Ford, Toyota to collaborate on hybrid pickup, SUV

Derek Cusak, chief of Ford Product Development and Takeshi Ushiamata, who led Toyota's engineering of the Prius, announce their cooperation on new hybrid system for pickups and SUVs.  

Toyota and Ford have agreed to work together on developing a more fuel-efficient hybrid system for pickup trucks and SUVs for the US market. This is in response to tougher fuel-economy requirements coming from the Obama Administration. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) is set to double to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which presents pickup and SUV makers the challenge of maintaining capability while increasing efficiency.

The agreement between Ford and Toyota would have the new vehicles for sale this decade, the focus being on a new rear-wheel-drive system.

Both automakers currently produce systems that utilize an electric motor along with a gasoline engine, charging the battery with a generator fed by the gasoline engine and through regenerative braking. The two will also work to develop new on-board navigation and entertainment systems for the vehicles.

In a joint statement, the automakers said that they had been independently developing rear-wheel-drive hybrid powertrains, but decided to collaborate to bring new technology to the marketplace sooner, as well as to save development costs, which would lead to lower costs in the showroom.