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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

#81

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Marsymars wrote: post #62
nonethewiser wrote: post #11

I can see the utility but most country road speed limits are gonna be 50 mph+. I wouldn’t want to drive it there. Dirt roads or on your land, sure. Regardless, they look pretty cool. A cheaper option, but lower quality, might be some small trucks from China. It will also be interesting to see how Fords Maverick catches on. May not quite fill this niche but seems like a good option overall.

Problem with the Ford Maverick is that it’s only available in crew cab with a 4.5 ft bed, which is really a sub-par configuration if your priorities are in moving stuff rather than people.

Roof rack with the back half mounted to the bed or hitch can mitigate that to an extent. That's how I haul oversized stuff in a pre-2011 Ranger.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#82

Post by nostromo »

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.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#83

Post by fractallyte »

I used one of these - a van - as my daily driver some years ago. It was great! A surprising amount of volume in the back, yet small. It wasn't fast, but it was maneuverable, easy to handle, and economical. And reliable! It never failed to start, even on subzero days, after weeks of standing still.

It was powerful enough to haul serious weight. The engine labored somewhat, and one could definitely feel the increased momentum of the vehicle.

I had some doubts about the front crumple zone - there really wasn't much that could absorb a head-on impact. But it never became an issue..

If I had similar transport needs again, I'd get one of these vans without hesitation.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#84

Post by poink »

I'd love a tiny truck as my primary vehicle, but after watching Doug DeMuro review an imported kei car van (https://youtu.be/yyTJTUNgsVU) I realized I could never feel comfortable driving one of these on the highways around here.

What I _really_ want is something like the Ford F-100 Eluminator concept.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021...

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#85

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

slackfan wrote: post #40
officeplant wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is the Maverick DOA? I see the all over my rural farm area and people are paying $8000 over sticker for the privilege of getting one of the few in stock.

Must be somewhere in the flatlands then. The small(er) truck market is dominated by Toyota, Nissan and Chevrolets and Ford Rangers. Mavericks are mostly city-dweller mom-mobiles at best.

The new Ranger and its competition are not actually small trucks. They're the size of what the F150 used to be.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#87

Post by dabluecaboose »

Syonyk wrote: post #17

The local Mahindra dealer also seems to be doing a brisk business with their Roxors - they're almost literally a 1950s Jeep with a modern diesel engine in them. It's the same market niche - small, off highway use, utility vehicles. And at least out here, you're allowed to run around on the roads at least some with them to get between fields.

> they're almost literally a 1950s Jeep with a modern diesel engine in them

For those who aren't aware, Mahindra secured a licensing agreement with Willys in 1947 to make them. They're actually as close as you can get to a modern Willys Jeep, so much so that they were sued by Chrysler for infringing on Jeep's trade dress by looking too much like a Jeep brand Jeep

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#88

Post by thebooktocome »

boredumb wrote: post #59
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.

Where I live the hills would stall that kei out before you got to any real hills, with nothing at all added to the bed.

Japan is famously mountainous. I can’t imagine they don’t road test them on “real hills”.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#89

Post by triceratops »

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.

It's even less likely that a 25 year old vehicle will meet current safety and emissions regulations.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#90

Post by sgath92 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #47
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #30

Earlier 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.

They drove big station wagons.

And the station wagons got killed off by CAFE standards because they were treated as cars instead of as their own category. Taking a sedan and turning it into a station wagon is going to inherently make it heavier and less fuel efficient.

So if the auto makers are already struggling to make their sedans hit MPG goals, suddenly those station wagons have to be phased out.

Though to be fair, minivans start in the mid 80s and were very popular in the 90s instead of SUVs. Comparable MPGs to the wagons but felt a lot more roomy inside.

The big problem came in the 2000s when the auto makers started subtly turning their minivans into SUVs. Even the last wagon hold outs like Volvo took this road eventually.

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