Plunging Pickup Truck Sales Threaten Detroit's Profit Engine
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Also car leases from 2021's COVID money are coming to the end. Not only dealers can't move anything but also people are going to have a "nice" surprise when they learn the value of their overpriced 2021 car is nowhere near what they imagined.
If you’ve been feeling pinched anywhere else, that’s going to make you reconsider if you’re one of the many pickup owners who bought it as a fashion accessory rather than for need:
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
That’s likely not the case, but I’m fairly certain the real world usage isn’t as bad as that seems.
I share the perception that pickups are underutilized but this quote really doesn’t support that belief.
Hence they'll stick with their current one so one less sale.
Trucks are fantastic vehicles if you can afford them, but a 7% rate on a new $80k truck is beyond most people right now.
It's an ego/narcissist thing mostly about being seen driving a bit vroom vroom.
Sounds like you're looking for a "work truck".
A lot of these $100K monstrosities only haul the owner's ego. They're too afraid to haul anything else in it --- it might get scratched.
But from the manufacturer's perspective --- why build a cheap truck if people will buy the monstrosity? There is a lot more profit to be made from it.
It used to be you could get something like a Chevy S10. It wasn't really a work truck, but a small truck for running errands without paying $100 at the pump. They don't seem to make any small trucks like that anymore. Even the supposedly Spartan work trucks are goliaths in terms of size and cost.
Why "everyone has to have one"?
I dare say that "everyone" really don't know --- but they still want one.
In other words, "everyone" has been brainwashed by marketing and peer pressure and convinced to ignore their own reality and buy something they don't really need and can't really afford.
And leading them like cattle to slaughter, the auto industry has been laughing all the way to the bank.
But reality is persistent and refuses to be ignored for too long.
Granted, their grandfather or great-grandfather was probably a farmer or blue collar or lived in a rural area that was off-road, so it may have made sense. However, most of my neighbors are all white collar, but still drive trucks because that's just what's done. It's absolutely ridiculous.
What a perfect example of why it’s called “toxic” - because it forces men today to make decisions that aren’t otherwise optimal to protect their perceived masculinity in the face of their peers and elders.
Maybe allow them agency and accept the possibility they want one?
The whole "I know a person's motivations better than they do" thing has gotten a bit out of hand.
This was phrasing I was responding to, why are you suggesting I was speaking more broadly?
Toxic masculinity may be a thing, but I see that brought up for what seems like everything now.
Are you sure you’re not the one overloading a term?
Ford ranger is Ford Maverick today
Both are under 30k, why do you think they aren’t selling and the ford f150 is? Gas mileage?
Time to check your rhetoric. Ford can't build the Maverick fast enough.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/ford-maverick-sales-jump-83-4-...
At least over here, the Maverick IS selling so well they can't keep them in stock, because... people can't afford an $80k-$120k truck.
Are ford et al ignoring demand for smaller trucks as you are suggesting, or does the data show a demand for ever larger trucks up until interest rates started dropping?
What’s the time it takes to spin up extra production of different product lines of trucks do you think?
This link seems to suggest the ford maverick is actually smaller than the ford ranger: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/06/08/ford-maverick-size-compa... perhaps this is a reaction to more recent demand for smaller trucks and trucks in foreign markets which generally prefer smaller vehicles
Seriously - a simple, inexpensive yet utilitarian Toyota?? Yes please.
But of course, they won't sell that in North America.
Based on what I've seen, UHaul will happy weld a trailer hitch to almost anything.
They're about ~30% more expensive when you don't have ZIRP and have ~7% interest instead.
So that's probably half of the plunge - the other half being people aren't getting stuffed to the brim with government handouts.
The number of close calls with the drivers of these vehicles is way too high. Doesn’t help state DMVs basically hand out licenses to anybody that can pass these useless tests.
Hope the entire industry comes crashing down tbh.
> “SUV buyers want to be able to take on street gangs with their vehicles and run them down”
This was in 2002 …
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911...
