Comment by alexjplant
25 days ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them.
It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable.
I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
Bingo.
Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart directly into the van by myself.
A heavy duty pickup makes sense when you have regular towing, or large bulky transport, needs. While on this topic, I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
I miss the hell out of my '82 Chevrolet S10 with extended cab and two-tone paint job. The extended cab isn't going to be used for hauling the soccer team, but I could put it was plenty of space for "inside only" cargo. Damn thing threw a rod and cracked the case, and I never could convince my parents to keep it and put a new engine in it. I'd like to think I'd still own it today if they had.
You could run a single issue presidential campaign on bringing the S10 back (all it would really take is patching some weired emissions regulations mistakes). A better truck from a better time.
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Educate me: How is the Canyon, Ranger, or Frontier not a modern equivalent to the S10? All small(ish) trucks available in a two door or extended cab configuration with basic options.
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I'm taking my 1st gen Tacoma 5-spd to the grave
Buy a Ford Maverik hybrid. Similar size, great mileage.
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> I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
Remind me of my favorite article title: In the land of the free, why can’t we have mini-pickup trucks like the Taliban and ISIS?[0]
[0]: https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler...
You can buy a hitch for any vehicle and a brand new 8 foot trailer for < $2k.
For the "I need to sometimes pick up large objects" use case it's hard to beat.
I have 3 vehicles, an old project jeep, an old truck, and a sedan.
Sedan handles 99% of my driving, but can't really tow anything. Truck handles all of my towing stuff, but gets ~14mpg which hurts so I don't drive it.
Jeep is a jeep, it's always being worked on, but when I use it I'm using it to go ride around on dirt paths or for camping. It gets 17-20mpg when I'm driving it but I don't want to drive it often.
If the jeep was a 2000's series jeep I would totally just get a small trailer for the occasional towing things that I do with the pickup and downsize to 2 vehicles. I know I could rent a uhaul from time to time for about what I pay for insuring and titling the truck, but the $100 annual difference is worth it for the convenience of not having to deal with uhaul 4 times a year.
But I said all of that to say, that a hitch isn't a perfect solution for everyone. I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
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We bought our first minivan in 1998, a Ford Windstar. It was purchased to run our teenagers to activities, but I quickly fell in love with all the other things it could do, including what you've mentioned above. We put a ton of miles on it before trading it in. Next was a 2007 Town and Country with two sliding doors! By this time we were running grandkids and it was perfect.
After deciding to replace it, we struggled to decide what kind of vehicle to upgrade to. For our lifestyle and the side projects I like to do, another minivan was the obvious choice. Now it's a 2018 Pacifica and we're retired. The quality is outstanding, with 112K miles on it, I expect to put on another 100K before seeing what's available for the next upgrade. None of these vans ever gave us any engine or transmission trouble, despite the high number of miles I was able to put on them.
I have a 2018 Forester and it holds a surprising amount of furniture or 8' lumber. My only regret is that it won't fit 4x8 sheet materials well - if only they had designed the interior plastic cladding a little better it would be a great workhorse.
I remember my 1982 Toyota Corolla wagon had an obvious cut-out in the plastic interior, that was just a hair wider than a 4x8 sheet. I still miss that car.
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I think there's basically one 4x4 van on the market in the US right now. So you're making a pretty bad generalization here. In the Bay Area, it's probably true that a van would work well, although I lived in a mixed-income neighborhood and all the construction guys had beater pickups. But if you live in a place with snow and unpaved residential roads, 4x4 is pretty much a must (and pickups can be also be used for plowing, etc).
Since when? I sincerely do not understand that point about snow. I've lived in Canada (not southern Ontario) for most of my life and everyone had (and still mostly has) FWD. 4x4 was only for people actually going off road... I don't get how this is now a "must".
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If you mean true 4x4, there are none. Sprinter went AWD a few years ago.
But I believe most vans on the market have an AWD option. Ford Transit and Volkswagen IDBuzz both offer AWD. Toyota’s Sienna is (only?) AWD with a silly lifted trim for the off-roading soccer mom market. Chrysler’s van is AWD.
That leaves the ProMaster as the only two wheeler I’m certain about. Mazda and Kia also have vans, unsure about their drivetrain options. Did I leave anyone out?
I think your generalization is the bad one. Most trade jobs get better value out of vans compared to trucks. Vans offer awd, I am not sure a 4x4 offers much value.
