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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

> I know a lot of city kids think trucks are some obnoxious luxury good, but they're basically a functional requirement in most of the (very large) country.

A van is almost always a better choice if you're actually looking at functionality. Shielding from the elements is way more useful than some mythical ground clearance benefit that you will never use.

Sure, a very small number of people go offroad and need that clearance--however, the number is small relative to the number of people who could get away with a van.

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> some mythical ground clearance benefit that you will never use

Spoken like someone who hasn't lived past the suburbs.

I needed some plumbing work done last winter and had to hire someone new because my preferred plumber couldn't access my road with his van.

The lack of AWD/4x4, lack of ground clearance, inability to tow are all massive drawbacks for several lines of business. Tonneau or hard covers and enclosed trailers take care of shielding from the elements just fine.

That's not past the suburbs, that's a ridiculous outlier. Congratulations, you live somewhere without paved roads, which puts you at what, 0.00001% of all Americans? That's your argument?

Thank you for proving my point. 35% of all roads in America are unpaved:

https://highways.dot.gov/safety/other/unpaved-roads-safety-n...

Vermont, New Mexico and Colorado notably all have more than 70% of their road network unpaved. 80% of all tribal land roads are unpaved.

And now lets overlay the number of trucks vs population. Note where most of the total number of pickup trucks (not per capita--flat out total) are.

Hint: most of the trucks are NOT in the rural areas due to the fact that the rural areas, by definition, do not have that much population. Also, rural areas tend to have old beater cars because gas prices are an issue and pickup trucks generally get quite a bit worse gas mileage than a basic sedan.

The problem is that the vast majority of pickup trucks are, in fact, being sold in the suburbs which don't have any of the problems with having to go off of a road.

> some mythical ground clearance benefit

Maybe not where you live but there are many parts of the US where you really do want significant ground clearance regardless of vehicle type. The ubiquity of Subarus in several regions of the US isn't because people are fond of Subarus as an automotive brand.

High ground clearance isn't about "going offroad".

I live in a place where people drive either trucks or subarus. There are plenty of alternatives to subaru with high clearance (basically any small suv). People buy them because they work well in snow and well...everyone has them. Easy to sell, easy to get them worked on.

My Renault Master van has more ground clearance than anything Subaru offer.

My VW T5 van has as much ground clearance as the Subaru Forester / Outback.

Iowa has over 68,000 miles of gravel roads, something like 60% of the state's roads.

"Offroad" is 60% of the state 50+% of the year

This could be said anywhere with snow, by time the DOT repairs the frost heave after winter its winter again.

Packed gravel is not "offroad", it's just a normal, flat road. Snow makes no difference either, obviously. You'd need to have quite a lot of snowfall to make travel in a regular car hard to impossible.

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