> The point of these explicit associations with violence was not to reflect a growing brutalisation of society, but to identify people the market researchers describe as “especially self-centred”.
Which would contradict my guess: They're actually going after self-centered buyers, not necessarily angry, belligerent ones.
And I’m confident that the vast majority of drivers in these own them for non-utility purposes
I haul a lot of dirt, hay, etc for gardening and drive a 1993 Ford Ranger. Even the new Rangers are twice as large (sits higher, taller, and wider) and the bed is 1-2 feet smaller. I just really don't understand the appeal from a usefulness perspective.
The second is far more common, they are pristine, as if they've just been valleted, they have 4 doors, and are often parked in the disabled space at the local shop.
Seems that these 4 door monstrosities "Ranger", "Warrior" etc, have major tax benefits. You can claim them as a working vehicle so your company pays for them, where paying for a typical car attracts benefit-in-kind taxation.
Most $100k are about signaling in the same way most $100k cars are...
The vehicle doesn't need to be useful (or have any utility) to signal.
But yeah only a small percentage people who buy trucks use them for truck purposes, it's mostly about making themselves feel a certain way by driving such a vehicle.
I also use it for towing trailers and moving fallen trees that I buck and split for firewood, which is something I don't want to do with a lighter framed vehicle. I don't know that I'd own one if I didn't do that, I suppose.
You would need to rollback safety standards to achieve this.
One of the reasons vehicles are so big now is to allow passengers to survive diagonal and side impacts and rollovers. If it was all front and back collisions then vehicles could get smaller again.
Or add new safety standards targeting people outside the car too (e.g. pedestrians and cyclists, or people in smaller cars) which can and do get crushed by modern monstrosities.
I also feel like modern vehicles lack of visibility causes a lot of accidents that aren't counted.
I have no evidence for either of these claims.
They also require more space for parking that simply places things further away and makes our cities less friendly for pedestrians and cyclists.
Oh, and they are melting glaciers and polluting our environment.
I drove trucks a lot, split my time between city home with Mom and rural home in the middle of farms with Dad. Lots of backing up open hauling trailers (dirt, rocks, furniture, lumber, whatever) and boat trailers. Modern trucks are so much less usable than they were 25 years ago. They’re not just expensive, they’re impractical. Why would I pay more to get less?
It’s past time to reform the CAFE standards to incentivize smaller trucks and slowly phase out the 25% “chicken tax” on imported trucks to let domestic manufacturers compete on design and quality.
I’m also very uncomfortable driving around with the giant blind spot in front of the truck. This did not used to be a problem with my old pickup trucks. Now you need front cameras in addition to backup cameras just to not run over your own kids!?
New trucks have some wonderful features but I don’t think theres any reason that smaller trucks couldn't have these too. These include higher towing capacity than in the past, 360 birds eye cameras, trailer back-up computer aid, apple carplay / android auto, excellent crash protection for passengers. Of those, the only two that size can affect are crash protection and towing capacity. I think you could still get most of the performance with a smaller truck that is more usable for 90% of the population.
Even neutralizing the CAFE standards to stop incentivizing bigger trucks would be a huge victory. Reducing the fuel economy target for larger vehicle footprints is one of the worst perverse incentives ever created. Not only are huge trucks emitting more carbon, but pedestrians are at much great risk of serious injury and death from tall grills and poor visibility.
The 2024 Ford Ranger is as big as least, as the 1996 F150, and with 30% more power depending on engine.
Perverse incentives with CAFE standards, and crash test requirements, encourage this bloat of weight. I would love a 2.3L turbo 4 cylinder in my old truck.
Edit: It is shockingly difficult to find statistics on imports as a % of US market size, if you want to filter out Canada+Mexico and also separate cars vs. trucks. Everything either lumps Canada+Mexico into "imports" or fails to differentiate cars (not subject to chicken tax) vs. trucks (subject to chicken tax).
