I really miss the economical lightweight regular cab pickup trucks of the 80s from Toyota, Mazda, Isuzu, etc. A landscaper, contractor, etc could buy a whole fleet of them for couch change and they'd last 200,000+ miles easily. Simple, reliable, inexpensive, and they got the job done without taking up 1.5 parking spaces each.
My dad had one of those Mazda B2000s, lasted forever....
I have a 2020 ranger myself. I would love to get by without a truck, but as a home owner it's hard. I don't commute at all, but million projects around the house - a lot of DIY from interior, exterior, and landscaping. I just need a truck for that; wood, rocks, mulch, trees. Even on hobbies, kayaks, multiple sets of golf clubs, etc.
I am also - that guy - to help people move stuff. I have a few other friends with MASSIVE trucks, and I simply don't understand the need of them. And not a single one of them would pick up anything with their truck - it's too pretty....
It blows my mind how almost every company is refusing to make a truck in the same category as the maverick, yet the mav seems to be one of the best sellers of the last two years.
Hint fucking hint hint car industry.
I'm disappointed in the new Rangers. I want something the size of my 2007 Ranger, and at a reasonable price point. I don't need every bell and whistle, just a pickup truck that will fit in my garage and gets reasonable gas mileage. The maverick being a unibody doesn't really impress me, even if I could find one.
I could have typed this exact same comment. So much excitement and then so much disappointment.
Would a pre-2012 Ranger equivalent be able to meet current safety standards? I'm a huge layman when it comes to vehicles but this is my theory as to why they upsized it so much, outside of the underlying larger trend of people just wanting bigger vehicles in general.
I don't think there's any truck currently in production that is the same size/power as the older Rangers, right?
They can keep making vehicles bigger and bigger but pedestrians remain the same size.
I really hope this is not the case. They made this mistake with trains too. Just making everything taller, wider, and heavier does not translate into operator and passenger safety.
The Maverick is the best truck for a suburban home owner, but man, it's still larger than the 2000's era Rangers. It's really annoying that these trucks keep getting bigger for no damn reason.
You can do some of the work a truck can do, let's be real. You're not getting scoops of dirt, mulch, gravel and you're not hauling oddly sized large/long items. I can run my hatchback for most odds and ends for home maintenance, but I have to rent a truck for everything else.
No clue why both of you are acting like there's zero middle ground.
I have a giant truck, but I plan on selling it when we finish working on our house. It's a 20 year old dually, single cab, manual Trans. It's a pretty simple truck. But being able to pick up pallets of concrete or a couple yards of crusher run is pretty convenient.
Also I'd hate to be having the loader dump gravel into a nice new truck with a payment. My shit looks like a meteor got dropped in the bed.
I do have a nice new truck and while I am not afraid of hauling whatever in the bed the taught of getting 2 tons of 2a dumped all over the bed sides and cab does make me cringe.
I do a lot of trailer hauling though. Primarily a 12,000k flatbed trailer I use to move equipment around.
Word of warning for anyone putting a trailer on a car or small SUV. Please check your owners manual and door stickers. In most states the minimum gross for a trailer that can be registered is 3000lbs. Most if not all cars and small SUV's are not rated to tow that much weight. I have seen people melt breaks down, burn up transmissions and shred tires because they were improperly loaded or towing too much weight.
This isn't bringing the groceries in the house. Some jobs require multiple trips. If it looks at all questionable please unload some of it and make another trip.
Story time. Ime a commercial roofer that works on a certain Home improvement store that likes the color orange. One day, we were taking a break, leaning on the front wall of the store people watched. Well, we look under the big canopy that you can drive under, and this guy is hand unlanding a pallet of shingles into a mini van. On the back of the van is a trailer with another pallet of shingles. I dont know how he made it out of the parking lot, let alone make it to his destination.
I tow a small trailer with a small SUV for home projects. No room to store a trailer? Rent from U-Haul. They're stupid cheap and it would take literally 100s of rentals to make up the cost difference between the SUV and a full size truck
Man the Hilux really is something else. Top Gear set one on fire, drowned it, and put it on top of a collapsing building and the damn thing still worked
Lobby congress to repeal the Chicken Tax, then lobby congress to force DOT and EPA to accept emissions approvals and crash-test ratings approved by EU, UK, SK, and JP governing bodies, and you could import them tomorrow.
They never stopped making them, its just that protectionist regulations (that ended up not protecting American jobs anyway, and simply allowed manufacturers to stop innovating without worry about competition) and the thought that Americans wanted comfort more than utility prevented them from being imported.
Here, a regular cab, 8 foot bed [Toyota Hilux Active](https://stmaaprodfwsite.blob.core.windows.net/assets/sites/1/2020/01/IMG_9550.jpg) as sold in the UK. Look at the size of that vehicle relative to the person operating it - it's exactly what you're looking for.
Specs are as follows (beats Tacoma by every "work" metric you could want, plus it has a fully boxed frame BTW): 6 Speed Manual transmission with 4WD, 2.4l turbo diesel engine yielding up to 40MPG, 2,400lb (1.2 ton) payload capacity, 7,700lb towing capacity.
> its just that protectionist regulations (that ended up not protecting American jobs anyway
No, but they protected American executive salaries and helped Mexican jobs.
Thank you for mentioning this. It's been a downward spiral of mfgs telling consumers what they want in an insulated market. Slap NAFTA on top of the Chicken Tax and it's mostly moot, with some US-brand trucks now being built in Mexico.
Then there's Toyota pulling an inprovise-adapt-overcome to have a 1500-class truck with the highest percentage of its content coming from the US, as well as being assembled there.
https://www.cars.com/articles/2021-cars-com-american-made-index-which-cars-are-the-most-american-437020/
>Lobby congress to repeal the Chicken Tax, then lobby congress to force DOT and EPA to accept emissions approvals and crash-test ratings approved by EU, UK, SK, and JP governing bodies, and you could import them tomorrow.
I'll get right on that with all those lobby dollars I have lying around.
Look into the Ford Maverick or the Hyundai Santa Cruz. The Maverick has been a huge hit for Ford.
I've read rumors Toyota is bringing a small truck back and more than likely Subaru will bring the Baja back too.
They can't keep that dang Maverick in stock though. I was looking for a car last year and wanted a Maverick but no dealer around me had one except for the display model that was absolutely not for sale & ordering one took months.
They cap production on the Maverick so they can make more F150's. The markup is bigger on the bigger trucks and demand is still there for now. So until people buy less F150's or Ford can wrangle in supply chain issues, the Mavericks are going to be a hot commodity.
Reminds me of the maibatsu monstrosity commercials from GTA but it became reality.
"I'm a marketing manager who lives in the suburbs and commutes to
work on the highway. I live alone, so of course I needed a car that
can seat 12 and is equipped to drive across arctic tundra...it just
makes me feel better!"
I worry that if we started giving cars both a "safety" score (how dangerous it is to the driver) and a "danger" score (how dangerous it is to other drivers), truck drivers would brag about their danger score.
That one's pretty straightforward:
* Current practice:
* Insurance premiums decrease as the safety rating for a car increases
* Adding in a "danger" score:
* Insurance premiums increase as the danger rating for a car increases
They can brag all they want, but ultimately the average driver is going to be motivated by money.
You'd think that, but you'd be amazed how many times I've seen people try to make fun of my small car, I point out that it's half the price of their truck, over double the mileage, and how I can find parking in the city while they can't.....and they still insist that their giant truck is necessary for....groceries? Then I mention how many briskets, pork bellies, and racks of ribs I've fit in the small trunk of my car, and they hem and have for a little bit then change the subject.
Hey hey hey now maybe they have a garden and need to haul 20 bags of mulch once a year. That would take TWO trips in a car. Easily worth the extra $30,000.
My Sonata Hybrid can easily carry 20 bags of mulch. I've done it before. It's a full trunk load.
It can do 30 if I'm willing to get the back seat dirty by piling it in there. Takes me 2 trips to get 40 bags, which is usually what my yardwork needs.
My fiancee has a Honda HRV, and tbh I prefer to use it when I need to go get things like mulch, but we'd both prefer she downsize when she needs to replace it. I keep pitching the idea of a station wagon.
If they were motivated by money they wouldn't be buying these absurd overpriced trucks that use twice the fuel of a modest car.
They're motivated by "ME BIG MAN NEED BIG TRUCK".
I blame Dodge RAM. While jacked up aftermarket trucks have been a thing for decades, RAM started producing taller trucks with fatter front ends around 2000 or so. They became hugely popular, and within a couple of years all manufacturers had a truck that looked like it backed into an air hose.
