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Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

economist.com

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Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#211

Post by porphyra »

nicbou wrote: post #131
porphyra wrote: post #37

One 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…

Vans are really much more practical.

* protects your goods from weather

* more cargo volume

* better forward visibility without a long hood

* easier to load and unload due to being lower

* can park it without people being able to walk up to it and taking your tools and equipment out of the exposed truck bed

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#212

Post by linguae »

nostromo wrote: post #82
nyx wrote: post #29

The 25-year import rule here, which bans Americans from importing vehicles from other countries unless they're 25+ years old, is just awful for those of us who would be interested in driving small, efficient foreign cars. It would be great to live completely car-free, but absent major changes to how we plan our cities, it's just a sad reality that cars are a necessary ingredient to life in the vast majority of Americ…

What would be the point of safety and emissions regulations if we let everyone bypass them by importing vehicles from abroad? The vehicles meeting the requirements wouldn't be competitive on price because they'd be playing by a different set of rules.

California has an answer to that: imported cars are generally required to meet the same emissions standards as cars intended for the domestic market:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/new-regis...

From the California DMV's web page on direct imported vehicles: "If your direct foreign import vehicle was not originally manufactured to meet California emissions standards and DOT FMVSS, the vehicle cannot be registered in California, unless the vehicle is modified and tested under CARB’s direct import program."

Based on research that I done years ago, my understanding is that the modifications required to get many foreign vehicles to conform to California's emission standards, combined with the testing fees (which is far more expensive than the cost of a traditional biennial smog check), make it prohibitively expensive for casual buyers to legally register imported vehicles in California.

Some people get around this by registering their vehicles in other states where only the EPA 25 year rule applies; occasionally in California I do see cars with their steering wheels on the right side with Nevada or Oregon license plates. However, California generally requires its residents to have their vehicles registered in California.

One thing I'm curious about is whether California allows direct imported vehicles to be converted to run on battery-backed electric motors as a legal modification. If this is the case, then the vehicle would certainly pass the emissions test.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#213

Post by civilized »

nostromo wrote: post #210
deelowe wrote: post #52

Earlier 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).

This isn't necessarily regulatory capture or protectionism. Half of all cars sold in the US are imported. Toyota, a Japanese company, is the most popular brand of car sold in the US. So, yes, you can import cars all you want, they just need to follow US safety and emissions standards. These cars do not meet those requirements, so you can't import them. If you didn't block them as imports, we'd have lots of people jus…

> You can import cars all you want, they just need to be safe and not pollute. These cars do not meet those requirements, so you can't import them.

I don't understand. If this were the case, it seems like the rule wouldn't make an exception for 25+ year old cars.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#214

Post by robocat »

lancewiggs wrote: post #205
robocat wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps consider a visit to New Zealand and buying one there if you can’t import one from Japan (keyword “direct import”), although your total costs would be high. We are friendly buggers over here, so you are not likely to get ripped off unless you are a numpty. Buy an unregistered spare one for parts - used farm ones without plates get sold much cheaper. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/suzuki/carry/search —…

We do, however, drive on the other side of the road from those in the USA.

Yeah, but this thread seems to mainly be talking about left-hand drive imports.

If someone does their homework, they could bring over a big American Ute to NZ (buy cheap in US, sell for heaps in NZ). Need to be extremely careful about NZ regulations though - complicated and relatively costly/risky. Ideally find someone in NZ that has done it for the model you would import into NZ.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#215

Post by lm28469 »

quarantine wrote: post #181
nicbou wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Citroën Berlingo really is one of the best cars they made

The c15 is an icon too, such a classic, produced from 1984 until 2006, it can carry almost as much as it weights. And it was designed to fit a full euro palette in the back https://images.caradisiac.com/images/0/9/8/4/190984/S0-route...

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#216

Post by nostromo »

civilized wrote: post #213
nostromo wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't necessarily regulatory capture or protectionism. Half of all cars sold in the US are imported. Toyota, a Japanese company, is the most popular brand of car sold in the US. So, yes, you can import cars all you want, they just need to follow US safety and emissions standards. These cars do not meet those requirements, so you can't import them. If you didn't block them as imports, we'd have lots of people jus…

> You can import cars all you want, they just need to be safe and not pollute. These cars do not meet those requirements, so you can't import them. I don't understand. If this were the case, it seems like the rule wouldn't make an exception for 25+ year old cars.

That exemption exists for car collectors, who generally have a different set of safety expectations of their cars than you would buying a used car at a corner lot.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#217

Post by eduction »

nyx wrote: post #29

The 25-year import rule here, which bans Americans from importing vehicles from other countries unless they're 25+ years old, is just awful for those of us who would be interested in driving small, efficient foreign cars. It would be great to live completely car-free, but absent major changes to how we plan our cities, it's just a sad reality that cars are a necessary ingredient to life in the vast majority of Americ…

You can import new tiny cars and drive them all you want on a farm or private grounds, you just can’t take them on roads if they don’t meat road safety standards.

Even the advocate highlighted in this article (Economist) admits his would probably be a “death trap” on a busy highway.

Maybe the US should create separate standards for city streets and roads with low speed limits, that could be a good way to bring down vehicle sizes. But just allowing these things just anywhere seems like a recipe for increased fatalities. For every HN reader who would use theirs wisely there are 10 average Americans who would risk maiming.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#218

Post by saalweachter »

munificent wrote: post #170
iancmceachern wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get the Ford Maverick

A Maverick is just an open air hatchback. It's the same length as my 2002 Xtracab Tacoma, which is nice, but my Tacoma has a bed that's literally twenty inches longer.

I still long in my heart for a pickup that is as small as possible while having an 8 ft bed, but honestly once you also need to take children with you wherever you go, the compromise of a shorter bed with a good sized back seat (to accommodate car seats) really begins to make a lot of sense.

I ended up just attaching a trailer hitch to my Chevy Volt and buying a lightweight 8ft trailer. As long as I just need to move big and not heavy, it's perfectly adequate, and the mileage when I'm not hauling is a lot better.

And it cost me about $2k while keeping me out of the insane used truck market.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#219

Post by [deleted] »

nostromo wrote: post #216
civilized wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can import cars all you want, they just need to be safe and not pollute. These cars do not meet those requirements, so you can't import them. I don't understand. If this were the case, it seems like the rule wouldn't make an exception for 25+ year old cars.

That exemption exists for car collectors, who generally have a different set of safety expectations of their cars than you would buying a used car at a corner lot.

[deleted]

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#220

Post by poulsbohemian »

LinuxBender wrote: post #4

I've seriously contemplated getting one of these. Street legal, fuel efficient, simple, but when I started researching them I started to see a pattern. It's hard to find anyone in rural areas willing to work on them and not all mini trucks are equal. Some are not shipped correctly and have frame rust issues. There are YouTuber's that cover some of the models and the gotchas and things to inspect. I would never buy on…

>It's hard to find anyone in rural areas willing to work on them and not all mini trucks are equal.

Living in a rural area, I first saw these popping up at least a decade ago. The typical farmer / rancher has to be mechanically skilled and one of the benefits of these vehicles is that they are relatively simple mechanically speaking, IE: assuming availability of parts you could do the work yourself.

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