U.S. vehicle fuel efficiency standards administered by NHTSA have encouraged automakers to build larger vehicles. The bigger the vehicle, the lower the fuel efficiency target it has to meet.
Recently bought a new diesel silverado 3500 for my ranch. It’s enormous, I’m glad I didn’t get the dually option as it’s hard enough to drive in the city. Most of its job however is pulling trailers around.
That said, on highway if I drive the speed limit and take it easy I can get 9L/100km. It’s unreal that such a huge truck will get almost the same economy as our KIA SUV.
You don’t need that truck, same way as nobody else on the planet, no matter what their profession, needs it
Please stop this bullshit. There are most certainly reasons to own a truck that can haul big things. Including in Europe. It’s just that 90% of the trucks you see in a Costco parking lot don’t need to be that way.
What do you expect to use for hauling livestock? These can have a tow weight of 10,000 lbs, which is much more than you can do with a regular hitch. The fact that you’ve never personally seen this does not mean anything.
That can haul a livestock. How about 12? Or would you like them to make more trips (with proportional use of gas and risk of accident)?
As for F150s hauling nothing, that’s kinda my point. There’s a market above it that actually does work (F250 and up), and there’s a market that ought to exist underneath it (what used to be the Ranger, which is now much larger). You’re targeting the wrong group by focusing on trucks that haul 10,000 lbs.
Wait, how often do you need to haul stock with your F250? If every day, then it’s more optimal to by having a dedicated livestock truck, Like Volvo FL.
If you’re only moving livestock occasionally, but driving F250 daily, you’re compensating for your tiny weiner and shitting in the air that everyone breathes
Farmers haul big, heavy things around all the time. If this is news to you, then again, maybe you should step back and stop having strong opinions on things you don’t know anything about.
What do you mean ‘my experience’? These idiotic ‘trucks’ don’t exist outside America.
Ah yes, the daily drive to the shop with my two tractors. So you either drive that without two tractors 99% of the time or you’re driving the wrong vehicle. If you need to haul two tractors you do it properly - you hire a specialist with a specialist equipment. What is pictured in your picture is reckless and idiotic.
Do you have any idea how big American farms are? You can go miles and be on the same farm. That’s why American farmers have their own equipment for that.
Why do you think vans are any better? A lot of them are made on exactly the same platforms as the trucks you’re deriding, and have similar gas mileage. A Ford E350 is basically an F350.
What do you think those “specialty operators” would use?
You’ve successfully moved the goalposts from:
“People need these cars!! They’re not tiny penis enlargers!”
To: “People in US, no, Farmers in US, no, Farmers in US that own incredibly large farms need these cars!! How are they going haul two tractors at once within their own farm!”
I do occasionally see tiny-penis trucks here in Europe. Do you know what I’ve never, ever seen though? A dirty one. One used for work, rather than just showing off.
If you had to haul something heavy on a trailer, what would you use? A fuel-guzzling, heavy, unreliable shiny trinket, or a Toyota Hilux?
99% of workers with stuff to move use a van. Farmers use pickups like L200s. Accountants drive tiny-penis trucks for the tax break
Explain to me again why American contractors are the only contractors on the entire planet that need giant trucks?
What do those farmers use to move livestock around? Because you’re generally looking at a 10,000lbs trailer for that, which is F450 territory.
What you really want to go after is the lower end the truck market. Circa 2002, the Ford Ranger had a curb weight around 3,300 lbs (exact number depending on the trim) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger#/media/File:2001-2003_Ford_Ranger.jpg. The current one is around 4,200 lbs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger#/media/File:2019_Ford_Ranger_XLT_Super_Cab_FX4_front_6.1.19.jpg. Small trucks have disappeared entirely in the US market, and there’s no good reason for it.
But when you start hitting the Ford Superduty market (F250 on up), you’re looking at people who actually use their trucks for the most part. They are big because they haul a lot of stuff and they have to be.
Still waiting for you to explain why American contractors/farmers are the only people on the planet who require these vehicles when everyone else manages with vastly smaller vehicles
I run 1000 cows on a 60,000 acre ranch in southern Alberta. It’s too rough to run a semi truck and trailer around on but I can haul a tri-axle Wilson gooseneck stock trailer with 20,000 lbs of cattle across it when I need to. There’s no roads through the ranch other than dirt trails so it takes a long time to travel through it and the fewer trips I have to make the better. Generally I’m moving cattle on horseback but occasionally I have to move old/sick/injured cows from a to b. Simply put, your European farms are miniscule and you don’t need the same capabilities that we do. The world is not uniform.
Yeah preverse incentives. When doing the wrong thing makes the most sense for the individual. Happens often in tragedy of the commons situations.
