Honey, its business, Toyota exists to make a profit like every other company. Or are you saying that Tesla or Changan or other automakers are not making profit at the expense of people?
Because other automakers aren’t so clean either, they have had their share of different sets of problems. Remember the emission scandal? Recall Uyghurs in China being forced to shade off Islam in order to be able to work at Changan or M.G. and other Chinese companies. Or problems with Ford Fusion and Focus. Even better example is the E.V., these vehicles are hurting communities through sourcing of minerals, hard rock mining is really hurtful. So every company is concerned with making profit, some are open, some are less obvious.
Anyway, my point, T.P.S. / T.Q.M. has been replicated by the international community and Toyota remains the most popular car brand in history. It is said that Americans introduced batch costing, Japanese brought cost efficiency into the system and Germans brought finest workmanship to put speed and stability together.

As for Hitler, well, firstly, his model is still being followed. Secondly, he was a good man, maybe to know about him in full you need to read what non-Hebrew side has to say about him.

P.S. In Pakistan greed for profit goes to an extreme level, most people want to earn money and become rich overnight but do not want to do work. Since the Toyota brand is managed by Pakistanis, therefore, they don’t want to enhance their workload by offering more products.

Ah…. I see.

Now I understand why some commercial kei vans and trucks like the Suzuki Every, Daihatsu Hijet and Mitsubishi Minivan often drag their models for really long. It’s odd seeing that even companies like Toyota would lag behind on technology and show resistance to change even in their home country, when there is no law set to disallow them from doing so. It truly shows that the whole reason we are still getting 40+ year old death traps sold as new is because of no laws prohibiting these assemblers from selling old models.

Thank you very much for your comment and for this clarification!! 😄

   The platform hasn’t changed all that since then at all… it’s basically the same car with a few new touches. Quite odd.

It is not odd.
I noted the exact same thing and when I was still drafting my post, your comment was already published so I decided to submit my comment as a continuation of this thread.

Please look back to this comment https://carspiritpk.com/suzuki-carry-minibus-in-indonesia/#comment-7589

As a comparison “Toyota in Japan:Probox::Pak Suzuki in Pakistan:Bolan and Ravi”

Link to some previous discussions about choice and preferences of commercial transporters here https://carspiritpk.com/if-other-cars-were-as-old-as-bolan/#comment-7056, https://carspiritpk.com/3-wheel-loaders-eating-share-of-suzuki-ravi/#comment-7480.

Commercial transporters have some specific needs, main requirement is zero downtime. Other needs are overload capacity, simplicity and one need is to have as small inventory of spare parts as possible (most commercial companies have their own workshop). The uncontrolled greed at the expense of comfort, safety with complete disregard to human factors such as driver fatigue and ergonomics is yet another under-estimated factor.

Toyota launched the Probox [in Japan] in 2002 and dragged this XP50 generation a full 12 years till 2014. The next generation XP160 is still continue (now the model year 2022 has already begun), but the number of changes between 1st and 2nd generation is limited, it is more like a facelift only …… only the 1300 cc engine was upgraded meanwhile the manual gearbox was discontinued and the auto gear was converted to CVT. That’s it. No 4-wheel disc brake or any other upgrades to bring it up to the mark parallel with other products on the market. Remember we are talking the most of most advanced car market on earth. Seems like the only thing that gets these businesses to improve is tough regulations with tough targets and tough penalties alongside market competition. Consumer’s demands and corporate social responsibility are foreign words for them.

The much lauded TNGA platform has been there since 2015 but didn’t upgrade the Probox to TNGA. Even the Probox’s brother called Succeed (the family version of this commercial vehicle) has been discontinued in 2020 and replaced by the much modern 11th generation Fielder which is from 2012. The 12th generation TNGA Corolla has a Touring model but no Fielder as of yet.