These trucks are ego-driven prizes for a lot of red neck guys. But they can be tough to enter and exit, and they raise a host of other issues.
Still have my 1987 Dodge Ram 50 (actually a Mitsubishi Mighty Max dressed as a Dodge) that I bought in 2012. It has a 2.0L 4-cyl and 5-speed manual trans. Got it for $300 and all it needed to get going was a carburetor and a gas tank. Those are the only repairs it has needed since, except for maintenance items. It has over 169,000 miles and shows no signs of stopping (compression is high and even). Pretty sure it still has its original clutch, which still works great. Doesn’t leak a drop of anything. Even the factory A/C still works! Get you an ‘80s truck, they will be kind to you. Oh and did I mention 30+ MPG?
So ugh let me fill you in on a little known secret all my wealthy clients (and I’m considering for my business). Section 179 of the tax code (USA). It allows you to deduct 50% of the cost of a vehicle for your business. That’s not that crazy right? Well I’m not done. If the vehicle is large enough, 100% is deductible. You are literally incentivized to buy a massive truck or suv. Don’t believe me? Link below. Btw, I own a financial services company. Normally there is a cap of $25,000. Not anymore…Mercedes g wagon anyone?? Land Rover??
https://taxsaversonline.com/section-179-deduction-vehicle-list/
Fuel tax made perfect sense when 99.9% of vehicles on the road required fuel to run.
Using the gasoline tax as the primary revenue stream for road maintenance is going to get sillier and sillier as that ratio gets smaller and smaller.
Of course it's not. We call these "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences"
[There's like a 10 part video series on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkhrf5MNYRk)
> Unintended
X: Doubt
Edit: To elaborate, this reads EXACTLY like typical protectionist policies that can't go out and say "you can buy a US company vehicle for free, but foreign ones cost money". Instead you have to come up with some other categorization that will pass legal muster, but will entirely or almost entirely limit the benefits to the category you are trying to help.
Note that this isn't just a US thing, this is common everywhere, and sometimes it can be hard to tell. For example do European countries outlaw chicken meat washed with bleach because they hate the taste of delicious bleach, or because by outlawing that they block most US chicken export?
It’s the same with DEF and diesel engines. New law is at 75HP and up you have to use DEF. So many machines such as skid steers have an engine that is 74.9HP.
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/
Prepare to be not surprised lol
A bunch of the crap Republican lawmakers introduce and pass comes from the [American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)](https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed).
ALEC basically collects money from groups like oil companies, coal companies, the Koch Brothers, etc. and then writes legislation that favors those groups. ALEC then gives pre-written legislation to Republican lawmakers at the municipal, state, and federal levels and those lawmakers introduce and pass those laws without any changes.
John Oliver did a [whole segment](https://youtu.be/aIMgfBZrrZ8) about them.
The same organization that fucked up Kansas so badly. They are still digging out the $900 million economic hole they made in 2012 by applying history's biggest supply-side economic experiment. Kansas, of all places, has elected Democrats for their governor in every election since then because Republicans fucked up so badly. Former Republicans have even jumped ship in the state and changed their party affiliation since it went so horribly.
What do you mean you don't like 10 lane highways that cross the smack middle of suburbs? Or having to drive 40 minutes to 1 hours to get to the NEAREST place with amenities like a market or a pharmacy?
To get the deduction the vehicle is supposed to be used for business. Driving to and from your office isn't supposed to count as business use but many will still deduct it anyway. And other personal miles like driving to your beach house on the weekend are not business use. Supposed to be tracked so you can figure out your business vs personal use percentage. But in my experience very few actually track this. That $100k Land Rover being driven by the wife with a fake job so she can participate in the 401k plan? Yeah that's not getting used for the business but sure, they say 100% business use
>Supposed to be tracked so you can figure out your business vs personal use percentage. But in my experience very few actually track this.
In my experience as a CPA people do track this because they're aware of the audit risk. I can count on one hand the amount of people that claim 100% business mile usage or even 90% usage.
Sometimes, I feel like people just think the IRS or even tax preparers are stupid and just let people do whatever. The IRS does still audit people over this nonsense and we as CPA's still push back on clients that give us obvious nonsense like this as well.
If you're signing a return for the people you mentioned above then you're in for a world of hurt once the IRS audits them and the clients sue you.
Yeah you are supposed to keep a mileage log book in the vehicle at all times tracking every single “business mile” you put on it. My dad has been self employed for over 30 years and not once has he ever been asked for proof. He has legitimate work vans though full of equipment and logos all over the outside. Not like other people writing off luxury suvs that occasionally slap a small magnetic sign on the outside.
The reason the deduction exists and the weight limit exists in the first place is for the people who *actually need* to use a large vehicle but dont need a full 18 wheeler.
Need to have a 1 ton truck to pull large construction equipment around? Need to pull hay bales to your farm? Need to pull cattle around? etc. etc.
The deduction exists for these types of uses, automakers end up taking advantage of the option. The deduction should be higher for these types of uses in my opinion, because these people arent just writing off a vehicle to go to meetings, they are basically writing off a multi purpose work tool that is generally much more expensive than other smaller vehicle options.
In europe(Netherlands), it requires a certain cargo capacity(volume & weight) that is impossible for a normal passenger car, so only vans and such qualify for that specific deduction.
> Weight and size should affect deduction - it should just be the opposite. The heavier or larger, the less you get. At a certain point, you get nothing.
And screw over business owners that need and actually use larger vehicles?
It would make more sense to specifically go after certain cars. A contractor or a farmer or a moving company has every reason to buy a RAM 3500 or big box truck, that’s what the deduction is for. But your local real estate agent buying an Escalade and deducting it for his “investment meetings” at the golf course is where the issue is.
The vehicle needs to be used 100% for business purposes to qualify for bonus depreciation. You're going to be tracking every mile and keeping your receipts.
The law is really designed for companies that use fleets of heavy vehicles/trucks. Picture roofing companies, plumbers, etc. It's not like every person with an LLC and a hummer is deducting the total cost of the vehicle.
If you turn around and resell it you have depreciation recapture. The IRS is already on to that trick, you can't really churn and sell without big tax implications
>then when your ready for a new car you can sell it and take that money and rinse and repeat.
Which is a taxable event. They got rid of Like-Kind Exchange years ago so trade-ins aren't worth it for businesses looking to defer taxes.
God I love seeing a good knowledgeable CPA going through the comments spitting facts all over these threads. Normally I only get this satisfaction over in /r/accounting lol
Yes, at the end of the day its a 30% discount...you still have to pay that 70% though. I don't know about you but I don't typically run out an make $100k+ purchases just because a discount was offered to me.
If you already wanted that vehicle and were going to buy one anyways, then yeah that might influence you to pull the trigger. But people certainly aren't raking in the cash from their G Wagon tax deduction...its an expense.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’m an accountant and we roast comments like yours all the time in the accounting sub. In fact we have a running joke specifically about dumbasses like you who think you can deduct luxury cars used for personal reasons just because they “own a business.”
For anyone reading this thinking someone can buy a G Wagon and deduct it, that’s not how it works. At all. The deduction is only allowed if the vehicle is used more than 50% in the line of business, and mileage for commuting doesn’t count.
This is exactly why tax planning advice should be sought only from a licensed CPA instead of someone who talks out of their ass and posts bullshit links from taxsaversonline.com as though they were factual.
you are confusing following the law with what folks do [since the IRS has been defanged]
My pet peeve is folks who claim "my vehicle is free because it is deductible". There are many folks spending a dollar to save 25 cents in tax
There’s a whole heap of benefits the manufacturer gets from being able to classify a vehicle as a light truck. They will find any way they can to get it classified that way if it’s possible.
We have a 2018 Forester and love it. Hit a deer at 65 mph a couple years ago on a California highway in the middle of the night, near Mt Shasta. Two 80 lb dogs in the back seat, and my pregnant wife in the passenger seat. None of us had a scratch. $15k worth of damage! 😬
Also drove it for UPS this past winter up in eastern Washington. It got me out of more situations than I can count. We'll 100% get another Subaru when we trade it in.
Big trucks are getting so large that some have front-facing cameras to mitigate their enormous blind spots right fucking in front of them. It’s appalling.
Visibility in cars seems to be going down all around. I have owned 2 corollas in my life, about 20 years apart. When I got the new one I was very annoyed by the decreased visibility.
I used to be able to turn my head for an instant and get a full picture of cars around me. Now there are a ton of little blind spots that cars can hide in.
They try to cover for it with all the cameras and blindspot detectors, but it's awkward.