Most companies prefer vans over trucks. Much better economics.
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AWD is a luxury outside of the most extreme of extreme locations.
I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
Front wheel drive came along and made it easy mode.
All wheel drive is certainly something I love these days, but it’s an extreme luxury that makes winter driving laughably easy.
A basic utilitarian work vehicle does not need to be 4WD in 90% or likely even 99% of use cases anywhere in the country.
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Ford Transit and Sprinter both have AWD. GMC apparently has a 4x4 van, the other 4x4 vans are aftermarket.
No vans are currently sold in the US with 4WD. The Sprinter and Transit are available in AWD, that's it. There are companies that will convert a van to 4WD but it's typically around $20,000 which is beyond the budget of most people.
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How do you fit a 40ft ladder inside a van? How about a mound of mulch or compost? How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior? Not to mention that when it contains heavy items like a large beam of wood, you often can't physically lift it out with those awkward van angles, but could in a truck bed.
First of all I'm not convinced that the utility of the trucks is mostly unused. This seems like a trope from anticar people. But second of all and more concretely, I've done a lot of trade work that would have simply not worked in a van, so seeing your common sentiment is always bemusing.
> How about hauling away customer's old plumbing or any number of filthy things you don't want in a car interior?
Funny story, the guys who demolished an old bathroom for us hauled the crap & dust away in a very dirty beater van (either a small cargo van or a minivan with rear seating removed, can't remember). It was their designated demolition vehicle.
Nobody drives sheet goods around in a pickup or a work van with any sort of regularity.
There are only two trades that use sheet goods: drywall and carpentry. Most of the time they’re getting dozens or hundreds of sheets delivered to a job site.
What are you going to do with (12) 32 sq ft pieces of sheet goods anyways, put up drywall in a half of a bedroom or reroof a quarter of a garage?
If you really want to do this, you’ll get a roof rack for hauling sheet goods.
Light-duty pickups still exist, eg the Nissan Frontier with the 6’ bed is probably the most reliable, sturdy and cost-effective pickup out there. Europeans may know this truck as the Navarro.
A minivan with the two rear seats removed can move so much stuff.
Yeah but the same exact geniuses in here screeching about "you don't need a truck" will judge you so hard when they see you in the home depot parking lot stacking the thing floor to ceiling with building materials.
Source: own minivan
Sprinters vans are the GOAT. My wife drives a 2009 Ford Ranger, love that damn truck. When it goes, the Sprinter it is.
The sprinter is massively over-hyped by people who've never owned one.
Yeah, everything about it is generally "solid" and well done but at it's roots it's a very german car. The longblock will theoretically go a million miles but realistically you're gonna replace every part around it several times over to get it there. I'm sure they're fine when new but as they age it's basically the same "replacing way too much BS because while nice it's over engineered" as the rest of german car ownership. Like c'mon man, an asian or american car would "just" require simpler less invasive things and generally be less of a headahce in old age.
Source: semi responsible for keeping one running
Really hoping Slate works out! The modern pickup is usually a tuba for assholes not a working tool.
The only reason i have a pickup is because i put dirtbikes in it. They also fit in a van, but good luck finding a reasonably priced one with AWD (very high demand, especially due to camper conversions).
Vans are way better in almost every regard.
Actually, I'm buying a house with a garage and I may get a bike trailer, and a tow hitch for my BMW. That would be an even simpler solution
Same. Where are you, want to hit the trails sometime?
As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year, you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on the road.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
I was looking for the same thing and a friend gave me some advice.
Get an SUV with a trailer hitch.
worked out great. Maybe better than a pickup.
For example - taking mountain bikes somewhere to ride - you can put them in the back, go ride, and leave them there while you go eat without someone stealing them. You can even load them the night before.
dirty stuff can use a trailer (I've never needed one)
and suv carries lots of people - which has worked out many many times more than I predicted.
(it is a gas guzzler, but was cheaper because of that, and didn't compete with higher-priced pickup market)
Never understood why the yanks don't like vans? Pickups are much less popular here in the UK, many more people use vans. A crew cab van with removable seats is infinitely more flexible than a pickup, other than long stuff which you chuck on a roof rack.
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I own a station wagon, a van and a pickup (none of which are nice or new) vehicle and three trailers (to be fair one is special purpose) and I'll put up to ~1000lb on the roof of the car before I drag a trailer around.
