We buy a freezer at Costco. Checking out, we ask for details on delivery. Costco employee says "Oh, we don't deliver". We had been used to Costco in CA which at the time would deliver large items.
I ask "Well, how do people get big things like freezers home".
Costco person says "Easy, just put it in your pickup, we'll help you load".
"Hmm...we don't own a pickup".
Costco employee looks somewhat confused.
Then says "Easy, just get your neighbor's pickup".
The next week we bought a pickup.
Having a truck in a big city if you're a in tech or some other desk job is probably kind of pointless. But if you're not in the city and plan on saving thousands and thousands of dollars doing some of the work on your property yourself, you can't really live without it. Seriously, the thing has paid for itself already (bought it used) and haven't even had it a year.
It all still feels a little weird to me. There was a time not long ago where I never thought I'd own a car, much less a big pickup! I'll admit that this lifestyle feels very inefficient.
Though, I wonder if my carbon footprint is actually smaller, since I spend most of my vacation time working on stuff at home (rather than flying places).
So another vehicle was warranted: why not get one with the trailer "built in" (truck bed) so I don't have to have an SUV and a trailer that I have to hook up every time? There's other reasons I needed a tow-capable vehicle, but the utility of a truck just made the most sense.
I agree that there's an entire class if stuff (lumber/plywood) you can strap to your roof or get a little trailer for that doesn't warrant a truck, but having one makes a lot of the stuff I do weekly so much easier.
P.S. Trucks are just more fun! P.P.S. They're also cheaper to lease than SUVS thanks to crazy resale values.
Your list of items "(getting plywood sheets/siding/lumber, dump runs, towing, etc)." all seems perfectly doable with a trailer. I never had any trouble hauling trailers with my Subaru WRX sedan.
I don't understand the weird fascination with people trying to convince others that they don't need a truck. Does it occur to you that I was aware that trailers existed before getting the truck and that their existence factored into the decision?
I don’t live in rural US (neither rural nor US). Here in UK you see more 4x4s in the countryside, part fashion, part poorer roads - but there is definitely plenty of countryside perfectly well served by regular cars, and you do see a lot of them about. Few trucks meanwhile.
So my imagination can’t quite figure out the difference.
There have also been a number of mudslides in the neighborhood that block the only exit road in the past, and having a 4x4 vehicle would be the only manner of escape. Similarly, it's in the forest, so a when a tree falls across the road (and they do), freedom is only a truck, some straps, and a chainsaw away.
So how much of this could have been done with an SUV? Maybe 60%. And SUV and a trailer? 90%, and a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with. So why get an SUV and a trailer when the workload specifically calls for regularly hauling oddly-shaped or bulk items? That's exactly what a truck is designed for. If I already had a vehicle capable of towing a heavy trailer, the truck would have made much less sense. But given the needs, another vehicle was warranted, and mid-size 90s 4x4 truck checked all the boxes.
England has a population density of 275 people per square kilometer, 281 if you consider the entire UK. UK also has an agricultural area of about 23 million acres, at 70% of available land. That means that a huge majority of UK land is developed and actively used, and over an area of 23 million acres.
The US population density is 36 per square kilometer. That is about 1/8th the population density, which is already a huge difference. In addition, the total USA land used in agriculture is about 900 million acres, which is nearly 40x greater an area. So we are currently at 40x the agricultural land, at 1/8th the population density.
The kicker to this is that the US agricultural land use is only 44%. So not only do we have 1/8 population density, 40x the agriculture land mass, we also don't even break 50% of land use for agriculture purposes. This all combines to mean a few things.
1. People that have land in the USA tend to have a lot more land.
2. There tends to be large amounts of unused land all over the place with no development.
3. A lot of land is being developed for the first time, instead of redeveloped.
This doesn't directly answer your question as far as needing a trailer vs a truck, but it should give you an idea that the USA is much less developed and a lot more rugged than the countryside of a much older and more established and smaller land mass like the UK. Trucks make it a lot easier to handle all the unexpected situations that occur from having the land situation we have.
One other point I'll add at the end of this. The USA also has extremely different and varied climates compared to the mild oceanic climate of the UK. This means more of every type of weather and bigger extremes. This takes huge tolls on both the roads and how tame undeveloped land is. For instance, in the midwest, it is not uncommon for large semi trucks and pickup trucks with huge tires to be the only cars capable of driving on the highway as the highway is covered in a foot of snow and they're the only vehicles capable of driving in it.
I see a lot of fashion trucks but most of them also get used for towing or hauling on the weekend, and a lot of that stuff wouldn't fit in a car and would be unsafe on a trailer. A lot of people around here also have motorboats that would be too big to safely pull with a car.
Snark aside, why would I buy an Audi A3 when I already have a Honda? My truck is much more capable than your A3 and was probably much cheaper. Regarding safety, it's actually really safe because I only drive it when I need its hauling or towing capability.
That said, as a former A4 owner, towing 1000+kg with an A3 seems like a death wish to me.
Agree with you on the tow ratings though. It's a really good idea to have some healthy margin between the stated limit and the actual load, unless you're just going down the street.
Not only that, but in some applications the stated limit is irrelevant. Utility trailers aren't usually a big problem, but a lot of people mistakenly think they can tow a 7500lb RV with a half-ton truck just because the manufacturer says the tow rating is some ridiculous number like 11,300 lb.
But realistically, payload is what you hit first, especially a family towing a travel trailer. A very typical half-ton pickup will have around 1500 lbs of payload capacity [0]. This includes driver, passengers, cargo, everything but fuel. The authoritative number is particular to the truck and is given on a sticker on the door jamb. So if you have a trailer with a 7500 GVWR, you need to plan on around 1050 lbs on the tongue, which leaves you ~450 for everything else. Two adults could easily put you over. Add kids, dog, coolers, firewood for the campsite, etc, and suddenly a half-ton isn't looking like a good choice for a trailer this size (7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at).
There are other factors that also come into play, like wheelbase vs trailer length, but in general I think most people don't have much to worry about if they respect the payload rating on the truck. Many people ignore it (on purpose, or not) however. I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer. On anything other than flat, level highway with no crosswind and little traffic I think that would be dangerous.
[0] Technically Ford will sell you a particular F150 configuration with a 3270 payload, higher than many F250s, but IMO it's still not as comfortable towing as a bog standard F250. But if you don't tow very often the compromise may be worth it since the F150 is significantly more comfortable for daily driving.
> 7500 GVWR is what a typical ~30 ft travel trailer is spec'd at [...] I've seen more than one F150 towing a 35 foot trailer.
I see what you mean now. I cannot imagine towing a 30+ft trailer with a half ton. I feel iffy pulling our 16ft TT with the T100. It's well within capacity, but I definitely feel the truck working. And yeah, flat ground is smooth sailing, but the first hill you hit and the pedal is down all the way and if I don't hit it just right I've got to tell the auto to shift to 2nd.
Probably could have gone one size up, but I'm honestly really happy with the T100.
In America at least, its rare for a non-SUV or truck to be officially rated for towing. So when you put a trailer on your little sedan and your brakes fail going down a long hill, insurance will have your head.
Yes. Don't remember if it is 1500 or 1600kg. If a trailer is heavier than 750kg it does also have brakes, so that isn't a problem. It is an American thing thinking that you need a car 2x the weight of the trailer to tow it
Most people also do not realize - you need to count the weight of the trailer, hitch, cargo and passengers against the rated tow capacity of the vehicle.
... to tow RVs. Different game entirely than towing a utility trailer, which is more commonly all that you find Europeans towing behind a sedan.
