The Toyota EPU Compact Electric Pickup Truck Concept Deserves To Be Built For Real

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There’s something missing in the electric pickup truck market. Sure, mega-power supertrucks and electric full-sizers are cool technological flexes, but the hottest truck right now isn’t full-sized, or even electric. The Ford Maverick is a segment-busting masterpiece, and although it already comes as a hybrid, there are people out there who want even more electrification. A certain Japanese automaker certainly took notice, because the Toyota EPU Concept is an electric small truck that’s so conceptually-sound, it deserves to see production.

Let’s start with the most appealing part of the Toyota EPU concept, aside from the powertrain: Size. This electric pickup truck measures just 199.6 inches from stem to stern. That’s within a tenth of an inch of the Ford Maverick, and a few inches longer than the Hyundai Santa Cruz. Roughly 200 inches is about as short as you can go with a traditional crew cab pickup truck and still have a usable bed, yet a vehicle of that length should still fit in the majority of parking spots.

As for styling, there’s a lot to like on the Toyota EPU, but also a few points of contention. I dig the sleek front fascia and wide wheel arches, and the bi-fold tailgate should make an excellent bed extender. However, the greenhouse kick-up on the rear doors could cause some problems. Not only should it add to the truck’s blind spots, outward visibility for rear seat passengers might not be brilliant either.

Toyota Epu Concept Interior

Moving inside, it’s impossible to ignore the left-hand-drive layout of the Toyota EPU. Considering how Japanese cars built for Japan are right-hand-drive, it’s possible that the EPU was conceived from an American point-of-view. Granted, I’m still not entirely sure about this whole yoke business, since we tried Lexus’ steer-by-wire yoke and found it intriguing but difficult to adjust to. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if any possible production model would come standard with a normal steering wheel. After all, forcing a major change on people is like swimming upstream.

Toyota A-Bat 1

This isn’t the first time Toyota has teased us with a small pickup truck. In 2007, Toyota unveiled a unibody hybrid pickup truck called the A-BAT to a surprisingly lukewarm reception. For example, Car And Driver wrote that “Hybrid powertrains and solar panels are cool ideas for the compact-pickup segment, but we encourage Toyota’s design studios to get as daring as their engineering department sometime soon.” Unsurprisingly, the A-BAT never entered production, but that feels like a result of being ahead of its time.

Toyota Epu Concept Profile

Cut back to the present day, and the time feels almost right for an electric compact pickup truck. The Ford Maverick is still one of the hottest vehicles on the road, and every automaker is making grand electric promises. If Toyota was bold enough to get ahead of the small electric pickup truck market, a production variant would be highly desirable.

Toyota Epu Concept Rear

On the other hand, small pickup trucks are frequently sought by urbanites, and charging infrastructure is still lacking in many high-density areas. For those parking in older underground facilities without so much as a household plug socket in each bay, electric vehicles still aren’t a practical choice. In this case, the EPU concept might be like its A-BAT predecessor, in that the world might need to catch up to it. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens, won’t we?

(Photo credits: Toyota)

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62 thoughts on “The Toyota EPU Compact Electric Pickup Truck Concept Deserves To Be Built For Real”

  2. Automakers: Stop trying to make fetchyoke happen.

    Maybe I’m just an old Luddite now, but I hate the way “reimagined” crap like the yoke, capacitive buttons, and stupidly complex shifters keep getting shoved at us like they’re the future when they should have been smothered in the cradle.

  3. It would be a long time, if ever, that an EV would work for me. But if I had to, I actually like this. It looks good. Small with ground clearance and 4wd (at least it better be 4WD) to get me through the storms when the plows aren’t out. Can carry junk in the bed, and I can put a topper on it if needed.

  4. A big part of what makes the maverick sell so well is the price. I’d say that’s more important than the size, It’s not like a ranger is impossible to park.

  5. I’ve had a lot of work done at my place by tradespeople who drive trucks. By virtue of the work they do, their hands tend to be dirty or dusty from hanging drywall or soldering pipes or picking up materials or whatever, until they get home and can scrub off the day’s labor. When they get into their trucks for lunch or to call their boss or to write up a work order, how are they supposed to use touch controls?

    These are trucks for cosplayers (like most trucks on the road).

      1. In my far too extensive experience, be it at my house or in the many renovation projects I’ve seen around here, gloves aren’t a thing (and neither are masks when hanging drywall, only when sanding) and most sites don’t have hand washing stations. And in any case, expecting someone to change their habits and wash their hands in the middle of work to accommodate their new truck’s stupid UI isn’t realistic.

