Kia Tasman's rival..Toyota Pickup Tacoma Popularity Soars

Apr 06, 2025

Photo courtesy : carguy(www.carguy.kr)



With the launch of Kia's first pickup truck, Tasman, this month, the market is heating up as consumers' attention is focused. The Korean traditional pickup truck market has changed from a single model of KGM Rexton Sports (+ compartment) to a competitive structure.

If you expand to the global market, there is a model that has recently been rapidly increasing in popularity in mid-sized pickup trucks. The main character is Toyota Tacoma. Tacoma's sales in North America surged 178% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year due to the emergence of a new model. Tacoma is sold more than the popular Toyota model, Corolla.

The mid-size pickup truck Tacoma, which emerged as a complete change, is currently the third best-selling vehicle in the Toyota lineup. Relatively among Toyota's crown lineup, Sedan Signia is struggling, falling 66.8%.




Sales of the best-selling subcompact SUV Rav4, which has come around the time of complete change this year, fell 8.4%, but the full-change model was recently spotted going through tests.

In March of this year alone, newly designed Tacoma saw sales jump 188.2% year-on-year to 23,949 units.

Good news doesn't end there, and Tacoma sales are up 177.5% year-over-year in the first quarter of this year.




Tacoma's tremendous success ranked it the third best-selling vehicle among Toyota's lineup in North America last month. The sales are next to the Rav4 (41,509 units) and the Camry (29,661 units). Surprisingly, Tacoma sold more than the popular model Corolla (21,495 units), which starts at $22,325.

Looking at the success factors, the introduction of enhanced hybrid power trains led consumers to choose. Tacoma has a 2.4-liter gasoline turbo engine as standard.The i-FORCE Max version, a hybrid trim, combines with a 1.87 kWh battery to produce a combined output of 326 horsepower and a high torque of 64.3 kgf.m.

Its powerful power and fuel efficiency exceed 11 kilometers per liter, overwhelming competitors. Tacoma's domestic launch is also being carefully discussed. Meanwhile, the same-class pickup Kia Tasman is pointed out as a disadvantage that fuel efficiency is poor with a single automatic specification of eight stages on 2.5 turbo gasoline in Korea.




Editor Song Moon-cheol mc.song@carguy.kr





This article was translated by Naver AI translator.