Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 651 posts

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#451

Post by bombcar »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #220
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.

I’ve also found that many rural mechanics (try the tractor/large truck guys if the car mechanic is skittish) are perfectly willing to work on them for time+materials; they want to know that you know it may take more time and cost more. Once past that they’re quite capable.

So if you can source the parts for them, and be willing to have it take some time; you’ll find help.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#452

Post by ccorcos »

Something I’m not seeing mentioned here: I read somewhere (though i can’t find it) that we don’t have small trucks in the US because fuel economy standards are based on wheelbase.

That’s why you can’t take an F-150 and put it on a smaller frame and sell it in the US. But many of us want one!

I’d love a half-ton truck the size of a 80s Tacoma…

I could use some help fact-checking though. I was digging around for primary sources but it’s tough reading…

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#453

Post by bombcar »

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…

The US equivalent is a minivan; which everyone seems to agree is absolutely impossible to admit buying unless you’re a housewife with small kids. But they’re incredibly practical.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#454

Post by elihu »

lmpdev wrote: post #420
ioseph wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bizarre to me as an Australian that these are considered "compact". Here they are the standard utility vehicle for every tradesman (although the Toyota Hilux is perhaps most popular). Coming from my hatchback I find these long and awkward to park / merge. Sadly Dodge Rams and other stupid big US cars are starting to rear their ugly faces, although they look hilariously out of place on our roads. A popular ter…

I'm utterly baffled why Toyotas like the 79 Series LandCruiser hasn't taken over the United States yet It is the most American vehicle ever made Next to no electronics, far stronger than a Hilux, all standard dirt cheap parts that are all entirely serviceable in the middle of no where and most importantly for Americans: a massive V8 diesel engine Out bush I see quite a few 6 wheeler modified ones with double 220L (63…

A couple reasons might be the chicken tax (25% tariff on all imported trucks) and if it's "too small" it might be in the category of light trucks where the EPA imposes very strict fuel economy standards.

I blame regulatory capture for both of these things. Gotta protect American big truck manufacturers from competition from smaller, lighter, possibly cheaper vehicles.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#455

Post by qbrass »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #418
Dalewyn wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This really is the crux of the issue, those kei cars simply do not meet US car regulations by the very nature of their small size and light weight. Even in Japan, where they hail from, kei cars are a distinct category regulated separately from the rest of…

> Even in Japan, where they hail from, kei cars are a distinct category regulated separately from the rest of the car market with different build, safety, and emissions standards. So, like farm vehicles in the USA?

It's more like mopeds to motorcycles. If your moped went slower than 25mph and had an engine smaller than 50cc, they were treated more like a bicycle than a motorcycle.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#456

Post by bombcar »

chrisco255 wrote: post #424
dyno12345 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less" https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

Thanks for the useless hit piece, if you can find the scientific data, I'll evaluate it, but when I click into the links on the article, I'm unable to find it. So we're clear: because surveys are incredibly difficult to do in a scientific way and there's a dozen ways to ask a question that can skew results, there's a hundred ways a journalist can misinterpret the results of that question, and there's a thousand ways…

I think many users here would have a heart attack and die to realize how many semis on the road are entirely empty (deadheading) and how many are filled way below capacity.

Most truck owners I know use their truck as a truck quite often. But that’s more rural; maybe everyone in a city commutes in an F150 for absolutely no reason at all.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#457

Post by telchior »

sparrish wrote: post #450
iambateman wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s complicated. If you lose your license for drunk driving, you can still drive a moped, so there is a reputation that the person driving the moped has a bad past. Plus, there just aren’t very many on the road so they stick out as unusual. And there is a cultural obsession with big vehicles being tied to masculinity. Which means that many (15%?) drivers would feel happy or even a little justified to blow past a mop…

They're called bikeaholics in Colorado. Easy to spot cause they're wearing jeans and backpacks, usually.

... aren't jeans and backpacks the most typical pants/container? What the heck else would you wear and carry things in while scooting around?

Not that I disbelieve you, it just seems odd. My idea of Colorado is a bunch of people in jeans and hiking boots.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#458

Post by bombcar »

glitcher wrote: post #122
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing the point. Many people buying inefficient oversized pickup trucks don't care that there's smaller and more efficient options out there, but they do it for the status simbol and ego lifting, not to be utilitarian and efficient. I see these monster pick-up trucks more and more in European cities nowadays too, F-150s, Dodge Rams, with some fancy paintjob and big wheels but who's bed hasn't seen any actual use ca…

Another factor is safety. I don't share this point of view, but I have seen others purposely choose large, heavy vehicles for family members so they stand a better chance surviving a bad collision. If you've ever sat in traffic driving a small car surrounded by large vehicles it definitely starts to sink in that you are at a distinct disadvantage if anything goes wrong. So this trend is also at least partially about…

I’ve only ever seen “safety” used as a justification for a decision already made, besides some people who like to “sit higher”.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#459

Post by theodric »

baggy_trough wrote: post #413
oyashirochama wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US states control registration. Also older vehicles especially kei cars aren't nearly as polluting as one would think especially if only used for work rather than daily use, with mpg in the upper 50 to low 70s though fairly crap nox by comparison to modern 2020s cars. They also encourage lower speeds which could be a plus in every way.

It takes longer to get places at lower speeds.

That scales with distance. If you're driving 30kph slower for 2 hours, it makes a difference. If you're heading 10-15km to the shop or the creamery, it's not so terrible. Speaking as someone who was a speed freak as a new driver, and sets my cruise at 78 in an 80 zone today...speed ain't everything. You wouldn't want to drive one of these kei vehicles on long trips, anyway.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#460

Post by alpaca128 »

HPsquared wrote: post #442
yosito wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who grew up feeling annoyed and aggressive toward people driving motorcycles, but now drives a motorcycle regularly for the past 10 years, it never had anything to do with how poor someone was. Motorcycles aren't the most practical vehicles on American roads, so I always perceived them as a sport, not a necessity. And motorcycle drivers has a reputation for pulling stupid stunts and causing accidents o…

Cyclists are perceived as the opposite: hobbyists who go too slowly and hold everyone up. By the simple act of riding down a busy street, a well-placed cyclist can necessitate hundreds of questionable overtaking maneuvers as each car has to pass them. "Trail of chaos" in other words.

And most of those cyclists would love to be on a bike lane instead, but those often just don't exist.

From personal experience it's also annoying when I get hate from car drivers who assume I deliberately use the road instead of the "bike lane" which is in fact only meant for pedestrians, but try to explain that in half a second while passing and when the official road markings are only visible with forensic tools.

Post reply on HN