Trailer is kind of obnoxious pain in the ass and has a bunch more shit to go wrong with it's use compared to a vehicle that "just does what you need".
It might not be the literal cheapest but a truck with the desired cab to bed ratio is the right call for the casual user who just wants to do homeowner things and doesn't wanna think about it.
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Even cheaper than SUVs are used minivans. My 2005 Honda Odyssey was an amazing “truck” with a good amount of towing capacity for most cases.
I appreciate the suggestion! It's crossed my mind, but unfortunately a trailer doesn't really work for my living situation. It'd require off-site storage which just sounds like more of a headache (and expense) than I care to take on.
If you only need a truck a couple of times per year, maybe it makes more sense to rent one?
Not even. When I lived in the boonies trash service was ~$75 a quarter, the local hardware store would deliver pallets of mulch for free, and furniture stores offered free delivery above certain purchase amounts. My buddy's dad would haul your boat between the marina and your house for a flat fee. Hell, I was able to cram a full PA with floor monitors and a few guitars into my Corolla for weekend band gigs.
I started looking into getting a trailer or hitch hauler but it didn't seem to make much sense. I could usually pay somebody on-demand to move stuff around and it always worked out to be cheaper than owning and maintaining a truck. I presently work from home and don't even own a car anymore; the math is quite similar with rideshare and motorcycle maintenance coming in significantly cheaper.
Do you not have services in the US to do this for you? The problem: I have a pile of construction waste, household junk, garden waste etc. is solved by many businesses who'll come pick it up for a small fee.
If your local government doesn't offer this, there are many commercial operators that do this in the UK. Seems bizarre to buy a whole giant, inefficient, vehicle just for 'hauling' occasionally.
Scheduling a "bulk trash" pick up at my current home is only accomplished by calling my landlord, who then calls the trash company, who then calls back with some arbitrary date and time a month or more in the future. When I have crap I want to get rid of it, I don't want to deal with any of that. I'll take the "inefficiency" of storing and maintaining a second vehicle -- which my family would easily make use of other than hauling duties -- over dealing with the bureaucratic nuisance.
There are private options, of course, but the fees are nowhere near "small" for this service.
Consider a trailer if you have even a mildly acceptable tow vehicle that can take a 2 inch receiver. Use what UHaul will rent you as a rough limit for what your vehicle can handle, and then if you want to save some weight get your own because it will be lighter than UHaul's brick shithouses.
Having said that, I'm still in the market for a larger vehicle with a better tow weight rating as I use the trailer more than a handful of times per year, and my current tow vehicle is getting a bit long in the tooth.
Consider a Honda Acty - they even have models with a dumping bed.
These are quite expensive for what you get and are slooooooow. It's fine if you want an expensive, quirky neighborhood runabout, but you'll be made very aware that this is a product not at all designed for the US market (there's a good reason most examples do ~1000 miles a year). The ACTYs I found online were in the $7-20k range, for a ~30 year old model - more for a nice van.
The best used work truck is actually a van. They lack the coolness factor of trucks, but are far more versatile. You can pick up a <10 year old Transit with under 100k miles for like 10-15k. That price point will get you a >10 year old F150 in the 100-150k mile range.
Plus, there are good options if you want something smaller can car-based, like NV2000s and Transit connects. Which don't really exist for trucks outside of newer (maverick) or niche (Ridgeline) options.
Bonus points, a nice Transit is a great daily driver too.
Harsh did a tipper conversion for the Daihatsu Hijet, which had an 850cc triple with a lot more poke than the Acty's 660cc twin, and had a "true 4WD" variant.
In the UK, Truck and Driver Magazine featured one so equipped in a head-to-head AWD tipper test (AWD in the sense of all wheels driven regardless of number of axles, not Subaru AWD/Audi Quattro type AWD), alongside a variety of extremely large trucks. Proper trucks, not F150s, we're talking 18-tonne Scanias and stuff here.
Everyone wanted one of the little Hijets to take home.
> As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year,
I don’t get it. Why would you buy, maintain, and park an entire second vehicle for something that is beyond trivially cheap to hire out?
If you wanted to DIY then renting a truck for the day makes more sense.
Trivially cheap, huh? Wish I were so lucky.
Renting a vehicle invites bureaucratic nonsense. For my personal situation, I need it ready to go at virtually a moments notice or I'll simply just avoid the chore.