I own a consulting company and I am a civl / environmental engineer that ends up driving a lot of forest service roads. ...so I have a 4wd truck. There are definitely weirdos out there that make a lot of judgments about me because I drive a truck.
So they don't constantly ask to borrow you and your truck? ;)
The reason for this is different countries have different ideas of trailer safety- the US prioritizes allowing larger total weights to be towed at higher speeds, but Europe prioritizes allowing people to tow larger trailers with smaller cars.
The European approach is to have less weight on the tongue of the trailer, which allows a smaller car to tow more without being overloaded, but results in a less dynamically stable configuration. They compensate for this by having lower speed limits for trailers and additional licensing requirements for drivers towing heavy trailers.
See here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150520115726/https://oppositelo...
You're of course welcome to own a pickup truck if you want, nothing wrong with that. And I'm sure plenty of people don't live in suburbia with U-haul dealers everywhere. But if you do, it's stupid simple and you can save a ton of money.
I'm sure the experience varies somewhat by location but it usually involves some combination of:
- very long lines, particularly on weekends. understandable, but adds hours and stress
- the vehicle you "reserved" online last week so you could do that job today? yeah, it's not really reserved. it may or may not be available; they "overbook" because they expect a certain number of cancellations. again this is understandable and something you see in a lot of industries, but yuck.
- lots of bogus-ish fees like "cleaning fees".
That all said, I own a home and have never felt the need for a pickup truck. I do fine with a hatchback and a roof rack.
The main disadvantage is that you're driving something larger and more unwieldy, like backing up.
But the advantages are numerous. Still lots of seating in the minivan. Much lower deck to roll/drive/ride things on (I can't recall if the trailer tilts).
It's basically a portable pickup truck bed, maybe it's even bigger.
But its only an old Ford Ranger and not a F950 that is raised enough to crawl over boulders on Mars.
But in all seriousness, he gets asked about 1.5x a week if someone can borrow his truck, it's insane how far this "ask" stretches itself. It drives him a little bonkers, but he's also a pretty nice guy so he says yes more than he should.
Anyways, I'd probably buy a smaller pickup because of how often my partner buys and sells used furniture as a hobby, but I don't want to be the friend with the truck in the city.
Also, I have to laugh at all these anecdotes about owning a pickup as a personality trait. I wasn't inducted into some pickups dudes club when I got mine. People haven't treated me any differently - still a nerdy, introverted guy who does a lot of outdoors sports. I drive to the grocery store or trailhead or city park in my truck, do my thing, and go home.
Maybe we have different definitions of what "much trouble" is. It takes like an hour to do anything with UHaul where I'm at. It's insane how bad that company is at doing the most basic thing that they've been doing for like 4 decades.
My neighbor did the same thing, and built his entire deck, brought in all his concrete, boards, materials, etc in with his Mazda 3 on a small utility trailer.
These small trailers are so useful and cheap, I don't know why you'd spend any money renting one. And they're actually more useful than these pickups with short stubby beds that are only good for a half ton anyways.
Mind you I don't have a pickup truck either, I have a Honda Fit-sized car. (See re: no space). Just considering it for when this car wears out.
The return was easy.. just take a few pics on my phone as part of their return process, and then drop the keys in a drop box.
But I haven't had a terrible experience at UHaul, as long as you go to one of their big locations. (I always go to this location in Chicago: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8543365,-87.6406812,3a,75y,1... , even if it's not the closest, it's easy enough to get to and they don't run out of stuff...)
So many instances of showing up after reserving online, and the staff says, "Uh, we don't have that truck."
Most recently, my friends couldn't get their reserved truck (on their moving day) because their site (and backend) was down nationwide. They had the truck, but _because_ everything's digital now, they had no fallback ability to rent out the reserved truck.
But then they are happy to slap a receiver onto any passenger car that is not rated to tow at all and let you load up as much as you want into one of their box trailers.
But if it makes you happy, I guess that’s all that matters!
Initially, they take pride in being able to help someone, but eventually they’re giving much more than taking, and they cannot bring themselves to say no, whether it be to keep themselves happy because “if I’ve helped them before, why should I not help them now…even though I don’t really want to”, or to avoid confrontation.
Pride is always a liability, so I like to try to keep away from it as much as possible.
That statement seems so broad that it can't possible be true in every circumstance. Always?
It is more of a general principle of keeping one’s emotions at bay to prevent your biases from clouding the data and your judgment.
I am sure there are evolutionary reasons for pride (i.e. ego) such as helping you fight with intensity for scarce resources or for maintaining tribal bonds. But in the modern world, it those circumstances are rarer and someone can use it against you pretty easily.
I think pride has all kinds of positive and negative features in the modern world. When I take pride in my work, I think about it more carefully and try and deliver a higher quality work. “Pride” and “Craftsmanship” seem very linked to me. That pride helps me deliver high quality work, which keeps clients around and earns referrals, which keeps me paid and food on the table.
When I don’t take pride in the work I do, the standards and quality can slip. I’m much happier if I can deliver work to a client that I can stand behind and be proud of. I think that’s in many ways an asset.
I certainly don’t disagree with you, though, that there are many scenarios where pride , hubris, and ego end up being problematic.
I love it myself. I've moved with it, carried music equipment to gigs with it, brought home countless DIY projects from the hardware store with it, and even camped in the back of it. But I also have done many many favors for friends.
Of course a minivan has other associated stigma, but you can haul things around without being asked to haul other things.
I once read an article by a crane operator that mentioned something like 40% of his jobs were for people who saw him craning something and asked if they could hire him to crane something else nearby.
Some people have asked to use my truck, or asked for help loading a moving van.
I have asked for free legal advice, tax advice, help installing flooring, help loading a moving van. I have borrowed a neighbor's truck.
I have asked for tons of help debugging code or learning some new concept.
Sometimes I have turned people down who asked for help. I am grateful to the hundreds of people who have helped me in ways big and small. I understand when people can't. For the most part, I am happy to lend out my truck on occasion. While it is getting used, I'm probably using a browser for free on an operating system for free.
A while back I was using a park "for free" when I noticed a family I know working together to pick up all the trash. I know they weren't being paid. They're just super cool like that.
Sometimes it just feels great to be super cool in some small way. Some people go out of their way to feel like that at least twice per month.
Hasn't been a problem for me, but I recognize that this is probably because all my friends have some kind of pickup of their own.
...I helped a lot of friends move.
But... the idea that you would have to plug it in on a multiday trip... yeah, I'm laughing. I just drove central AZ->Sacramento->Ft. Bragg->SF->San Jose->Sacramento->AZ in a Prius. Nope, I'm not digging the charging idea.
I don't recall having that many problems with the borrowers. I helped some people move, maybe once a year. The way it works is they reciprocate with something else, or else, you discover they are not your friend. That's useful to know.
I fully expect that to be something the local u-haul rents out for cross-country road-trips.
Electrical motor torque (from rest) screams to be marketed to American truck buyers. It's the one EV market that probably didn't ever need environmentalism as a boost to be successful.
I gazed with amazement at all the fanboyz in the threads above about what a gamechanger this E-truck is. Oh. 230 mile range OPTIMAL. Some hope of a range extending $$$ option.
wrt to your comment, of course that would be a game changer, if a hybrid E-truck could get 40+ mpg with a 400+ mile range. (No comment on the aerodynamics and efficiency at speed) And the imagination goes... yeah, you could now financialize on-site construction generators... emergency power generators... whoa baby let me in where do I invest. Because you could market this to sportsball enthusiasts and then scale. In the US, maybe?
