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Raising A White Flag To The Competition
We all benefit from highly competitive battles. In the automotive sector, few campaigns are so closely fought as the decades-long struggle for supremacy in the fullsize half-ton pickup truck segment. The Ford F-150 has dominated for ages, but Chevrolet, Ram and GMC have been closing the gap with freshly redesigned trucks that are rocking the industry.
Today's half-ton trucks are better than they've ever been, and we have fierce competition to thank for that.

Toyota JPN Taxi Concept is a Japanese riff on an English classic

As far as beasts of burden go, New York City's new - and much maligned - Nissan NV200 "Taxi of Tomorrow" isn't a bad one. It's space efficient, reasonably economical, and its simple construction should mean it's pretty robust over the long haul, too. But it lacks panache and a sense of occasion - let alone a sense of humor - three things this this Toyota JPN Taxi Concept we found at the Tokyo Motor Show has in spades.
Unfortunately, that's about all the information we have on this cheeky London-taxi-inspired showcar. Toyota hasn't provided much in the way of details, other than to proclaim that the five-seat JPN was "created with Japanese hospitality in mind" and it "aims to enliven city streets." Japan's livery landscape has long been occupied by traditional three-box sedans - models like the Toyota Crown and Nissan Cedric. The JPN Taxi at just over 171 inches would appear to offer both a tighter footprint and added whimsy, both of which are in the automaker's favor; we hear it hopes this concept will one day become the country's own version of America's yellow Crown Vic cab.
Toyota isn't providing powertrain specifications, but we like the airy feeling of the interior (Japanese cabs typically don't have cumbersome partitions between cabbie and passengers), the minimalist driver area with three screens, and the widescreen overhead video system for passengers that bookends the panoramic moonroof. Check it out in our gallery of live shots and let us know what you think in Comments.

Toyota to drop regular-cab Tacoma as small pickups take another hit

Even as General Motors prepares to redesign its midsize pickups, the market for sub-fullsize trucks continues to shrink. The remaining competitors in the segment are the well-aged Nissan Frontier, Honda Ridgeline and Toyota Tacoma, and now Truck Trend is reporting that the latter will be dropping its regular cab model due to poor sales.
According to the article, the available configurations for the Tacoma lineup will be whittled down in 2015, which apparently spells the end for the two-door Taco. The Tacoma is currently the last truck in its class to be offered in a regular cab configuration, with the Frontier no longer offering a standard cab model and spy shots of the next-gen Chevrolet Colorado not revealing any glimpse of a short cab, either.