If you hit a pedestrian it is better for you that they die. If you find an endangered animal on your land it is better for you to kill it. If you have a child with someone who makes minimum wage it is better for you to divorce.
Maybe it is too much to expect but for things like this, when public policy experts came up with a standard instead of just inheriting a situation, that they plan for these things in advance. Spend a few moments and look at where the incentives are before just hammering a new policy into place.
You aren’t factoring in civil suits. Someone dead, their family can only get so much. Someone crippled can just keep going after you and might have to as they go into greater and greater levels of debt. What would you do if suddenly your income went down to about 14k USD a year and with each passing day the chances of you returning to work diminished, wouldn’t you be desperate enough to try to win some money from the person who did this to you? Wouldn’t you go along with any shyster lawyer who promised results?
I have a small truck, and its A pillar has blocked my view of pedestrians more than once. I have to move my head to check. With big vehicles, I imagine there’s even more of a problem.
I ran over my friend in high school while driving a Ford Ranger. She is 5’1 but still, if her hands hadn’t flopped up in the air I might’ve killed her. Worst part is, I’d just dropped her off.
Always need to be careful driving a big vehicle. Learned that the hard way.
Its actually the opposite, the bigger and boxy-er the vehicle, the bigger the windows and the less obstructions from bodywork. The added height also allows you to see much further away and over obstructions like lines of cars, stopped traffic, landscaping, etc. .
Big cars are heavier, taller, and have larger blind spots. The first two make them deadlier in an accident, the last makes it easier to run someone over in a crosswalk, parking lot or driveway.
I’ve responded to a bunch of “car vs pedestrian” calls. With adults a low speed hit is usually some minor injuries like lower legs, arms, etc. If they’re hit hard sometimes their head hits the windshield. The victim ends up on top of the hood and rolls off the side or up and over the car.
If it’s a truck their injuries are more serious. Hip, rib, shoulder/arm, spine, and head injuries. They get hit high and knocked into the ground – and sometimes partially or completely run over.
Absolutely. So tell.me why YOU think I should not have gotten a Jeep. I can tell you, though, that your opinion didn’t factor into my purchase decision.
Oh don’t get me wrong. I got very clearly from your first comment that no opinion of any kind factored into your purchase decision. It was all System 1.
I have been thinking about getting some “Child Killer” stickers to start slapping on trucks that are particularly unsafe and huge. I don’t get why in neighborhoods that in all kinds of other ways frowns upon putting kids at risk (no driving fast for example) dumbass men are allowed to own MASSIVE trucks that raise the risk of running a child over by a huge amount and no one shames them.
The Netherlands is so bike-friendly right now because of a wave of backlash in the 70s to the harms of their post WW2 car-centric design. The protests were literally called ‘Stop de Kindermoord’, which is Dutch for ‘stop the child-murder’.
Why shouldn’t kids play in the streets? They certainly used to do it all the time. Why don’t we reduce speeds or car access to areas with a lot of pedestrians?
Isn’t it kind of silly to you that the vast majority of our modern world is exclusively a car zone? All people have now is sidewalks, right next to all the exhaust fumes.
Cars don’t vote. Pedestrians are the only option, except wheelchair bound people I guess. You’re only not a pedestrian when in your car, but you have to encounter other vehicles on foot before and after being in the car.
But people who own cars vote. Pedestrians usually hate all parties and won’t bother to vote. They wont even vote to at least not let the other party win.
They go for a bike ride or drink kambocha in their bachelor apartment while looking up fall scarfs for men. Then scream racists at everyone after the guy they really hate wins the election. Then they go downtown and let air out of peoples tires and post on r/fuckcars and snicker and jeer with other pedestrians about how they hate car heads
Never thought I’d see someone describe people like this for specifically not using some random product. What’s next, people who don’t use coffee makers are degenerates too?
The US public has repeatedly demonstrated that it would rather die than make even minor adjustments in their lives. So don’t expect anything to get done.
No, why would you purposefully buy a less capable, cheaply made vehicle that won’t last, with an anemic engine that has less displacement than a carbonated beverage container?
Because it’s cheaper, more fuel/energy efficient, I already have a larger, more capable, more durable vehicle with more displacement than my stock pots, and I’d prefer not to incur excessive wear and tear on my nice vehicle when I don’t need its capabilities on the overwhelming majority of my drives. I only need it once or twice a week, but I use it for everything because it’s what I have, and I can’t get something small enough and cheap enough to justify an additional vehicle.
A Kei truck would be perfect. I could save about 90% of the miles I put on my good truck if I had a Japanese mini-truck. It would pay for itself in reduced wear and tear on my good truck in about 4 years. Unfortunately, they aren’t street legal in my state.
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