Well, I in fact own a 2001 Tundra V8 4WD which I recently refurbed $3K into because it just works. But I sure wish it got 40 mpg instead of an optimistic 13 mpg. Extra gas tanks are a well known technology for extended off road excursions, for a century now.
There were a few times I wanted to let him go but we needed his truck.
We weren't doing things the buttoned up proper way at the time but most small businesses cut corners to make things work. You can go broke being excessively compliant.
It is much less hassle and money to throw a few bucks an hour at the guy who is willing to use his own to run the errands if thr company doesn't need the truck for anything else.
That does not go away.
Here every family basically owns a pickup. Idaho has a lot of BLM land, (second in size only to Alaska). So sports like boating, RVing, and ATVing are very popular here. As we got more ingrained into the culture here, that is very outdoor activity oriented, we decided that with a truck we could own an RV. We have always been huge mountain bike riders and the convenience that a truck offers for mountain biking is incredible. We also drove in friend's trucks and realized that with the Platinum trim from F-150 for example, you get a very luxurious experience inside. Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things, a hitch to tow incredible amounts 10,000lbs+ and 4wheel drive that can take you anywhere. There is a lot to love about modern trucks. Even the gas mileage isn't much different than SUVs (mid-20s mpg).
Yeah, we ended up buying a truck within 6 months of moving out here. Our family was shocked because "they never saw me as a pickup truck driver". Every time I told someone back home that I bought a truck it was always pure shock as they reconciled the stereotype of a pickup owner with what they knew about me.
When my parents visited they were absolutely fascinated by the endless sea of pickups. When you parked at a restaurant for dinner, the parking lots are almost entirely pickups, with only a handful of cars scattered throughout.
When my mom first drove in my pickup, she was shocked at how nice it was. It offered great views of the road. It has heated, cooled, and massaging seats. Panoramic sunroof. A huge interior. A huge mulimedia touchscreen. And they drive like any modern SUV in comfort. She eventually said "Yeah I see the appeal to pickup trucks now".
Eventually I convinced them to move out here during COVID. They have been really happy with life out here. But now my dad is getting the itch and now he too is shopping for a new pickup. He never considered owning a truck before in his life.
I don't fit that stereotype for a pickup driver. And whenever I meet people through work or whatever that find out I drive a pickup, they are always taken back. Everyone has a certain type of person in mind for a pickup, especially people in the city. But pickup trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. Much of middle America lives and dies by their truck and they are standard purchases for a lot of families.
Edit: Ok so I'm seeing from a lot of the comments now that everyone is quick to say "You don't NEED a pickup", "You can rent one when you need one", or "I go mountain biking all the time with my Prius/Tesla". So just to be clear. I am not saying that you can't go mountain biking unless you have a truck. I mountain biked for 10 years in a VW Passatt and Toyota Corolla. But the truck offers a lot of convenience and is nice to have. I love having it and thats why I bought it. I'm sure I could jigsaw stuff I am hauling into the back seat. I did exactly that for several decades. But I love tossing stuff in the truck bed and not worrying about it scratching the leather, making a mess, or making it fit. Just toss it in the bed and drive off. Wash the bed out with a hose when you are done. Go anywhere in the truck. Tow anything. It's Comfortable and safe. Try fitting a kayak and/or paddleboard in your car. Yes, again you can buy racks to put it on the roof, and I used to own those. They are a royal pain. Now rent a pickup and throw it in the bed and drive off. You'll be at the lake before the Prius has finished safely attaching their kayak to their roof. I enjoy it and that's why I bought it.
> Trucks offer HUGE cabs (larger than a lot of SUVs), with the convenience of a huge bed for throwing toys or moving things
Generally, the huger the cab, the smaller the bed. It actually annoys me how popular 6 ft (or less!) beds have gotten in recent years. Especially when so much lumber comes in 8 ft length.
Most people buying pickups don't use the beds for anything other than groceries. Buying a pickup is just a form of social signalling that you belong to a certain in-group. Those people buying trucks with 6-foot beds don't care that lumber doesn't fit in them because they use their trucks exactly like I use my Volkswagen. On the rare occasion they need to put lumber in the bed they'll let it hang out the back, just like I put it on my roof bars.
I love it
But I'm a bit of a cheapskate and I only ever get the XLT, not the Platinum. Only luxury I really care to pay for is CarPlay. But to each their own!
Adult Bobby buying his first pickup truck but it being a Toyota Tacoma feels like a real episode of a KoH sequel
Robert starts his new remote office job and buys a new truck for its utility as a non-commuter vehicle. Hank desperately tries to hide the fact that his son would buy a foreign-made truck. The Gribble boys unravel it all.
This episode brought to you by Toyota.
And one step up from that, full truckload delivery is often $75-150, and sometimes even comes with a forklift. Often you can get it thrown in free if the order is large enough.
Also, HD is not the only place I buy supplies. Sometimes I drive an hour one way to get supplies at a rate _far_ better than HD.
Also, don't get a fancy-boy pickup. You can get a capable truck under $10K if you look around for a bit, and it will pay for itself in no time if you do a lot of your own work around the house.
Oh, the hill is starting to give way. Cool, build a retaining wall (including getting the base rock to fill it). Oh, we ran out of firewood this winter. Cool, build a bigger wood shed (BTW, firewood is a lot cheaper if you pick it up yourself). Oh, the siding on the house is rotting. Cool, grab some plywood, tar paper, and siding and fix it myself. Oh, the weeds on the property have overgrown again? Rip them all out and haul them to the dumps.
I've saved probably tens of thousands of dollars including the price of my truck by doing these things in-house instead of hiring. All thanks to my truck.
When you don't have one, you don't do these things (because hiring people is expensive). But once you get one, it opens a completely different world of "wow I can do this myself." I found rentals don't cover that gap. I resisted getting a truck for so long, but once I got one I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
They showed up outside of the expected delivery window, left a stack of drywall in my front yard in the rain, and didn't ring the bell or notify me in any way. I found it several hours later.
While I understand they were likely overworked due to Covid in this instance, this kind of thing happens often enough I can only use it when I have space to securely store materials delivered several days before I need them.
To their credit, Home Depot did refund me; but I still had no dry wall when I needed it.
Also, you can't get immediate delivery when you're in the middle of a project and mess up a cut on your last sheet of plywood. There's no ctrl+z with a saw.
If you’re doing a project you very much need to be able to run to Home Depot that same day and pick up additional bulky items.
>> I don't drive that much.
^^
Not someone you want to share the road with. He was a big guy, married with two teenage boys and a dog. He was so far over the payload limit on that Jeep...
I don't drive the pickup during the week though (I mean pre-covid when I drove places), too inconveniently large for that.
Seems like madness to buy something as big as a pickup and drag round that weight (with the poor MPG that comes with it) and deal with parking such a behemoth, all for something you do so rarely *
* obviously if you're a farmer or running a business or something, that's different - but that's not what this thread is about.
We've moved 5 times in the past 6 years and I spend a lot of time with outdoors hobbies (mountain biking, surfing -- pickups are hugely popular for both). But not owning a truck has never been an issue.
I’ve always considered myself a GM//Chevy guy, but I’m strongly considering this truck.
And I love that it doubles as a Powerwall...
Eliminates the need for a generator (I work from home so if the power is out I can just take the ICE for errands and have the truck power the house — you don’t have to be a truck person to find that pretty nifty!)
That is a really cool feature. I think for extended outages (which we do have) a propane generator fed by a big tank is great. But most outages are a day or less, so having that all ready to go in your truck is really cool.