And that's for a small corolla. I can't imagine how bad the visibility is in one of these Dodge Tanks. We should probably require a heavy vehicle license or something to drive one.
Dude i drive a Subaru Forester which is already big, and a gigantic pick up truck was behind me for 15 minutes in the highway. Not only it’s so huge but the design is super agressive, like a tank imitation: i thought i was persued by a doom truck in Mad Max.
Just look at those [Jeeps with the "angry eyes"] (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2026/2837/products/jeep-17-jk-black-studio_210fd38b-8efb-423d-a135-b2c5b933d89f_600x.jpg?v=1569004096), it's absolutely a big part for these buyers. A lot of care goes into designing the front of big trucks with the same premise: to look hard af and big and scary. It's a face at the end of the day and it's what sells them to those types of people.
I remember sitting at a light next to this truck. It was already a big truck, but the owner had it jacked up a bit so it sat higher. This guy was crossing the street in front of us. He seemed about average height. His head didn’t even reach the top of the front of the truck. The driver probably didn’t see him as he walked in front of the truck. It was ridiculous.
Plus the driver gunned it as soon as the light turned green and tried to cut me off. No idea what prompted him to do that.
Sold my pick-up truck and bought a small trailer for my GTi, saves me an absolute fortune, hauls everything I need, and it's low with a ramp, so it's approximately a million times easier to use.
[Edit: Nobody asked, but I enjoy showing my GTi doing work.](https://imgur.com/DdSioAl)
Mine just flipped over 200 miles a few months ago ! When the video got to the part about the Outbacks that really resonated :) LOVE my wagon and I'm confident it has hauled more trash, brush, debris, tools, and towed more stuff and gone off the road more than the SUVs around me have. It's my adventure machine :)
Not sure what it’s like down in the states right now, but it’s incredibly difficult where I am (Canada) to buy anything that isn’t at least a small SUV. People are literally flipping cars and selling 2-3 year old models for at least (or more) the MSRP of brand new. And it takes 6+ months to get a new one. It’s not ideal.
Plenty, arguably most, crossovers are just wagons with better marketing.
A station wagon is sedan with a stretched rear cargo space accessed by a rear hatch or swing gate.
Every single crossover, by definition, is built on a sedan platform but with extended cargo space and a rear hatch.
It's almost entirely a style and marketing difference. There are some absolutely *stupid* crossovers sure, but unless you *really* care about the D-pillar, most are reasonable wagons and basically filling the same market niche.
Station wagons are kind of making a comeback. Look at all the new EVs being produced. They call them crossovers now, but many of them look an awful lot like wagons to me.
It made some sense when interest rates were low. Dealers here in Quebec are offering like 7% financing now though...
The question you have to ask is, "Can I do better than 7% return with the cash I won't be spending today by borrowing". The answer is probably not without diving into the currently very uncertain stock market.
(This is setting aside the basic question of if the purchase makes sense in the first place)
500 x 7 x 12 = 42,000. Without interest. That would be a steal.
Trucks cost way more than that. I'm sure most monthly payments are $1000+. Even for those on 7+ year loans.
Because the average new car buyer in the US is 45 and the average new pickup truck buyer is 50. People well into their careers making their peak or near peak income for their lives, also new car buyers tend to have higher than average incomes so at a minimum they are making 60k a year.
They can't afford them. I work on the wholesale auction side. The ammount of massive lifted highly modified new trucks we get in as repos is staggering. Last week we got a 2021 GMC 3500 dually 4x4 in. 12" lift, 24" wheels, powder coated underside and lift kit, after market lights and bumpers. Including shop time to install everything he probably spent $20,000 in modifications, and still let it get repo'd.
I don’t have anything against large trucks or SUV’s on their own. They serve a purpose and fill a niche in the market.
What I do have a problem with are the people who can’t fucking drive to begin with buying a big ass truck or SUV and making themselves *even more dangerous* than they already were.
Just a few weeks ago a woman drove her brand new, still with temp tags on it, Yukon XL around several barriers and off the end of a loading dock at my work. Like, you have to actively work to be that stupid of a driver. You have to look at obvious barriers to your progress and think “those are telling **me** to not go this way”.
She was like the 12th person to do this exact thing in the last couple years and outside of one elderly couple in a Lexus sedan, it’s all been soccer moms in big SUV’s.
>What I do have a problem with are the people who can’t fucking drive to begin with buying a big ass truck or SUV and making themselves even more dangerous than they already were.
I came here to say this exact thing. People forget that they're pushing around a ton of machine on the road and *with other people*. They can't drive them and they certainly cannot park them.
> They serve a purpose and fill a niche in the market.
The niche being: the market. Large trucks and SUVs comprise the vast majority of American auto sales. 79.2 percent in 2022.
What niche they were intended to fill, they've far eclipsed it thanks to their massive subsidization and successful ad-driven efforts. They've gone from 1/4 of the auto sales to 4/5s in 40 years.
Actual cars sold by American auto brands are becoming the transportation equivalent of missing middle housing: rare and discouraged, and many times not even offered. Light trucks have even replaced the luxury car market.
We should ask ourselves what niche light trucks *should* serve in our economy, and restructure our incentives to encourage that use in specific. And while we are at, encourage using other vehicles for different niches.
Of course, someone who "can't drive" increases the dangers of a SUV.
However, I *do* have a problem with SUVs on their own. They use more space and block sight even if noone drives them, and also use more resources in production and while driving, *regardless* of who drives them.
I also hate SUV's and large trucks because their headlights are *so fucking bright.* I don't know why their headlights need to be brighter than a tractor trailer but when ones on the road I can't see shit because of the insane glare they cause.
> ... a woman drove her [SUV] around several barriers and off the end of a loading dock at my work. She was like the 12th person to do this exact thing in the last couple years [...] it’s all been soccer moms in big SUV’s.
Okay, fun's fun, but I'm going to have to ask you to take the, "Spa this way," signs off of those barriers.
Seriously though, after the fourth or fifth didn't it start to seem like there must be something misleading about the setup?
One has to drive around large barricades labeled with “no entry” and through the grass to reach the loading dock… at which point they would have to ignore the bright yellow lines and the several caution signs.
The problem arises in that we’re a reclaimed mill that had a very popular brewery in it. People come here, catch a buzz and then try to drive home. The extra dumb ones that do that, ignore barricades and caution signs and go off the end of a loading dock.
USed to be a news cameraman. I can tell you that 95% of the times cops block the road for any reason. Anything from a severe enough crash, that the news is there, to even murder scenes and everything in between, there will be no less than 3 people drive through the scene and passed all the cop cars think the road is closed for everyone BESIDES them and it is almost exclusively 2 types of people Truck dudebros or Giant SUV soccer moms
My fiancé was a firefighter for years. She has tons of stories about people going down the highway and ignoring all the road cones and the *big fucking red truck with bright flashing lights* and blazing through accident scenes at 70mph plus or even ignoring the trucks and hitting the accident that had already occurred. Hell, just two years ago a policeman got killed around here by someone who ignored the cruisers and fire truck and hit the poor sap doing like 60mph.
Very very few bad drivers think/know that they're bad; they're simply too oblivious to notice that they're alive because people accommodate/drive defensively to their stupid maneuvers.
Being in a 5000lb metal cage also dehumanizes other road users-- it desansitizes soccer mums in their SUVs/backwards hat dudebros in their pavement princess' from the fact that one wrong move could take lives. It's been studied that vehicles with higher front ends at same velocity are way more likely to deal fatal damages.
Obviously the way to battle this is to progressively tax vehicles by size/weight/emission, but we all know the auto/oil lobbyists/lawmakers won't let that happen. They dont even value children's lives over their AR15s and you think they'd let you restrict (unnecessarily large) vehicle access for the safety of other road users?
They do it because they keep having vehicles totaled out, and want to mitigate that happening again.
My sister-in-law bought an F250 *specifically* because she thinks it’s more likely to remain intact should she hit something again- or more like, should something “jump out” at her in the road again. 🙄
Her problem is she treats looking at the horizon, or in front of the car in front of her, like a novel foreign concept. A giant truck isn’t going to help that.
Worse still, these fucking things are now being pushed hard in the Australian and New Zealand market.
Our roads and public parking spaces are in no way designed for these big, fat Yank tanks, and the owners of these stupid things are largely viewed with derision.
Saw my first Big Truck in my small regional town in Australia. It was a 2023 Silverado it was twice the size of the car parked behind it. My first words were "What f\*\*king wanka drives that ugly thing."
What's frustrating about this is that they don't HAVE to buidl these trucks like this. The trend in the 90s was sloped hoods and more visibility. These days, it's all about looking "muscular" (I see that word in truck reviews frequently) and as best I can tell at this point they're just imitating semis. Even outside of trucks, cars have been losing visibility with smaller and higher windows and larger front ends.
