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Comment by aaronbrethorst | Hacker News Reader

The best-selling[1] vehicle in America, the Ford F-150, had an average sale price of $47,174 in 2018[2]. I'm sure it's only gone up since.

Also, the latest version of the map you shared shows the F-150 being the most popular vehicle in 18 states, none of which are California or New York: https://insurify.com/insights/most-popular-cars-in-america-2...

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[1] https://www.autobytel.com/ford/f-150/car-buying-guides/why-t...

[2] https://www.autoweek.com/news/trucks/a32945300/ford-averages...

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Of course the most common price is just as useless as the mean price when describing this highly skewed distribution.

Its the median price that the average American is willing to pat that is the most informative metric here.

But frankly, it's a light truck. It's contractor's vehicle, or farmer's, but it's hardly a commuter car. It may be reasonable for countryside, like a boat may be reasonable for seaside.

Nevertheless, just googled it:

--- People also ask: How much does a 2020 F-150 cost? From $28,745 2020 Ford F-150 / MSRP ---

lol if you think trucks are primarily driven by contractors or farmers. You should visit the south, trucks are most definitely used as commuter cars.

Trucks as commuter vehicles in the south generally still get used as trucks. You're more likely to see trucks with perfect paint out west.

Clearly you haven't lived in urban Texas.

I live in urban Texas. At a glance, my truck has perfect paint. You can't see the 3rd party liner I put in and the gouges in the truck bed. Most of the time you aren't going to see all the gear or trailers I haul for different organizations. Sure, some people buy trucks to compensate for something, but some of us who have an entry level Ford F150 or Ram 1500 do in fact use them as trucks when you can't see it.

They are, but the reason they are mostly sold is contractors and farmers. And work fleets, etc etc

Most of the new F150s and other full sized trucks sold now are four door models. They are entirely grocery getter commuter vehicles with their stubby 5 foot beds. It is now rather difficult to get pickups with smaller cabs.

It's a very light truck. Especially these days. Seems like a vanity vehicle mostly. If you're hauling you have a bigger truck, and if you're offroading you have a jeep or something.

Nobody is using electric for anything that we'd relate to as "critical" or "high availability". In fact, there are trucks that just bring gasoline to bigger trucks.

Source: I live at 8300ft in Colorado.

The difference in what’s called “light” in the US and Europe is huge. The F-150 is, to me (a European), a very substantial vehicle. Its front end is the height of a medium-sized family car!

In Israel there are no F-150s, but their larger siblings like the F-350 and the Silverado are very popular (admittedly with contractors, you don't see white collar people buying them). Reason is, they are classified as proper trucks for tax calculation, so you get all kind of write offs and don't pay VAT (17%) on them.

The same people used to drive the smaller Japanese pickups (like Toyota Hilux) before, it just stopped making sense buying these when F-350 costs less due to the tax reasons above.

So it's funny like that when among the regular hatchback and compact car mix you see in any European country you encounter more F-350 monsters than you see in the USA (relatively speaking).

Yeah almost nobody drives those here. They would take every single time 2 parking spaces and stick out big time, and as mentioned in this thread its mostly a vanity car. Most of the underground parking wouldn't be accessible with it. Contractors/small companies have vans which are much more useful for actual work (ie load capacity, permanently covered) and cost less to buy and run. Which are the most important criteria to run a business successfully.

For personal driving, either fugly SUVs or wagon types offer much better... well everything. Operating costs, much better driving experience, you can actually park it everywhere.

The operative word is “truck”.

Personally, I drive an F-150 because I visit Home Depot quite a lot for home projects, take the kayaks down to the lake, and because just generally being able to haul things when I need to is enormously useful. It just seems to happen a lot in normal suburban life.

That said, I will definitely be trading up to a Cybertruck as soon as it’s available.

Especially the Texas folks after 3 days without electricity. A lesson learned for sure.

This shouldn't surprise anybody. Those are used for work like farms and are tax deductible.

Anyone who's driven on a highway in Texas knows this is likely untrue, at least for most F150 owners. I see a shocking number of pristine, washed and waxed F150s every single day when I'm driving. Those and Ram 1500s dominate the roads here.

I don't even live in a rural area. I live in DFW.

