There's a truck exactly like that a block away from where I live in my rural town.
Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
191–200 of 651 posts
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#192I wonder how much of the “Americans want big cars” is just “car manufacturers _sell_ big cars and not much else” … then there’s the whole SUV loophole that gets them around emissions regs.
The Ford Maverick is great and around 20k but at this point I want 100% electric.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's even less likely that a 25 year old vehicle will meet current safety and emissions regulations.
The amount of those vehicles will obviously be limited. Removing it would allow people to buy cheap cars in places like Mexico, that have loose emissions standards, and drive them around California, which has some of the most stringent emissions standards in the world. Not to mention the safety requirements issues...
More importantly it also allows us to import reasonably-sized 4WD trucks from other countries instead of having to decide between a mini-van or a station wagon.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#194Kinda ironic that big city dwellers are buying larger and larger trucks every year just to take them on grocery shopping runs while rural farm workers are moving in the opposite direction for actual hauling.
While you are correct that urban Americans LARPing ranchers are, indeed, buying larger and larger trucks I don't see actual farmers/ranchers downsizing.
I live on a working ranch and while our truck is very boring ("work truck" - basically a fleet vehicle with no options) it is still quite large as it has an 8' bed, etc.
I think we could make good use of a battery powered vehicle with a small cargo area and we definitely make good use of the aforementioned full-sized truck ... but I don't find these mini-pickups appealing or interesting.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#195Kinda ironic that big city dwellers are buying larger and larger trucks every year just to take them on grocery shopping runs while rural farm workers are moving in the opposite direction for actual hauling.
The article cites someone who purchased a kei truck instead of a side-by-side, so it doesn’t imply that rural folks are moving away from trucks.
If anything, the urban folks are buying bigger cars/trucks and rural folks are buying bigger sxs/ATVs
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#196I wonder how much of the “Americans want big cars” is just “car manufacturers _sell_ big cars and not much else” … then there’s the whole SUV loophole that gets them around emissions regs. The Ford Maverick is great and around 20k but at this point I want 100% electric.
I would buy a Maverick tomorrow if it had leaf springs instead of coils.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what did people do when they had 3-4 kids in the 80s? I see families of 4 with huge SUVs these days. If anything they want a kei van right? It maximises the size of the vehicle, cuboid on wheels, and minimises the cost for that volume.
We didn't use seatbelts or booster seats. We rode in the bed of the pickup, we rode sitting backwards in the trunk of a hatchback, we crammed in 5-wide in the bench seat in the back of a sedan. Also, there were proto-SUVs like the Chevy Suburban.
I never had a pickup truck, but I did have seat belts and booster seats. We just didn’t use them as much. But that’s not really relevant to having enough space in a vehicle. We had plenty of space in cars. There was nothing wrong with the size.
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#198Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#199One of the most highly upvoted Reddit posts on /r/fuckcars mocks large pickups compared to the utility of a kei truck. https://reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/sdrgv3/japanese_truck... A kei truck has about 90% the bed length of a pickup while being a lot more nimble. The lower bed is more ergonomic to load and unload too.
For me, European multipurpose vehicles (sprinter vans?) were a revelation. An old Renault Kangoo is cheap to buy, cheap to drive and cheap to maintain. It's a small, simple car that drives and parks like a small sedan, but carries as much as a small pickup truck. I can fit a bed, 3 months of luggage and a bicycle in mine. In a pinch, it's a brilliant microcamper. It's a big box on wheels. You can do what you want wit…
This made me realize why I see so many Kangoos in Japan, despite them not really being cheap here! A bit of a nicer version of a Kei truck, without being a full minivan!
Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
That rule ain't changing unfortunately. Regulatory capture is STRONG with automotive and the US sees it as a matter of national security (car makers would be pivoted to other ares in times of war).
How easily could they retool for an event like that? I think I've just hatched a conspiracy theory for why all our vehicles are absurdly sized...
Check out US history during WWII. Auto manufacturing was even pivoted to airplanes. Things must be more specialized now but I assume it could still happen quickly.
My personal belief is this also explains American bias towards planes over rail.