle is quite popular. But on a list of today’s most popular vehicles, the Highlander Hybrid is right up there with the bicycle, and the wheelchair, and that Ford pickup that sells more units in an afternoon than Ferrari sells globally in an entire calendar year.

It is very obvious to see why the Highlander Hybrid is so popular. For one thing, it’s a normal family SUV with three-row seating, which is incredibly hot right now; so hot that I am quite certain it is not actually possible to rear children in today’s society without a three-row SUV. If you showed up at a child’s birthday party in a Toyota Camry, and you had forgotten to dress your child, and you had brought the wrong child, and your child was vomiting all over everything in sight, people would not call attention to your child-related issues. They would ask: Why don’t you have a three-row SUV?

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Toyota will open a new artificial and robotics R&D company to be called Toyota Research Institute, Inc. (TRI) with an initial investment of $1 billion to open two locations in the United States, the automaker announced Friday.

TRI, which will make its headquarters in Palo Alto, California and establish another office in Cambridge, Massachusetts near MIT, will be led by Dr. Gill Pratt, a former academic in the field of engineering and program manager at DARPA.

“The investment is in addition to the $50 million investment over the next five years with MIT and Stanford to establish joint fundamental artificial intelligence research centers at each university,” said the automaker in a release.

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Welcome back for another installment of “Ask Jack”, the place for you, the man on the street, to ask me, the man on the Internet, any question you like on any topic that makes its way into your mind.

Today’s question seems like a simple one: do you stay in the Matrix or not? In this case, the Matrix is a Toyota Matrix, with the all-too-common manual-transmission failure. But to properly answer the question, we’ll need to consider everything from solo ocean journeys to bad seeds in a magic bus.

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* A cautionary tale. 

Traversing the great state of Wyoming with hundreds of pounds of men, gear (including a Chairman Mao stencil) and snacks needs no fewer than 14 cupholders.

(Two cupholders were used for drinks, the rest were used for toy cars and various empty wrappers.)

Building a family car isn’t a trick. Rather, it’s a compromise between size and economy, comfort and capability, familiar and futuristic. Anyone can build a battleship, but moving it down the road at 25 miles per gallon requires some finesse.

This isn’t a story about the Littoral combat ship. Instead, it’s a story about three overweight men, eight hours to wonder aloud in a van in Wyoming about Nixon, road noise and absolutely no legal marijuana from Colorado crossing interstate lines. (Sorry to get your hopes up.) Read More >

Toyota unleashed Wednesday its version of Marty McFly’s dream truck based on a 2016 Toyota Tacoma for one day only. The truck added a special paint scheme and … wait, one day only? 

The trucks went on display Oct. 21 in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas before presumably bursting into flames.

At least Toyota detailed how it built the 1985-esque truck for the one day we’ll ever get to see the truck.

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Lexus released Wednesday a hint of what’s to come from the automaker’s 2015 Tokyo Motor Show display. According to the automaker, Lexus will be showing their “vision of progressive luxury” — which is vague-booking at its finest.

Although many believe the concept will be the automaker’s next-generation LS — which is certainly plausible considering Mercedes-Benz S Class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, et al. — it could be something different; Lexus has the Mirai and new Prius (aka CT) to play with from Toyota.

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If history is any indication, North American consumers may get their first look at the Scion C-HR at the New York Auto Show in April 2016.

Autoblog confirmed Tuesday that Toyota would show off its production-ready cute ‘ute next March at the Geneva Auto Show. Last month, Scion teased a concept it would be showing in Los Angeles next month, widely considered to be the C-HR in Scion clothes. Both announcements may mean that the C-HR is following a pattern started by the Scion iM.

In 2014, Scion showed off an “iM Concept” in Los Angeles before taking the wraps off the production version in April 2015 at the New York Auto Show.

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