“Objectively more usable” based on “payload/HP/torque” is missing a LOT of usability metrics and is not purely objective at all - the vast majority truck owners would get more utility from better ergonomics even if improving that cost up to 20% of their “payload/HP/torque”.
What you mean is “objectively more powerful”, not “objectively more usable”. Is a semi truck or Caterpillar 797F “objectively more usable” than an F-150 because they have “more payload, HP, torque”? Of course a semi truck is not objectively more usable than an F-150 - only objectively more powerful.
Many people need yesterday’s half-ton. Many people would benefit from lower ride height, not having to use a ladder to reach into the bed or climb into the seats. Being able to see children in front of the vehicle. But it’s not available.
Furthermore - when is the last time you shoveled one ton of sand/gravel/stone out of a pickup bed? It was a hell of a lot easier with a lower bed that I could reach farther into with a standard transfer shovel.
The market has signaled that it will pay obscene prices for a good truck. Maybe the reason we don’t have powerful trucks that can also be “good” (whatever that means–fuel efficient? less dangerous to pedestrians?) daily drivers is because it’s infeasible?
> Furthermore - when is the last time you shoveled one ton of sand/gravel/stone out of a pickup bed? It was a hell of a lot easier with a lower bed that I could reach farther into with a standard transfer shovel.
Last time I shoveled a ton of dirt from a pickup bed, I climbed up into the bed and shoveled it out from there.
Then I realized you can't fit an 8' 2x4 into an average pickup truck bed, where it fits perfectly fine into my Focus. WTF?
I've moved my motorcycle, industrial embroidery machine, lumber, tools, etc. all very comfortably. It might be nice to have more payload, but right now I dont need it, and very few people do.
The fact that Americans seem to have rejected them wholesale boggles the mind. Probably has to do with the "more is better" mind disease.
Or being over ab out 5'8"
Or being over about 40y old
Or any of a host of other factors
People can make whatever choices suit their desires and circumstances, but most people shouldn't pretend huge SUVs and trucks are a necessity.
I know europeans get away with much higher towing ratings on their sedans than American equivalents. I never could figure out if this was conspiracy in underrating American sedans to force sales of pickups, slight engineering upgrades specific to EU markets, or the fact that you just drive slower in Europe so there’s less stress on components allowing greater trailer weight.
The reason people aren’t buying pickups is because they’re vastly less convenient and more expensive to run than a regular car for the overwhelming majority of people.
Sometimes you can only get half the dream so you have to pick which side you start from.
> Harder to park
This is simply not a concern for much of the US where density is low, parking lots are huge, and street parking is a rarity. You can live your entire life in swathes of the country and never once need to parallel park.
> we more fuel
It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25.
> carry fewer people for the same size+weight (if you need a bigger vehicle).
Because of the previous two points, size+weight don't really directly matter much. If you've got the room for the size and the weight doesn't hurt the fuel economy much, then it's not much of a downside.
In return, you get a vehicle that can fit more people and more stuff.
I know it's fun to criticize truck owners as douchebag bros over-compensating, but, honestly, for many regions, the rationale behind owning them makes a lot of sense. If space and gas is cheap, a vehicle that gives you the status symbol and feel of a luxury sedan, the personal safety of a tank, the passenger capacity of a station wagon, and the storage capacity of a moving van.
I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road. They are a safety arms race. But people tend to prioritize their own safety first. I would never own one because I don't want to spend that much money or be attached to the kind of cultural associations they have, but if I lived in the 'burbs or a rural area, I would be tempted. They are fun to drive and can do a lot.
What about garages in homes? I've seen plenty of photos of massive trucks parked outside or sticking out because they cannot fit inside.
> It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25.
And a Ford Focus does 30-40 mpg depending on travel type. A Renault Clio does 47 mpg. Both can fit the same amount of people, just less cargo.
> I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road.
You're also forgetting the outsized impact on roads that everyone else pays for and the extra pollution everyone else is breathing.
> What about garages in homes?