When I buy sheet steel I use a station wagon because it's easier to plop it down on a roof rack and get it off later then it is to stick it in a truck or van.
Miata
Is
Always
The
AnswerBe aware of the weight limitations of your car.
Over-specing vehicles is one of the ways the well to do advertise their well-to-do-ness. It's like a marble countertop but for the roads.
Sure you can put three kids in the back row of a Sentra, it has three seatbelts there after all. Sure you can haul plywood on anything with a roof-rack, that's what it's there for. Sure you can shove a washer in a Prius. All those things work great. Bust for most of HN to do them regularly would be "behavior below one's pay-grade" so to speak.
I every one owns a pickup, why don't you simply rent one (à la Airbnb, e.g with GetAround) for just a day?
I've never owned a vehicle (other than a bicycle, but I live in Paris) but can easily rent any kind of car/truck/van anywhere in Europe. It saves me a lot.
So at the end of the day, you need a car, period. I live in a midsize American city after living in a major Canadian downtown and wish we didn't need the car (we both bike a lot), but I really do. And personally, an electric pick-up is gonna be mighty appealing for my next car in however-many years because it removes the main reason I've never gotten one before: gas. I can only imagine how big a win the lack of gas is gonna be outside of America where gas is hilariously cheap.
This works when you're the outlier. If we are ever successful in making cars the exception rather than the rule, it will be far more difficult to just go rent one on demand.
I found that since I didn't need it most of the time the Home Depot Truck Rental for a couple of hours shifting freezers, flooring and other bulky items worked out well for me.
Saved on gas all the rest of the time.
But it really requires a Home Depot within 30 mins so not for everyone and if this had been an option, I probably would have just gone for the truck.
Offroading, boating, horseback riding, dealing with snow, hauling firewood. Sure, you can get a 4x4 SUV like a 4runner but just get a dang truck. lol
What kind of activity requires so much transportation?
There has hardly been a weekend since I bought the place in that time where I don't have some project that involved some amount of construction material. Even just a weekly shopping trip can fill up a full sized truck when you live 30 miles from town and do all of your shopping at once. Also, I have 4 horses on the property (not at all uncommon here), so that alone justifies the truck since I have to go get a few thousand pounds of hay every so often.
You may live in a city, and never need to move anything, but for lots of people they use a pickup every weekend.
... how expensive is renting a vehicle there ? here in france it's like 40-50€ for a day
Also consider that you get to eventually sell / trade in the truck. Vehicles depreciate, but you get some value out. Rental payments all disappear.
I got a rental car recently and they gave me a bright red pickup because it was the fastest option. I was surprised by the good vibes I got from all the other pickup drivers, lol. It's like I got inducted into a secret club for a day with a lot of waves and thumbs up. A woman went up to my group in a parking lot and said something like "Hell yeah, you guys look like you're having fun."
And I thought, yeah -- I fucking love this. Kinda subverted my perspective on the aesthetics of these trucks and the people who drive them. Led to some self-awareness about how silly the city stereotypes are of such people.
My self concept changed. Suddenly I was someone who could move anything anywhere. I felt like an animal that had crossed over into a new phylum.
Now I’m someone important to all my friends, and I have new friends. I’m in the club, wherever I go.
Nobody tailgates me. Life is good.
Is that in the same category as racism?
Of course, it's an elective choice, and in that way very different from prejudice founded on appearance. But the incomplete analysis, and the contemptuous reduction of the target's motivations, are in common with racist tropes.
For the UK if you are mad enough to ride on two wheels in our weather you are in the club.
Well, the dirty looks I got every time I belched black smoke on the streets of SF were a given. What I did not expect (or notice previously) was the other truck drivers (however few) there were in San Francisco. It seems I too was inducted into a little club. Whenever I saw another truck there was always a thumbs up, or a "nice truck". Kinda funny when all I got was dirty looks from everyone else.
If you've got visible smoke coming out of a diesel (in any color), something's wrong with the engine.
That's interesting ...
Our ranch truck is a "work truck"[1] - basically a fleet vehicle, colored white, with an 8 foot bed.
I get no vibes at all :)
[1] Silverado 1500 with no options.
Great truck.
Went to surf toyota.com today thinking maybe it's time to get another one, almost exactly the same.
I'm sure rural pickup drivers are lovely folk when you conform to their cultural, racial, and/or lifestyle choices -- that's the point!
But I've never met a Prius driver who felt the need to key or slash a pickup trucks tires, both of things which have sadly happened to my Prius in rural parking lots.
A lot of people around here have big, tall pickups with tiny beds that they drive very aggressively. They rarely use them for anything I couldn't put in my Fit (I've known several people who would never haul dirt or the like because they don't want the truck to get dirty). Many modern pickups have a high front grill that is dangerous for pedestrians and designed to be intimidating. It sucks to constantly run into trucks like that being driving fast and aggressively when I'm just trying to walk to the store.
I know that's a minority of trucks, but the worst cars by me are invariably pickups and it's hard not to generalize it.
I get what you are trying to say, but had to mention that all front grills of vehicles are dangerous to pedestrians.
It's just a bit of a strawman argument to say "Well when I hit people with my car it will be worse if I own a truck, so I'm going to own a Prius so that the pedestrians roll right off".
https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1338051592856092672
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...
https://theweek.com/articles/929196/case-against-american-tr...
As a cyclist and pedestrian in the city it's a nightmare - you can never tell if the driver can actually see you vs sedans and hatchbacks at your eye level.
Unsurprisingly pedestrian deaths from drivers have spiked in the past few years.
Until then, I (and presumably many others) will view trucks as objectively more dangerous, and contributing to a less walkable city. I recognize going under a vehicle is a bad time regardless of how tall it is, but my girlfriend can't hide right in front of a Toyota RAV-4 or Audi Q5.
There have been changes made to these trucks that do a great job of looking aesthetically "tough and mean" and selling trucks, while also making them more dangerous to other road users: not just to pedestrians, but to other cars via the bumper overlap issue.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/the-dange...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/14/21065319/suv-truck-front-...
When a vehicle is driving in front of my house with a grill that's a foot higher than my oldest child... yeah, I don't much like those aesthetics. And it has nothing to do with "moving stuff". The UPS delivery vans that are actually built to, ya know, move stuff, have lower grills and way safer sight lines.
People would have me load this stuff for them into SUVs of course, and we would do our best to line them with plastic first, but it still made an awful mess everywhere.
And that’s not even getting into towing, there are common things having a truck bed is just better for.
As for the tallness, you can partly blame EPA regulations for that as it’s more cost effective for manufacturers to make trucks taller and wider than more fuel efficient. That’s the #1 reason why the small truck market declined and why smaller trucks got bigger
People should do what is generally done here in Northern Europe. Get a Stationwagon/Estate with a tow hitch and a trailer. With that you get a smaller, more practical, car in terms of day-to-day driving. And when you really need to move something bigger/something you don't want inside your car you still have options.
Renting a trailer locally is incredibly cheap too, costing just $26 at a nationwide gas station. IKEA, and similar local stores, will lend you a trailer for free.
Here's how two friends and I transport our gokarts. One in the trailer, another secured on top. The car on the day of the picture is a Mercedes CLA Coupé. Other times it's the other friend's Ford Fiesta. And yet other times it's one of our dads driving an Audi Q5 or a Peugeot 3008.
