Tundra is either getting a big makeover soon or it needs to go hybrid. No change to platform since 2007 and the fuel mileage is embarrassingly bad compared to the much improved American trucks.
actually if you look at real owner reported figures on Fuelly you will see all the full sized v8 trucks with similar HP get the same reported average mileage, the tundra is no worse and no better than any other comparably sized truck/engine combo and that’s simply because of the mathematics of it.
to go 100kph you will use X amount of fuel to produce Y amount of energy required to move truck Z, based on the mass, friction, and drag coefficient. same goes for acceleration, which is what makes the difference in city mpg. Regardless of who makes the engines, they all pretty much have the same internal friction coefficients, all of them use very good fuel injection systems and I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure they all have full lock up torque converter in all the autos now. What really makes a difference on fuel economy is how much of the maximum capacity of the engine are you using, as you near the maximum output the fuel economy drops massively as there is less time for the engine to pull in more air and therefore the stoichiometric ratio drops and less of the mix and burns cleanly. Now you can compensate for that by adding a turbo, however you will then increase maintenance costs and shorten engine lifespan. This effect can actually be drastically demonstrated and has been by numerous people
top gear did this years ago, they drove a prius around a race track and a bmw m3 just had to keep up with it. the prius got 17mpg, the m3 got 19mpg
and to contend your statement of "the fuel mileage is embarrassingly bad compared to the much improved American trucks" we just an FYI the tundra is American, it is built in Texas. And I don’t think anyone will be able to successfully argue American engineering is better than japans engineering, all major manufactures are so close in tolerances now that its like comparing lap times on an Olympic 100 sprint, its down to %.01. What make the vehicles worthwhile in the long run is how long will you own it after paying it off, and how long will it last before the maintenance costs make it uneconomical to run.
fuel economy comes down to drag coefficient, mass and friction that’s the reality of it. I can tell you personally from having friends with dodge/chev/ford, I've owned a ford (f250 5.4L) we all get the same mileage when stock. If you go to the local dealer and buy one of the factory lifted dodges with all the industry fap they sell you, that lifted dodge that is supposed to get the best MPG will absolutely not get the advertised mpg. simply because they usually market the mpg based off a single cab 2wd truck, not a lifted crew cab 4x4.