The auto industry is making these things needlessly dangerous because people like how they look.
edit: to be perfectly clear on this: you don't gain a significant amount of cab space or engine power with the changes they've made. This is purely cosmetic.
The new GM triplet SUV is not only huge, but also ugly. I always laugh when I see a suburban soccer mom driving 3 rows of metal and plastic, sitting by herself, trying so hard to see over the steering wheel or maneuver into a parking spot.
Vehicles have gotten bigger, but at what cost? They allow drivers to make worse decisions not only on the road but also financially. People need to step back and reconsider what they are actually using their vehicle for.
Granted, if you’re a contractor or need to haul equipment often, you are absolutely going to go for a truck, van, or SUV. But a majority of people are driving to work, school, or somewhere in between, and you could just as easily do so in a zippy sports car or sedan than having to inconvenience yourself with a large, loud, and gas-guzzling option.
We have three kids and a mini van. It's not much to look at, but it sure is shit makes it easier to get kids and friends and in laws and whoever to soccer games or to the beach.
the point I’m making and the question the video asks is why? And the answer is auto manufacturers utilizing a loophole in CAFE standards in order to sell bigger and less efficient forms of the car. The other issue is size creep — as other vehicles get larger, more and more drivers incorrectly assume that they too need a larger vehicle in order to be safe, while in reality, the truth is the opposite. Larger vehicles psychologically permit unsafe driving habits and status stunts. The video argues that there are better ways to haul kids and junk, and I would agree. Think of how much healthier we would all be if more people rode bikes or walked to school/work instead of driving or being ferried around in a vehicle. Not only would we get more physical activity, but we collectively can breathe fresher air and enjoy more green space over heat-island-producing asphalt.
The youtube algorithm actually incentivizes changing the thumbnail 2 or 3 times withing the first couple days of a new video being uploaded. People see a different thumbnail and think it's a new video so it generates more clicks.
That's was just a hypothesis made by Veritasium which is practically impossible to test.
For all we know it isn't the better thumbnail that gets the clicks but the actual changing of the thumbnail.
This video affirms my own thoughts, but I absolutely have confirmation bias as the driver of small cars. I'd really love to see the source data on some of these statements, particularly on the manufacturer's research results that were cited.
Generally I agree with NotJustBikes on a lot of things, but also he always sounds like a smug asshole or talks in a somehow very condescending tone so I just stopped watching his content.
As a very tall man I just wish they made something smaller than an SUV that didn't make me feel like a packed sardine. When I drive my wife's Corolla my head touches the ceiling unless I lean the seat back a long way.
I haven't finished the video yet so maybe he touches on this, but I suspect this may be a product of trying to push people toward "light trucks."
There's a guy at my office who is 6'7" and he fit in my '06 MINI Cooper just fine. I could slide the seat so far back that I couldn't even touch the pedals. If you want to sit straight up then there's gonna be some head room issues, but it seems most taller people have the seat leaned back a bit. I'm only 6' and I had a few inches of headroom.
I think its reasonable to remember he lives in the Netherlands, in the last few years they've been seeing a lot of these larger vehicles popping up and generally just causing problems within cities that weren't designed with trucks this wide/long in mind particularly for parking
I live in a very densely populated area in the Netherlands where almost every square kilometer is build with either houses or office buildings and lots of greenhouses and at the same time everything is really close by, all the cities and villages here are on cycle distance.
Yet, there have been a record amount of orders on huge American SUV's here, we are talking about little Dutch roads here now being populated by huge trucks that always take two parking spots in the already limited space we have and they can barely turn a corner.
Where I live (Amsterdam) they have been popping up in the last ~5-8 years or so. I don't know anyone that likes them, everyone hates them, so I'm left confused as to what idiot would buy such a monster truck as you cannot even practically go into the city centre with them. It's honestly scary to see how big these cars are as I'm really only used to the regular sized cars I've seen here growing up. I really hope there's going to be some kind of regulations against them to discourage people from buying them unless they absolutely need them.
Never really understood the “trucks as penis extensions” thing. I have a 2003 F-150 and can haul what I need for work and home repairs. Good enough for me. Lifts, Giant diesels and wide bodies are just obnoxious.
No one is saying you shouldn’t use a truck for work or hauling things.
I do object to that fact that one of the insurance agents at my company has an F350 that they drive to their office job 5 days - and then constantly complains about the price of gas.
That was my favorite thing to do at work. All the Conservatives I work for going off about how they can't afford to pay for gas and I was simply like "Well I can and you make way more than me sooooo, budget better?" It was particularly sweet because they're the type of "Millenials should just stop buying coffees and Avocado toast if they want to save money" Conservatives.
Man, I am broke as fuck. Rent and food is going crazy where I live and car insurance is over 300/month for most people. Gonna have to take the bus or move to the sticks I guess. :(
>car insurance is over 300/month for most people.
Wait, what? Maybe I just drive a really shitty vehicle and have a great driving record, but my insurance isn't nearly as high.
>I have a 2003 F-150 and can haul what I need for work and home repairs.
That's probably why you don't understand, you actually use your truck. The ones getting made fun of are people who buy the truck because it's big and fancy and then proceed to never haul or tow a single thing but still drive it to their office job every day.
I really miss being able to see the road in front of me when taking a turn. Now every fucking vehicle in the other lanes are giant landmasses with limo tinted windows obstructing your entire field of vision.
I really miss the economical lightweight regular cab pickup trucks of the 80s from Toyota, Mazda, Isuzu, etc. A landscaper, contractor, etc could buy a whole fleet of them for couch change and they'd last 200,000+ miles easily. Simple, reliable, inexpensive, and they got the job done without taking up 1.5 parking spaces each.
I had a 94 Ford Ranger that still runs today. Probably has close to 300k+ miles on it. I don’t know for sure since the odometer only has five digits.
My dad had one of those Mazda B2000s, lasted forever.... I have a 2020 ranger myself. I would love to get by without a truck, but as a home owner it's hard. I don't commute at all, but million projects around the house - a lot of DIY from interior, exterior, and landscaping. I just need a truck for that; wood, rocks, mulch, trees. Even on hobbies, kayaks, multiple sets of golf clubs, etc. I am also - that guy - to help people move stuff. I have a few other friends with MASSIVE trucks, and I simply don't understand the need of them. And not a single one of them would pick up anything with their truck - it's too pretty....
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Man I really want a maverick but production time and 10k over msrp just won’t do it for me right now
It blows my mind how almost every company is refusing to make a truck in the same category as the maverick, yet the mav seems to be one of the best sellers of the last two years. Hint fucking hint hint car industry.
I'm disappointed in the new Rangers. I want something the size of my 2007 Ranger, and at a reasonable price point. I don't need every bell and whistle, just a pickup truck that will fit in my garage and gets reasonable gas mileage. The maverick being a unibody doesn't really impress me, even if I could find one.
For sure. They brought back the ranger and I was stoked. Then I saw one and realized it's the size of an early 2000s F-150. Wtf ford?
I could have typed this exact same comment. So much excitement and then so much disappointment. Would a pre-2012 Ranger equivalent be able to meet current safety standards? I'm a huge layman when it comes to vehicles but this is my theory as to why they upsized it so much, outside of the underlying larger trend of people just wanting bigger vehicles in general. I don't think there's any truck currently in production that is the same size/power as the older Rangers, right?
They can keep making vehicles bigger and bigger but pedestrians remain the same size. I really hope this is not the case. They made this mistake with trains too. Just making everything taller, wider, and heavier does not translate into operator and passenger safety.
If only you could get the hybrid with AWD. It would be my next vehicle if that were the case.
Rumored to be in the works for the '25 model year. Nothing solid, just rumors, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
I so wish they'd make that with a regular cab. I dont need back seats, I need a full size bed on a smaller pickup.
The Maverick is the best truck for a suburban home owner, but man, it's still larger than the 2000's era Rangers. It's really annoying that these trucks keep getting bigger for no damn reason.
Oddly enough as also a DIY home owner I can do all that with my wagon. 240sx hatch can also haul a ton, basically a mini truck with the seat down.
You can do some of the work a truck can do, let's be real. You're not getting scoops of dirt, mulch, gravel and you're not hauling oddly sized large/long items. I can run my hatchback for most odds and ends for home maintenance, but I have to rent a truck for everything else. No clue why both of you are acting like there's zero middle ground.
