Due to the lack of competition, the Ford Maverick easily controls most of the small pickup market at the moment. New rivals are on the way; both RAM and Toyota are preparing their players in the segment, and we are particularly interested in the Japanese car maker, which is about to bring back a well-known moniker.
What are the chances that the 2025 Toyota Stout will get the top-selling spot in the compact segment? We’ll try to find out through some of the model’s most important strengths.
Single Cab Layout
If you want to be a class leader, you have to offer diversity. If you check other segments in the automotive industry, the most popular models are almost always those with the biggest range of versions, whether it’s about engines, trim levels, or something else.
In the case of the 2025 Toyota Stout, the trump card could easily be the additional body style. Namely, body pickups are comfort-oriented vehicles, so all of them come exclusively in crew cab layouts, which doesn’t leave much space for the cargo bed.
Things aren’t much better in the midsize segment either, where just a couple of manufacturers still offer extended cab versions. Most of them also offer nothing more than crew cab and short bed configurations, which leads us to the conclusion that the only way to get a genuine work mule is to get a full-size pickup, which isn’t always the most affordable choice.
On the other hand, the regular cab Stout has been in talks for a long time, and if the Japanese car maker really offers such a configuration, that’ll be quite refreshing. We don’t doubt that such a model would contribute to the Stout’s popularity. Most likely, it wouldn’t be as popular as the crew cab model, but it could be a deciding factor in beating the Maverick in terms of sales numbers.
Class-Leading Fuel Economy
It looks like, for the first time in a very long period, fuel economy is one of the deciding factors among truck buyers. After all, it is one of the top reasons for the Maverick’s popularity because its hybrid setup is capable of returning 42 MPG in the city and 33 MPG on the highway.
With Toyota, a hybrid powertrain is a certain thing, and one of the first setups that come to mind is the one that powers the RAV4, which will be the 2025 Stout’s closest relative. That system offers around 220 horsepower, and its fuel economy would be similar to Ford’s pickup.
But Toyota could install something even more efficient than that. Namely, there’s another hybrid system based on a 2.0L inline-4 engine, sold in models like the Corolla and C-HR, primarily in Europe.
That system offers a max output of nearly 200 horsepower, which is still more than what the Maverick does. More importantly, this system is even more efficient and has the potential to make the 2025 Toyota Stout a class leader in this aspect. It’s still early for the exact numbers, but we believe that such a Stout would be able to return more than 40 MPG combined pretty easily.
Attractive Design
If there’s a thing we don’t like about small pickups, that’s the styling. On one hand, you have the Hyundai Santa Cruz that borrows the Tucson’s aesthetics, including that polarizing front-end design. Even if you don’t like it, it’s not something you would usually expect to see on a pickup.
That may be one of the reasons why the Santa Cruz can’t keep up with the Maverick in terms of sales, even though it is a superior pickup in many aspects. In the case of the Maverick, things are completely the opposite. Although it looks a little bit rugged, it features an extremely dull and uninspiring design.
This is where the new 2025 Toyota Stout could really shine because if you look at the renderings, you will see design cues from the Compact Cruiser concept, which is expected to hit the market next year as an all-electric off-roader. With such a design that looks rugged, off-road ready, and definitely has some X-Factor, the Stout would look miles better than the competitors.
That would certainly be a strong selling point, especially for those who look for a lifestyle type of vehicle, and we’re pretty sure that there are many of them.
Safety Features
Traditional body-on-frame pickups usually don’t come with too many advanced driver assistance features, but things are a little bit different when it comes to body pickups. The Santa Cruz stands very well in this aspect, but the Stout’s key rival, the Maverick, is still missing a couple of essentials, especially in more basic variants.
On the other hand, Toyota traditionally offers a full load of safety features in base versions of its models, so we expect the same from the new 2025 Toyota Stout. The Japanese car maker recently introduced the latest iteration of the well-known suite of driver assistance features, the Safety Sense 3.0, which doesn’t just bring new systems but upgrades the old ones as well.
We expect Toyota to offer a full load of standard equipment, which would include goodies like automatic emergency braking with pedestrian, cyclist, and motorcyclist detection, along with goodies like lane departure alert, lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, and many more. Also, there’s a completely new system called proactive driving assist, which applies gentle braking in corners to make driving more engaging and improve safety.
Off-Road Version
Another thing that comes to mind is a dedicated off-road version. The Maverick indeed comes in such a variant with pretty decent off-road upgrades, but we’re once again getting back to the Stout’s anticipated styling, which could evolve into such a good-looking off-roader with proper upgrades.
Besides styling updates, such a model would also have to feature a solid portion of off-road hardware to become successful. We’re thinking of things like increased ground clearance, bigger all-terrain tires, off-road shocks, low-range gearing, a rear locker, and many more.
Build Quality and Reliability
Toyota has been enjoying the reputation of the world’s most reliable car maker for decades, so we expect nothing less from the new Stout. Moreover, that model will be based on the familiar platform and share most of its parts with the world’s most popular crossover, the RAV4, so we really don’t see how anything could go wrong.
Proven powertrain options, relatively simple design, and the company’s famous quality control are pretty clear indicators that the Stout will most likely be a pretty reliable vehicle, which isn’t something we could say for the Maverick. Just like the rest of the Blue Oval company, the Maverick has been dealing with several recalls and customer complaints in the last few years.
This goes all the way beyond pure reliability; there’s also the matter of build quality, because we’ve heard so many complaints about badly assembled parts on the new Maverick, whether it’s about seat belts, bed covers, decals, or something else.
Toyota, on the other hand, is famous for its quality control, which includes the famous Kaizen principle, where every worker has the right to stop production until the problem is fixed, in order to maximize quality and efficiency.
Affordable Price and Good Resale Value
We can talk about quality, reliability, or efficiency all day long, but these things don’t mean much without a competitive price. That’s why one of Toyota’s key goals is to make the new pickup competitively priced. The mitigating circumstance is that the Maverick has gotten much more expensive in the last few years.
Base models are now those with a turbo-4 and cost around $25,000, while the hybrid is available at around $26,500. Those are the sums that Toyota can compete with. We still can’t say if the Stout’s price is going to be the same, a little bit higher, or a little bit lower.
The exact sum will depend on the standard powertrain, amount of equipment, and similar things, but it should be somewhere around. We think it would be enough for many buyers to choose the 2025 Toyota Stout over rivals, given all the things we’ve just mentioned in this video. Moreover, Toyota models are traditionally characterized by strong resale value, so we expect the same thing in the case of the small pickup, which is also a deciding factor for potential buyers.
Availability
It may be great, but the Maverick is currently very hard to get. So far, people have been waiting months to get their ordered models, and the same thing will most likely continue in the future, even though the Blue Oval company promises a significant increase in production capacities for the 2024 model year.
Allegedly, Ford is forming another shift to increase production by 80,000 units per year, but is this going to be enough to meet the demand? We’re not sure. For that reason, many potential buyers could turn to the new 2025 Toyota Stout because, with this experience, we’re pretty sure that Toyota won’t make the same mistake and underestimate the demand for such a small pickup.
After all, Toyota has always been known for excellent logistics, and even in times when the whole world was dealing with a shortage of semiconductors and other parts, the Japanese car maker was able to keep the workflow at a pretty high level. In other words, buying a Stout shouldn’t be as complicated as buying a Maverick. No order books, no waiting list, just a regular visit to a local dealer.
