A small pickup, at least with any kind of ICE, is literally illegal to sell here due to CAFE regulations, which are strangely based on the footprint of the car. An actually small pickup would have to be as fuel-efficient as sedans and small SUVs, which isn't going to work out.
EVs will work, but not at that sub-$20k price point.
This can't be right. Maybe it is, but it makes no sense.
The 90s Frontier is a tiny little thing, almost what a Kei truck is today. Same with the Ranger. An El Camino is bigger.
I bought a base Frontier in 2017, wanting that tiny truck but ended up with something the size of a 90s F150. Literally the smallest option on the market, whose weak-ass v4 struggles to haul its own weight (and has the turning radius of an aircraft carrier).
Tacomas? I like Toyota but the used market for those is worse than MSRP.
And Ford stopped making the Ranger; the Maverick ain't it. It's basically what I have already.
How is this the result of new efficiency standards? We still have small cars on the road. Cutting the roof off and appending a flatbed doesn't require a monster footprint.
In 2008 CAFE introduced a formula that calculates the required MPG based off of the track times the wheelbase (basically the rectangle formed by the tires). Trucks are less aerodynamic than sedans, so small trucks can't be made that get sufficiently low MPG to meet this standard, and thus even though a smaller truck would use less fuel than a larger truck that meets the standard.
Am I missing something or is this regulation as dumb as I think it is? It seems to have the effect of replacing a bunch of small trucks on the road with giant trucks that get much worse mileage overall.
CAFE regs also killed the station wagon (estate for you Brits) in the US. Being regulated as cars, station wagons murdered the manufacturers' averages - but minivans, which barely existed in the US (other than the VW Bus) before the mid-80s, were light trucks and so had different (lower) standards. My mom's 1987 minivan got worse mileage than the 1980 station wagon it replaced, and the only advantage it had was that its interior was taller and so moving things was easier. (I ended up driving it for a few months in the mid-90s, right around move-in for my senior year of college. I was suddenly everyone's best friend for a few days.)
What I've always wondered is: Does the larger footprint lead directly to a taller truck?
Is is it just that an F-150 that is as tall as a 1990 Ranger would look silly or something? The 1990s Buick Roadmaster Estate is not just 17" shorter in length than an F-150 Super Cab with a 6.5' bed, but also 17" shorter in height, which makes a sharing the road with these trucks bad (even before they are raised, which seems relatively common).
My dad wanted an 8' bed standard cab for his work and got an old one with almost 200k miles and I was slightly surprised to see it wasn't a step-up cab, while it seems like all modern trucks are.
[edit]
The Roadmaster Estate is also 8" shorter in height than the Ford Maverick, despite having a longer length; granted the Buick keeps its maximum height for a longer part of the length, but it has a shorter hood, and from the cab-back the Maverick doesn't go under 50" until the bumper.
> Many european cars have versions both sedan and wagon.
BMW's 3- and 5-series wagons are no longer sold in the US. Audi only has the A4 and A6 Allroad versions. Mercedes-Benz has only the E-class wagon remaining. Volvo, long the king of European wagons in the US, recently restored two models. So yeah, unfortunately for the most part they're out.
> Look like everyone wants a SUV these days.
This is true. Most of those wagons that were phased out became equivalent SUV models.
My point was that not CAFE regulations killed wagons in US but simple market force. Wagons are still alive, they are manufactured globally, just not selling well in US. Same story with compact cars like Toyota Yaris.
Luxury brands can price the tax for failure to meet CAFE standards into their sticker; an extra thousand isn’t going to make or break an E class sale, but it’s going to matter for a Malibu wagon.
It's beyond dumb and currently all stick and no carrot. By that I mean - at least in CA - a huge state bureaucracy including visual inspections that essentially precludes any real modifications to vehicles - unless you see a referee in which case it is a crapshoot on approval. We would IMO be better served by larger tax incentives on electric, and reduce the CARB bureaucracy enormously - insist on a simple tailpipe test "as it blows". Ridiculous standards have effectively forced small, high compression, often turbo charged, engines on consumers which run extremely hot (observe the heat shielding on newer subarus intended to prevent the engine mounts from burning out). Such engines, while fuel efficient, will never last the 300k miles we saw previously, without extensive messing with - by that I mean engine pulling, gasket full gasket and ring replacement type operations. If you want longevity, the older style toyota, lower compression, engines - which run cool and are marginally less fuel efficient (available in most other places in the world) will last in the 1m mile range.
It does appear that dumb. CAFE seems predicated on exceeding a particular average gas mileage for each class of vehicles.
If I understand it correctly, having a small truck counted among your sedans hurts the average MPG of your "car" line since even a fuel-efficient truck performs worse than cars.
Solution: add just enough mass to the Frontier to bump it from "cars" and put it in the "truck" class.
Among "trucks," the dummy-thicc Frontier now becomes the best-performing Truck, whose high average MPG raises the shittier average MPG of the rest of your gas-guzzling Titan/equivalents. Then you don't need to improve any of your existing trucks.
