I love online car configurators. I’ll spend all afternoon speccing out cars I plan to own. Hell, I’ll spend all afternoon nerding out over the perfect interior color combo or wheel package for a car I may never even get to drive. It’s the ultimate online window shopping opportunity and extremely gratifying. Plus, if you’re super bored, you can do crazy things like make a 2024 Toyota Tacoma that costs over $75,000.
The new Tacoma is a helluva good truck, which is why we’ve been writing about it so much. Toyota has taken their tried-and-true midsizer and added a ton of smart features, a hybrid powertrain, and a refined look that fixes a lot of the old truck’s quirks.
If you’re patient and willing to give up on some power you can snag one in the low $30k range. Or you can do like reader Dalton did in our Discord and click every box. I had to test this theory and click every box myself for, you know, journalism. Come with me on this journey, won’t you?
First up I’m going to select the most expensive trim. I think this is the way to do it based on what Dalton did as the Limited model, while nicely spec’d, has a higher $52,100 MSRP and the ability to add options.
The Double Cab with the 5-ft bed is the only option so that’s the option we’re going to go with. There’s no extra price for this, which is fortunate for Toyota’s customers but doesn’t help me out here.
As Henry Ford once famously said: You can get any powertrain you want, so long as it’s an i-FORCE 2.4L Turbocharged Engine with 4-Wheel Drive and an 8-Speed transmission. It doesn’t seem like you can spec the iFORCE Max hybrid motor yet, so expect that to add some cost in the future.
No crazy color options? Damn. I’m starting to sweat this. In the real world, I’d probably spec either the red or the blue color, but it’s funnier to have an expensive truck that comes in basic white. Even better, the white (excuse me, WIND CHILL PEARL) color is a $425 option. The blue is free! We’re now up to $54,020 as built.
Hell yeah I’m getting the $60 mud guards. Because this is the Limited trim a lot of the stuff you want is already included. I’m somehow $20k short and I haven’t even gotten to the accessories yet. What the what?
Accessories! Now we’re getting somewhere. Honestly, I’m here for the All-Weather Floor liners and bed cargo net, but why do I need both Black and Chrome wheel locks? I guess I’ll just alternate?
Bed extender is a no-brainer. Bed Mat, that, too. Gotta have a BedStep and some Body Side Molding.
As a former filmmaker, I appreciate the deck rail camera mount for filming my trips to Home Depot. I like the Cargo Tote as well, but it better be branded because I can get one off Temu for like $8. The Console Safe is a nice truck accessory as we know many truck owners are carrying and the rest of us don’t want our kids stealing all our gum.
Ok, that’s a ton of options, let’s check in on the price.
Wait! Only $56,768? That’s not enough. I’ve been doing this for what feels like two hours already and you’re telling me I’m still $20k short? Damn.
Also, interesting to note that it won’t let you select both the black and gunmetal overlays, but the gunmetal costs $160 so that’s $71 more in the bank.
Gotta have the PPE and I love these little Bluetooth speakers that come with vehicles now, though you can probably get one for cheaper.
First, PPF is great for trucks (though we recommend XPEL if that’s not what that is). Also, our most expensive option yet, a Roof Rack for $1,199. We’re now up to dead even $60,000.
Curiously, you can select both the black and gunmetal tailgate insert. This is either an error or, again, you can just do every other letter!.
Ok, now it’s getting fun again. A $99 Universal Tablet holder so your kids can watch Kyle Busch not make it out of the second round of the playoffs again (I kid, please don’t hurt me Kyle Busch). Also, the $1,325 18-inch black wheel is a nice option. Plus some $68 chairs.
Off-road company ARB has a partnership with Toyota so you can get a bunch of cool ARB accessories folded into your monthly payment. Do I need a bunch of different versions of an inflator/deflator? I do not. But it’s letting me order them so… why not?
Welp, it looks like I’m going to need that bed cargo net merely to hold all of my portable air compressors and related accessories.
Alright, I’m feeling better about this. Remember that show Supermarket Sweep? If you do, then we’re getting to the frozen turkeys. Start tossing them in the cart, Lorraine, papa needs a new starter jacket and a lifetime supply of Josta soda.
