The 2018 Toyota Tundra will become the first pickup truck with automatic emergency braking as a standard feature. Often available only as an option, AEB has been found to cut accidents.

Toyota also announced that the pickup and the Sequoia SUV will have as a standard feature the automaker's suite of advanced safety systems, which it calls Toyota Safety Sense-P. Along with automatic emergency braking, it has forward-collision warning, pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning with lane-keeping assist, and adaptive cruise control.

Automakers are making significant progress deploying advanced safety features, a shift that Consumer Reports calculates has doubled the number of models with automatic emergency braking as standard equipment in the past year. Toyota and its luxury brand Lexus are leaders in making advanced safety systems standard across their model lines. Based on Consumer Reports' analysis, they're on track to fulfill their goal of widespread coverage with the 2018 model year. Mercedes-Benz is also at the forefront, making automatic emergency braking standard across most of its vehicle lineup for this model year.

Most other manufacturers offer these systems in 2016 and 2017 models as optional equipment that all too often consumers can only buy as part of an expensive trim package with unrelated, nonsafety features.

Consumer Reports believes that this technology is so important that we award bonus points as part of our Overall Score to car models that have forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking as standard across a model line. And we encourage shoppers to choose models equipped with this technology.

For 2018 Tundra also gets a new trim level called TRD Sport. Available on four- and two-wheel-drive models, the added equipment includes 20-inch wheels, LED headlights, and various “TRD” badges. Plus the suspension is fortified to handle off-road rigors with specially tuned Bilstein shocks and beefier front and rear anti-sway bars.

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But unless you head off-road on a regular basis, we’d think twice before jumping on this TRD Sport bandwagon. In our last tested Tundra, we found the TRD’s ride to be stiff and jittery even on smooth roads. We test-drove a short-bed CrewMax model without the TRD suspension and found it rode better.

Top-level Tundras continue to be powered by a 381-hp, 5.7-liter V8 hooked up to a smooth-shifting six-speed automatic. This combination produced a very strong performance in the last Tundra we tested, with a 0-60 mph time of 6.7 seconds ranking among the best in class. We also measured 15 mpg overall with this powertrain, about on par with nondiesel trucks in this class. The Tundra has also been very reliable.



The Sequoia TRD Sport gets the same hardware and trim details as the Tundra. This big SUV also has the same impressively smooth, punchy powertrain as well as a comfortable interior, impressive towing ability, and respectable off-road performance. But the ride feels truckish and handling is clumsy. Fuel economy is typical for its class; the Sequioa we last tested returned 15 mpg overall.

Read our complete Toyota Tundra and Sequoia road tests.





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