I have had good luck with farm type auctions just check the rust. IronPlanet is also really good but a little more expensive.
Rent?
For me personally, it's too much hassle. Between the paperwork, rental fees, getting a ride to and from, etc. I just start to lose motivation, and end up deciding to do the chore the "next weekend" which never comes. I need as few barriers between me and accomplishing a chore if I ever want to have any hope of completing it.
It is utility, just not the utility you're thinking of. Try spending all day, every day in a basic, rough riding pickup truck, then compare it to spending all day in a "luxobarge" that can still tow a 7,000lb trailer.
To the people I know who drive trucks like that, they're basically mobile offices.
Yep. The internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day, but the audience of truck buyers is huge and diverse. Acting like nobody who buys a truck actually uses it or thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch.
> thinking that contractors couldn’t possibly appreciate (or deserve?) a nice interior for what is basically their mobile office is pretty out of touch
I'm not familiar with the USA. What do contractors over there do in terms of clean/dirty clothes? Do they change into clean boots and trousers before getting into the truck? Or are they all in roles where they don't get their hands dirty?
In my country, vehicles marketed to tradesmen and agricultural workers usually aim for a hard-wearing, easy-to-clean interior that's fairly spartan.
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>he internet loves to bash truck owners as all being the same one guy who buys a truck to drive 1.3 miles to the office every day
Because the only truck owners the people who bash trucks see are their neighbor across the street who is that guy.
The demographically comparable guy who commutes in 80mi one way from his "country estate" in his Audi isn't on the internet bashing truck owners because the guy he lives across from uses his truck.
Also, acting like the whole of the working class are basic burger shop cashiers who struggle to buy anything while simultaneously being idiots who buy 80k trucks just to "virtue signal"... This thread is totally incoherent. Most of the jobs people have are better than that, and most of the trucks people drive are cheaper than that, but the two extremes are mixed to create the most outlandish narrative.
That's opinion/stereotype, and unsupported. From Rob Cockerham's experiment (2002):
"I guessed that 98% of all truck beds are empty"
"In 25 minutes I had counted 150 trucks, and 99 of them had been empty. This 66% empty ratio was much lower than I had expected. I hadn't realized that so many trucks were being so successfully utilized."
"The results were similar: 39% of the trucks were hauling goods, and 61 of them were empty"
"Along with this adjustment of my perception, I also realized that an empty truck is no more wasteful than an empty back seat. Most cars AND trucks in the US drive around with 75% of the cargo space unutilized...what difference does it make if it is interior or exterior space?"
https://cockeyed.com/science/data/truck_beds/truck_beds.html
A vehicle thousands of pounds heavier, with much worse mpg, and almost by definition terrible aerodynamics, is no less efficient than a car with empty rear seats? Sure.
The only part that matters is the weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
I'd imagine that % changes heavily on hour in the day and road observed.
People using truck for work (tradesman etc) do it all thorough the day. People who just use it as status symbol get to work and back from work at given hour. Also probably more usage in weekend when people doing weekend project go shop and people not doing that don't even get out on the longer trips.
Sitting on one road for an hour (and looking at photos, far from peak traffic) is near meaningless
The "peak traffic" that all the 9-5 office workers on HN see is also not when trucks that carry things move. Blue collar work usually starts at 6/7/8am.
You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money without a reason.
There's a reason these "luxobarges" are the best selling vehicle in the U.S., and the answer is not virtue signaling.
Brother, people are scraping by right now. Auto loan defaults are nearing all-time highs. Car loan lengths are longer than ever. The average age of a vehicle on the road is something like 14 years old now.
I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
I don’t get the recent internet trend of trying to excuse any bad behavior by saying it’s all actually very logical and simply a tragedy of reality. Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle because it has seats that are easy to clean. Nobody is buying an expensive ride because they just NEED those auto rain wipers.
People are bad with money, and keeping up with the Joneses has always been a high priority in American culture. I see people making $20-25/hr driving brand new Cadillac SUVs. I talk to my car selling friends, and they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years. Nobody does those anymore.
Of course there is an enormous amount of virtue signaling around cars. It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years
Playing Devil's Advocate, if you're going to be fucked either way, why not be fucked and have a nice truck than not?
It seems like, at least from an uninformed EU perspective, that if the "system" gives you the ability to get a big truck for no worse off that if you weren't going to get it, why wouldn't you?
