Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Gods I’d love A small truck like that if they made them, I know this is fuck cars and I agree with the sentiment, but I’d much rather these be everywhere than the monstrosities on the road today
May I introduce you to the Kei-Truck?
We've met, and it goes too far in the tiny direction and can't drive on highways. It's like suggesting a moped to someone who wants a smaller street bike.
Aren't those illigal to drive in most of the US? Besides that, they also cap at like 60mph, right? That really limits thier usefulness in a lot of the US, these are mostly good for cities, right?
Don't get me wrong I love kei trucks, but I think having small regular pickups would help a ton too.
They're illegal for road use in a lot of states, yes, but not private use. So in most states, if you need something for around your property, you're still allowed to buy one. Some states will let you register them for road use though.
The bigger issues are 1. To be imported, they have to be at least 25 years old, so the current ones are from the late 90s. Thus, they have the tech to go with it, limiting their speed.
And 2. They're built and designed for Japanese roads and regulations, not American ones. Speed limits are different there, and as you said, they're better for city use, I'd say non-highway use.
They're legal in my state, and I want one when I can afford one, but I'm also less than a mile from a major home improvement store, and the other two stores I would need to visit are within 20 minutes driving by backroads. But I'm a fringe case, but I'd say for most people who live reasonably close to a Lowes or whatever and are only going to use it for weekend projects would be perfect candidates for a kei truck.
Beyond that, yeah, they're limited :/
I think they're awesome but yeah, unfortunately limited in most bigger cities due to how everything is laid out.
Their use case is basically "never need to go on the freeway". Going over 50 mph is maybe possible, with a tailwind, downhill, but would be terrifying.
Oh for sure, I'm not trying to defend the status quo, if anything g I'm saying we need kei trucks and stricter regulation making regular pickups smaller and more efficient. No one who doesn't actually need a massive hauling truck should have one imo
Only on high ways. They have all the required features (lights, seatbelts, indicators) to be legal on roads, only two states have official bans on their use for roads with speed limits faster than 55mph. But I don't think any sane person is buying these things for long distance commutes, those that would would just buy a smart car instead.
If it’s old enough, you can import and drive them. Some kind of classic car exception.
It varies state-to-state wether you can register them for road use.
Illegal to drive on the highway
So happy with my 80's c10. Once I do the engine swap, I'll be able to run it on biodiesel.
Canoo is supposedly going to make a pickup based on their electric van platform that looks really interesting:
https://www.canoo.com/pickup
The expanding bed is an absolutely killer feature IMO. Small footprint the vast majority of the time but expands out large enough to fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood when you need that. All the fold-out workbenches are a really cool touch too.
The whole thing feels like the Kei trucks people in other comments are mentioning but upsized and up-powered to be more feasible on US roads.
Just went through Japan and Korea and there are a lot of perfectly capable trucks that aren't giant land-whales
Ford Maverick
So rare, all the 2024 are sold since months in Canada, I don't even know if you can buy a 2025 as maybe they are all already reserved.
"We know you want one because it fits your needs and your pricepoint, but we don't make enough margin on those, so buy an F150 for more money please."
I was very interested in the Ford Maverick up until the 2024 model year when the hybrid engine stopped being standard and instead a $2500 upgrade on top of an already significant price hike. That, and the complete inability to find one to buy anyway were what made me give up on the maverick entirely.
A move in the right direction for sure.
Maybe Telo Trucks might be worth keeping an eye on?
Even from the renders I can tell you that it's probably not going to work out, all other things being equal. Sharing the "format" of like, a cabover, similar to a kei truck, means that it would more readily be suited for smaller scenarios in which maybe turn radius and immediate over the hood visibility is more important, right, but then, its size kind of defeats that, and I suspect that the slant of the window, in order to make it aerodynamic at highway speeds, and efficient, is going to end up putting the driver back so far that it's going to eliminate your ability to actually see over the hood as much as you might want to. Probably the format also has adverse effects on crash safety, as you really want a hood on your car in order to catch a pedestrian, scooping them up by the legs, and also as a crumple zone to dispel some of the force of crash from the front, which is ideally where most of your crashes are coming from.
I think probably also that the conventional american automotive taste might defeat it, as americans kind of, historically, prefer a larger shittier hood on their vehicle. They prefer the sort of idiot dominance that a big hood gives them. Carolina squat style. I could be wrong on all that, though.
I think my biggest concern would probably be that, even though light trucks are the segment of the market which are very obviously viable for EVs right now, the people who buy trucks won't want to buy them, and the people who want EVs won't want to buy them. Implicit in both of those is those who can afford them, which I think automatically maybe selects for people who have the worst taste of all time. Light trucks make sense for EVs, right, you have a rear suspension which is supposed to be beefier for large loads already, conventionally in consumer trucks you're not going to want a longer travel distance because they're not supposed to be these highly efficient vehicles, and going electric gives you a pretty good and easy tow rating and high levels of torque low in the power curve like you might get with a diesel engine.
But I dunno. Basically I think americans might be too stupid for it. Might see more success in japan, but I have no idea what their EV infrastructure is looking like or if they already have kei trucks or larger cabovers which are electric. Fleet vehicles would probably need something like a swappable battery on the cheap, or a fast charging system that doesn't destroy the battery immediately, but the first one probably requires more infrastructure and the second one seems maybe like it would be a limitation of the technology.
Doesnt even list payload or towing capacity. What a joke.
Not 100% definite and it's likely going to look a bit weird, but real good chance we're going to have a model based on the transit vans you see rolling around called the 'ford courier' in a year or so but regulations make it difficult to release a truck like that nowadays.
I had one, a proton Jumbuck, great little machine. I'm not sure they are still made but you see them second hand occasionally.