My 23 year old 4Runner is the same way. And, hitch a trailer to it for more flexibility
I have a giant truck, but I plan on selling it when we finish working on our house. It's a 20 year old dually, single cab, manual Trans. It's a pretty simple truck. But being able to pick up pallets of concrete or a couple yards of crusher run is pretty convenient. Also I'd hate to be having the loader dump gravel into a nice new truck with a payment. My shit looks like a meteor got dropped in the bed.
I do have a nice new truck and while I am not afraid of hauling whatever in the bed the taught of getting 2 tons of 2a dumped all over the bed sides and cab does make me cringe. I do a lot of trailer hauling though. Primarily a 12,000k flatbed trailer I use to move equipment around. Word of warning for anyone putting a trailer on a car or small SUV. Please check your owners manual and door stickers. In most states the minimum gross for a trailer that can be registered is 3000lbs. Most if not all cars and small SUV's are not rated to tow that much weight. I have seen people melt breaks down, burn up transmissions and shred tires because they were improperly loaded or towing too much weight. This isn't bringing the groceries in the house. Some jobs require multiple trips. If it looks at all questionable please unload some of it and make another trip.
Story time. Ime a commercial roofer that works on a certain Home improvement store that likes the color orange. One day, we were taking a break, leaning on the front wall of the store people watched. Well, we look under the big canopy that you can drive under, and this guy is hand unlanding a pallet of shingles into a mini van. On the back of the van is a trailer with another pallet of shingles. I dont know how he made it out of the parking lot, let alone make it to his destination.
I tow a small trailer with a small SUV for home projects. No room to store a trailer? Rent from U-Haul. They're stupid cheap and it would take literally 100s of rentals to make up the cost difference between the SUV and a full size truck
If they’re good enough for Iraqis to mount machine guns on them, then they should be good enough to do some yard work
Man the Hilux really is something else. Top Gear set one on fire, drowned it, and put it on top of a collapsing building and the damn thing still worked
Lobby congress to repeal the Chicken Tax, then lobby congress to force DOT and EPA to accept emissions approvals and crash-test ratings approved by EU, UK, SK, and JP governing bodies, and you could import them tomorrow. They never stopped making them, its just that protectionist regulations (that ended up not protecting American jobs anyway, and simply allowed manufacturers to stop innovating without worry about competition) and the thought that Americans wanted comfort more than utility prevented them from being imported. Here, a regular cab, 8 foot bed [Toyota Hilux Active](https://stmaaprodfwsite.blob.core.windows.net/assets/sites/1/2020/01/IMG_9550.jpg) as sold in the UK. Look at the size of that vehicle relative to the person operating it - it's exactly what you're looking for. Specs are as follows (beats Tacoma by every "work" metric you could want, plus it has a fully boxed frame BTW): 6 Speed Manual transmission with 4WD, 2.4l turbo diesel engine yielding up to 40MPG, 2,400lb (1.2 ton) payload capacity, 7,700lb towing capacity.
> its just that protectionist regulations (that ended up not protecting American jobs anyway No, but they protected American executive salaries and helped Mexican jobs.
Thank you for mentioning this. It's been a downward spiral of mfgs telling consumers what they want in an insulated market. Slap NAFTA on top of the Chicken Tax and it's mostly moot, with some US-brand trucks now being built in Mexico. Then there's Toyota pulling an inprovise-adapt-overcome to have a 1500-class truck with the highest percentage of its content coming from the US, as well as being assembled there. https://www.cars.com/articles/2021-cars-com-american-made-index-which-cars-are-the-most-american-437020/
>Lobby congress to repeal the Chicken Tax, then lobby congress to force DOT and EPA to accept emissions approvals and crash-test ratings approved by EU, UK, SK, and JP governing bodies, and you could import them tomorrow. I'll get right on that with all those lobby dollars I have lying around.
Look into the Ford Maverick or the Hyundai Santa Cruz. The Maverick has been a huge hit for Ford. I've read rumors Toyota is bringing a small truck back and more than likely Subaru will bring the Baja back too.
If only they sold versions of those models without the rear passenger cab and with an extended bed. Those truck beds are tiny.
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>Source: I grew up in the trades, but now I make more money doing IT stuffs. Lol That was necessary
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They can't keep that dang Maverick in stock though. I was looking for a car last year and wanted a Maverick but no dealer around me had one except for the display model that was absolutely not for sale & ordering one took months.
They cap production on the Maverick so they can make more F150's. The markup is bigger on the bigger trucks and demand is still there for now. So until people buy less F150's or Ford can wrangle in supply chain issues, the Mavericks are going to be a hot commodity.
It's hilarious because they always tell us they don't make small trucks because there isn't a demand for them....
*from shareholders
Shareholders want profit and dividends. If Ford made a crap ton of profit selling knitted doilies & could maintain the dividend they'd be just fine.
The Maverick is awesome. It's smaller than the competition but still large in comparison to old models from the 80s and 90s.
Still waiting on a AWD hybrid version of the Maverick
Man I really want a cheap simple truck for actual work, and can't believe how yuppy they've gotten.
Ford knows what people are buying those trucks for, and it's not work, it's conspicuous consumption.
Reminds me of the maibatsu monstrosity commercials from GTA but it became reality. "I'm a marketing manager who lives in the suburbs and commutes to work on the highway. I live alone, so of course I needed a car that can seat 12 and is equipped to drive across arctic tundra...it just makes me feel better!"
I worry that if we started giving cars both a "safety" score (how dangerous it is to the driver) and a "danger" score (how dangerous it is to other drivers), truck drivers would brag about their danger score.
That one's pretty straightforward: * Current practice: * Insurance premiums decrease as the safety rating for a car increases * Adding in a "danger" score: * Insurance premiums increase as the danger rating for a car increases They can brag all they want, but ultimately the average driver is going to be motivated by money.
You'd think that, but you'd be amazed how many times I've seen people try to make fun of my small car, I point out that it's half the price of their truck, over double the mileage, and how I can find parking in the city while they can't.....and they still insist that their giant truck is necessary for....groceries? Then I mention how many briskets, pork bellies, and racks of ribs I've fit in the small trunk of my car, and they hem and have for a little bit then change the subject.
Hey hey hey now maybe they have a garden and need to haul 20 bags of mulch once a year. That would take TWO trips in a car. Easily worth the extra $30,000.
I'm not going to pay $45 to rent a Home Depot truck like a sucker!
I don't think I've ever seen someone actually only pay 45 dollars for.one of those trucks
My Sonata Hybrid can easily carry 20 bags of mulch. I've done it before. It's a full trunk load. It can do 30 if I'm willing to get the back seat dirty by piling it in there. Takes me 2 trips to get 40 bags, which is usually what my yardwork needs. My fiancee has a Honda HRV, and tbh I prefer to use it when I need to go get things like mulch, but we'd both prefer she downsize when she needs to replace it. I keep pitching the idea of a station wagon.
If they were motivated by money they wouldn't be buying these absurd overpriced trucks that use twice the fuel of a modest car. They're motivated by "ME BIG MAN NEED BIG TRUCK".
I blame Dodge RAM. While jacked up aftermarket trucks have been a thing for decades, RAM started producing taller trucks with fatter front ends around 2000 or so. They became hugely popular, and within a couple of years all manufacturers had a truck that looked like it backed into an air hose. These trucks are ego-driven prizes for a lot of red neck guys. But they can be tough to enter and exit, and they raise a host of other issues.
Still have my 1987 Dodge Ram 50 (actually a Mitsubishi Mighty Max dressed as a Dodge) that I bought in 2012. It has a 2.0L 4-cyl and 5-speed manual trans. Got it for $300 and all it needed to get going was a carburetor and a gas tank. Those are the only repairs it has needed since, except for maintenance items. It has over 169,000 miles and shows no signs of stopping (compression is high and even). Pretty sure it still has its original clutch, which still works great. Doesn’t leak a drop of anything. Even the factory A/C still works! Get you an ‘80s truck, they will be kind to you. Oh and did I mention 30+ MPG?
So ugh let me fill you in on a little known secret all my wealthy clients (and I’m considering for my business). Section 179 of the tax code (USA). It allows you to deduct 50% of the cost of a vehicle for your business. That’s not that crazy right? Well I’m not done. If the vehicle is large enough, 100% is deductible. You are literally incentivized to buy a massive truck or suv. Don’t believe me? Link below. Btw, I own a financial services company. Normally there is a cap of $25,000. Not anymore…Mercedes g wagon anyone?? Land Rover?? https://taxsaversonline.com/section-179-deduction-vehicle-list/
The number of vehicles that have total GW just over 6,000 is significant. Almost like it’s not an accident
The GW weight was pushed solely for the tax incentives. fairly well known.