A hitch gives you the price and size advantages of e.g. a Ford Fiesta while still having the option of hauling several hundred kilos worth of stuff. The Q5 can haul a ton and a half. I'd wager that very few people regularly (weekly) need to haul several tons worth of stuff, and the few that do have a legitimate reason for owning a pickup.
In the past few decades, we've seen many cars here go from having some decent tow rating to a very low tow rating or saying in the manual not to tow.
Just for example, the Mazda 3 in Australia has a tow rating of 1200kg. In the UK it's 1500kg. In the U.S., towing is not allowed at all per the owner's manual.
I'm not sure what all the reasons for this discrepancy is. I know when I lived in Germany where towing fairly big things with fairly small cars was more common, I noticed some differences in towing practices:
1. They use a different style of hitch that flips down under the bumper instead of the receiver style hitch in the U.S. The German style hitch kept the ball closer to the bumper, which improves stability.
2. The trailer is loaded with a fairly balanced weight distribution so that there is not much weight on the tongue of the trailer. This keeps the rear suspension of the car from being compressed and keeps weight on the front wheels of the car. It has the downside of making the trailer less stable at higher speeds.
3. Presumably because of this lower stability, many trailer/car/driver combinations are limited to 80kph. Car/trailer combinations tend to have a critical speed where they become unstable if the weight from the trailer is not loaded in the front, and 80kph is a typical speed where this can start to happen.
4. Germany requires extra licensing to tow a trailer. Someone who actually gets some training and has to pass a test is going to be a lot safer towing than someone who got 5 minutes of instruction at U-Haul.
I have seen a lot of trailers reversed into expensive cars, flooded cars, trailers falling off and hitting things at speed, cars driving into the sea because the driver got out to check the trailer, etc.
A lot could be fixed with better software and sensors. For example a car should be able to measure the angle of the trailer and apply the brakes when someone tries to reverse-jackknife. It should measure oscillation frequencies and damping factors at highway speeds and set a safe max speed. It should refuse to start the engine at all if a trailer isn't correctly hooked up including electricals and brake lines, etc. Finally, trailer brakes need an overheat/wearout sensor so the driver is aware if their trailer brakes have failed before they find out when going down a hill at 70 mph.
As a kid we would sit down at our neighborhood landing in the summer and watch boat launches for entertainment. I saw at least 2 cars get submerged, people run into each other, many many fist fights. Prior to allowing me to pull our trailer, my dad made me back up (with trailer attached) in circles and figure 8s in a parking lot and then in and out of the driveway many times. Showing up to busy landing on summer holiday is NOT the time to learn how to back down a trailer.
It effectively means trailers are now only for professionals.
F.ex. where I live a Hilux or a Landcruiser is a must.
What I wanted to say is that a 'station wagon' is useless for half a year in some climates. And it doesn't make any sense to keep two cars, one for 'summer' and one for the 'rest of the seasons'.
The best vehicle I’ve ever driven in the snow was a tiny 2001 Mercury Cougar. Snow tires make a world of difference.
The automakers have determined that this is not practically achievable, and so you can't buy a truck like the old S-10 or a pre-Tacoma Toyota pickup anymore.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
If the goal was to reduce fossil fuel consumption, then fossil fuels should have been slapped with a huge tax.
Immediately the automakers would have been incentivized to produce more efficient vehicles.
Of course, it’s politically impossible to do the right thing due to the general public wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
I think a lot of "environmentally conscious" people don't realize that more and more of these types of environmental regulations will come at some direct cost in terms human-safety.
And also that a surprising number of politicians/activists/people are so committed to the dogma that they don't have any problem with that.
So net result of indirect regulations to decrease fuel consumption is increased fuel consumption, and more dangerous vehicles for everyone to contend with who is not inside as large of a vehicle.
Simply making people pay more for fuel would have incentivized them to prioritize what kind of vehicle to buy, and make it possible for smaller pickups to still exist and/or a rental market for pickups to flourish.
EPA regulation and govt overreach/ unintended consequences are what led to these design changes, not market demand.
The blue-book price for my 12 year old steel-framed truck has gone up every year since I bought it used.
>before they turned into a political/biological/emotional statement piece
The anti-truck crowd, which supported all the regulations that led to the current state of vehicle design, are the ones that made this a political/emotional issue, whether they realize it or not.
>In other words, the regulations put in place to get better mileage out of vehicles also led to an increase in truck size. “There was kind of an incentive to maybe stretch the wheelbase a couple of inches and set the tires maybe an inch [farther] apart, because you get a bigger platform and slightly smaller target,” said Edmunds. “Now, the bigger vehicle would be heavier and might use more fuel, so it’s not as easy as just doing that. But certainly there was a feeling that if they did need to make it bigger to accommodate more passengers, the fuel economy target wouldn’t be onerous. They could do it.”
That statement is not very convincing that the regulations lead to bigger trucks.
It's also super easy in these situations at a nursery, etc.. that the car or SUV owner has to make multiple trips and waste tons of gas because the vehicle can't hold much.
People who don't own homes too easily forget it's really really common to have jobs around your house/yard where you're dealing with thousands of pounds of supplies.
You can overload an SUV/Wagon/whatever incredibly quickly with sand, mulch, rock, etc.. and it will be nowhere near full.
To elaborate, since I've even had to explain this to some "eco-conscious" engineers:
This is also partially why trucks have gone from steel to aluminum, which is lighter (to gain a marginal increase in mpg), but also requires larger shapes (moment-arms) to achieve the same amount of strength and resilience (crumple zone rigidity & required crumple zone size, etc).
Of course the other side effect is that using aluminum frames/engines won't last as long, since they deform easier, so all that saved energy from increased mpg doesn't make up for the wasted embedded energy from decreased useful lifespan.
A friend started construction and bought a Tacoma new because he saw everyone else using one - and it had to go in for a repair and during that time the dealer lent him a van, and at that point he had serious regrets about buying the truck.
But then again visit most construction sites and you'll see one or two company trucks full of tools, a delivery semi or two, and acres of pickup trucks with nothing in the bed.
It's all about using the most suitable vehicle for the job.
There is also a huge variability in pickup sizes because many of them have been customized. But truthfully the standard stock pickup truck doesn't have a grill much different than many SUVs. In fact most SUVs are built on truck frames.
So I know there are trucks out there that have been lifted with 24" tires. But the standard truck that you buy from your dealership isn't much different than an SUV in size. They might be longer because of the bed... but your concern seems to be height, and they are often identical to SUVs.
Edit: Crossovers are a bit different. Those are designed to be more like cars (hence the name). But a standard SUV is usually built on a truck frame. So the body is different, but the main vehicle is similar in size.
Obviously some people take this way further than practically necessary, but the basic form of a pickup does have a legit reason to be different than a delivery van.
You won't find them in the typical dealer though. They are a niche, and most customers are buying several at once for their business and so the way the whole process works is different. Though there are just enough small buisness buying exactly one that you won't confuse them by buying one - but they may have trouble figuring out what tax applies.
You can find used ones in running condition relatively cheap.
But then again, I do notice (and sometimes make fun) if they've got a lift kit on it, tow mirrors when I've never seen them tow anything, big roof mounted light bar, etc. So maybe it's just a matter of degree as to where you draw the line and make stop-liking-what-I-don't-like judgements.
I think this is the key point in the whole thread. I have no idea how many people who live on my street have pickups -- I've never noticed.
The only pickups I notice are the ones which are "coal rolling", have multiple flagpoles flying political slogans in the bed, or are lifted so far I have clear sightlines beneath them.
I have never seen a "coal rolling" Honda Accord, in contrast.
