Comment by wongarsu
7 years ago
Trucks in urban settings are an exclusively American thing. Because of the chicken tax [1], a 20% import duty on trucks, foreign trucks are unprofitable in the US. This lack of competition incentivizes American auto makers to create as much domestic demand for trucks as possible.
Urban pickup trucks in particular are very American, but the ever increasing number of SUVs in places like central London is just as absurd, not to mention problematic[0]. I'm guessing one reason Europe favours SUVs over trucks is because the roads are generally much narrower here.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/...
As someone with two kids, massive storage space appeals to me very much.
Flying somewhere for vacation now costs $$$, so driving say to France, Spain or Portugal is a lot more appealing. A baby stroller already takes up half the 500L boot/trunk space of my BMW X1 and even with an annoying & noisy 400L roof box we still can't fit everything we want (I used to go backpacking for months with a 35L pack, so I'm not someone who takes the kitchen sink on vacation).
A Skoda Superb has a boot space of around 600L, one of the largest among "normal" cars. If you want more space, I guess you have to go for something that may look out of place in the city center but does have practical appeal even outside of farms.
As your example numbers here show though estates are often better for storage than crossovers. So there must be other factors behind crossover popularity.
Their being higher is a big factor I bet (less stooping and more road visibility, although the latter is less of a factor as they get more popular).
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> Flying somewhere for vacation now costs $$$, so driving say to ...
What about the rest of the time though?
Would you save money by using a "normal" car for most of the year, and then renting something bigger (SUV, (mini)van) when you need the large volume? Or purchase a hitch for your car and rent a trailer when you need to haul things?
A co-worker of mine drives a Ford F-150 year-round because he owns a fishing boat that he used 5-6 weekends per year. Seems... sub-optimal.
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I was recently shopping for a car with loads of space - it's actually surprising how little storage space there is in most SUVs, especially compared to larger saloons, estates and hatchbacks!
An Audi Q5, for example, is big vehicle, yet I've more space in my 3 Series GT. Very similar story with the BMW X3 and the Merc equivalent.
At some the very biggest SUVs, such as the Q7 and X5, yes, you have a decent amount of space - but it's absolutely less than you'd think for what are basically tanks.
does the math really work out? You will also have to spend quite some money on fuel and should factor in the depreciation and maitenance costs of your car to make it comparable. And flights on popular routes in Europe are pretty cheap nowadays.
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Isn't flying cheaper now? That's the reason a lot of tourist attractions have been ruined by insta wh*res.
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SUVs are the minivans of rich suburban soccer mums.
I really hate that trend as most of time people driving it have no idea what they are doing + have no need for that capacity.
They are often called housewife tanks in Germany.
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but now we're putting people in the position where if you're not driving SUV and you're in a collision with an SUV you come off worse. so your option to remain safe is to buy an SUV so that if you hit/get hit another SUV or you hit/gethit another vehicle you end up in a better position
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> have no need for that capacity
If I'm forking out 40K+ on a car I'm going to make sure it's at least useful for 2-3 vacations per year with the kids. That currently requires about 900L of boot space (stroller, 3 big duffels, a few boxes with supplies, toys, etc)
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>people driving it have no idea what they are doing + have no need for that capacity.
Presumptuous to assume the operators of these vehicles don’t have the need for the capacity. My next door neighbor has 3 kids that fit in 3 car seats she carts them around all day not to mention their accessories and shopping and I always thought she needed a bigger vehicle. SUVs fare better in a collision with a smaller car, when it comes to protecting your kids you are better off riding in a tank.
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Roads that have always been able to pass sensibly-sized cars on either side are effectively one-way now because of all the outsize vehicles.
You see them everywhere in urban and rural Australia too, though the aussies call them ute.
Honestly if my family is going to own just one car, it will be a SUV, instead of a sedan/compact.
Ute for utility vehicle, I presume?
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> foreign trucks are unprofitable in the US.
Toyota trucks are everywhere and our family 1995 Toyota t-100 regularly had people stopping us making offers on it from about 2005ish until I gave it to my half-brother in 2013 with almost 140k miles on it (which is nothing for a Toyota), I even had people knock on the door of our house offering to buy it when it wasn't for sale. The Indiana State Police (I live in Indiana) even had some of their fleet as Toyota pickups for years (they still might). Actually, I'm quite confident I received more offers for my t-100 than I did for my '67 c-10 and I'd regularly get stopped and asked if I was willing to sell it too (which I finally did when someone offered me twice what I'd paid for it, which I'm still sore about I really miss that truck).
To be fair though, Toyota does manufacture a lot of vehicles in Canada and the United States which gets around the 'chicken tax'.
The reason you don't see a lot of imported pickups is because most of them are absolutely tiny, when you see an Isuzu truck for example it looks about as practical as an El Camino.