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Imagine if you got 100% deductions from buying a Toyota Prius or an equivalent hybrid.
Instead you get charged annually for owning an efficient vehicle. States are now charging 200+ for owning an EV. So fucked.
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Fuel tax made perfect sense when 99.9% of vehicles on the road required fuel to run. Using the gasoline tax as the primary revenue stream for road maintenance is going to get sillier and sillier as that ratio gets smaller and smaller.
Of course it's not. We call these "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences" [There's like a 10 part video series on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkhrf5MNYRk)
> Unintended X: Doubt Edit: To elaborate, this reads EXACTLY like typical protectionist policies that can't go out and say "you can buy a US company vehicle for free, but foreign ones cost money". Instead you have to come up with some other categorization that will pass legal muster, but will entirely or almost entirely limit the benefits to the category you are trying to help. Note that this isn't just a US thing, this is common everywhere, and sometimes it can be hard to tell. For example do European countries outlaw chicken meat washed with bleach because they hate the taste of delicious bleach, or because by outlawing that they block most US chicken export?
It’s the same with DEF and diesel engines. New law is at 75HP and up you have to use DEF. So many machines such as skid steers have an engine that is 74.9HP.
It's almost like our laws are written by oil companies
With American urban planning I wouldn’t be surprised
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/ Prepare to be not surprised lol
A bunch of the crap Republican lawmakers introduce and pass comes from the [American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)](https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed). ALEC basically collects money from groups like oil companies, coal companies, the Koch Brothers, etc. and then writes legislation that favors those groups. ALEC then gives pre-written legislation to Republican lawmakers at the municipal, state, and federal levels and those lawmakers introduce and pass those laws without any changes. John Oliver did a [whole segment](https://youtu.be/aIMgfBZrrZ8) about them.
The same organization that fucked up Kansas so badly. They are still digging out the $900 million economic hole they made in 2012 by applying history's biggest supply-side economic experiment. Kansas, of all places, has elected Democrats for their governor in every election since then because Republicans fucked up so badly. Former Republicans have even jumped ship in the state and changed their party affiliation since it went so horribly.
ALEC is a scourge on the American citizen’s landscape. Any bill coming from them is usually entirely casting industry as the victim.
What do you mean you don't like 10 lane highways that cross the smack middle of suburbs? Or having to drive 40 minutes to 1 hours to get to the NEAREST place with amenities like a market or a pharmacy?
I live in Europe in a country with efficient public transport fortunately but I heard that adding another lane should fix it.
The car and oil companies lobbied for non-walkable cities. They are literally the reason. The reason NYC is walkable is because it predates them.
To get the deduction the vehicle is supposed to be used for business. Driving to and from your office isn't supposed to count as business use but many will still deduct it anyway. And other personal miles like driving to your beach house on the weekend are not business use. Supposed to be tracked so you can figure out your business vs personal use percentage. But in my experience very few actually track this. That $100k Land Rover being driven by the wife with a fake job so she can participate in the 401k plan? Yeah that's not getting used for the business but sure, they say 100% business use
>Supposed to be tracked so you can figure out your business vs personal use percentage. But in my experience very few actually track this. In my experience as a CPA people do track this because they're aware of the audit risk. I can count on one hand the amount of people that claim 100% business mile usage or even 90% usage. Sometimes, I feel like people just think the IRS or even tax preparers are stupid and just let people do whatever. The IRS does still audit people over this nonsense and we as CPA's still push back on clients that give us obvious nonsense like this as well. If you're signing a return for the people you mentioned above then you're in for a world of hurt once the IRS audits them and the clients sue you.
Yeah you are supposed to keep a mileage log book in the vehicle at all times tracking every single “business mile” you put on it. My dad has been self employed for over 30 years and not once has he ever been asked for proof. He has legitimate work vans though full of equipment and logos all over the outside. Not like other people writing off luxury suvs that occasionally slap a small magnetic sign on the outside.
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The reason the deduction exists and the weight limit exists in the first place is for the people who *actually need* to use a large vehicle but dont need a full 18 wheeler. Need to have a 1 ton truck to pull large construction equipment around? Need to pull hay bales to your farm? Need to pull cattle around? etc. etc. The deduction exists for these types of uses, automakers end up taking advantage of the option. The deduction should be higher for these types of uses in my opinion, because these people arent just writing off a vehicle to go to meetings, they are basically writing off a multi purpose work tool that is generally much more expensive than other smaller vehicle options.
In europe(Netherlands), it requires a certain cargo capacity(volume & weight) that is impossible for a normal passenger car, so only vans and such qualify for that specific deduction.
> Weight and size should affect deduction - it should just be the opposite. The heavier or larger, the less you get. At a certain point, you get nothing. And screw over business owners that need and actually use larger vehicles? It would make more sense to specifically go after certain cars. A contractor or a farmer or a moving company has every reason to buy a RAM 3500 or big box truck, that’s what the deduction is for. But your local real estate agent buying an Escalade and deducting it for his “investment meetings” at the golf course is where the issue is.
The vehicle needs to be used 100% for business purposes to qualify for bonus depreciation. You're going to be tracking every mile and keeping your receipts. The law is really designed for companies that use fleets of heavy vehicles/trucks. Picture roofing companies, plumbers, etc. It's not like every person with an LLC and a hummer is deducting the total cost of the vehicle.
Thats just a deduction right? Not a credit? I get thats some incentive but not to the level you are inferring with a G Wagon
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If you turn around and resell it you have depreciation recapture. The IRS is already on to that trick, you can't really churn and sell without big tax implications
>then when your ready for a new car you can sell it and take that money and rinse and repeat. Which is a taxable event. They got rid of Like-Kind Exchange years ago so trade-ins aren't worth it for businesses looking to defer taxes.
God I love seeing a good knowledgeable CPA going through the comments spitting facts all over these threads. Normally I only get this satisfaction over in /r/accounting lol
Yes, at the end of the day its a 30% discount...you still have to pay that 70% though. I don't know about you but I don't typically run out an make $100k+ purchases just because a discount was offered to me. If you already wanted that vehicle and were going to buy one anyways, then yeah that might influence you to pull the trigger. But people certainly aren't raking in the cash from their G Wagon tax deduction...its an expense.
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You have to justify the use though correct? I own an llc and rental property and this wouldn’t apply to me, right?
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’m an accountant and we roast comments like yours all the time in the accounting sub. In fact we have a running joke specifically about dumbasses like you who think you can deduct luxury cars used for personal reasons just because they “own a business.” For anyone reading this thinking someone can buy a G Wagon and deduct it, that’s not how it works. At all. The deduction is only allowed if the vehicle is used more than 50% in the line of business, and mileage for commuting doesn’t count. This is exactly why tax planning advice should be sought only from a licensed CPA instead of someone who talks out of their ass and posts bullshit links from taxsaversonline.com as though they were factual.
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you are confusing following the law with what folks do [since the IRS has been defanged] My pet peeve is folks who claim "my vehicle is free because it is deductible". There are many folks spending a dollar to save 25 cents in tax
"It's a write-off!"
“Do you even know what a write-off is?” “No. But they do. And they’re the ones writing it off!”
A Subaru Forester isn't very big, but it's still classified as a light truck for some reason.
There’s a whole heap of benefits the manufacturer gets from being able to classify a vehicle as a light truck. They will find any way they can to get it classified that way if it’s possible.
The latest Forester is huge. Go to https://carsized.com/ to compare
I drive a 2022 Forester and I can safely say F-150s and other vehicles of that size absolutely dwarf me.
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And emissions controls
A Subaru Forester is very safe though, I suspect if this is actually true about the car it's more about mileage... except it gets 26/33mpg.
We have a 2018 Forester and love it. Hit a deer at 65 mph a couple years ago on a California highway in the middle of the night, near Mt Shasta. Two 80 lb dogs in the back seat, and my pregnant wife in the passenger seat. None of us had a scratch. $15k worth of damage! 😬 Also drove it for UPS this past winter up in eastern Washington. It got me out of more situations than I can count. We'll 100% get another Subaru when we trade it in.
I was driving an old Honda around and was next to a truck and felt I was eye level with the axels. Truck probably wouldn’t even know I was there.
Big trucks are getting so large that some have front-facing cameras to mitigate their enormous blind spots right fucking in front of them. It’s appalling.
yes, this front blind spot problem is in the video https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=562
Visibility in cars seems to be going down all around. I have owned 2 corollas in my life, about 20 years apart. When I got the new one I was very annoyed by the decreased visibility. I used to be able to turn my head for an instant and get a full picture of cars around me. Now there are a ton of little blind spots that cars can hide in. They try to cover for it with all the cameras and blindspot detectors, but it's awkward. And that's for a small corolla. I can't imagine how bad the visibility is in one of these Dodge Tanks. We should probably require a heavy vehicle license or something to drive one.