    2. Unlike the Maverick, this doesn’t look like it has any intent to market to tradesmen. It is a perfectly cromulent suburban truck for a family a four living in a cookie-cutter home on 0.2 acre lot in the middle of a 1200 home subdivision. That is a pretty big market in America, one that is buying way too many 1/4 ton and 1/2 ton trucks.

  6. That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life and at least 3 prior incarnations.

    It looks like a Vehicross that was drawn blindfolded based on a description read by Robin Williams.

  7. I don’t get this concept in the slightest.

    The EPU doesn’t have to be as large as the Maverick as the footprint rule is mostly irrelevant for BEVs. Even though it’s so large that a massive center console armrest combo is somehow better than a 6th seat armrest combo in their eyes.

    It has what appear to be touchscreen only controls and a yoke steering “wheel”, and considering how many people love the buttons in their Toyotas because they work and they’re sensible this seems like a dumb concept. No separate cab and frame so they’d only offer short bed 5 seat variants completely missing the commercial market for these vehicles and since the concept is advertised with the steering wheel on the right it’s definitely not a domestic market vehicle. Why not assemble them in the US and make a ton of variants like regular trucks? Toyota could easily have the smaller BEV pickup market on lock if they made multiple bed and cab variants.

    This pickup is an anti-Toyota, it screams *I kidnapped a Rivian designer, a Tesla designer, and a Ford Maverick designer, put them in a room and said* “You will work together to design a concept that is an amalgamation of your designs and once you create on I like slap a Toyota badge on it and you’re free to leave.”

    I don’t have much faith in Ford but if this concept came to fruition I have no doubt that Ford could make a BEV Maverick that wipes the floor with this thing.

  8. For an EV, it seems that there should not be a structural need for the small in proportion window area compared to the body. It just seems like they shrunk the glass area too much without a real functional reason. For me, it just seems that the haunches are too tall.

  9. Arguably too big for Europe and Asia, too small/too EV for North America and Australia, too EV for South America and Africa and too expensive for China. They’ll sell dozens.

    1. i’d argue if anything it’s too big for australia, this thing would never replace the hilux, but by making it the same size they’re naturally going to eat into each other’s sales.

      make it in single-cab configuration with a proper ladder chassis, to the size of an old 70s hilux, then we’ll talk.

      1. Hilux outsells every other car in the country. And the next one is likely to be larger (certainly wider) and more like new Tacoma.

        It could be an urban ute but if you haven’t got the infrastructure and EV range to practically EV road/camp trip for the weekend then what’s the point? Unless Toyota target the urban trade/fleet rather than suburban family market…which this thing clearly doesn’t.

  10. Interesting that they’re not advertising this as a Prime PHEV model. I would like to be intrigued, but I am withholding all excitement about Toyota/Lexus/Subaru EVs until they build at least one EV that isn’t pure ass.

  12. As someone who only needs a truck for occasional mulch duty and getting lumber longer than the 8′ I can easily fit into my minivan, and also has a 15 minute, no highway commute to work, this is the absolute perfect vehicle and I want it to be real.

  13. I said it before but whoever makes a Ford Maverick equivalent EV or PHEV would get my money. PHEV being the preferred choice. It looks like Toyota is currently in the lead with the EPU concept. Give it a better dashboard, more open passenger windows and build it you cowards!

    1. Agreed – PHEV – Ideally with an all-electric power train and a ICE range extender (Mazda Spinning Dorito?) + generator + decent sized gas tank that handles both power + charging at cruise speed.

      I prefer the simplicity of all-electric drives + ICE generators than ICE drive trains and complicated transmissions with Electric Motor boost.

      Figure a decent sized battery (120 miles? under normal load) + large enough fuel tank to extend that to over 400 miles between fill-ups and you’re in magic territory. Instant torque, decent acceleration (< 7 secs to 60), maybe 4K towing, and maybe AWD. They won’t be able to make enough of them.

          1. It’s a small truck and a lot of its volume is (and has to be) air space in the bed. I think you may be underestimating the packaging problem that exists here.

            1. The other issue is that for every ounce of fuel you’re carrying you reduce the performance of the electric motor (since it has to drag along more weight) so the benefits of having the extended range are (at least partially) offset by the range lost due to the extra weight.

              Every hybrid is a compromise, so I am sure there is a sweet-spot where the weight of battery cells vs gasoline is optimized for maximum range. It would be very interesting to see someone do the math to work out where that tipping point is for a given vehicle.

            2. I’m guessing there’s room under the bed and under the cab. Also I assume any design would take up most of the under-the-hood space so there’s little chance of a frunk. That said, there’s no transmission and if the range extender is something like a Mazda rotary (or an Omega-One / Liquid Piston) it’s very small for an ICE.