Considering vehicle sizes & speeds here, wife doesn’t feel safe in anything smaller than an older Ford Explorer SUV.
If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck.
But Even if you own just a reasonable suburban house with a small amount of land you need to do a lot of dirty truck type jobs every year.
I only have half an acre of land, but due to tons of trees I have yard work every year that causes me to have to do many many trips to the compost center with my car (Outback) that could probably be accomplished in one trip if I had a truck.
And almost without fail every year I have times where I have to make multiple trips so that I don't overload the cargo capacity of the car. Even a gas F-150 would use less gas to make these trips and save CO2.
I couldn't see driving an F-150 to work solo commuting with gas as something I could ever stomach, I hate that my Subaru barely gets 20mpg doing that.
But with electric I could see it. The ultimate joke would be someone driving a CUV that burns gas or even a hybrid and trying to virtue signal over someone with an electric pickup truck.
Do I want to spend $50k on a Tesla Model Y and put yard waste inside it's luxury interior on a semi-regular basis? I'm not sure. Versus destroying a luxury EV an F-150 looks pretty cool.
Bottom line you live in an apartment you don't need one of these, because you're paying someone else with a truck to take care of you. When you have to maintain property yourself you either start paying a contractor with a truck to do things for you or you start doing it yourself. When you do it yourself you start going down the slippery slope to wanting a truck.
Many tradesmen that don't get company vehicles like to own pickups because they can haul stuff for work and their jobsite. Some of those people might even live in apartments. Imagine that!
The amount of arrogance on this site is ridiculous. Just because you might know how to hook up a NAND gate or write some javascript code doesn't mean you are qualified to decide what vehicle someone should own. Please just stop the judgemental posts.
Both sides are right. There’s a significant portion of the population that think trucks are “men’s vehicles,” even if they never actually use the bed. All of the dealerships around here (usually) have their front highway facing row all pickups and maybe one sports car.
There's nothing "ridiculous" about people loving their toys. (People often own things not because they need them, but because they want them.)
Point being people who live an apartment are far more likely to be buying a truck because they want it, and far less need for it for actual jobs & chores.
There's even a whole class of pickups for the people that find the occasional use but don't need the big ones, and want to fit easier in places designed for cars. The small pickup.
Toyota spends good money on market research. They know the difference between Tacoma buyers and Colorado buyers.
It's also really nice to be in a situation where literally everything I own can be moved with it. Strapped my box spring / bed frame to the top of it once.
It's a slippery slope to go down to say you know better than others what they should be allowed to own.
The relative risk of being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater) and is 0.96 for a heavy truck (in other words less likely than being killed by a car). Buses have a relative risk of 7.97.
So living in a city and driving at night is custom-designed to kill pedestrians and selfish to do so. Encouraging public transit is even worse.
Or you could just, you know, not turn this into a giant moral argument.
You're 5x more likely to kill someone in an urban area because more people live there (in fact, well above 5x more, so...)
> being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater)
"Only"? "You're 50% more likely to die if a light truck hits you than a car, that's "only" a bit more!"
> and is 0.96 for a heavy truck ... buses have a relative risk of 7.97
People tend to bounce off of heavy trucks, for better or worse. Buses are 1) significantly different in design than most heavy trucks, and 2) for obvious reasons, operate in very heavy pedestrian environments.
Though the real answer is a truck for times when you need a truck, and bus/bike for everything else. Too bad transit in the US is in general horrible.
I'm considering buying a Truck, but I work from home and drive only a few thousand miles each year or less.
Maybe better to say, if you live in an apartment complex, it can be difficult to keep a truck.
There are a lot of people in the trades (carpentry, construction, etc.) who can't afford to own a standalone house.
It's not necessarily worth it with my Outback, which is itself a large car that city folks would sneer at.
But until this F-150 EV was introduced I was pretty much fully convinced I was buying a Tesla when my Outback needed to be replaced.
Spending $40-50k on a Model Y vs one of these F-150s is a whole different scenario, that's all.
Gas F-150 I'd feel like a jerk on my commute, EV F-150 I would not, I'd feel better than doing the same in my Subaru, and in many ways it would fit my use case better.
My Outback was < $30k and it's 8 years old. Putting dirty stuff in the back of it is not the same as putting dirty stuff in a brand new Tesla.
In general the first step to cutting emissions is electrifying everything that can be electrified. Whether moving lots of metal around in a vehicle is efficient regardless of energy source wreaks of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good - or in this case the perfect being the enemy of the critically needed change.
Try crunching the numbers: you'll see that it's not going to be feasible to replace all of the vehicles on the road with electric cars and trucks, while also electrifying everything else. We need to take a triage approach to energy use, strictly rationing the remaining fossil fuels.
The attitude in this thread is even more ridiculous considering that this is the exact sort of product which could bring EVs main steam (so you would think environmentalists would love it), but of course this vehicle is unacceptable because you aren't forced to make a whole series of quality of life compromises to use it like you are with a bike, public transportation, or an impractically small car.
If you're considering shopping for your next $40k monstrosity of a vehicle, try to take a broader perspective than your own short-term desires.
If someone's not buying their EV out of a sense of guilt (for the original sin that is exhaling CO2), then how are they supposed to exploit that guilt into other forms of behavioral modification?
There are work a rounds, but they are limited (home depot will rent a truck but the fine print is only to go from home depot to your house, no other trips). If you have a CDL you can rent a commercial truck that lets you work it. However for general purpose I need a truck to be a truck the average person can't rent.
I damaged a U-haul once and it was fine, it was all covered.
We rented a U-haul this year and hauled about 2000lbs of stuff to the dump with it in one trip.
As long as you bring it back and it's not on fire they're unlikely to care.
You can even optimize by buying your own trailer so you can load and unload at your convenience, and only rent the truck to move the trailer - and trailers (even enclosed ones or dump ones) are significantly cheaper than trucks, and really only need tires as maintenance.
And most people on this site are driving ICE cars and SUVs which are much less efficient than an F-150 EV and are themselves very oversized.
And I say this as someone who owns a fleet of station wagons.
It's kind of ridiculous, really. You know who buys F150s? Everyone. If there were a stereotypical "truck owner" then Ford wouldn't sell better than a million of these every year. They have broad appeal to diverse demographics.
except those strange ones that buy Chevy or GMC.
Or the real outlier, those with Ram Pickups....
(I didn't realize this was a thing till my civil engineering company last century bought a GMC to replace the fords).
To this day I remember a Huge Ram diesel dually with a big dog in the bed towing in a single roll of landfill liner (23 ft long and About 2000 lbs of plastic) and thinking.. wow.
Toyota is the “not quite first tier, not Nissan or a baby truck.”
Whereas Toyota approaching Tier-1 makes a bit more sense. If nothing else, based on the fact that they're now more ”American" built than the three "domestic" truck companies.
Ram has always been a popular truck. It held they have UConnect and one of the better infotainment ecosystems. A lot of people Still don’t think of trucks as luxury vehicles because the higher end brands don’t badge one, but the top fit and finish Trucks are trying to be something else.
I mean it philosophically. "Everyone," to a rough approximation, are customers interested in a pickup. Whether Ford, Chevy, Ram, Toyota, etc.
(Edit) consumption waste of traditional F150s, and yes, even that of my beloved Subaru is not great, but the absolute worst are coal rollers and those with loud modified exhausts. That Newsom didn’t veto legislation that undid AB1824 was very disappointing to me.
While nationally Subraru marketing emphasizes being different by owning a Subaru, around here its far and away the most common car. You exit Costco, look at the parking lot and ask "which of these 10 gray Outbacks is mine?".