The main point to consider is that the commercial sector is always lagging behind in technology despite the fact that “daily/annual/total road miles traveled” for these machines is far greater than any private car. Here I will ink another relevant comment from an article of this same blog https://carspiritpk.com/if-other-cars-were-as-old-as-bolan/#comment-7081. Which definitely diminishes the advantages offered to the society in comfort and safety achieved from newer tech. Moreover the generational life cycle is also longer for the commercial sector. Usual generational life cycle is about 4-5 years which is now becoming 7-8 years as R&D+manufacturing costs and break-even duration increase, but for commercial sector it is already a decade plus, which means that already old technology is put in it at the time of introduction and slowly lags further as they refuse to upgrade since once those designs are already in the market and the companies have a stock of spare parts, the resistance to anything new further strengthens.

From a humanitarian perspective, new technology and driver comforts are more pertinent in the case of a vehicle which is driven 12 to 18 hours a day compared to a vehicle which is driven 2-3 hours a day with the weekend 6-7 hours and the seasonal cross-country drive.

Which brings to your next question:

Why is there a TRD variant of a car that’s only meant for commercial use?

The answer is simple. It is a cosmetic facelift of the type we get here in Pakistan: Change in headlights, grill and bumper and maybe alloy rims. It is just to hide the fact that this is a vehicle from 2002 still dragging on 20 years without any meaningful upgrade, meantime even simple plain old Corolla moved on through 4 generations during that time period: 9th, 10th, 11th generation to now where 12th generation is now at facelift stage too.

Sure, it is a great vehicle and all, but then, it was an Import, Khurram.

It was never meant to be launched in Pakistan. The only reason you, and many other Pakistanis have experienced the greatness of this car was through the imports! In the end, it is still a JDM Import, which frankly, you are not very fond of…

Tell me this Khurram; this car would’ve been VERY successful as a commercial vehicle here or even a people’s carrier in Pakistan, because I have seen it. So many people bought this here because it serves as a very nice reliable people’s carrier and you can easily carry more than 7 people and hold good amount of cargo in this car.

So then… why didn’t IMC launch it? It’s not a strict JDM market only vehicle; Toyota officially launched this in many other countries (mostly third world countries like us) and it is quite successful there. It would’ve come in a good price too, in similar price to Corolla XLI since this comes in 1.3 and 1.5. Heck, they would’ve launched it more expensive than the Corolla and it would’ve still sold.

So why didn’t they launch it? Why launch it in those countries but not ours? Be sure to let me know, Khurram.

Best car for selling Mangoes and Mandarins on the roads of Machar Colony. 100% no parts failure/no maintenance GARANTEA.

Totally agree that Probox is robust and durable. Why doesn’t then Toyota officially sell it in Pakistan? They don’t want Pakistanis to have something good?

I also agree with that the Toyota Production System is indeed remarkable however my take on this is that profit is not an only thing worthy of pursuit. There are other factors which are even more important. Toyota also have had their share of wrong-doings such as the unintended acceleration fiasco. Works of Hitler and other murderers have also been cited in reports, researches and notable journals this doesn’t mean what Hitler did is very good and follow-able.

P.S. Toyota is always doing something unique which is then copied by Koreans and Chinese, I think the T.R.D. version would have stronger dampers and braking system. Just like they have done it to their Camry.
P.P.S. In my view, Toyota Production System is the best description of cost to profit ratio. Their work is always cited by students in their reports and is also researched in articles published in notable journals.
P.P.P.S. I see some mindless comments from Truong and Not a Robot, maybe you need to request the community on every article to maintain cleanliness Bhai Usman. Because in my view, misinformation like name-calling is also bad for the reputation of your website.

the Toyota fan brigade will love it for the nothingness it offers.. its a no brainer for those who wish to sell ice creams on the moon, so they can load it with all the stuff and take a couple of trips to moon & back twice a day everyday without need to repair 🙂

Also… Why is there a TRD variant of a car that’s only meant for commercial use?! 🤣😂 It is for those who want to deliver packages in style?? 🤣🤣