              I agree packaging may be tight, but batteries are getting better and smaller.

              My main gripe with current PHEV designs is the all battery range is usually less than 100 miles. I know -most- commutes are less, but I think the extra range is needed to cover the commutes + side trips. 100 miles should do it, 50 is cutting it close, and 25 just isn’t enough. There’s got to be a sweet spot where owners of PHEVs rely on plugging in every day and not filling up. Filling up is for those long trips.

              I also don’t like the complexity and cost of having 2 drivetrains. Having just a pure electric drivetrain (with all the glorious instant torque) and keeping the ICE as a generator/charger makes it simple. The ICE engine + generator would be best designed to run only at optimum RPM, eliminating some of the downsides of using a rotary for propulsion.

              My last wish list is decent performance. I want to be able to pass a slow semi without worry going up hill starting at 65. A 0-60 time sub 7 seconds. The vehicle shouldn’t drive like a penalty box.

              Personally we already have 2 Bolts in the stable and the rest of the fleet is ICE. In a couple of years I’ll have to give up the company ICE car and we’ll want a replacement vehicle to cover the use cases where the Bolt doesn’t fit (any round trip over 200 miles). Public charging in most of the deep south is pathetic and we’re lucky enough to be able to have the ability to own more than one vehicle. – so one EV and one PHEV would be great. Even better if the PHEV is a small pickup so it can also be the go-to for trips to Lowes, towing a small trailer, etc. If Toyota (or Ford, or Ram, or Chevy) does make a PHEV small pickup (Not a full size!) – I’d probably opt for the top-of-the-line trim and it would be also become our vacation-mobile / grand touring. They just need to build it and take my money.

              IF you could only have ONE vehicle and can accommodate home charging, A PHEV with the range/performance as stated above is I think the best solution.

  18. For an electric truck, it would be nice if they could engineer the suspension and make the front crumple zones strong enough to being the cabin forward and add some useable length to the bed.

    1. I’ve always thought an EV Transit chassis cab would have been ideal. Install a bed, box or service body and get to work. I’d bet it could be a foot shorter and hold more stuff than a Lightning. Even better would be a Transit Connect sized EV truck.

        2. That’s awesome! I have a friend looking at a work truck. He has no use for more than 1 seat but needs a long bed. The E-Transit might fit his need.

  20. Roughly 200 inches is about as short as you can go with a traditional crew cab pickup truck and still have a usable bed

    Over/under 10.5 separate comments complaining about this and crying for a regular cab that no one would buy?

    1. I just think it’s sort of funny that the smallest pickups anyone can figure out how to build today are exactly the same size as a Chrysler 300, but are treated as if they’re dinky little urban runabouts

      1. I find it equally funny that American life outside 5-10 of the densest urban centers has been designed around 200+” vehicles for approximately 75 years, and yet we constantly get the talking point that full size trucks are suddenly too big to fit in parking spots.

        1. I wouldn’t say suddenly but having been in a parking lot recently I am coming around to requiring people buying trucks having to get a qualification based around parking in a perfectly reasonable spot in a normal parking lot. So many Rams with Alberta plates inexplicably taking up four spots in a large and easy to park Wal Mart lot, so many Escalades blocking my access to good donuts by sticking their massive ass across the entry to the lot…

          Though width is actually increasingly becoming a big issue in parking garage design as well, read an article on it recently.

            1. There were far fewer cars on the road in the 60s and 70s, and developers made parking spaces smaller during the 80s so they could increase parking density – justifying it with the belief that mileage standards would lead to smaller cars. The cars were also much lower and generally narrower. The body height of current pickups is just asinine – they are to tall to easily use or load, and completely block the view of even most CUVs.

        3. Living in a place that has a lot of pickups, I can safely say that knowing there are a lot of full-size pickups does not mean things are appropriately designed to fit them. The number of parking lots that do not accommodate the most common vehicles around here…

          And then, of course, we have the people with quad-cab long beds, which really don’t fit, but they are far from the majority of pickups.

      2. I also find it funny that the 1999 Ford Ranger didn’t seem particularly narrow or small (certainly not massive, but reasonably sized), but was smaller than the 2023 Maverick in every dimension but length (and it could be much shorter or slightly longer).

        1. Yeah, it’s a sad truth. I’d prefer just an extended cab so I get some more bed length, but I’m not trying to use a truck as a family hauler. I wonder about fleet sales though. Is the Maverick missing out on some of that without a regular or extended cab version?

            1. Well not my imaginary fleet. We only have single cabs with vinyl bench seats. Column mounted shifters on most of them, but if you’ve been with us for awhile and do a good job you can have dibs on the stick shift one when ol’ Willy finally retires.

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