Not as simple as supply and demand in North America. Toyota is lagging the CAFE standards with their current SUV lineup. They'll need to make efficiency changes across the board in the next few years. Perhaps this can be done with refined powertrains for the short term. However, as 2025 creeps up, bigger changes must be in order, and there may not be any room for body on frame SUVs.
Dan
Gosh I hope not! With the 4R being basically the last BOF SUV, it's got a monopoly on the market. If Toyota would invest in a new direct injection V6 and a 6 spd tranny, the mileage would be greatly improved helping cafe numbers.
Sales seem decent in my mind but I have no idea if it's profitable enough or not.
It had more to do with CAFE standards (which is why the GX is being axed for the TX in '16 as the first wave of CAFE hits) than sales. Toyota made a few statements that sales volume didn't mean anything in regards to the FJ, it was always expected to be their little pet project more than anything.
For those of you citing CAFE standards as a reason to discontinue the 4Runner - Don't.
I will attach a quick read based in plain language but suffice to say having a small market vehicle that does not meet CAFE standards is no big deal when you have a huge market leader than is beating the standards. Here you go:
"First, like the current 2012–16 rules, these new standards are size based. That means there’s a formula to calculate the required CAFE—within limits—for each car based on its “footprint,” which is the product of its wheelbase and track dimensions. In 2011, for example, the required CAFE mpg for the smallest car would not exceed 31.2, while even the largest car was assigned at least 24 mpg. For 2025, these car limits go up to 61.1 and 45.6. Truck mpg is calculated in similar fashion using a different formula. For 2011, the truck mpg ranged from 21.1 to 27.1. In the 2025 proposal, it spans 30.2 to 50.4 mpg. Notice that the formula has been adjusted so that the low end of the range rises less than the high end to help accommodate large trucks.
Second, because these CAFE requirements are based on size, every car company actually ends up with a different CAFE requirement, depending on the mix and size of cars and trucks that it actually sells. For every model year, each company must calculate the CAFE requirement for all models it markets and then determine the sales-weighted average for its actual mix. Therefore, a company such as General Motors, with its heavy share of large pickups and SUVs, will have a lower CAFE requirement than Suzuki, which primarily produces smallish cars and SUVs.
Third, CAFE mpg is very different from the fuel-economy-label mpg numbers on every new car. That’s because the CAFE figures are based on the original city and highway fuel-economy tests established in the Seventies, while the window-sticker numbers combine those values, along with the results of three other emissions tests, to produce mpg figures that better-match real-world driving. In general, the combined mpg on a vehicle’s label is about 20 percent lower than the CAFE mpg.
Hidden within this web of rules are a number of subtleties. For example, the nominal 54.5-mpg requirement represents a certain reduction in the tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide. The actual mpg requirement will be more like 49.6, with the rest of the greenhouse-gas reduction coming from a change to higher-efficiency air-conditioning systems using more environmentally friendly refrigerant.
The manufacturers will also get mpg credits for adopting efficient technologies that often show no effect on the official test cycles. These include active grille shutters, electric heat pumps, stop-start systems, high-efficiency lights, and solar roof panels. The credit for such items could amount to about 3 mpg if several are used or even more if a manufacturer provides data to justify it.
Then there’s extra credit for electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles. These machines already garner very high CAFE ratings, as they use little or no gasoline, but to encourage their sales, the government will factor each sale of an electric vehicle by 2.0 in model year 2017. In other words, if you sell 10,000 electric vehicles—either battery powered or fuel cell—they will be counted as 20,000 when calculating that company’s fleet fuel economy. This factor will phase down to a multiplier of 1.5 by 2021. For plug-in hybrids, the factor will start at 1.6 in 2017 and phase down to 1.3 in 2021."
about as CUV as you can while mushroom stamping loyal SUV owners in the face.