In the suburbs in the US, it's common to have a large two-car driveway and deliberately not park in the garage so that the garage can be used for workshop space. (Personally, I would kill to have a garage big enough to have real woodworking gear and room for my kayaks.)
> And a Ford Focus does 30-40 mpg depending on travel type. A Renault Clio does 47 mpg.
Sure, and a moped has even better mileage. But the comment was about giant trucks in comparison to smaller ones. No one's going to take a family of five camping in the woods for a week in a Renault Clio.
There is a fair argument that truck owners rarely use the truck to its full capabilities. But I think that understates the psychological value of owning a vehicle that can do those things and that sometimes does.
We all know that it can be hard to find the activation energy to drive up in the mountains to hike, or go camping, or buy some lumber to start that DIY project. If doing any of those also means having to rent a vehicle, some of those experiences simply won't happen.
A vehicle that can do those things is a constant reminder to their owners to maybe live a little more.
> You're also forgetting the outsized impact on roads that everyone else pays for and the extra pollution everyone else is breathing.
I'm not forgetting it. I just think it's silly that people against huge trucks seem to completely overlook all of the real reasons why people like them.
It is a big difference, that maverick will require 4 gallons to go 100 miles, while the F150 3/4 of a gallon more. It means 19% more greenhouse gasses per mile.
Trucks don’t have a cool factor unless you already like trucks, normal cars - hell my decade old Prius C - handles “the dilapidated infrastructure of the modern city” with ease as well, and it can park easily as well! I’ve driven plenty of pickups (utes!), SUVs, vans, etc and honestly I find super squishy pickup suspension unpleasant, though in fairness that seems more a matter of US car design in general.
A small hatchback is better by pretty much every metric in my experience: you can carry loads of stuff - obviously not as much as a pickup could but I’ve needed that much haulage maybe once or twice times in the last five years - but it can also park easily, costs less to run, and can hold as many people as the majority of trucks.
I get that you like trucks, that’s really not a problem - it becomes a problem only if you’re going all in on BS like coal rolling and “masculine” driving - but you need to recognize that the overwhelming majority of the time a truck is not the right choice. As for SUVs as far as I can make out that’s just a combination of all the weaknesses of trucks and cars, with a side note pedestrian carnage.
In my observation and conversations with people, electric vehicles are associated with the brainiacs and luxury brands. There's a large portion of people that identify with the "blue collar" - they don't perceive EVs as aligning with their values. Some taglines from truck manufacturers: "Built Ford tough" "Guts. Glory. Ram." We might suspect that people buy these vehicles as a reflection of their male virtues.
I'd argue vehicle and home pricing increased to match the decreasing values of currency.
No amount of "Buy American" could hold back the tide.
Detroit keeps rug pulling themselves, decade after decade.
But "roll coal," amirite?
But.
This comes off as both elitist and is a terrible way to make change. The F-150 is the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 30 years for a good reason, and it’s not indoctrination, fragile male egos, advertising, or anything else. Trucks are versatile, flexible, and given how cheap oil is, most Americans don’t see a downside.
If you want less people to drive super sized trucks, we need to shift regulation, not shame/blame people driving the best vehicle for them. Rules tying vehicle size to fuel effiency standards, rules around GVWR (ime, regularly flouted!) and safe height would encourage mfgs to make the much lusted after 90s tacomas, rangers and colorados people love.
That said, in my opinion, many of the SUVs on the market now are in name only - they roll on a car chassis.
* https://insideevs.com/news/663595/byd-seagull-ev-priced-1140...
Interest rates will be above the historic normal for a generation. The era of huge trucks that guzzle fuel is over. We're in a similar situation as after the Oil Shock of the 1970s. Smaller, less expensive cars will become the normal.
Actually I feel like all of auto is in for a bit of a reckoning, the peak of the auto-car-buyers inflating the used car market has long since passed (RIP shift.com, I'll never forget you paying me over MSRP for my 3 year old car which I used to buy a brand new version of it).