By contrast, here in Idaho owning a truck is just blending in. Owning a Tesla out here would be signaling.
It is interesting how perspective changes so much based on where you are.
In Oregon I swear 80% of the population owns a Subaru Outback. The other 20% owns a Prius. So owning a Subaru in Oregon is just blending in. It doesn't mean anything. But if you drove that Subaru to San Francisco, now everyone thinks you are "outdoorsy".
It's a pig of a car in traffic. Mine is a 2013 with the smaller engine and it struggles to get 20mpg in traffic.
It was a cheap vehicle, but it most certainly is horrible on gas for it's size & work capacity.
But their unavailability is not because of tariffs.
On top of the landscaping and project work I use it for, it's perfect for going dispersed camping in rough areas that need high clearance. I would never be comfortable risking a rental for such activities.
Same deal with almost everyone I know nearby - the ones with a pickup I know are farmers, or one guy that's honest and just likes the aesthetics and the way it drives (and it counts as a "commercial vehicle", so it was some kind of tax dodge too).
I get it's indispensable for a farmer or business owner, but for for the vast majority (not all, obviously) of regular folks, even outside of cities, it's really not needed.
Trucks get shitty gas mileage and potentially cause more wear and tear on the public roads, and are definitely not good for the environment.
IMO - Trucks should be taxed accordingly - if you are a farmer or work in construction you get a tax break, if you just want a truck to have one, it's gonna cost you.
The Model X weighs more than a standard F-150. It technically does more damage to the roads than F-150s do.
The F150 Lightning will have this advantage too, of course.
Not to mention that the cybertruck has nearly the same dimensions as the f150 (https://youtu.be/sLvopc9oI4A?t=199) and has a shape that is more likely to cut you in half if it were to hit you. It also has a payload that's more comparable with a ford super duty and will likely weight more than the lightning to support that.
There are obviously many cases where a truck of some kind is exactly what you need to do some task or other.
I think it's more like there are a bunch of people who have never owned a pickup truck, and have rented trucks when they needed to "move stuff", and are suspicious of the explanation given by others about why they bought them because those explanations don't match their own life experience.
If the answer to "why did you buy a pickup truck?" was "I like to see past the other traffic, I'm worried about the safety implications of a smaller vehicle when there are so many pickup trucks on the road where I live, the infrastructure here is set up for them with wide roads and ample parking so it's not really a thing, plus I very occasionally avoid needing to rent a truck when moving lumber" then things would be less contentious.
Of course, one can then proceed to the question of if there's a double-standard on why the question doesn't get asked to owners of sports cars with speed and handling limits that are of no relevance to public roads.
What doesn't make sense to me is when someone who drives any gas car judges someone who drives a truck. Do they feel validated in their choices because someone made worse choices? Or do they decide that 30mpg is such a morally superior position than 20mpg that they have the right to judge others?
This is what is referred to as a moral hazard, because the people driving these trucks are not taking any risk, even reducing their own risk, but at the cost of increasing the risk of everyone else, and most importantly people who didn't drive to begin with and opted out of the risky activity. Particularly when deaths are involved this is obviously behavior worthy of (1) popular condemnation (2) fucking regulatory action.
Relative risk for light trucks is only 45% higher than cars and is lower than cars for heavy trucks. Buses are the real dangers on the road.
I suspect most of the increase in pedestrian fatalities is from pedestrians and drivers staring at their phone instead of where they are going. I have definitely had close calls where I watched someone looking at the phone start wandering through an intersection without seeing if it's clear.
Seatbelt and airbag regulations were fought on the grounds that bad drivers killed people, not good drivers. It was the drivers responsibility to be safe. Since airbags and sest belts have become important safety features, hundreds of thousands lives have been saved in the United States alone.
Have we decided we're okay with the number of pedestrian deaths caused by compact cars and SUVs? Some SUVs are heavier, have less visibility, and would presumably lead to more pedestrian deaths than cars, so why isn't there a similar condemnation against those vehicles? Or maybe there is?
But the trend of stock pick-up trucks getting lifted, having high hoods, small windshields vs their equivalent models 10 or 20 years ago is so much worse than the default cross-over SUV in the US. Sales of trucks have gone up, so have pedestrian deaths.
https://theweek.com/articles/929196/case-against-american-tr...
Given the choice of hitting an inclined windshield and rolling over the top of a vehicle vs. taking the full force of a giant body-length grille, I'd rather take my chances with the windshield.
I tried to find a regular cab, regular bed F-150 about four months ago. To do that, I would've had to buy a fleet vehicle intended for a manufacturer or to be converted into like a plumbing truck. Everything else has 4 doors and a 5' bed. I don't want an SUV, I want a truck with a full sized bed.
The sales people were genuinely confused as to why I wouldn't want a quad-cab, and why I needed an 8' bed. They legitimately never had that conversation with anyone unless they were looking for a fleet truck.
What a world.
But after you get above the base model, the only thing available is "crew cabs" which is the full 4-seat SUV size interior.
Really trucks have become 4 seat vehicles now. The super-crew (4 seat) cabs are essentially standard at dealerships. The only way to get a 2 seater truck is by buying one through a fleet program. And right now that would be essentially impossible. Trucks are hard to get right now and most dealerships won't sell a fleet vehicle to a consumer because the demand for fleet trucks is too high right now.
Looking at ford.com, I could order an F-150 with regular cab (2 door) and 8 ft bed for $30K.
Looking at Dodge, the 1500 doesn't seem to have an 8ft bed option, but I could order a 2500 with regular cab and 8ft bed for $36K.
With almost the same interior dimensions. Those tree-trunk pillars, thick doors and smooth sculpted aerodynamic shape all take up space formerly reserved for drive-train and passengers.
Safety and fuel economy are not free.
I live in a wealthy town, and you can tell someone's political affiliation like this:
- Tesla -> Democrat
- Immaculate crew-cab pickup truck -> Republican
- Beatup truck with 8' bed -> rancher
In the suburban environment where I live, the majority of pickup trucks are effectively commuter cars. They haul their owners' asses to a cubicle farm and back home again. These are people who fully buy into the stereotype and have bought a truck so they can purchase their masculinity on a monthly payment plan.
In reality the average is 2 out of 100 trucks carried anything in my counting. The highest I have seen in Los Angeles with 6 trucks carrying something.
That makes me believe that when you own a pickup truck, there is a small change of needing its large bed and powerful engine.
It maybe like gaming ready computer, swimming pools or fireplaces - usage is very low for most people, but you just might need it urgently someday. Or you think you might change your habits if you buy it
For me it's the increasingly large size of all trucks which have made them hugely inconvenient, and frankly dangerous, to circumnavigate. You know how you feel when you get boxed in by a couple tractor trailers on the freeway? That's how everyone else in reasonably sized vehicles feels driving around your truck. There are way more blind spots involving the modern truck compared to other cars which present a danger to everyone else on the road, I don't care what kind of whizz-bang "safety" cameras you have. And you also create blind spots for everyone else who can't see around your absurdly bloated truck in places like parking lots and passing lanes.
It's a safety and practicality issue which goes beyond the "you don't need that" mentality, there's legitimate reasons for people to NOT like them.
That... What?!
At the local MFA, when buying feed or fertilizer, you back your vehicle up to the warehouse-style loading dock, where the raised floor of the storage facility is about the height of the average truck bed off the road height. When I buy things in my sedan and load them into the trunk, I either have to drop them off from a great height, or take them down a small set of stairs. When people buy in a truck, the employees use a forklift to put the pallet directly into the truck bed.
