Toyota Tundra wait time stretches to 18 months

US customers are being told they may have to wait up to 18 months to take delivery of the all-new 2022 Toyota Tundra, which doesn’t bode well for its prospects as a potential new model for Australia.

The third-generation full-size pick-up – which we drove in Texas last month – lands in American showrooms in December bearing a new ladder-frame chassis (closely related to the new Toyota LandCruiser), improved ride quality, bold styling, a choice of two new engines, and an impressive list of technology.

Not surprisingly, the new Tundra has sprung significant interest in its home country.

Citing a major Toyota dealer in Southern California, US website CarsDirect reports that prospective US Tundra buyers will be made to wait between four and 18 months for the new model, depending on variant.

The ongoing computer chip shortage is being blamed for the delays, with the range-topping Toyota Tundra TRD Pro said to be subject to the longest wait times.

In fact, the dealer revealed that only 61 new Toyota Tundras would be delivered to the Los Angeles area over the next three months.

There’s still no word on whether we could finally see the Tundra brought to Australia. It comes amid huge sales for US rival RAM, which is riding the crest of a wave with its Australian ‘remanufacturing’ program in partnership with Ateco Automotive.

Officially, Toyota says it continues to study the feasibility of factory right-hand drive production of its full-size pick-up.

But the US production delays will only cast doubt on the Aussie business case for Tundra, in the short-term at least.

Toyota Australia has always said it is keen to enter the booming full-size US pick-up market Down Under.

But it has prefaced interest around the fact it would only enter the Australian market if it could establish a case for factory RHD production direct from the Toyota factory in San Antonio, Texas – rather than local conversion.

Upon the launch of new Tundra, Toyota said that it had “seen the popularity of the full-size pick-up segment in Australia grow in the last few years and it is a segment that has been of interest to us and to our customers”.

“There are currently no plans for the new model Tundra to be produced [in right-hand-drive] from the factory. However this is something that we will continue to study,” the company said.