I live in DFW also and you are correct. I'd take a guess that 80% of F150 owners live in a quiet suburban neighborhood and have never used the truck bed. What really is insane is the folks like a neighbor down the street who has an F250 Diesel Monster truck that has never seen any off road action except the time he drove on his grass backing out of the driveway. Same with all the Jeeps with oversized tires and 12k in tricked out off road gear, driven by soccer moms. I suppose it's some kind of status symbol like all the old farts buying Harley's and pretending they are some kind of bikers...shame they destroyed the brand.

> like all the old farts buying Harley's and pretending they are some kind of bikers...shame they destroyed the brand

Actually, they kept the brand alive by buying the product.

Without those people they'd have died long ago.

You are correct. This very entertaining 11 minute video from Fortnine (still one of the best channels on YouTube) does a great job explaining exactly how HD wound up where they are today: https://youtu.be/EOwxxsPaogY

Sounds kind of like Leica to me: orthodontists running around Africa or Asia pretending to be Steve McCurry with $11,000 'Safari' cameras destroyed the brand for me. Yeah, sure, the company is still technically alive, but at what cost?

(and lest you think I'm joking: https://www.dpreview.com/news/9864312105/leica-releases-limi...)

Are the cameras not good anymore? Or is it that the “wrong people“ are using their products that bothers you? If it is the latter, then you are just trying to buy an identity through brands, and you are as much part of the problem.

Leica glass is still top notch. GP is just making some weird status thing out of it.

Then just buy the M43 version?

I prefer the APS-C version.

Leica glass is great. Leica cameras are great. I wish the company would focus on turning out high quality products that are meant to be used to create photographs, as opposed to turning out the camera equivalent of a Birkin bag.

And I say this as someone who has previously owned and shot with a Leica M6 and currently owns and shoots with a Leica IIIf.

The only good thing about Leica cameras is the handling, arguably and subjectively. They are behind in every single other respect. Leica lenses are good, though.

Couple being sub-par with being much more expensive and you get something that is moreso useful for image than as a tool.

The same thing is true of guitar manufacturers and probably most other manufacturers of music gear.

The only upside with the rediculious "Live to Ride", or whatever rediculious marketing slogans they use is most used Harley's are bringing 1/2 of what they were in the nineties.

And it's a buyers market.

>Actually, they kept the brand alive by buying the product. >Without those people they'd have died long ago.

I disagree, the Company was founded in 1903 and was did well into the 90's and then the 50 plus crowd decided to be some kind of poser biker gang type and destroyed the brand. Not very different than what happened to the Corvette and all the 6o plus folks buying them the last 20 years.

Wrong, the brand hung on and is dying out with boomers. Everyone knows that the younger kids get crotch rockets. It wasn’t the hold people that ruined the brand, it was the brand marketing to Boomers for shortsighted gains. Harleys are for Boomers. Harley made sure that was the message. Now they pay for it.

charging 30k for a motorcycle didn't help

Made all the worse than the 30k motorcycle is slower and handles worse than a 13k motorcycle.

Not to mention breaking down constantly.

What did these people do to the brand image? I guess I don't understand what it was like before this happened.

Harley's were synonymous with Motorcycle Gangs (Ex: Hells Angels, etc) or with young cool men (18+).

All of a sudden in the 90's a lot of these 40-60 year olds started to try and recapture their youth or that coolness they never had. They started buying Harley's and dressing in Leather and making these ridiculous club patches and driving around revving their motorcycles everywhere. It was so cringe that you actually felt ashamed for them.

Here is a good clip from South Park that kind of sums it all up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyKBFCd_u4

They installed a CEO who didn't know how to ride a motorcycle but he could make tshirts move off the shelves.

Producing crappy, noisy, stupidly big, and overpriced products is what destroyed the brand.

> driven by soccer moms

I’d really like to get away from this phrase.

Some of the most avid off-roading Jeepers I know are women. And mothers. And for all I know they take their kids to soccer.

“Soccer moms” is a terrible phrase.

I agree with you, but the problem is, there is no suitable replacement. When someone says, "soccer mom", you know exactly what they mean. And there is no phrase like it.

