What i don’t understand is how fuel efficiency does not seem to be a concern of an average buyer? It is a large factor for me, and I’m proud to have highly efficient car for its class. Are those large trucks somehow more efficient than older, smaller models? Or are average buyers just not concerned with efficiency?
Well not everyone has seen the light of factorio, so i might be over-fixating on efficiency.
Yeah all the people bitching about gas prices are getting 8-12 mpg in these things, filling a 25 gallon tank once a week. A lot of these folks aren’t exactly rich either and the trucks are expensive. They’re paying a mortgage payment in monthly fuel, insurance, and loan expenses on these things.
If they could keep their egos in check, they’d save a lot of money.
For people in modern countries - that’s about 28 litres per 100km that these selfish, thoughtless fuckers are going through. Cunts
My wee car uses about 5.5 for reference
Part of the issue is that, despite people whining about how “high” fuel prices are, they are extremely low compared to most of the world, even during periods where it’s higher than usual. Although a sustained period of higher than usual fuel prices can get some to switch, like the period around the financial crisis.
Got myself blocked by a friend who was bitching about the high cost of gasoline and pointed out how cheap gas actually is in the US because its subsidized so much. Wait, the block came later when he was complaining about welfare queens or something. I mentioned that was an interesting take from a farmer since they are the biggest welfare queens in the country.
The diesel HD trucks can average nearly 20mpg, and the diesel half tons can get almost 30. The gas trucks will get 10-17mpg with good highway tires. Off road tires bring it down to 8-15.
I’m completely in agreement that the people bitching about fuel prices are often the ones driving something like this. My truck is an HD gasser and I pay 4.50 a gallon right now. Sure it sucks, but I have a need for a truck. Other guys just drive them to an office job where a smaller fun car could easily get the job done. In a surprising twist though of just efficiency and aero dynamics my twin turbo V8 sports sedan will pull almost 28mpg on the freeway. Both are not hybrid.
I have definitely said though that I wish there was a hybrid gas HD truck. It makes perfect sense. If I need to run a welder or other high power usage tool I would love to have that capability, while still being able to tow 17k pounds no problem and carry 6 people comfortably. They have already proven it works with the F150 power boost, and that gets almost 28mpg freeway.
Wait that’s still the mpg in the us ? That’s the same gallon we use in the uk ? (As I learnt the a us gallon can be different when talking about whisky or some thing along those lines…)
They are different standards, 100%! I hate that MPG in both English speaking countries means two different things. It’s like how Americas horsepower number is different than Britains. I feel bad for Canada too who’s caught between British units and American Units, and that’s before being dragged into the metric vs imperial. It’s unfortunate.
Full size trucks can get about 22 mpg highway. A 2011 Ford Ranger, the last year they were made, got 19 highway, with the v6…
They have gotten more fuel efficent.
Not sure if you’re aware but Ford has resumed production of the Ranger, it’s just now the same size as the Chevy Colorado: huge.
Fuel efficiency is a consideration but if you want a truck you really don’t have many options. You would think the mid size ones do ok but they really don’t, at least mine didn’t. I just got a full size diesel truck which can get around 30mpg on highway but usually the diesel engine costs more than the price difference of using a gas engine over like, a lot of years. (20mpg vs 30mpg but $5k more at purchase. Can buy a lot of gas for $5k).
Gods I’d love A small truck like that if they made them, I know this is fuck cars and I agree with the sentiment, but I’d much rather these be everywhere than the monstrosities on the road today
Aren’t those illigal to drive in most of the US? Besides that, they also cap at like 60mph, right? That really limits thier usefulness in a lot of the US, these are mostly good for cities, right?
Don’t get me wrong I love kei trucks, but I think having small regular pickups would help a ton too.
They’re illegal for road use in a lot of states, yes, but not private use. So in most states, if you need something for around your property, you’re still allowed to buy one. Some states will let you register them for road use though.
The bigger issues are 1. To be imported, they have to be at least 25 years old, so the current ones are from the late 90s. Thus, they have the tech to go with it, limiting their speed.
And 2. They’re built and designed for Japanese roads and regulations, not American ones. Speed limits are different there, and as you said, they’re better for city use, I’d say non-highway use.
They’re legal in my state, and I want one when I can afford one, but I’m also less than a mile from a major home improvement store, and the other two stores I would need to visit are within 20 minutes driving by backroads. But I’m a fringe case, but I’d say for most people who live reasonably close to a Lowes or whatever and are only going to use it for weekend projects would be perfect candidates for a kei truck.
Beyond that, yeah, they’re limited :/
Only on high ways. They have all the required features (lights, seatbelts, indicators) to be legal on roads, only two states have official bans on their use for roads with speed limits faster than 55mph. But I don’t think any sane person is buying these things for long distance commutes, those that would would just buy a smart car instead.
If it’s old enough, you can import and drive them. Some kind of classic car exception.
Canoo is supposedly going to make a pickup based on their electric van platform that looks really interesting:
The expanding bed is an absolutely killer feature IMO. Small footprint the vast majority of the time but expands out large enough to fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood when you need that. All the fold-out workbenches are a really cool touch too.
