You don't actually need such a vehicle though. In EU you don't see trucks or many heavy vehicles like that at all.
But the problem is that YouPeople(TM) (as opposed to you personally) won't be happy about it. Instead of screeching about the environment you'd be screeching about safety. But it's not really about the environment or safety, it's about class. The fact of the matter is that moving any sizeable amount of goods (like some plywood for a garden shed, or a new stove, or similarly mundane things) with a car or crossover just doesn't pass for acceptable behavior for the slice of society that we're talking about here. People need more vehicle than they "need" for the same reason a 30yo finance professional "needs" a couple sets of nice clothes. It's what his peers expect from him. The quirky college professor can haul a sailboat on the roof of his prius and the tweaker won't be bothered for running scrap with a minivan but outside of that it's just not what "nice people" do (not that either of them care about the opinions of the kind of people who deride them). Meanwhile white collar people with three kids won't even shove them in a crossover once a week if they can avoid it. They'll commute in a 3-row SUV that costs twice as much to operate instead.
People buy crew cab trucks and 3-row SUVs because YouPeople(TM) expect them to "act their income" and they "need" the capability of these vehicles often enough to justify it.
I'm afraid you're projecting your own issues on others...
I'm self-aware enough to realize that this is because of a larger cultural struggle in the US between "rural" and "urban". It's not quite that simple, but that's a close enough approximation for the conversation at hand.
The rural people on the US feel like we are constantly fighting a system in which we have no voice. We're subject to regulations that we feel to be frankly ridiculous; regulations that get in our way, make our lives more difficult and expensive, and most of all... don't even serve the purpose for which they were ostensibly designed.
In that context, the GP's response to your comment is understandable.
I'm afraid that you are guilty of what psychology would call "projection". Unless you can back your views with hard facts. I have yet to meet anyone just blowing away $100k on a truck that don't NEED.
It’s a side-issue, but I see this type of statement all the time about “Europe” and have to say, in Sweden - and even on the suburban streets of Stockholm - these enormous American pickups and SUVs are amazingly common (although most of them don’t go over the 3500kilo limit).
Work vehicles in Stockholm are mostly small vans.
I'm not sure we're living in the same US ...
1. Ford F-series
2. Ram pickup
3. Chevrolet Silverado
1. Volvo S/V60
2. Volvo XC40
3. Volvo XC60
I bet most not even go over 2000kg. My SUV is 1900kg (4k lbs) and is hybrid so has extra weight due to batteries. I think it's a very heavy car and considering downgrading again.
Cars over 4000 kg is straight insanity
Sure, there are a lot of people who own trucks that don't use them as trucks on a regular basis - but there are a lot of people who do.
You ain't gonna move that shit with a Citroen C2.
Also, it's not just a matter of payload. The bigger wheelbase and larger tires make them much more drive able in snow or mud or ice which is common weather around. Small cars are a safety issue on black ice.
Btw, I'm a small player.
And FWIW, I grew up in rural Indiana (USA), soybean and corn country. It's definitely not just professionals driving these vehicles. Actually I'd say most trucks on the streets growing up were NOT used by professionals, the real farm trucks were often barely street legal and could never seem to get past 30-40 mph with a load (or without heh).
How about we agree that we just don't have the same lifestyle ?
Now, if you want to legislate my freedom away, now I do have a problem with that and we will not be friends.
Why would you start a civil war over it?
I'm sure that externalizing environmental costs is attractive, but that just ensures that no one is going to optimize for it.
Many times, you are not free to set the price of goods, especially in today socialist / regulated economy. Your costs go up, your margins profit go down. There is so much you can squeeze. Heck, DEF sounds nice to save the environment & all, but when your combine three a DEF code and pretty much blew your engine 400 miles from the nearest dealership right during harvest before a storm, goes into limp mode and prevent you from harvesting, you're literally fucked, your all farm might even go bankrupt. Don't even count on insurance to save your ass, because you already had to cut back to focus on other coverage to mitigate skyrocketing fertilizer costs, which doesn't matter anyway because the price you'll sell your production 6 month from now has been set a thousand mile away by a white collar asshole right after his daily jerk off and line of coke. But what a beer sipping urbanite would know of actual hard constraint while at the same time, accusing us of social grand standing. Just GFY.
You pretend yourself smart, but you're not. You sound like Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake". Next thing you know, your head hang on a spike in front of an angry mob.
A DEF code is not the only thing that can make a combine fail, and if you're one mechanical failure away from bankruptcy, it's not the DEF that's the problem.
We (my direct family and I to some extend as well) haul your food, your mail, we build the infrastructure and mine the ore you rely on.
Don't fuck with us, because we'll be happy to make you pay. What happening in Canada right now is just the beginning.
If the price of fuel goes up because it includes a carbon tax, then of course the price of whatever service you're providing will go up too.
You don't need an iphone when a 10 that's old piece of crap hardware does the same job (albeit much less efficiently).
The problem is the insurance model which insure the vehicle rather than the driver. Thus why some people daily drive their pickup because maintaining another beater is too much cost.
Every now and then their 5' 100lb wife will use that truck to go for groceries and then you'll see them there, because you have no life in the real world, and you'll judge them based on that single interaction alone.
Meanwhile, the next day, her hubby and the family will tow an 8000lb boat to enjoy the lake, and heck they can even stop at the hardware store pick up a couple 1000lb of concrete / 2x4 for their home improvement projects.
I've personally saved a few grands this year in various fees alone by being able to haul shit and do DIY home improvements.
But sure, that's only for social grand-standing...