Just like the phrase "Indian giver". That one is just straight up racist and I will never use it, but sadly I haven't found a substitute for it either. "Someone who gives a gift and then takes it back" just doesn't roll off the tongue...

Since I started realizing how sexist it sounds to me, I’ve not found a need to use it, other than gatekeeping, of which I’m also not fond.

I think it’s nearly always better to avoid using personality labels entirely.

"Suburban parent" doesn't have the same ring to it. I've also heard the term "Mum's taxi" in Australia.

Mommybus

Isn't that insanely inconvenient? It takes so much more space, needs so much more fuel, is so much more bulky to drive .. is that bit of "status" actually worth it?

Besides, even if you haul sth bigger 2x a year, renting a little trailer of the right size is really a no-brainer. That's what I do.

> Isn't that insanely inconvenient? It takes so much more space, needs so much more fuel, is so much more bulky to drive .. is that bit of "status" actually worth it?

I'm wondering the same thing, especially since I see more and more of those trucks in Paris, France. Now I've never been to the US, but one thing with European cities is that there are a lot of old, small streets. We also never really had big cars like in the US, so parking spots, etc, are tiny for those cars. Hell, I have an older C-class coupé and it barely fits in street parking spots.

We also have our share of off-road vehicles that have probably never left Paris, seeing how they have huge rims with low tires. But I guess since the streets are in a horrible shape and getting worse, an off-road vehicle may make some sense.

However, I guess that's the whole point of "status". Something that's practical and affordable (financially or otherwise) for everyone can't confer status.

So when it comes to status-seeking, those metrics being outrageous is actually a feature, not a bug.

>especially since I see more and more of those trucks in Paris, France

Yep, this trend exploded almost everywhere in Europe and I think I found the answer to why. Lots of my male colleagues at work (devs in Europe) are married and have kids on the way and when discussions came at lunchtime about buying a new family car for taking the kids places it seemed like the choice is always a SUV. Whenever I ask them why a SUV, even though they usually prefer sleek sedans, the answer is always "my wife/girlfriend says she feels safer in a big, tall car", which mostly makes sense as throughout history, females' reproductive and nesting choices have had a major impact on shaping male behavior and various aspects of society like real-estate and now car choices.

It's sad that this kickstarted what is basically an arms race on the road since nobody feels safe anymore driving their kids in the traditional European compact car when everyone else is now in big heavy SUVs with poor visibility and easily distracted by their phones or infotainment touch-screens so this fear drives them to one-up their "competition" with bigger and heavier cars to make sure their kids have a perceived higher safety in case on an accident.

Another thing is today's compact cars are getting ridiculously low. I don't want SUV, but I want to drive on crappy gravel roads with confidence and park close to curb without scratching bottom of the bumper. Regular cars used to allow that 2 decades ago. Now I'll need a „raised“ car for that :(

That's for fuel efficiency reasons. Cars lower to the ground get much better mileage at highway speeds since they have less aerodynamic drag.

And it's not just compact cars, modern SUVs, except the ones destined for workhorse off-roading, are also lower to the ground than they were 20 or so years ago since they never leave the city/highway anyway.

Yup. And then many people opt in for SUV to get back to classic ride height. Which is kinda funny.

Why such concern about people owning things that they may not truly need? I'd say it is a bit of a slippery slope. Many things are not truly needed.

Large utility vehicles like pickups are, by dint of their mass, their high centres, and their poorer visibility, dangerous to other people on the road.

They also release a large amount of carbon into the air.

So yes, their use as a recreational or status symbol should be discouraged.

I have an older Ford Ranger. It is only 300 lbs heavier than the heaviest Prius models. Put a pair of super sized Americans in there and their gross weight is more than my dangerously heavy vehicle.

A slippery slope to what? Cutting down on pointless consumption and needless environmental damage?

My point is the discussion should be entirely about carbon footprint, not whether CO2 emitting processes or machines (in this case large vehicles) are truly "needed".

Surprise! People buy cars that are not functional but aspirational. Can we add: - SUVs that are are really just wagons or hatchback with big tires. - Sports cars that will never see a track and couldn't possibly be driven safely at half their top speed. - Trucks with reinforced bumpers, headlamps and gas cans so that they are ready for Baja or more likely Target. - Your BMW or Mercedes that convinces me you are really rich because you can afford a lease or a 72 month loan.

