Toyota is Benchmarking the Ford F-150 Limited PowerBoost
It looks like Toyota is using the F-150 PowerBoost as a benchmark for the hybrid tech in their trucks.
This F-150 PowerBoost was spotted at the Toyota Technical Center.
Benchmarking is a common practice in the automotive world as manufacturers aim to gain a competitive advantage by scoping out rival vehicles, oftentimes reverse engineering or copying certain characteristics of those vehicles as well. Toyota and Ford certainly have a history in that regard, with the former working to update its full-size Tundra pickup – which just marked the arrival of the next-generation version for the 2022 model year – in an attempt to gain market share from the perennially best-selling Ford F-150. Now, a few months after Ford Authority spotted FoMoCo benchmarking a new Tundra, Toyota has been spotted benchmarking a Ford F-150 Limited PowerBoost hybrid, too.
The 2022 Toyota Tundra was revealed back in September of 2021 with many major updates, including a brand new powertrain in addition to the standard 3.5L V6 – the i-Force Max hybrid, which adds an electric motor and battery pack to boost output to 437 horsepower and 583 pound-feet of torque. The Ford F-150 Limited spotted here is also powered by an electrified powertrain – the twin-turbocharged Ford 3.5L V6 PowerBoost, which produces a slightly less 430 horsepower and 570 pound-feet of torque.
However, the PowerBoost does offer superior fuel economy ratings of 25 miles-per-gallon in the city, highway, and combined, while the Tundra returns 20/24/22. The F-150 PowerBoost also has a higher max payload of 2,120 pounds versus 1,665, as well as more towing capacity – 12,700 pounds versus 11,450 pounds.
