Big Things in Small Packages: The Charm of Japan's Kei Truck | Hacker News Reader

Big Things in Small Packages: The Charm of Japan's Kei Truck

nippon.com

45 pointsrawgabbit18 comments

There are products that people like, products that people really enjoy, and there are products that owners evangelize. I'm not certain what pushes some goods over that final threshold — these things are in existing categories, the shortcomings are often as apparent as the strengths, etc. — but there's a certain je ne sais quoi that all the evangelized products have. In the US, the kei truck has that level of appreciation.

I work in marketing. It happens when a product aligns strongly with users' personal values and fosters an emotional bond with it. It becomes more than a practical solution, it’s part of the user’s identity and thus intertwines with their subjective feelings. That can lead to the formation of a community where users feel part of an exclusive club or a movement.

i think, at least in the US, there's the one-two punch of a full-size truck near-hegemony (blah blah, chicken tax, CAFE, etc, whatever) and that full-size trucks have gradually taken on a symbolic identifier of status, wealth, political affiliation, and what one might or might not value

your comment, to me, is the thing i picture happening to the oakley-clad calvin-peeing-on-something-sticker-having full size truck driver forming an emotional bond with their F-150 Tremor

and i'm not saying this same dynamic is not at work with people who buy Kei trucks, but rather it feels like there is some in-group out-group dynamics of classic truck ownership and what it can signify that might be accelerating the same identity or emotional interest in small trucks

It's exactly the same process, just stemming from different values and thus engendering emotional connections to different products.

The upcoming Toyota Hilux Champ is a modern alternative to the venerable Kei Truck.

https://www.motor1.com/news/701958/toyota-hilux-champ-cheap-...

I really hope Toyota brings it to the U.S. it will sell like hotcakes. I really like the modularity aspect the most.

The kei car or truck is a class of vehicles of a certain engine size in which owners don’t have to pay road tax in Japan. This includes Suzuki Jimny.

I don’t really see how one model of car can take on like 50 models of car ?

The champ looks larger than most kei cars anyway…so it’s a different class of vehicle.

Key word is “alternative” which is what I alluded to. It fits most of the use cases of the Kei class of vehicles and the price is really attractive.

I was also referring outside of the Japanese domestic market. Which the Hilux Champ is slated to be released.

It's "kei" not key:

Kei car is the smallest category of Japanese, expressway-legal motor vehicles. 'Kei' is diminutive for kei-jidōsha, (kanji: 軽自動車), "light automobile" or "compact automobile" (pronounced [keːdʑidoːɕa]).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Description

You must have misread:

*Key word* is “alternative” which is what I alluded to. It fits most of the use cases of the *Kei* class of vehicles and the price is really attractive.

The Telo Truck is more directly a modern take on getting the most truck into the smallest footprint: https://telotrucks.com/

Yeah, but that's an EV with a base price of $49,999, whereas the Hi-lux is around $10-12K. That's coming from someone who has been an all-EV household since 2017.

It will not be brought to the US because of safety regulations (no airbags, among other things) and the chicken truck tariff[1].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

Oh wow, that would do insanely well here.

Does anyone know if or where they are available in Europe?

Plenty of people export them, annoyingly for Japanese , this drives up the prices on second hand vehicles…what’s supposed to be a cheap inexpensive cars becomes a delicacy in the US lol

Just to warn you: A friend of mine has an imported (Daihatsu) Kei car, and the replacement part situation can be rough.

there are (were?) italian variants from piaggio

I remember many of them from germany. As small vans, for maybe 6 to 8 people. As delivery cars, used by handyman/tradespeople/landscapers/gardeners, utility/cleaner cars driving through parks, car-free downtown/CBD, and so on. Until about a decade ago.

Nowadays I'm only visiting, and the picture seems to have changed somehow, they are still there, but less so. Most recently grocery deliveries by http://picnic.de come to mind. Don't know which brand/model that car is, but it looks 'Kei' to me.

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