It seems like auto manufacturers overly inflated their prices, and the loan issuers are mopping up said inflation back - so in the end the borrower (at least if poor and they're going to default either way) is better off getting more truck for their buck than less.
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>Brother, people are scraping by right now
Yes some are, but not everyone with a big truck. I'm in truck country and most people can afford their big trucks no problem at all. It's not virtue signaling, they are do-everything cars. Nothing else beats them.
You can go to a off-road work site during the day, and take it downtown for dinner after. Lots of people are making good money and can easily afford them.
> I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
not sure virtue signalling is best description here. I think "conspicuous consumption" is far better description of the process
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> I promise you with all my heart
You have such a deep misanthropic view that it's prevented you from seeing anything outside of it. You're preaching a faith not practicing an understanding of the world.
> Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle
There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle. The reason these vehicles sell well is because they come in _tons_ of configurations.
> because it has seats that are easy to clean
No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there, it helps them sell more vehicles by expanding their options.
> People are bad with money
Just.. like.. universally? Then how do you explain the number of billionaires and millionaires in this country? Let me guess.. from your heart it's 110% graft and corruption and 0% skill and sense and building wealth?
> I talk to my car selling friends,
Who has "car selling friends?" Your access to anecdotal information may not be helping you.
> It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
We know this.. how?
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On the out of touch point, I will just note that every time we drive to West Virginia or Pennsylvania you can see when you leave the rich exurbs because it goes from $80k vanity trucks to fuel and maintenance efficient sedans, old Toyotas and vans, and the heavy trucks guys like welders use. There is zero question that they’re using those trucks from the wear patterns, whereas the luxury trucks in the areas where the average house is a million plus are spotless.
It’s not “virtue signaling”, it’s lifestyle messaging like wearing cowboy boots or walking around with DJ headphones as if you’re going to drop a set after the morning standup.
Those aren't the people I'm talking about in my post and they aren't the primary buyers of the vehicles I'm describing.
Maybe you are out of touch. I bet even many people here think it's mainly virtue signaling.
I mean… do any of the commercial services in US use pickup trucks? It seems to all be vans? Why not to get a van then as a contractor?
Here (southeast US), lawn services use pickups, often also with a trailer. Most other services (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) use vans. Less sure about contractors, I interact with them less.
Most commercial services near me use trucks with or without a trailer. Painters tend to use vans, and some electricians. Everyone else has a truck with a logo on it. You can't tow well with a van, so it has to be a company that never tows.
Granted probably most people on here are CA or SV adjacent, which has a fairly idiosyncratic relationship with its service industries and stricter emissions regs.
I see commercial lawn services driving in pickups a lot. It's a job that benefits from the open bed.
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But I think the Venn diagram of "people who can afford these new trucks" and "people who live in their truck" is two completely separate circles.
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment.
Reading the HN version of truck drivers is such a stark contrast to interfacing with actually contractors on a day to day basis.
A vehicle being comfortable and luxurious isn’t something only the bourgeoisie can appreciate. People who work spend a lot of time in their vehicles too.
No, but a sprinter van is going to provide better actual utility for most trades and a 80k f150 platinum is a long way away from a white 2 door long bed which can make the spend not make sense business wise.
As you say though I do see trades workers with the fancy pickup trucks (often with a trailer, cant scratch that bed paint aha) which I attribute to low interest on auto loans and poor business sense.
> but a sprinter van is going to provide better actual utility for most trades
Certain jobs in certain trades, not all of them
> and a 80k f150 platinum
Base F150 starts at half that. This is silly
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Lol, these people do not care about sprinter vans.
The online crowd has such a love for sprinter vans, I don't see anyone talking about them except a very small group.
The people around me have F250s + a trailer twice the size of a small sprinter. They can work and have a small house behind them when needed.
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> It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed
It can be that but all the major manufacturers have a ton of trim levels and options. Personally I drive a f150 that doesn't even have power windows.
Most Cybertrucks I've seen in the wild are running at a low ground clearance, reminiscent of a 'coupe utility' vehicle like an El Camino.
If you look at the cybertruck's architecture it basically is the "top end" of that line.
It's a big car platform with a bed. It's the "top of the line" for "car based" pickups like the old Subarus, the Maverick/SantaCruz and Ridgeline.
While it nominally competes with the F150 it doesn't really. Same as how the Ridgeline nominally competes with the Ranger, but doesn't really.
