{"id":1884835,"date":"2026-04-16T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1884835"},"modified":"2026-04-16T03:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:25:00","slug":"toyota-knows-few-japanese-buyers-want-a-lhd-made-in-america-tundra-pickup-but-its-selling-it-there-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1884835","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Knows Few Japanese Buyers Want A LHD Made-In-America Tundra Pickup, But It’s Selling It There Anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Typically, when we think of forbidden fruit<\/a>, we’re thinking about the cool cars sold in other countries that we don’t get<\/a> in the U.S., but it’s easy to forget that the U.S. gets plenty of cars that aren’t sold in other countries, too. So it’s pretty significant that Toyota is planning to offer the full-size Tundra<\/a> in Japan, along with the Highlander<\/a> and, eventually, the Camry. Why anyone in Japan would want an America-sized pickup truck, I have no idea, but maybe Toyota sees an untapped market that’s larger than you’d expect. Except the brand doesn’t expect to sell many at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do I know this?\u00a0I wish I could tell you I got the information from a highly classified source inside Toyota, but I’m not nearly charming enough to pull that off. Instead, I simply read the press release, where Toyota spelled it out in plain language. According to the release from Toyota Global, the Japanese automaker expects to sell 80 Tundras a month in its home market, while Highlander sales are predicted to be half that. Doing a little back-of-the-napkin math, that works out to fewer than 1,500 sales a year. For comparison, Toyota sold 12,949 Tundras in the U.S. last month alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because Toyota knows there’s basically no demand for a full-size pickup truck or an aging three-row crossover in Japan, anyone who buys one will only have a single trim option available. If they go with the Tundra, they’ll get the 1794 Edition, and if it’s the Highlander, they’ll get the\u00a0Limited ZR Hybrid. Want something different?\u00a0You’ll have to find it elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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As far as pricing goes, Toyota plans to sell the Tundra 1794 Edition for\u00a0\u00a512,000,000 and the Highlander\u00a0Limited ZR Hybrid for\u00a0\u00a58,600,000. At current conversion rates, that’s about $75,500 for the Tundra and $54,16 for the Highlander, but you typically get a better picture of what something really costs when you compare it to what else you can buy in the same country for similar money. Here’s what a few notable base-model Toyotas cost in Japanese yen:<\/p>\n