The motherlode. Four Dometic fridges. My sodas will always be cold. ALWAYS. We’ve also just crested $70,672, so I can see the promised land in sight.
When my alternator burns out from overuse I’m definitely going to need some ice chests so, you know, let’s grab some ice chests.
Again, I now own like a dozen powered coolers so the $900 portable lithium battery just makes sense, right? Also, I see myself carrying a lot of tie-down kits in my future. Total cost of the truck right now? $72,891.
Ah crap, we’re slowing down here. There’s only like $500 here and I’m already getting carpal tunnel syndrome.
MORE COOLERS? You have to be screwing with me here. This is like the parking lot of a Florida-FSU game. That $450 Pelica looks niiiiice though. Up to almost $75k.
Let’s keep going, we still have… 10 accessories left.
Two more coolers. Just in case. Can never be too cool.
There are full-blown television production companies with fewer Pelican cases than I have right now. I’m going to start having to tie these to the roof rack.
The universe ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. I couldn’t even get a price for the RAM X-Grip Cup Holder Mount For Large Phones but I’m hopeful that the sales person whose month I just made is going to toss that one in for free, right?
Let’s see what we ended up with.
Ahhah ahahaha hahaha. Suck it Dalton! (Also thank you for this idea). $77,069. I am the King of Configurator Mountain. This is, of course, a crazy thing to do. Don’t do this. No one human being needs that many coolers and, frankly, if you try to buy this many coolers they’re going to put you on a watch list. Honestly, they’re going to put me on a watch list just for putting this configurator together.
DETECTIVE ONE: “What did this guy buy?”
DETECTIVE TWO: “Uh… 900 coolers, three gun safes, a bunch of ropes, and 20 air compressors.”
DETECTIVE ONE: “Call the SWAT team!”
This was fun. I had fun. David isn’t around to tell me this is a terrible idea. Should we do this again? I want to do this again. Also, if you can build a more expensive Tacoma you will earn my respect.
This is for rookies. I built a base model Porsche 911 with $100,400 worth of options. MSRP $216,490. Its pink with a smurf blue leather interior btw. The Porsche configurator is RIDICULOUS as you can imagine. Spent $1100 customizing my key fob and its leather pouch.
Seriously dissapointed Porsche didnt offer custom made luggage in that matching smurf blue leather though. Gargamel must have a racket on smurf leather and Porsche only had enough for the seats.
Also Toyota needs the color matched TRD branded enclosed utility trailer with 33″ bfgoodrich mud terrains as a factory option. That 5′ bed is not going to hold 27 coolers, 6 tire inflators and 12 off road tool kits
I DARE someone to do this to a Porsche. Triple quadruple quintuple parshtuple updog dare you.
I managed to get a base Porsche Cayman up to $186k CAD.
hahahahahahahahaha
We need a whole article of max price/base price to see how all the models across all the brands stack up!
Yes, do this again. At least once with a super luxury car and then with a supposedly inexpensive car that you can spec up insanely.
For fun, I did a comparison with the BRZ and GR-86. The Toyota I could accessorize up to $42,308 and the Subaru to $40,244 (US).
The irony here is that the Japanese advanced on the American automobile industry in part because the American car companes offered too many options which resulted in inefficiencies at the factories. The Japanese knew what the popular options were, so they put those in ‘packages’ and this reduced the number of differently optioned cars coming off the line. in short, the Japanese were doing it more efficiently. Now I see all of the crap that can be piled on this truck and I wonder if they’ve lost something.
Do this with a 911 next please.
Yep, I’ve gotten the GMC Canyon into the $80k’s. I guess it makes sense when half-tons can get near $100k
As someone a teense van-obsessed, I have (not recently) spent far too much time in the Ford Transit configurator than anyone should.
I like how the more recent ones have the fog lights. The front ends are quite aesthetically pleasing.
Realistically, I’m just waiting for the concept of an affordable used conversion E-Transit.
Think I’ll be holding my breath for a while, though.
When is the Hybrid Transit coming/Why is it not already here? I can’t think of a better vanlife match up than the 7.2k generator and the 3.5l!
I’ve seen some articles (on lesser automotive sites) talking about why there aren’t full-size van hybrids out there, because it’s a question I’ve had, too.