I think it's a real shame the cyber truck never took off. While gimmicky I think the longevity of it's absolutely stupid thick(er than typical) gauge stainless body would have put pressure on other OEMs to stop building shitty truck beds that dent and rust if you look at them funy.
The venn diagram between people who say what you just said (which to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with) and people who screech about safety if they see a pickup being anywhere near full utilized is way too close to a circle for me to take either seriously.
The modern US pickup truck still has the utility image and they make sure they sell a bunch to people who want utility to ensure that the image is not lost. That is why the lightening came in a cheap pro trim clearly targeted at the things pros are likely to want. (I don't know how well it worked, but they seriously tried to sell to that market)
Of course the real money is in the high trim levels that sell for twice as much but don't really cost much more.
I believe you're accurate for some purchases, but also woefully inaccurate outside of your experience space.
There are millions of workers carrying tools, parts, supplies, and refuse in pickup trucks. Where I live (rural), almost everyone has a truck, and it is for work, not show.
And in cities, as I walk around neighbourhoods, I see endless roofers, plumbers, builders, gardeners, and more using them for work.
Pickup trucks also portray toughness - the other all-important American virtue in addition to wealth. I always get a kick out of American Football ad breaks, where every other commercial is either a truck commercial narrated by some guy with an extremely gravelly voice talking about how tough their trucks are, or an ad for ED pills.
They can be luxury vehicles with reasonable running costs - regular gas and less depreciation than the usual luxury brands. They also have utility in case you need it. Pickup trucks aren't my cup of tea but it can be very rational to buy one even if you don't need it as a work truck.
Yes, and they're awesome. Also much closer to 100k.
What's 100K? My Lightning was just under 51K out the door, and it is not a base model. You must be referring to something else? Maybe pickups in general? It's true that they do tend to be expensive.
Edit: OH, you mean the CT. Silly me.
I'm looking forward to the Telo-- if they get to market. It's absolutely all about utility. It will be interesting to see if people only want pickups as a fashion statement or if a weird, very practical vehicle can win.
(Same bed-size as Tacoma; midgate that folds down to hold a full sheet of plywood; seats 4 people comfortably; same length as a Mini Cooper SE).
I'd love it if Telos were cheaper, though. $40-50k is enough to keep me buying used cars.
I know plenty of engineers with expensive trucks used to carry their families around during the week and haul their hunting bounty home on weekends. In that scenario, the Cybertruck is a total failure. Where's the exposed bed for a deer? How about hauling the boat to the lake?
Cybertruck is a product management failure.
It never stopped being possible to order a bare bones F-150 with a 8ft bed. Might not have the tradeoffs that many people are looking for, but difficult to argue something like that has less utility than a mini truck that can't drive on the highway.
I once rented a "kei van" in Japan once. I think I remember seeing similarly utilitarian trucks, but forget what they were called. I found the kei vans very practical.
I have one. Four wheel drive, turbo, 660cc little motor. There's even a cute "bashguard" built in to the oil filter, which is hilariously the lowest thing to the ground. No frills. Knobs control everything.
I love it. Full-flat back allows for camping in your car (I'm just over 6 feet tall.) Three bicycles and three people can fit. Wood, tools, DIY... And it is tiny, so it is easy to drive and park.
It doesn't like driving faster than about 110km/hr, but that's good enough for me.
The utilitarian trucks you are talking about are k-trucks, or kei-trucks. "Kei" just means "lightweight."
In Japan, they are refered to as "kei-tora": 軽トラ
On that note, kei car minivans like the Honda N-box are just about the most practical car you can buy for your teen offspring - 4 seats and a ton of boot space.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
The difference is that the Submariner can actually be used as a dive watch. If it turned to fail significantly more often than other dive watches underwater, people would be much less inclined to buy it even though it would literally make no difference for them.
> The difference is that the Submariner can actually be used as a dive watch.
Are you suggesting that modern trucks can’t be used as trucks?
I mean the Cybertruck, and EV trucks in general to a certain extent, are rather lousy trucks, so they aren't seen as aspirational the same way a normal F150 or Submariner are.
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My impression is that the pickup truck as status symbol began with a Back to the Future product placement. You may recall that the character Marty lusts after a 1985 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab.