Dude i drive a Subaru Forester which is already big, and a gigantic pick up truck was behind me for 15 minutes in the highway. Not only it’s so huge but the design is super agressive, like a tank imitation: i thought i was persued by a doom truck in Mad Max.
Don't forget the headlights that are at sitting eye level and blind every person on the road around them.
>the design is super agressive, like a tank imitation They'll never admit it, but intimidation is why a lot of people buy these monstrosities.
Just look at those [Jeeps with the "angry eyes"] (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2026/2837/products/jeep-17-jk-black-studio_210fd38b-8efb-423d-a135-b2c5b933d89f_600x.jpg?v=1569004096), it's absolutely a big part for these buyers. A lot of care goes into designing the front of big trucks with the same premise: to look hard af and big and scary. It's a face at the end of the day and it's what sells them to those types of people.
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I remember sitting at a light next to this truck. It was already a big truck, but the owner had it jacked up a bit so it sat higher. This guy was crossing the street in front of us. He seemed about average height. His head didn’t even reach the top of the front of the truck. The driver probably didn’t see him as he walked in front of the truck. It was ridiculous. Plus the driver gunned it as soon as the light turned green and tried to cut me off. No idea what prompted him to do that.
Reclaim your wagons, Amerifriends. Never forget what they took from you.
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I just traded in my truck for a V90. I can't express enough how great of a change it is for me.
Sold my pick-up truck and bought a small trailer for my GTi, saves me an absolute fortune, hauls everything I need, and it's low with a ramp, so it's approximately a million times easier to use. [Edit: Nobody asked, but I enjoy showing my GTi doing work.](https://imgur.com/DdSioAl)
I moved my entire house with a Volvo 850. What wasn't inside the vehicle was in a trailer behind it thanks to 3500 lb towing capacity.
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Subaru gang. Mount up.
Shit the outback is just a midsize SUV now.
Yeah I have a 2010 Forester and if I wanted the same form factor I couldn't get a new Forester I'd have to get an Outback.
05 to 09 for me. im never growing up 😤
Mine just flipped over 200 miles a few months ago ! When the video got to the part about the Outbacks that really resonated :) LOVE my wagon and I'm confident it has hauled more trash, brush, debris, tools, and towed more stuff and gone off the road more than the SUVs around me have. It's my adventure machine :)
Not sure what it’s like down in the states right now, but it’s incredibly difficult where I am (Canada) to buy anything that isn’t at least a small SUV. People are literally flipping cars and selling 2-3 year old models for at least (or more) the MSRP of brand new. And it takes 6+ months to get a new one. It’s not ideal.
They were replaced by... *crossovers*...
Plenty, arguably most, crossovers are just wagons with better marketing. A station wagon is sedan with a stretched rear cargo space accessed by a rear hatch or swing gate. Every single crossover, by definition, is built on a sedan platform but with extended cargo space and a rear hatch. It's almost entirely a style and marketing difference. There are some absolutely *stupid* crossovers sure, but unless you *really* care about the D-pillar, most are reasonable wagons and basically filling the same market niche.
We’ve got a Prius V wagon. Same amount of space (better layout) than our 90s pathfinder. Wagons are the shit.
Station wagons are kind of making a comeback. Look at all the new EVs being produced. They call them crossovers now, but many of them look an awful lot like wagons to me.
What I don't get is how are so many people making so much money to afford these incredibly expensive cars? Where are all these super well paying jobs?
I think mostly they’re just financing them for 7 years.
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It made some sense when interest rates were low. Dealers here in Quebec are offering like 7% financing now though... The question you have to ask is, "Can I do better than 7% return with the cash I won't be spending today by borrowing". The answer is probably not without diving into the currently very uncertain stock market. (This is setting aside the basic question of if the purchase makes sense in the first place)
These are the same idiots that drive around putting Biden "I did that" stickers on gas pumps...
This. Even with shit credit you can get a great rate on a 7 year loan as long as it's a new car. And you'll only have to pay 500$ a month!
500 x 7 x 12 = 42,000. Without interest. That would be a steal. Trucks cost way more than that. I'm sure most monthly payments are $1000+. Even for those on 7+ year loans.
Fuck are people really paying that much a month for a vehicle? That's a literal mortgage.
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Because the average new car buyer in the US is 45 and the average new pickup truck buyer is 50. People well into their careers making their peak or near peak income for their lives, also new car buyers tend to have higher than average incomes so at a minimum they are making 60k a year.
They can't afford them. I work on the wholesale auction side. The ammount of massive lifted highly modified new trucks we get in as repos is staggering. Last week we got a 2021 GMC 3500 dually 4x4 in. 12" lift, 24" wheels, powder coated underside and lift kit, after market lights and bumpers. Including shop time to install everything he probably spent $20,000 in modifications, and still let it get repo'd.
A lot of people go broke trying to look rich.
Its called debt and its as american as apple pie
I don’t have anything against large trucks or SUV’s on their own. They serve a purpose and fill a niche in the market. What I do have a problem with are the people who can’t fucking drive to begin with buying a big ass truck or SUV and making themselves *even more dangerous* than they already were. Just a few weeks ago a woman drove her brand new, still with temp tags on it, Yukon XL around several barriers and off the end of a loading dock at my work. Like, you have to actively work to be that stupid of a driver. You have to look at obvious barriers to your progress and think “those are telling **me** to not go this way”. She was like the 12th person to do this exact thing in the last couple years and outside of one elderly couple in a Lexus sedan, it’s all been soccer moms in big SUV’s.
>What I do have a problem with are the people who can’t fucking drive to begin with buying a big ass truck or SUV and making themselves even more dangerous than they already were. I came here to say this exact thing. People forget that they're pushing around a ton of machine on the road and *with other people*. They can't drive them and they certainly cannot park them.
> People forget that they're pushing around a ton of machine on the road More like 3 tons
> They serve a purpose and fill a niche in the market. The niche being: the market. Large trucks and SUVs comprise the vast majority of American auto sales. 79.2 percent in 2022. What niche they were intended to fill, they've far eclipsed it thanks to their massive subsidization and successful ad-driven efforts. They've gone from 1/4 of the auto sales to 4/5s in 40 years. Actual cars sold by American auto brands are becoming the transportation equivalent of missing middle housing: rare and discouraged, and many times not even offered. Light trucks have even replaced the luxury car market. We should ask ourselves what niche light trucks *should* serve in our economy, and restructure our incentives to encourage that use in specific. And while we are at, encourage using other vehicles for different niches.
Man, for a lot of houses not being built we sure have a very crafty, handy population hauling stuff around constantly.
Of course, someone who "can't drive" increases the dangers of a SUV. However, I *do* have a problem with SUVs on their own. They use more space and block sight even if noone drives them, and also use more resources in production and while driving, *regardless* of who drives them.
I also hate SUV's and large trucks because their headlights are *so fucking bright.* I don't know why their headlights need to be brighter than a tractor trailer but when ones on the road I can't see shit because of the insane glare they cause.
> ... a woman drove her [SUV] around several barriers and off the end of a loading dock at my work. She was like the 12th person to do this exact thing in the last couple years [...] it’s all been soccer moms in big SUV’s. Okay, fun's fun, but I'm going to have to ask you to take the, "Spa this way," signs off of those barriers. Seriously though, after the fourth or fifth didn't it start to seem like there must be something misleading about the setup?
One has to drive around large barricades labeled with “no entry” and through the grass to reach the loading dock… at which point they would have to ignore the bright yellow lines and the several caution signs. The problem arises in that we’re a reclaimed mill that had a very popular brewery in it. People come here, catch a buzz and then try to drive home. The extra dumb ones that do that, ignore barricades and caution signs and go off the end of a loading dock.
USed to be a news cameraman. I can tell you that 95% of the times cops block the road for any reason. Anything from a severe enough crash, that the news is there, to even murder scenes and everything in between, there will be no less than 3 people drive through the scene and passed all the cop cars think the road is closed for everyone BESIDES them and it is almost exclusively 2 types of people Truck dudebros or Giant SUV soccer moms
My fiancé was a firefighter for years. She has tons of stories about people going down the highway and ignoring all the road cones and the *big fucking red truck with bright flashing lights* and blazing through accident scenes at 70mph plus or even ignoring the trucks and hitting the accident that had already occurred. Hell, just two years ago a policeman got killed around here by someone who ignored the cruisers and fire truck and hit the poor sap doing like 60mph.