...which leaves little incentive for anybody to make a small truck. It hurts your average car MPG and only qualifies as a Truck if you add so much weight to it that it's no longer "small." This is dumb.
I think it is which results not only in huge trucks using much fuel but also killing people more than small ones would. Many things in US politics move in mysterious ways.
It's dumb, but also don't forget that any law that will disproportionately hurt Ford is going to be a non-starter; over 650k F-150s sold in a year.
[edit]
Ford existing necessitates allowing pickups, it doesn't necessitate forcing them to be large. I'm just pointing out that any regulation that makes pickups unsaleable altogether is not going to work.
People don't even realize that the government agencies responsible for saving us from "climate change" are the same ones causing absolutely stupid issues like this.
> Oooh, I would _absolutely_ buy one of these to tow with.
From an outsider, that's the thing that baffles me the most about the current state of the whole world's auto industry. Sometimes it seems that all auto makers are colluding to prevent any competition based on price, and are instead invested in forcing this notion that the only possible consumer pressure is on seeking luxury features like onboard computers, touchscreens, media centers, etc etc.
A vehicle's primary use is take people and objects from point A to B, and do so reliably and economically. The automotive industry is the textbook example of economy of scale. Why are we still seeing low-end cars being sold for small fortunes?
> A vehicle's primary use is take people and objects from point A to B, and do so reliably
Car longevity increased a ton in the last several decades years, and so "something that moves" isn't as central a motivation for new car sales anymore. If they just need something that moves, buyers can find countless used cars that still run and will keep doing so for hundreds of thousands of more miles. It's tough to compete in that space and come away with a worthwhile margin on top of fresh design and manufacturing costs.
So manufacturers, who don't want to scale down sales and production, try to entice buyers with shiny things that aren't available on old models and focus on higher price tiers. And that it coincides with booming tech culture and its fashion/impulse-driven purchase cycles makes it that much easier for them.
> Car longevity increased a ton in the last several decades years, and so "something that moves" isn't as central a motivation for new car sales anymore.
I don't think this is a valid take. Robustness is absolutely not the reason why cars are being heavily marketed based on luxury extras, even on base models.
> If they just need something that moves, buyers can find countless used cars that still run and will keep doing so for hundreds of thousands of more miles.
This is a very silly and absurd take. Cars devalue from their dealer price, which is justified based on all these useless luxury features that no one is able to avoid by design. Used cars might be cheaper than brand new models, but they are by no means cheap.
Dude the delta between new and used cars right now is virtually nothing. You can get a 2012 tacoma with 200k miles on it for like 28k or a brand new 2023 tacoma for 35k.
New is a better deal just based on the projected mechanical life of the car. Dont need fancy features to sell it
The projected longevity of trucks is actually going back down again, which is why the older ones are holding value. The modern ones are full to the brim with computer/DRM enforced anti-repair measures so that the dealership can profiteer.
The reason is government regulation. I'm not saying that increased safety and emission standard are bad, but they're the main thing driving up car prices.
How can I assert that with confidence? Because all you need to do is to look up what the cars that are illegal to sell in the US, EU and countries that are similarly regulated.
> The reason is government regulation. I'm not saying that increased safety and emission standard are bad, but they're the main thing driving up car prices.
I don't think that is remotely true. You're commenting on a discussion on Toyota launching a $10k pickup, and there is absolutely no suggestion this price is achieved by ignoring regulation.
the point is that this truck will never see sale in the USA- It would be illegal to sell and not meet standards.
Regulations are different by country, so you see different cars at different price points. It is also illegal to import this car (again regulation), so that impacts price as well
The Maverick is only small in modern terms. It's larger than the old S10 or Rangers were by quite a bit, and more like an old midsized truck -- it's length is actually smack in the middle of a short-bed and long-bed 1990 F-150 and 11-inches longer than the Long Bed 1990 Ranger.
The Maverick is nowhere near a success. Powertrain issues aside, it was nearly impossible to buy the $20,000 trim of the truck. Sure you can buy a $40,000 optioned out hybrid version, but a used Frontier or Tacoma is a much better option for a $20,000 truck.
If you ordered new from Ford, you'd get the maverick with your desired options at the advertised price. The problem was, it's such a great truck that the order books for the entire year have closed within DAYS of opening. It's the used ones, or the new orders declined by the customers and then sold by the dealerships, that are ridiculously priced. If you have the time, ordering from Ford is a great option to get a great value truck.
What are you going to tow? The unbraked tow capacity is 750Kg. The fact that there even is an unbraked vs braked capacity points to how horrible (ie, not roadworthy) this vehicle is.
Excellent farm truck, I assume, or Toyota wouldn't put their name on it. But not something you are going to use on highways in the US, and esp not with a trailer.
It's become almost impossible to find a cheap pickup truck in the US. Even older USED trucks are commanding $30K these days.
If they could fit this out to pass safety regs in North America and keep the price under $20K, it would be a license to print money.