This is human nature. Wanting more than you need is actually important to capitalism in countries as rich as the U.S. so I cut people a break.

I give SUV drivers a bit of merit. Many (most?) come with a third row or at least the option for one so they are the most practical way to carry around up to 8 people at once safely.

Minivans are the most practical for this purpose. The third row seat in most suvs are for children at best.

As a former child, I can attest to this fact as I have ridden (rode?) in the back of an SUV many times. This is a great value-add as most children cannot drive themselves.

That does not change the fact that they are tax deductible.

I'd bet a ton that most F150s never see dirt. I'd also bet that most F150s see >5 year car loans.

I would side with you on this bet. Lots of brodozer and parking lot princess F-150s up here in Michigan suburbs.

tons of pavement princesses here in AZ.

F150 was the minimum truck when I worked in landfill construction in the Northeast and NY. They’re decent on the site dirt roads. But they ride hard and I found the handling on the road pretty bad.

They’re not popular here. Except for those that need them. (Maybe RWD and light tail and snow.. ). SUVs are it here.

I was surprised how much of the rest of the rural US uses trucks as a day to day vehicle.

You're kidding yourself if you think most of the buyers for these actually need a pickup truck.

I lived in Bama for a couple years and everybody and their brother had a pickup.

Perhaps something should be done to discourage Americans from buying bigger cars than they require.

I don't seen any reason to use a big truck as their daily commute.

This is why it’s political. Gas is cheap in the us, credit is easy and to some extent, there’s a cultural aspect (at least here in Texas). Generalizing people like big cars here. Ironically enough my 4 door VW Passat had more backspeat space for my 2 kids which was my primary motivation. So it’s not about hauling kids around — at least for most. it’s about the size in general, the lack of disincentive, the occasional usefulness of a truck bed, perception that it’s safer (when you get hit by another truck, you probably don’t want to be in a small car like mine). combine with general ignorance of the climate issue and there’s little reason to not get one. Hence why so many do. I’ve heard quite a few people describe small and electric cars as hmmm various forms of “non masculine”. So all together... it’s a LONG way to go to improve the situation sadly.

Yeah pickups and SUVs tend to cost more (and have much higher profit margins) than sedans and they're everywhere outside of NYC/LA. I would not be surprised to find out pickups and SVUs out number sedans in those areas.

Could most of those be base model work trucks with the average price heavily skewed by the luxury pickup market.

According to AutoWeek, who I expect knows of what it speaks,

"The most popular model [of the Ford F-150] is the SuperCrew XLT with the 302A package...That pickup, upgraded to 4X4 and the 6.5 foot bed, comes out to $50,020."

https://www.autoweek.com/news/trucks/a33584476/this-is-how-y...

Need to seat 4 and the dog plus tow the boat or camper. Also the bed is good for Home Depot runs.

dang, $29k starting price and you don’t even get power windows? What happened to the F150??

It’s their primary money maker so it’s priced and advertised to maximize revenue. There’s a reason so many electric cars have ugly designs and it’s not because they don’t know how to make a good looking vehicle.

They’re bought primarily either as status symbols or for business use.

Or because it's tax-preferred in farming. Generate a profit for the year = buy a top of the line truck "for the business."

A truck as a status symbol? In Russia or the balkans the rich mobsters use Mercedes SUVs for that.

(Collective) 'farmer' is used as an insult in Russia so no wonder cosplaying hard-working man of the land is not popular.

It's something of a hotrod if you get the V8 in a regular cab shortbed.

'round these parts, a 4wd pickup is a pretty practical thing to own. I'd much rather own one than a Subaru.

IMHO, power windows are just another thing to inevitably break. I have yet to have a manual window break.

Two cars i’ve owned for 10 and 14 years and the power windows broke once (on one side). cost me $150 i think. Pretty good value imho.

Power windows are nice when you're driving and want to open the passenger side window but other than that, it's mostly a luxury.

It was a luxury in the 90s, now it's standard trim. Even Renault Symbol has electric windows.

Trucks can be used for towing or hauling large and heavy goods. I am yet to see an electric vehicle do the same and retain any notion of a practical range.

thats new cars. most people dont by new cars. they buy used sedans.

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