By by gut (not necessarily empirically) I agree with their reasoning.
Most hybrids rely mostly or solely on the gas engine once they’re on the highway–the advantage is supposed to be in cities. Well, that’s a bummer, because it takes so much more energy to get something as big, heavy, and un-aerodynamic as a van moving. Which means you’d discharge the battery faster in stop-and-go traffic, which means you’d need a bigger battery, which would need to take up space somewhere in the van, but vans are specifically designed to maximize interior space and no one would be happy with a higher load floor, etc…
My 2012 Prius v can reportedly only go 1-2 miles in electric mode, which I believe. Now, that’s admittedly an 80-pound NimH battery (I think?), but I figure it would barely be able to move a van in the first place.
Even if, optimistically, you could shove an 80-pound lithium battery somewhere in a van unobstructively, it would take too much power to move and recharge too slowly. At that point, I don’t know whether it would be an incremental gain or loss in fuel economy compared to a non-hybrid.
A PHEV van might be a little better for as much as it’s plugged in, but it’d still need a huge battery just to get a solid 15 miles of range in the winter. Not to mention, if it’s a passenger model, you’re talking about a much larger volume of air for climate control to manage. Even for a cargo model with a bulkhead there’d still be a substantial loss of the front heat/A/C to the rear, probably.
And that huge battery would take away from usable storage space, or floor height, etc.
Autopian staff, if you could do an article or deep-dive on van drivetrains and the future of the E-Transit and the like, I’d be very interested.
Sincerely,
Did you look at my username?
Good news! The Ford hybrids use regenerative braking so every time you stop in traffic you replenish the battery.
Well, many hybrids do that–it’s just that I would think any gains from that would generally be very incidental compared to the capacity of the battery, and the capacity required to get it moving from a stop (the place where the most fuel efficiency gains are to be had, if I recall correctly).
Agreed, I don’t want to/need to drive far, maybe 30 miles on EV only.
Just pull whatever is currently in the F150 with the 7.2 kw generator and drop it in the AWD Transit.
Later after they’ve sold a million units of that layout they can redesign the hybrid to where the back wheels are battery powered only and the front is gas powered. and lower the floor because they’ve removed the rear driveshaft.
I wonder what happens when you go to finance this. Will Toyota Motor Credit extend you financing that covers all these “accessories” that aren’t even part of the truck? When you inevitably default on your $77k Taco loan, the repo guy not only has to load up your actual $50k Taco, he also has to rummage through your camper and garage for $20k worth of Toyota-branded lifestyle shit haha.
this is a really good question!
I love configurators for models like the Tacoma, because there are actual options available for it. This is fun to mess around with.
I do not love configurators for many models that don’t really have options though. Most of the time when I try to build something, anything I select (even color) pushes me into the top trim or some other specific trim. So basically, the configurator could just be maybe 15 pictures of “possible builds” where I just select one and see a list of what’s included in it.
In other news, the rise of the high end cooler as a lifestyle signifier has to have reached it’s zenith, right? For ten years it seems like everyone’s been throwing wads of cash at these coolers, and they’re genuinely everywhere now. They’re the prize for damn near every lavish raffle basket these days (often, the cooler IS the basket, whoa). I like a cold beverages and meats while camping as much as the next guy but damn.
Except there aren’t really “options” for a Toyota since you can’t custom order one. Toyota builds what it wants to build and just ships it to their port distributors (who tack on more extra options like $70 USB cables you get to pay for) and then its gets passed on to the dealerships.
The price of the new Tacoma seems crazy. It’s like every single seemingly equivalent trim level is $5k-10k more expensive than the GM twins. It’s like it’s all offset by a package.
An SR5 with 4WD is as expensive as a Trailboss. A TRD Off Road is almost as expensive as a ZR2.
That’s the Toyota tax, it’s on used vehicles as well, sellers know what they got.
Wow, Toyota knows their market for Cosplay offroad adventurers. But no MTB rack or tailgate pad options? They forgot that every trailhead parking lot is Taco Trio or more.
Years ago I was toying with remortgaging my house to buy a car, and I had a play with Porsche’s online configurator.
