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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.

Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.

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I would be willing to say that a small Japanese kei truck is more than the average American would ever need for hauling furnishings, appliances and lumber. If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap

Except most people also use trucks as daily driver vehicles. You can't exactly fit the wife and kids in a kei. Sure you could also own a car for that but now I need to own/store 2 vehicles instead of one.

Yeah let's not pretend every family with a truck only owns one vehicle. Most families already have a second car anyways. Especially people spending $60k+ on a truck.

That is my argument for EVs as well. One truck with an ICE for take the whole family on long trips, or towing. Then an EV for everyone else - whoever is making the long trip that day gets the truck.

Truck works well for those role because it can do so much. It isn't the best for most of those, but it can do them.

Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed.

Jokes aside I could purchase a new hatchback and a small old Kei truck for a fraction of the cost of something like an f150

>Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed.

Quieter than the other way around.

At least this way round its perfectly legal in some states

Daihatsu "Deck Van" is pretty rad.

I found out a couple of years ago that you cannot rent a vehicle and use it to tow. This is a major barrier to the argument "when you need to tow <X> just rent a vehicle that can do that" (an argument I would like to support).

I found this out recently as well, and it's really interesting since it must mean that a lot of these "just rent a truck when you need to tow" claims must have been unfounded.

https://www.enterprisetrucks.com/truckrental/en_US/towing.ht...

That's good to know.

However, the most likely place to rent a pickup from (U-Haul) does not allow this.

>If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap

It’s neither convenient nor cheap to rent a trailer in much of the US. Major cities have options, rural areas less so. Full disclosure I have a mid-sized pickup, but I recently looked into renting a trailer for a landscaping project that was above the weight limit for my truck. First issue I ran into was that there were not any trailers available for rent anywhere near my location. Second issue was that after factoring in driving distance + rental cost + dump fees, it was ~ the same price just to pay a junk company to haul the materials…and it was not cheap. Anecdotally, my pickup was cheaper than most other vehicle options at the time I bought it, my commute is short (so fuel economy is less an issue), and as a homeowner I use the bed to haul something at least once/month (Unfortunately kei trucks weren’t available at the time). So the cost/benefit/convenience factor of owning a truck over renting a trailer works for me. YMMV.

Yeah, I cannot speak for rural US as much, I live in a large metropolitan area, and I would estimate around 1/5th cars here are pickups. You can rent a truck from Home Depot for as low as $100 a day.

But you cannot tow with it. Just haul.

You can tow a trailer rented from them, but not your own trailer/boat/whatever.

I agree with you on the kei truck. They are pretty darn tough, and have so many uses.

However, they are TINY inside. If you are taller 6'1" and/or heavier than 200lbs, it is a tight squeeze, especially for anything longer than 30 minutes. The "average American" can't fit it a kei truck.

Also, the weird manliness of the average American man would make this truck unsuccessful, simply because it is too small. Which is hilarious, because some of the most resourceful, strongest, reliable and adventurous men I have met drive kei trucks.

I guess finally, the big highways with longhaul trucks and fast speeds are not so good in a k-truck.

>Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.

Any OEM will happily sell you a white vinyl floor half ton with your preferred cab/bed/engine/drivetrain configuration.

The GMC 4cyl 1500s were stupid cheap for awhile, because they shat out a bunch for CAFE and weren't selling so they were going for like 25-30k going into the new model year. I wanna say this was 2024 into 25, maybe 23 into 24, idk.

Ford Maverick seems to fit the bill for compact stuff though I suspect it may make the goalposts zip to "single cab option" and "body on frame"

The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any new US vehicle is.

The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en

I decide if a truck is utilitarian by whether I have to flag a 2x4x8 in the bed or not.

I can fit one of those into my Ford Fiesta with the hatch closed. :smh:

Closed and latched? I find that hard to believe (used to own an 80s Honda Civic which would allow "closed but not latched" for 4x8 sheet goods) ...

Yes, with room to spare. I assume the grandparent was referring to a stud, i.e. the nominal "2x4" that is 1.5x3.5inches in cross section and 8 feet long :-) Sadly I cannot fit 4x8 sheet goods though I haven't tried very hard. I can definitely fit them if I ask nicely for a lengthwise cut, so I end up with 2' wide 8' strips. Those I can fit and close the hatch.

Ford had a terrible but well packaging rear suspension design in those cars. It was designed to not have strut towers so he gets the full width which is probably around 4ft.

No way does the length check out though. I haul lumber in a similar size car and 8ft is basically trunk to dash so there's no way he's hauling an 8ft by 4ft sheet without it conflicting with the driver's seat if not torso.

Individual boards should fit in just about anything though.

I used to fairly often carry 2x4x8 and 4x4x8 in a Toyota Matrix (Corolla wagon) with the hatch closed. Couldn't do a full-width sheet of plywood, though.

I decide if you need to have a step on your bumper because the truck is too high to get anything in and out of it. Lowering my truck made it way easier to load and unload.

You don't have to flag stuff under 4ft of overhang in most states.

> There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.

What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian?

You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for opposite goals.

I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.

A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the bed from the side.

Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.

I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.

Yes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.

these trucks are still a thing; Toyota sells a 10k stripped down work truck for places like Thailand

https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10000...

wouldn't fly due to chicken tax + other safety and emissions. they plan on selling em in Mexico tho, so maybe we'll see some float up...

The most utilitarian truck is probably the Hilux champ and it’s not even sold in the US.

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