The whole thing feels like the Kei trucks people in other comments are mentioning but upsized and up-powered to be more feasible on US roads.
Not 100% definite and it’s likely going to look a bit weird, but real good chance we’re going to have a model based on the transit vans you see rolling around called the ‘ford courier’ in a year or so but regulations make it difficult to release a truck like that nowadays.
Maybe Telo Trucks might be worth keeping an eye on?
Even from the renders I can tell you that it’s probably not going to work out, all other things being equal. Sharing the “format” of like, a cabover, similar to a kei truck, means that it would more readily be suited for smaller scenarios in which maybe turn radius and immediate over the hood visibility is more important, right, but then, its size kind of defeats that, and I suspect that the slant of the window, in order to make it aerodynamic at highway speeds, and efficient, is going to end up putting the driver back so far that it’s going to eliminate your ability to actually see over the hood as much as you might want to. Probably the format also has adverse effects on crash safety, as you really want a hood on your car in order to catch a pedestrian, scooping them up by the legs, and also as a crumple zone to dispel some of the force of crash from the front, which is ideally where most of your crashes are coming from.
I think probably also that the conventional american automotive taste might defeat it, as americans kind of, historically, prefer a larger shittier hood on their vehicle. They prefer the sort of idiot dominance that a big hood gives them. Carolina squat style. I could be wrong on all that, though.
I think my biggest concern would probably be that, even though light trucks are the segment of the market which are very obviously viable for EVs right now, the people who buy trucks won’t want to buy them, and the people who want EVs won’t want to buy them. Implicit in both of those is those who can afford them, which I think automatically maybe selects for people who have the worst taste of all time. Light trucks make sense for EVs, right, you have a rear suspension which is supposed to be beefier for large loads already, conventionally in consumer trucks you’re not going to want a longer travel distance because they’re not supposed to be these highly efficient vehicles, and going electric gives you a pretty good and easy tow rating and high levels of torque low in the power curve like you might get with a diesel engine.
But I dunno. Basically I think americans might be too stupid for it. Might see more success in japan, but I have no idea what their EV infrastructure is looking like or if they already have kei trucks or larger cabovers which are electric. Fleet vehicles would probably need something like a swappable battery on the cheap, or a fast charging system that doesn’t destroy the battery immediately, but the first one probably requires more infrastructure and the second one seems maybe like it would be a limitation of the technology.
So rare, all the 2024 are sold since months in Canada, I don’t even know if you can buy a 2025 as maybe they are all already reserved.
I was very interested in the Ford Maverick up until the 2024 model year when the hybrid engine stopped being standard and instead a $2500 upgrade on top of an already significant price hike. That, and the complete inability to find one to buy anyway were what made me give up on the maverick entirely.
Giant land yacht with the LED permanent highbeams tilted up to blind oncoming traffic.
I would not say that we can completely get rid of cars, or that all cars are evil, but such absurdly big, extremely inefficient trucks with negligible visibility just should be taxed to shit.
At the very least you should need a special license to operate them. They’re classed differently to avoid safety and emissions regulations imposed on regular cars, so its perfectly reasonable that there should be different requirements to purchase them and get behind the wheel.
That’s brilliant.
I cannot believe my license lets me drive all sorts of vehicle sizes that can outright crush/kill, right off the bat.
But to operate a forklift or ride a motorcycle that is more likely to kill myself? Nah gotta have a license.
Not to mention the massive loads they can haul which basically turn them into semi trucks, vehicles which you would in fact need a special license to operate, with worse visibility to boot. Way too many people out there hauling ridiculously large campers and sometimes even towing an extra vehicle at the end of their train with zero special training to do so.
Not even taxed. Outright banned. What happened to governments regulating and revising car safety standards? They can even collect all these back and offer change into more environment and traffic friendly ones, like they were doing 10 years ago.
The guy that drives the land yacht once brought home a couple of two by fours in it from Home Depot, so he feels justified in owning it too. “Sometimes there’s just mo substitute for a good truck.” When his ac cannot handle the heat, he still won’t experience any introspection.
The beds are the same size too. It’s not even a better truck than the old one.
But it’s legal to manufacture today, unlike the old one. CAFE rules changed in 2012 to be based on footprint instead of vehicle class, so they essentially outlawed small trucks and gave auto manufacturers an easy way out of efficiency regulations by just making cars bigger every refresh cycle.
Thanks Obama!
But jokes aside that’s how everything geta done.
Industry writes rules for themselves and nobody knows how such thing happened but nobody is at fault and nothing to be done really … Kk thx bye
I hate these bullshit oversized trucks too, but to be fair the big one has a much bigger cab for more passengers, a much bigger engine, and a much bigger towing capacity.
This is the wrong sub for such comments… but I agree with you. If you need a truck and you have a family you can buy the smaller truck, but then you also have to buy a car to carry the family. The larger truck will let you haul your family and give you the pickup truck that you need.