They are also popular in Austria because you pay lower yearly/monthly taxes on small utility trucks even if you don't run a business. Plenty of large US trucks parking in the center of Vienna...
Same for the Netherlands, but here it's only for business owners. But nowadays even the mailman in a business owner, thanks to contracting changing the job market.
A small Peugeot diesel crossover, weighing 1392kg, will cost you €1484 per year in road tax. Meanwhile a Toyota Hilux at 2030kg will cost you €496 in road tax. Even a Ford F250 with the 7.3L V8 and 2850kg will cost you only €692 per year. Less than half of a family crossover.
The worst thing is that some pickup trucks don't have a bed big enough to qualify as a work vehicle, so they cut the bed and make it longer (VW Amarok) or they take out the rear seats and put a divider in between to create a cargo area. Or people just buy a bigger truck so it's big enough to qualify. It's also exempt from CO2 tax giving you between €5000 and €72,000 (not a typo) off your initial purchase. So the €256,000 Range Rover SVA suddenly becomes a whole lot more affordable at €184,000, just by tossing the rear seats, calling it a utility vehicle and registering it on your business.
Mind boggling that we do this while construction of new homes is shut down all over the country because of the nitrogen crisis.
Here in Belgium you have the rear seats taken out of any car and register it as "lichte vracht" (light cargo), massively reducing the taxes you pay on it. Anyone can do this.
I've seen an Audi RS6 like this.
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My wife and I both own businesses here and neither of us have heard of this.
That's absolutely nuts.
The only thing I heard of is that older cars can be registered under a company and the market value used for tax purposes. That's why you see a lot of these massive Mercedes on the road..
What do new homes have to do with nitrogen?
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Lots of electric vehicles too, downtown Vienna is thankfully pretty hipster as well as cowboy.
I'd expect the lack of competition, especially from Japan, would make the American trucks more expensive and less reliable.
There is actually a fair amount of competition from Japan. The Toyota Tundra/Tacoma, Nissan Titan/Frontier, and Honda Ridgeline are all popular and in some ways better trucks than their American counterparts. I think many "truck people" are also people who tend to prefer domestically-made goods; in the same way that people shopping at Home Depot are more likely to buy products with the "Made in the USA" sticker on them.
The Tundra is the only full-size truck made in Texas.
The Titan is made in Mississippi.
The Ridgeline in Alabama.
Those who identify as Republicans seem to indicate willingness to pay more for Made in USA than Democrats according to the polls I've seen.
https://morningconsult.com/2017/11/21/poll-support-for-purch...
https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/171016...
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Add to that the hardcore brand loyalty a lot of truck owners seem to have, it really is surprising.
What else is really surprising to me is their resale value, especially when they are optioned with desirables such as 4x4 or a diesel powertrain; 10-15 year old Dodge Rams with the Cummins are still selling in the $10k+ range, with some of the nicer 10-year-old examples fetching closer to $20k, roughly half the original MSRP
The Tacoma (Japanese) is the best selling mid-size truck in the US. It isn't the lack of Japanese trucks.
If you have 2-3 provider and strong demand that is enough competition
I mean, they are.
But they’re trucks and not cars, so things randomly falling off is part of the appeal.
How is the chicken tax related to practicality of trucks in urban settings? It makes American trucks cheaper. But OP's question was about the practicality of a large truck in an urban setting.
It seems like you wanted to show off your knowledge of the chicken tax and just threw it in an answer to whatever thread came up first.
I believe their point is thaat if the automotive industry has any control at all, then they'll lean toward the segment that has a moat to protect them from competition. So buying advertising to make it seem normal or desirable to have a truck for example.
It doesn't make them more practical, just more common.
>It makes American trucks cheaper.
Cheaper relative to the foreign competition, but the prices of American trucks are not reduced by the tax.
>It seems like you wanted to show off your knowledge of the chicken tax and just threw it in an answer to whatever thread came up first.
Maybe, but I'm sure there are a lot of people here who don't know about the chicken tax. It is relevant to a general discussion of trucks.
It's definitely relevant to a general discussion about trucks. I just couldn't tell if I was missing something and it was somehow directly related to trucks in urban environments.
>an exclusively American thing.
UK has Chelsea Tractors.
Though those are not usually pickups. More Range Rovers and similar. The Thais like their pickups though. Locally made Hiluxs are #1
They're very popular in the countryside. Pick-ups from Ford, Mazda, Isuzu are also locally made in Thailand.
They're used a lot as utility and work vehicles. Road conditions can be pretty bad especially during the rainy season.
In Bangkok small cars are more popular.
> Trucks in urban settings are an exclusively American thing.
I suppose you have never been in Crete, Greece. :P
Wouldn't they have that incentive regardless?