At the farm, it's not uncommon to have a tractor with a front end loader either with a bucket to dump things into the pickup bed, or a set of pallet forks for loading/unloading solid or bagged objects.
How can you _possibly_ say that there's "literally no utilitarian use" for truck beds in agricultural settings?
That being said they are generally unnecessarily large now & at this point midsize trucks are more than capable enough for most people. I think they mainly buy full size trucks for roomier cabs and more luxury features at this point
The first thing I did when moving to a rural area was to get a F-150. I plow my own driveway. I pick up dirt by the yard for lawn/garden use. Tow. Get big things. I look back now three years later and am thankful I did not waste any coin on a bed cover as I'd be very tired of putting it on and taking it off. Living nearly two miles in on a dirt road I only bother washing the truck twice a year as 'clean' is very fleeting.
The issue with this e-F150 is the low payload and tow capacity of the standard models. Think I'm rated 2350 payload and 13K tow on an out the door $44k XLT supercab.
The vehicles are gigantic and are capable of carrying thousands of pounds but are operated by people who may not be able to handle something considerably smaller without getting into an accident. Suburban neighborhoods are plagued with tailgating road warriors in consumer tanks that endanger people for the sake of having an adventure on the road. The aesthetics of a truck are as much a problem as the drivers operating them.
Truck owners don't just use them to carry rocks and trees, they also drive them to the city, where the high grille, large footprint, crazy rate of acceleration make them threatening, dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, and frankly just detrimental to improving the quality of life in cities.
It's absolutely rational that a vehicle optimized for rural workload isn't going to be ideal in cities.
What's irrational is pretending they have to be taller and wider every year.
I suspect most people with big trucks rarely use them for moving stuff. Not to say they never do, but from my observations owning a big truck has a lot more to do with signaling a certain status to others who value big trucks.
Owning a Geo Metro signals that you don't give a damn about status or what anyone thinks and you don't care much about how long it takes to get to your destination. The Geo Metro owner in 2021 is truly the most independent thinker.
Pro-Tesla, ftfy.
No, I am not a Trump flag flyer. I just happen to really like useful vehicles.
Problem solved.
What do you think is so bad about the process?
2) The $20 is for the first 75 minutes. I guess I'm wrong, but I couldn't imagine a use-case where you're only going to need the truck for 75 minutes.
3) Use restrictions. Home Depot greatly restricts what you can use the truck for, including no towing.
4) Availability. At the three HD's near me, good luck getting any rental truck let a lone a diesel (mentioned above). They're always checked out, sometimes weeks in advance.
The idea is that you drive the truck home, unload it, then drive the truck back to the store and return it. If you live less than 30 minutes away from the Home Depot then it is completely reasonable amount of time.
Example: 30 mins driving home + 15 mins unloading + 30 mins driving back = 75 minute rental.
It seems very practical to me. Most people live less than 30 mins from a Home Depot. In fact Home Depot has an internal goal that they want 95% of Americans to live 15 mins or less from a Home Depot store. So if you fall into 95% of Americans, then you can rent a truck for 75 mins, spend 15 mins each way driving and have 45 minutes to unload or mess around before returning the car.
Home Depot really rents the trucks with the idea that you drive to the store in your car, buy something at the store, use the truck to take it home, drive back to return the truck, and then drive your car home.
As long as nothing goes wrong they don't care, but if something does go wrong the lawyers will jump on that.
The truck I got about 9 months ago has already paid for itself by saving me from having to hire people to do things that I could have done myself if only I had a truck.
Renting is fine once in a while, but if you're hauling base rock or lumber every few weekends, I cannot imaging having to deal with rentals every time. It doesn't make sense, and would be such an enormous waste of time.
Yes, exactly. If you've actually got a use for it, great! The comment I was replying to was suggesting that realizing you need to get one more bulky item would happen frequently enough to make up the difference for someone who would otherwise rent, which is ridiculous.
Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
> Even used, the marginal cost of a truck in maintenance and higher gas bills really adds up. Comparing a used F-150 to a used Prius, mile-per-mile, the truck is going to be more than twice as expensive.
Again, depends! For me, the cost of a truck in maintenance and gas is much cheaper than a Prius, because the Prius can't do most of the things I'd want a truck for to begin with. Gas included: I don't take the truck on long road trips. But I'm lucky and have a honda and a truck. If you only have budget for once vehicle, then yes, weigh the pros and cons much more carefully. If you have a used car and a used truck though, you can pay about as much as you'd pay new for either of them (less, even), and have much more utility.
Lastly, I'd wager that an F150 from the 90s is going to be a lot cheaper to maintain than a Prius in the long run due to the Prius' overall complexity. I wouldn't make that same bet on any truck built after 2005, though.
Only if you insist on buying new, you'll pay a lot. My pickup is about as big as it gets (4 door, 8ft bed, diesel dually) and it didn't cost tens of thousands since I bought an older one.
Diesels don't depreciate that much, so I'll probably get most of it back whenever I sell.
If you are buying wood you can measure the size of the wall. Estimate the studs you need based on 16" gaps. Buy that much plus a few extras.
The constant trips back and forth to home depot is generally smaller items that you forget. You need a special socket size, you need a different type of nail, etc.
FWIW after reading the other thread specifically about home backup power, I was thinking this new F-150 sounds interesting. But then reading this whole product page and coming to "automatic software updates" I remembered why new vehicles are non-starters for me. I'd rather keep dealing with gasoline than resigning myself to surveillance culture.
I do really think the idea of an electric truck seems cool, and the F150 looks capable, but I'd rather not have yet another connected device. Give me dumb toasters, dumb refrigerators, dumb laundry machines, dumb vehicles. I'm tired of this "smart" bullshit. It doesn't need to be smart because I can tell it exactly what I want.
Pick-ups are also useful for larger furniture and machinery, but don't discount thr carrying capacity of a car just because it's a car.
It's actually really nice, because if you buy your goods before you rent the truck, the person that shows you to the truck will usually help you load your stuff into it. That can be a godsend if you're trying to manipulate big sheets of plywood or something heavy. I also like that they clearly treat them as work vehicles; when they inspected it before I took off, they were only interested in fairly significant damage to the body. The truck I got already had scrapes on the body, and they really only noted the large and/or deep ones.
Yet the top comment is a reflexive jab at those woke folks with zero content about the truck in question. That's very much on brand for HN.
I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle credits. If the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks.
To me this is the same as someone who smokes one pack of cigarettes a day judging someone who smokes 2 packs a day.
Now for the tongue in cheek ironic part of the post Finally had to just stop visiting sites like Jalopnik(a car site written by people who hate cars), TTAC(used to just be the right leaning car website, but now is having Jalopnik envy), and The Drive(A new car site by the guy who started Jalopnik and decided only one toxic car site attributed to him was not enough).
A lot of people just want to move stuff, they don’t want to like…burn your house down while wearing a MAGA hat or something. There’s no reason to have an irrational hatred of a vehicle that is pretty practical in non-urban settings.
Edit: since this ended up as the top comment I’ll add some thoughts on the truck itself in the spirit of not being overly-negative. I’m interested to see what exactly is included in the base model and when that will become available since they’ve only given us information on higher trims so far. $40K for this vehicle is very affordable, that’s about as cheap as you can get a new Model 3 right now but at least for awhile it could be eligible for electric vehicle tax credits. Especially if the government extended these credits they could get A LOT of people to buy these trucks (and more Teslas which would help with EV adoption since demand for the Bolt and Leaf seem pretty low)