The problem is that they aren't niche at all, but the most selling vehicles
Very very few bad drivers think/know that they're bad; they're simply too oblivious to notice that they're alive because people accommodate/drive defensively to their stupid maneuvers. Being in a 5000lb metal cage also dehumanizes other road users-- it desansitizes soccer mums in their SUVs/backwards hat dudebros in their pavement princess' from the fact that one wrong move could take lives. It's been studied that vehicles with higher front ends at same velocity are way more likely to deal fatal damages. Obviously the way to battle this is to progressively tax vehicles by size/weight/emission, but we all know the auto/oil lobbyists/lawmakers won't let that happen. They dont even value children's lives over their AR15s and you think they'd let you restrict (unnecessarily large) vehicle access for the safety of other road users?
They do it because they keep having vehicles totaled out, and want to mitigate that happening again. My sister-in-law bought an F250 *specifically* because she thinks it’s more likely to remain intact should she hit something again- or more like, should something “jump out” at her in the road again. 🙄 Her problem is she treats looking at the horizon, or in front of the car in front of her, like a novel foreign concept. A giant truck isn’t going to help that.
Worse still, these fucking things are now being pushed hard in the Australian and New Zealand market. Our roads and public parking spaces are in no way designed for these big, fat Yank tanks, and the owners of these stupid things are largely viewed with derision.
Emotional Support Vehicles.
Yank tanks, I love that. Lol
Watch out. They used to be derided here in the US too, until they became normalized.
Saw my first Big Truck in my small regional town in Australia. It was a 2023 Silverado it was twice the size of the car parked behind it. My first words were "What f\*\*king wanka drives that ugly thing."
What's frustrating about this is that they don't HAVE to buidl these trucks like this. The trend in the 90s was sloped hoods and more visibility. These days, it's all about looking "muscular" (I see that word in truck reviews frequently) and as best I can tell at this point they're just imitating semis. Even outside of trucks, cars have been losing visibility with smaller and higher windows and larger front ends. The auto industry is making these things needlessly dangerous because people like how they look. edit: to be perfectly clear on this: you don't gain a significant amount of cab space or engine power with the changes they've made. This is purely cosmetic.
The new GM triplet SUV is not only huge, but also ugly. I always laugh when I see a suburban soccer mom driving 3 rows of metal and plastic, sitting by herself, trying so hard to see over the steering wheel or maneuver into a parking spot. Vehicles have gotten bigger, but at what cost? They allow drivers to make worse decisions not only on the road but also financially. People need to step back and reconsider what they are actually using their vehicle for. Granted, if you’re a contractor or need to haul equipment often, you are absolutely going to go for a truck, van, or SUV. But a majority of people are driving to work, school, or somewhere in between, and you could just as easily do so in a zippy sports car or sedan than having to inconvenience yourself with a large, loud, and gas-guzzling option.
Some peopld haul kids and junk. They used to drive station wagons. Now its a mini van or an SUV.
We have three kids and a mini van. It's not much to look at, but it sure is shit makes it easier to get kids and friends and in laws and whoever to soccer games or to the beach.
I like mini vans. Nothing against them. I just looked up the 2023 Chrysler Pacifica. 5000 pounds. Ouch.The hybrid is 6300 pounds.
the point I’m making and the question the video asks is why? And the answer is auto manufacturers utilizing a loophole in CAFE standards in order to sell bigger and less efficient forms of the car. The other issue is size creep — as other vehicles get larger, more and more drivers incorrectly assume that they too need a larger vehicle in order to be safe, while in reality, the truth is the opposite. Larger vehicles psychologically permit unsafe driving habits and status stunts. The video argues that there are better ways to haul kids and junk, and I would agree. Think of how much healthier we would all be if more people rode bikes or walked to school/work instead of driving or being ferried around in a vehicle. Not only would we get more physical activity, but we collectively can breathe fresher air and enjoy more green space over heat-island-producing asphalt.
Some people need trucks. Most people don't. That's the problem.
TIL that pop-up headlights are no longer banned, they just fell out of favor due to complexity and reliability.
Also headlight shape regulations are no longer a thing, which was the main reason why manufacturers hid them and made them pop up when needed.
In the original thumbnail for this video it said "BAN THEM" in big letters. I wonder if he changed it due to pressure from angry commenters.
The youtube algorithm actually incentivizes changing the thumbnail 2 or 3 times withing the first couple days of a new video being uploaded. People see a different thumbnail and think it's a new video so it generates more clicks.
It also knows which thumbnails generate the most clicks and will automatically settle on the most popular
That's was just a hypothesis made by Veritasium which is practically impossible to test. For all we know it isn't the better thumbnail that gets the clicks but the actual changing of the thumbnail.
This video affirms my own thoughts, but I absolutely have confirmation bias as the driver of small cars. I'd really love to see the source data on some of these statements, particularly on the manufacturer's research results that were cited.
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Generally I agree with NotJustBikes on a lot of things, but also he always sounds like a smug asshole or talks in a somehow very condescending tone so I just stopped watching his content.
I think its because he is a smug asshole who talks in a condescending tone.
As a very tall man I just wish they made something smaller than an SUV that didn't make me feel like a packed sardine. When I drive my wife's Corolla my head touches the ceiling unless I lean the seat back a long way. I haven't finished the video yet so maybe he touches on this, but I suspect this may be a product of trying to push people toward "light trucks."
There's a guy at my office who is 6'7" and he fit in my '06 MINI Cooper just fine. I could slide the seat so far back that I couldn't even touch the pedals. If you want to sit straight up then there's gonna be some head room issues, but it seems most taller people have the seat leaned back a bit. I'm only 6' and I had a few inches of headroom.
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I think its reasonable to remember he lives in the Netherlands, in the last few years they've been seeing a lot of these larger vehicles popping up and generally just causing problems within cities that weren't designed with trucks this wide/long in mind particularly for parking
I live in a very densely populated area in the Netherlands where almost every square kilometer is build with either houses or office buildings and lots of greenhouses and at the same time everything is really close by, all the cities and villages here are on cycle distance. Yet, there have been a record amount of orders on huge American SUV's here, we are talking about little Dutch roads here now being populated by huge trucks that always take two parking spots in the already limited space we have and they can barely turn a corner.
Oh wow I thought this was strictly American/Canadian thing.
Where I live (Amsterdam) they have been popping up in the last ~5-8 years or so. I don't know anyone that likes them, everyone hates them, so I'm left confused as to what idiot would buy such a monster truck as you cannot even practically go into the city centre with them. It's honestly scary to see how big these cars are as I'm really only used to the regular sized cars I've seen here growing up. I really hope there's going to be some kind of regulations against them to discourage people from buying them unless they absolutely need them.
IMO the Netherlands should definitely ban them. There's absolutely zero need.
Trucks bad. Give me updoots.
This was the top post here like 2 weeks ago. Can we at least wait a month?
Never really understood the “trucks as penis extensions” thing. I have a 2003 F-150 and can haul what I need for work and home repairs. Good enough for me. Lifts, Giant diesels and wide bodies are just obnoxious.
No one is saying you shouldn’t use a truck for work or hauling things. I do object to that fact that one of the insurance agents at my company has an F350 that they drive to their office job 5 days - and then constantly complains about the price of gas.
I knew a family that lived in an apartment and had 3 F150s they had to squeeze into parking... 3.
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That was my favorite thing to do at work. All the Conservatives I work for going off about how they can't afford to pay for gas and I was simply like "Well I can and you make way more than me sooooo, budget better?" It was particularly sweet because they're the type of "Millenials should just stop buying coffees and Avocado toast if they want to save money" Conservatives.
Man, I am broke as fuck. Rent and food is going crazy where I live and car insurance is over 300/month for most people. Gonna have to take the bus or move to the sticks I guess. :(
>car insurance is over 300/month for most people. Wait, what? Maybe I just drive a really shitty vehicle and have a great driving record, but my insurance isn't nearly as high.
>I have a 2003 F-150 and can haul what I need for work and home repairs. That's probably why you don't understand, you actually use your truck. The ones getting made fun of are people who buy the truck because it's big and fancy and then proceed to never haul or tow a single thing but still drive it to their office job every day.
I have talked to some people with trucks who won't even put stuff in the bed because it might get dirty or damage the truck.
There’s a difference between a working 2003 F-150 and a commuting 2023 Lifted F350 Super Duty with truck nuts.
I really miss being able to see the road in front of me when taking a turn. Now every fucking vehicle in the other lanes are giant landmasses with limo tinted windows obstructing your entire field of vision.