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Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

Ford F150 hybrid (or even the full-electric version) can provide all the electricity needed to charge the spare batteries in the trailer while the crew is working with the main batteries.

Sound is barely above truck idle, way way below the gas-powered equipment noise.

The problem in my area is that an F150 is just not manly enough. Gotta have the F250 or F350. Heck, just the other day I saw a landscaper in my neighborhood using an F450 to haul his 1000 pound box trailer around.

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Small pickup trucks used to be popular, when I was a kid most pickup trucks weren't much larger than a station wagon, but the government fucked it up by setting MPG requirements lower for larger trucks, incentivizing manufacturers to go big. At this point consumer tastes have adapted to the market and small trucks probably wouldn't sell well even if the regulations were fixed to make them feasible.

For my part, my tastes never changed. Modern pickup trucks are hideous giant blob abominations. But that's not the way most people feel anymore.

People import kei trucks, even though importing is a pain, so there's some demand for small trucks. If the MPG standards were addressed, I think it'd be a hard sell for a real 80s style small truck (although, I'd buy one), but a 1998-2011 style Ranger is still pretty small. Build it with a c-max/ford fusion PHEV power train +/- RWD, stuff the batteries under the bed (like the 1998-2002 Ford Ranger EV, get pretty good gas mileage and decent EV only range. Doesn't need to be huge.

But they don't let me design cars.

> If the MPG standards were addressed, I think it'd be a hard sell for a real 80s style small truck

They'd just have to be EVs instead of ICE.

To be fair, do you know what else they are using that truck for when it's not within your eye sight? Maybe they are pulling larger trailers and equipment, but this day it only needed to pull the small trailer.

Also, you act like it is the landscaper's problem for driving the trucks. We haven't even mentioned that fleet deals can be made for the larger trucks so they are actually cheaper than the F150 pricing. That leaves the F150 inventory for the soccer moms.

As if it is a single button that needs to be pushed to "solve"

The landscaper that lives down my street goes up and down the street full throttle without any trailer attached six times per day and several more in the evening. I'm not sure if he believes it contributes to his manliness but the sound of that car is off the scale and should be outlawed.

I have to admit, while the US is technically richer I feel like the country is constantly plumbing the depths of decreasing livability for everyone else by insistence on things like gigantic trucks. The reality is that people usually aren't using them to haul big loads and in fact, due to how heavy the cars are themselves, actually are quite bad at hauling big loads. If challenged on why they need a vehicle of such size, of course suddenly they're hauling multiple tons around every evening.

It doesn't matter what they usually do. It just matters what they occasionally do. For hauling, or range, or number of passengers... people don't buy a vehicle that satisfies their average daily requirements. They buy one that satisfies all the requirements they expect to encounter.

It would make far more sense to spend less and simply rent for the 99th percentile use (which btw most people probably actually never use). The issue with these big trucks is severe negative externalities for other road users and pedestrians - if that didn't exist I would not care at all if people wasted money.

Also these big trucks have really sucky hauling capacity, it's actually a weird part about them that few people seem to note (and confirms my suspicion most people get them for other reasons).

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