Article didn't mention CAFE (which is the reason for larger sizes) nor chicken tax (which makes, even if they qualified under CAFE, foreign small trucks economically non-viable).
The demand for older compact S-10 and the old compact rangers is sky high. Make them legal again.
> The demand for older compact S-10 and the old compact rangers is sky high. Make them legal again.
Wouldn't the Ford Maverick be the modern version of these? It comes in two different forms as far as I can tell - the "truck shaped car" (FWD, hybrid powertrain), and the "small truck" form (4WD, no hybrid, rather lower fuel economy), depending on what you need it to do. And in a small truck, I think FWD vs the 2WD/RWD Rangers is probably the right option - some of those were pretty tail happy in the slick.
If the Maverick were slightly less tall and (more importantly) 2 door or crew-cab they would be a lot more useful. The usable bed is so small you can't get anything done. Instead I have to wait for a good condition 20-30 year old Ford Ranger.
I've been keeping my eye out for a Ridgeline also, something in that "I do enough on my land to need a hauler but I'm more ex-urban than rural, and don't load the whole bed with projects but once a year"
> Article didn't mention CAFE (which is the reason for larger sizes) nor chicken tax (which makes, even if they qualified under CAFE, foreign small trucks economically non-viable).
I was pointed to the article from the just-posted Not Just Bikes video "These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us", which does go over those things:
The point of the Axios article, which comes up at the 25m25s point in the NJB video, goes towards the point that the pickup truck has actually become less practical over the decades. And to the idea that most folks would be better served with a station wagon or perhaps a minivan.
Trucks have gone from the cargo bed being >60% of the usable length (ignoring the engine), to the (crew) cab being >60% of the useable length. Pickup trucks gone from thing-haulers to people-haulers, in which case, why bother with that form factor?
>Trucks have gone from the cargo bed being >60% of the usable length (ignoring the engine), to the (crew) cab being >60% of the useable length. Pickup trucks gone from thing-haulers to people-haulers, in which case, why bother with that form factor?
The bed was always a mixed-use people hauler. Then they made that illegal. Go to Mexico, Iraq, Philippines and other places where it's still tolerated or legal in most places and the bed continues to be a people hauler. It's in part the cab got bigger because you couldn't put the people in the bed anymore, not because more people started riding in the trucks.
If you want more bed and less cab again, make it legal for the passengers, kids, etc to ride in the bed again. Like we did when I was a kid. If not, don't be surprised when you make something illegal people adapt the vehicle to deal with it.
> If you want more bed and less cab again, make it legal for the passengers, kids, etc to ride in the bed again. Like we did when I was a kid. If not, don't be surprised when you make something illegal people adapt the vehicle to deal with it.
Ah yes: let's drive down the interstate at ≥60 mph (100kph) to grandma's house with all the kids in the bed. Great idea. Would you like to also bring back leaded gasoline?
Or perhaps non-farmers / non-construction workers can stop pretending they regularly need a cargo bed and get a station wagon or minivan.
The top-selling car in 2022 was the Ford F-150, the top selling car in 1982 was Ford Escort: I'm having a hard time believing that people's hauling needs have changed in the intervening decades to rationally justify the sales figures.
1) You're in favor of better safety for passengers, which would mean better to put them in cab than bed.
2) You're against "pretending" need for carge bed, which would mean reducing or eliminating bed as fraction of full size of vehicle.
Put the two together and we see increasing fractional (%) cab sizes and decreasing fractional (%) bed size. which means we're getting exactly what you asked for. And you act surprised that when people get what they ask for, sales are better?
I would trade in my model y for a compact electric truck of similar spec and price if it existed. I live in a city and don't haul stuff most of the time, but every time I need to carry trash or dirt, make home depot runs, or move furniture I wish I had a truck.
> […] but every time I need to carry trash or dirt, make home depot runs, or move furniture I wish I had a truck.
If you actually read the article, you'll see that—going by usable length—pickup trucks are generally no longer thing-haulers but people-haulers, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of their form factor.
If you want general hauling space/volume, your best best seems to be a (mini)van.
No, I don't need volume. I want to haul things that I do not want inside of the cabin (trash, dirt, gravel, wild game, dirty camping equipment, muddy boots, etc.)
My uncle is in construction and relatively outdoorsy: he used a (mini)van to haul all of those things. Drop a tarp or two and move on.
I've helped friends haul some of those things as well since they knew my dad had a minivan (Caravan, later Sienna), and would ask if I could (in my late-teens, early-20s) help them out.
But the bed used to be where the people went too. Then they made that illegal. When I was a kid it was pretty common to just sit in the bed, now you have to have a cab big enough for everyone to keep from getting a ticket.
I'm pointing out it's a ridiculous nostalgia to think back about the days when the truck wasn't a people hauler. It was. They just made the bed an illegal place to put the people.
Making the cab longer isn't to ruin people's nostalgia. It's to deal with the legal requirements for transporting passengers. You're illustrating my point. We shouldn't be outraged when you make something illegal and the vehicle is adapted to deal with that.
Why would we be upset about fewer people getting dead, shouldn't we be happy about bigger cabs if that's the case?
> It's to deal with the legal requirements for transporting passengers.
In 1982 the top selling vehicle in the US was the Ford Escort. In 2022 it was the Ford F-150.
People were hauled in the Escort just fine (and probably more comfortably in the rain and winter). The F-150 wasn't adapted to better haul people because changes to safety laws: it was adapted do help profit margins.
> The demand for older compact S-10 and the old compact rangers is sky high. Make them legal again.
Nothing made them illegal. The Tacoma got quite a lot bigger, and the S-10 was replaced by the Colorado, because consumers wanted larger trucks.
I think there is some demand for small trucks, but not enough to get the automakers to manufacture them again. The Ford Courier seems to be doing alright, but I'm not seeing any of the other automakers copying it.
I wonder if we'll see compact pickups as EVs (again, Ford had EV Rangers in the time of the EV-1); because CAFE doesn't drive design for EVs, afaik. Personally, I found my 2011 Ranger with the 4-cylinder engine to be fuel efficient enough, and did my light pickup work. I've now got a 2003 S-10 with a v6 and it's much less fuel efficient; I wish I had kept my Ranger, but it made sense to get rid of it at the time.
The demand for older compact S-10 and the old compact rangers is sky high. Make them legal again.