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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

Coming from a more practical background, it is hard for me to want to spend 40k+ for a vehicle. I am looking at getting two vehicles in the coming years: A commuter, and a vehicle that can carry stuff (lumber, soil, etc). For the commuter I am looking at the 2024 Chevy Equinox (~starting mrsp 30k),or the 2023 Chevy Bolt (~starting mrsp 28k). With the IRA $7500 rebate, and the cheaper fuel costs, makes it attractive, with solid range too.

To carry stuff, I am looking at the 2023 hybrid Ford Maverick, a double-cab small/medium sized pickup truck goind for $22.6k starting msrp...which clocks in as the cheapest hybrid vehicle on the new market. 42 city 33 highway mpg.

I applaud these more modest and affordable entries into the fuel efficient market.

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I remember buying a Nissan mini pickup for 7000 back in I want to say 1993, I wonder how much of the increase in cost is the safety and emissions improvements versus inflation or just feature creep in vehicles.

Well, inflation makes that $7000 equal to $13,423.82 based on https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

You’re also going to have to adjust for profit margins of car manufacturers back then to now, as surely productivity (use of labor and resources through automation) have allowed for them to do more with less materials.

The inflation calculation is also an average and stuff like cars made with steel might have more inflation due to scarcity or cost increases of making steel.

Then I’d say whatever left over is the actual increase in cost of making a car now vs then due to added functionality (including R&D for cars to be safer or more fuel efficient). Although maybe someone else can point out if I’m missing something else to consider.

> double-cab small/medium sized pickup truck

From a EU perspective that vehicle is nowhere near the "small/medium" scale, even for a truck.

I recall watching some documentary about a guy who tried driving from the US to Brazil or something and cross some jungle. At some point he had to rent a car and all he could get his hand on was a Toyota Land Cruiser, which he immediately dismissed as being a small toy SUV barely any good for dirty roads and should be kept for suburbs.

> goind for $22.6k starting msrp

Is that because it's a truck? I seem to recall there's this weird US thing where trucks are on the cheap side because of whatever law or something.

Buddy good luck getting an Equinox. That car is going to be vaporware for at least the next year and if you do manage to find one the dealer markup will be 10k over MSRP.

And the “around 30k msrp” they quoted is so far a wish and dream. Chevy already dropped the bottom trim of their other new EV because they didn’t think it was profitable enough.

I real put wish a single vehicle existed that combined those two things.

EV truck, Model Y with seats down, or other efficient hatchback like Prius

I can fit 8' lumber or hundreds of pounds of soil in my Prius. That covers over 95% of my needs as a DIY homeowner. When I need 10' lumber, I rent a truck for $60 and a half hour of my time, which is more than paid for by the cheaper operating costs and insurance. When you throw in the purchase price, owning a second vehicle just to move large/heavy objects doesn't make sense unless you do it multiple times a week for a few years.

I also put a 50 gallon home water heater in my Prius. Agree that a second vehicle, like a truck, isn't worth it as it will easily cost several hundred $ extra per month for limited uses.

To be clear, I didn't want the vehicle just for moving stuff. Life is a lot easier for two working parents if there are two vehicles.

Sorry, I did not intend to imply that was your case. I was more responding to a the reply (whether sarcastic or not) wishing that a car existed that combined both commuter and "move stuff" characteristics. I know an alarming number of people who do actually have a second "move stuff" vehicle, and my partner took months to convince to sell our second vehicle which was being (dis)used exclusively for "move stuff" after we relocated to a city with good bike and transit options.

Golf can carry bagged soil no problem, though it needs roof racks for lumber.

I got a golf thinking I’d rent a pickup when I need to carry something big, but so far haven’t come across anything that required it.

The problem there is that bagged soil is very expensive, and has to be trucked around a couple times to get it to the store. I picked up like 3 cu yds of compost/topsoil mix from a local horse farm for about 1/5 of the price. Can’t top load into a car/suv.

Trucks are useful but I do wish shared ownership were more convenient, because a ton of miles driven in trucks are not for any of those uses.

Re: Shared ownership: 99.9% of people who think they need a used F150 off of Craigslist can actually get away with renting one from their local UHaul or Home Depot the few times a month that they need it, and it'll still be way cheaper than ownership.

Those rental contracts generally don't allow you to tow anything unless you also rent a trailer from them. So it's not very useful to rent.

Then rent the trailer?

The trailer I tow is my travel trailer which I own.

A roof rack can't carry much weight, check manufacturer load ratings.

Pickup are useful for projects. Recently redid a fence, bought over 2000lb of lumber.

These weekends doing concrete walkway work, bought ~3500lb of concrete bags in one trip (way more than the weight of my commuter car!)

Can't you get that stuff delivered. I'm in the UK and anything like that I pay the supplier to ship. It's way cheaper than buying a specific vehicle for it.

You can but it's not cheap. A pallet of cement bags is ~$300, delivery is $200. Or I can pick it up myself for free in 10 minutes.

Of course if you only do that once a year and do nothing else, it's not worth having a truck. For me, I pick up things couple times a month at least and also use it for towing a travel trailer (which you often can't contractually do with many rental trucks).

Sorry, but those are not small personal projects. Just pay the 20/40/100$ to have it delivered by a professional vehicle or transport company that has economies of scale instead of buying a 3 ton capacity vehicle as your daily driver.

Just the time it takes to drive to the store, get that loaded and secured, delivered, offloaded etc. You're already at the 1-2 hour mark. Now the labour, cost of all those calories you burnt. Makes my brain hurt even thinking about the waste.

> Sorry, but those are not small personal projects.

Small projects for a tiny suburban house. A pallet of cement isn't that much, only about 10ft of walkway.

> Just pay the 20/40/100$

See above. Delivering a ~$300 pallet costs $200.

> daily driver

Certainly not a daily driver. It's a truck for projects and towing.

Fingers crossed for a Maverick EV, it's the perfect size

Depending on what you carry, a Renault Kangoo or American equivalent is just fantastic. It's a box on wheels that's insanely cheap to run.

American equivalent would probably be the Ford Transit Connect

For a commuter I'd want tiny and fuel efficient, for a hauling truck I want towing and hauling capacity. Very opposite ends of the car spectrum, how could you combine that.

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