Rumbling upstream, the V8 continues to fight an ever stronger current of emission regulations, fuel economy standards, and, yes, even customer interest.

Last week at an Automotive Press Association event held north of Detroit, Toyota offered its Group Vice President and General Manager of the Toyota Division, David Christ, to answer several questions on mine and other journalists’ minds. With the recent release of the turbocharged V-6 powered Toyota Tundra, followed by the swath of other body-on-frame Toyota trucks and SUVs (Sequoia, Tacoma, Land Cruiser, and 4Runner) I saw exactly zero naturally aspirated V8 or V6 engines and many hybrid choices. 

Where are all the V8 engines?

That led to a simple question:

“Whenever I’m reviewing one of your body-on-frame products, or the bigger crossover SUVs,” I asked, “they are either hybrid only or heavily hybrid and it’s very common for me to get comments (from my video reviews) like, ‘Since they lost the naturally-aspirated V6…, now that they don’t have the naturally aspirated V8…, I’m done with Toyota.’ From your perspective, how are customers really responding to these heavily hybrid powered vehicles that, traditionally, used big displacement naturally aspirated engines?” 

David Christ’s answer forced me to think. He said, “I get it. I understand the concern. The feel of the powertrain, the sound, it’s all different when you have a hybrid powertrain.” 

He continued, “I don’t know where they’re going. Because there’s not a lot of internal combustion V8s left in the market. Right? So, they might be preferring to buy an older version where you can still get that powertrain. But if you look at every brand’s powertrain direction, it’s toward hybrids, BEVs, and not as much investment, or any investment, in internal combustion engines.”

What are the manufacturers Building?

That’s right. Of the five manufacturers that sell body-on-frame trucks in the U.S. right now: Chevrolet/GMC, Ford, Nissan, Ram, and Toyota, only Nissan sells a naturally aspirated V6 in its Frontier, a 3.8-liter, in the available midsize trucks. Ram doesn’t sell a midsize truck at all. And the others rely on turbocharged four- or six-cylinder power, with smaller displacements.

In full size trucks, Ford offers the 5.0-liter V8, but it delivers less torque than the turbocharged 3.5-liter V6. And makes less power and torque than the hybrid version of that engine. I suppose you could include the Raptor R and its supercharged 5.2-liter V8, but at its $113,155 starting price, that’s out of most budgets. It’s also not naturally aspirated.  

GM stands alone with offering both the 5.3-liter and 6.2-liter V8s in their respective Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks that also function as the top-of-the-line engines. GM also offers a turbocharged four-cylinder and a diesel engine. As of 2025, all Rams rely on six-cylinder power. Nissan’s Titan ended production. 

Granted, things change when you get into the heavy-duty truck category, but this still marks a steady decline in bigger displacement, naturally aspirated engines. And Christ continued.

turbocharging and electrification

“I think we all know as manufacturers that the future is electrified,” Christ said. “The word we use: electrified, means hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or BEV. It’s very hard to, if not impossible, I would offer, to hit any regulatory requirement if you had big V8s across your line-up. So, all the brands, I think, are going to smaller displacement engines, higher efficiency engines.”

That’s the critical point here. Emissions regulations continue to tighten, things like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and more. The levels allowed to exit your tailpipe continue to drop. Of course, related, but not the exact same, fuel economy standards continue to rise. All these things go against big displacement engines. 

new administration

Yes, we just wrapped up an election. Yes, the de-regulator won. But that won’t change things overnight. Even with the most draconian of policy changes, it would take years to see an effect. Do not forget. Manufacturers invested tens of billions of dollars and several years of development on clean energy solutions. No company will want to drop that and revert back to 10-year-old tech. In fact, my good friend Tim Esterdahl of pickuptrucktalk.com wrote a fantastic article on this very subject.

hybrid benefits

But consider one final piece to this. Hybrid engines produce a lot of power and torque.

Speaking for Toyota, Christ said this, “I also think that with Tundra and Tacoma specifically, we’re able to get a lot more power out of a hybrid powertrain today then we could five years ago. So, torque, horsepower, the feeling of the car in that size vehicle—a heavy body-on-frame vehicle—is a lot better than it used to be. And I think that is going to help, maybe, get some people over the hump that might be more traditionalists for internal combustion engines.”

Look. I love the rumble of a V8. And still pine for that pleasant background noise while I cruise. But electric aided power provides massive torque from effectively zero motor speed, and much faster reaction time to your inputs; two very handy things when using a big SUV or truck. 

Finally, customer demand for big engines has already faded. I asked Christ about Toyota sales. “Sales are holding on, I mean we’re doing great,” Christ said. “We are going to outsell last year, and Tundra sales are still doing well even though it’s, believe it or not, four years old.”

Sooner rather than later, look for your big V6 and V8 engines under the hoods of used vehicles only.