I was looking to buy zero options (certainly not spending thousands on that sport chronobiology clock), however this was not possible because there was no no-cost option for the seats, or the windscreen.
I’m going to need seats and a windscreen. It seems to me that without them a coupe isn’t really a whole car. The windscreen only had one option FFS, you either paid extra for the one with the shade at the top or you couldn’t order a car. Dicks.
Their greed saved me from doing something stupid, so thanks Porsche, you thieving bastards.
Bill proposal:
Make it illegal for the price of a car to exceed the number of cylinders*10,000 range.
If you want to sell a car at 70k, it must have at least 7 cylinders.
160k? Must be a 16cyl.
it gets really fun in high end Ferrari territory where it has to have 40+cylinders. (I propose that at this point we just start counting in dozens: “Have you seen the new V4dozen Ferrari?)
This bill will completely eliminate $50k+ 4cyl crossovers.
I haven’t figured out my formula for EVs. Perhaps number of driven wheels to make things interesting.
Porsche 911 is shambles.
They would be forced to stack multiple flat 6s to get an H12 (vertically)
For EV’s $12k per motor.
Remember the days when the Taco was smaller than the modern BMW M2 coupe…. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I saw a 2023 the other day and thought it was a Tundra. The outgoing 2023 Taco is the same size as the not so distant 12th gen F150.
They keep getting into the size class because we’re a backwards nation that classifies things on how big the inside is. So long as it doesn’t exceed 119 ft³ total volume inside or 71.5″ wide outside it still stays a midsize. Otherwise it can get as long and tall as it wants.
Midsize trucks are the same size in *almost* every way (except how the rules count them) as older fullsize trucks. Look at extended cab trucks like a first gen Tundra or that flowy/ugly F150 of the late1 90/00’s. The new Rangers and Tacos are just as big or more in nearly every dimension.
Funny how the camp chairs mention “Installation Not Included”. Uh, what would installation be and where?
RAM phone holder? Isn’t that a different truck?
I spec’d my current 2019 Taco TRD OR but without the sunroof. It came to $53k.
I’m planning to buy a 2025 4runner hybrid, but jeezus.
I mean, this is fine and all if you want a cold OK soda, but what if I want to bring some Campbell’s soup along and have it hot at my destination?
What? Nothing?! <flips table>
Just wait until they add the Pro and Trail Hunter trims.
Ooh, this was fun! I got to $77,884.
I took a different strategy and started with the TRD Off-road trim, as I was curious if speccing it up with packages would be more expensive than starting at the top trim. Anyway, I added solar octane paint for $425 (white is free in MN lol), then added the TRD Off-road Premium Package with options (for $10,030), then every single accessory they listed (or the dearest if they were mutually exclusive) like Matt did.
I did not click “Request Quote.”
Ohhhh that was smart!
Yeah, that’s probably the most expensive you can configure right now (the hybrids, especially Pro and Trailhunter, are going to really push this). Even a TRD Sport will get a little higher than the Limited. $77,489 on it, which is really close, given the $2000 starting price difference between OR and Sport.
I immediately suspected this was the case, since I had been looking at a Sport with premium package, but had priced it out when the configurator was first discovered and it’ was more than the Limited. And I still don’t know the premium for a hybrid, but I do know that I’m not willing to buy a 2024 Tacoma at these prices (the real ones, not the ones filled with more coolers than they can haul).
I did the same and got the same number. Neither of us are in the Southeastern Toyota distributor area, which (unless that’s recently changed) isn’t owned by Toyota like the others
and might very well add a few dozen extra extraswhich only has eight options on the configurator for about three grand but probably has them available off a separate list for far more money than the nominal factory price and almost certainly has even more obnoxious mandatory option combos.You forgot to add the dealer’s $10k ADM.
You know what you can’t build? A 24 2 Door Manual Tacoma
Even for $77,069
So for $74,950 you can get a SR xtracab 4-wheel drive (36,195) and the SR 4 door with the manual option (38,395). Then you gotta do the swap. Not saying it’s a feasible option, but once some show up on copart things could get interesting.
I suddenly have a strong need for a photoshopped 242-door Tacoma. Maybe throw an 8-foot bed between every 4 rows.