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Huge aerodynamic improvements despite the flat front
Another thing that really surprised me was how much the designers at Toyota talked about the hundreds of hours spent in the wind tunnel. The last Tundra wasn’t great in terms of fuel economy, and while we haven’t seen EPA numbers for the new one yet, we at least know that improvement was a major focus in the design of the new Tundra. They developed an active aerodynamic system with both grille shutters and an air dam that engage or disengage depending on the circumstances.
According to Tundra Chief Platform Engineer Mike Sweers, only the air dam improves the aerodynamics of the truck by 5%. The air dam is there to improve aerodynamic efficiency at highway speeds, but the engineering team noticed that it actually made the truck’s fuel economy worse when towing. So the air dam appears and moves away the second you plug in the connector of a trailer. Sweer said raising the air dam improves the tundra’s drag coefficient when towing by 26%.
The air dam is a resin part, which means it should both take abuse and be fairly inexpensive to replace if you tear it out. There’s a breakout clutch that’s there to keep you from doing that, however – if the air dam hits something, it will automatically push the dam up behind the bumper.
It’s not just the active stuff that’s awesome, though. This time spent in the wind tunnel paid off in visible ways, such as the shape of the roof and the shape of the front bumper. This is the first time I’ve seen a regular pickup, no street truck, special edition, with a lip spoiler on its tailgate, for Pete’s sake. Less noticeable is the reduction Sweers claims in the truck’s drag coefficient – a full 20%.
Toyota kept its popular sliding rear window for this generation, which presented its own aerodynamic challenge. Dropping all the windows and letting the air through is quite nice in good weather, which is why I avoided putting the rear window back on my race car despite it being an obvious aerodynamic penalty. In the Tundra, however, that meant objects in the bed could be sent back into the cabin through the rear window. Sweers, who uses his own tundra to hay hay and has encountered the problem of chunks of hay himself indoors, has made this problem a priority – and claims it has, thanks to time spent in wind tunnel in this new generation truck. .
Overengineering is a theme here
The customers Toyota reps seemed to mention the most were those who complained that the Tundra’s odometer was not going high enough. Sweers even mentioned the fact that Toyota bought back a million-mile Tundra that worked in the oil industry, which, as anyone who’s ever spent a lot of time in West Texas can come back here, is notoriously difficult for his trucks. This truck held up pretty well apart from its beaten steel bed, which directly influenced the switch to a lighter but more durable composite.
Even then, Toyota tried to strengthen it wherever they could. “How can we improve the areas that do not concern us? Sweer asked. It’s understandable: they have a reputation for reliability that precedes them, and that’s one reason a customer might buy a Tundra over another pickup that tows or hauls more. There’s a lot to be done on this all-new design too, especially since it’s adding both a new engine and a hybrid to the Tundra for the first time.
One of the internal components they exhibited was the new Tundra’s 1.75-inch transfer case drive chain, which they took out along with the 1.25-inch half-ton drive chain. ‘an unnamed competitor who uses transfer boxes from the same supplier, Borg-Warner. . They wanted key components like this to be very strong, so they’re noticeably thicker.
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