I saw the movie in the theater and, at the time, found it strange that anyone would have a work vehicle as a dream car.
a pick up without flat bed rails has significantly reduced the areas where it can be used as a work truck. Pretty clear signal that the CyberTruck was a status symbol not a work truck.
Maybe temper your otherism a bit, and try reading this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
<blockquote>
“Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
It’s all but impossible to go into any rural bar in America today, ask for thoughts on pickup trucks and not hear complaints about the size of trucks these days, about touch-screens and silly gimmicks manufacturers use to justify their ballooning prices. Our economy, awash in cheap capital, has turned quality used trucks into something like a luxury asset class.
It’s often more affordable in the near-term to buy a new truck than a reliable used one. Manufacturers are incentivized by federal regulations, and by the basic imperatives of the thing economy, to produce ever-bigger trucks for ever-higher prices to lock people into a cycle of consumption and debt that often lasts a lifetime.
This looks like progress, in G.D.P. figures, but we are rapidly grinding away the freedom and agency once afforded by the ability to buy a good, reasonable-size truck that you could work on yourself and own fully. You can learn a lot about why people feel so alienated in our economy if you ask around about the pickup truck market.
Instead, the authors of “White Rural Rage” consulted data and an expert to argue that driving a pickup reflects a desire to “stay atop society’s hierarchy,” but they do not actually try to reckon much with the problem that passage raises — that consumer choices, such as buying trucks, have become a way for many Americans to express the deep attachment they have to a life rooted in the physical world. A reader might conclude that people who want a vehicle to pull a boat or haul mulch are misguided, or even dangerous. And a party led by people who believe that is doomed among rural voters, the Midwestern working class and probably American men in general.
</blockquote>
> The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass
Would you believe that moose are also hunted in places that have very few pickups?
> The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility.
Not really true. Something like an F150/250/350 is absolutely built for utility. It's popular for a reason. It's just not used for utility by a large number of buyers. It's a "pavement princess".
The Cybertruck is an objectively bad product for many reasons of which utility is pretty high up there.
For example, it's really heavy because of the steel body yet it has an aluminium frame. The problem with aluminium is that it deforms with stress in a way that steel doesn't. Why does this matter? If you're towing a heavy load over rough terrain the frame is going to face large forces up and down that will end up snapping that frame.
> It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner.
That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Sure, finance bros might buy Submariners but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very robust product designed for diving, originally. Now the need for that has been diminished because we now have dive computers, quartz dive watches and such and you can argue it's not worth ~$10k or that there as good or better options for less (which there are) but it's still an excellent product with many years of design to suit its original purpose.
Even if you use a dive computer as an experienced diver, you'll generally also have a dive watch because computers can fail [1].
> I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective
So we have luxury SUVs where once the SUV was a commercial vehicle (eg Toyota Land Cruiser) and they may sacrifice some of the features such vehicles originally had (eg AWD) but the trades are made for a product that people want.
So yes, you could make an equivalent truck and say it has a market. Maybe it does. But even if it does, the Cybertruck isn't it. Because it's a terrible product for every purpose other than an expensive demonstration of your political leanings.
[1]: https://www.analogshift.com/blogs/transmissions/watches-for-...
> That's a funny example because it shows you know just as much about watches as you do about trucks, which is to say nothing.
Nice ad hominem. No diver is buying a Submariner specifically as a backup for their dive computer for the exact reasons that you went on to outline in your post. It's a textbook Veblen good. The Chinese can build a mechanical Sub clone that keeps the same time as a real one for $100. Swatch (via Omega) builds a more technically-impressive dive watch at a fraction of the price. Oris makes one with an analog depth gauge for even less than the SMP. All of them are more inaccurate and less reliable than anything quartz or digital.
Rolexes stopped being tool watches a few years into their post-Quartz crisis recovery. My GC buddy drives a Tundra. Fleets of white collar workers drive Crew Cab F-150s with wheels more expensive than the worthless Regular Cab I had years ago. No need to get twisted up about it.
Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
Blending in with imaginary people, you mean. Every single actual blue collar worker who needs a truck for that purpose drives a 1997 Toyota Tacoma.
I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still ran great.
I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing capacity.
I searched this thread for "Tacoma" to see if anyone was mentioning this. (A few other comments had similar sentiments as well.) It's so true. I live half a block from an auto shop that is well patronized by small-time gardeners, contractors, etc. A sizable proportion of the vehicles there at any time are 20- to 30-year-old Tacomas.
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