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Comment by taniks1618 | Hacker News Reader

I wish it was easy and simple to buy the Hilux in America. Many amazing foreign vehicles have been banned or heavily taxed by the Federal Government to prevent competition.

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Imagine how much nicer driving around in the suburbs would be if the majority of vehicles were town cars like Honda Fits, mini-mini-vans like Honda Freed, pre-2003 Tacomas, and kei trucks/vans instead of the usual mix of unreasonably tall and boxy crossovers/SUVs and brodozer trucks.

Well I don't think it would be that much different, truthfully. The problem of the suburbs is a matter of layout and zoning, not so much the vehicles used. If you fix the layout and zoning it'll naturally reduce vehicle size.

Would better zoning have a bigger impact? Of course.

But it would definitely make an impact. If you are driving a Honda fit, there is no distance at which you can’t see my kids.

In a ford f-150, the driver probably needs to be at least a dozen feet away to see my kids

Yea you're right about that. I didn't mean to imply otherwise though it seems I did.

I guess what I meant to say was, to actually solve this problem we also need structural changes so that even driving one of these vehicles in our cities is a bit uncomfortable and so that it's less common precisely because of the reason you specified and many more.

As we build and design better cities, people will naturally not want to buy such vehicles except if they have actual needs for them. I mean, you should be able to buy whatever you want. If you want a giant truck by all means go for it, but society shouldn't cater to edge cases, especially when they cause hazards like the one you described.

I think you probably know this because you used the US name for the car (internationally known as the Jazz), but for those who don’t, Honda discontinued the Fit in the US market due to poor sales. For every internet comment bemoaning the lack of these vehicles there’s the actual fact of revealed consumer preference in the US market.

Much of consumer preference doesn't originate from the consumers' own minds, though. It's shaped largely by marketing, and in the US car companies have been pushing bigger, boxier, more plush, and more expensive with its ad spend and incentives for decades now. It's way easier to find a dealership offering 0%-2% financing on some aircraft carrier of a vehicle than it is on a small car.

Americans' appetite for small cars seems to be linked pretty closely to the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline. Automakers always want to push more premium vehicles, because they make their margins selling to people with more money to buy more features, more space, more performance. The low end of the market is lower margin and you have to make up for it with volume.

When we hit another recession, we'll see smaller cars appear again.

Fuel coast only go up and never down. The market and politicians make it seem like it will go down but in the end it still rises slowly. This is something that most people cannot understand nor want to.

I drive a car and will never buy a truck or SUV because it allows me spend the least amount on fuel. It also allows me to see in front of the vehicle while making it easier to maneuver in tight spots.

American car culture is built on self projection not about functionality.

Great example of this are people who say they bought a truck so the can take home large items from a hardware store. Yet they only will do this less than ten times a year ... making renting a truck and owning a car more economical in the long run.

Evolution of the tuck bed being 60% and cap being 40% in the 1950s to cab being 60% and bed being 60% shows it is not even about functionality of a truck being a truck.

If I have to haul something, I will rent and not waste my time and money maintaining a large vehicle.

The real cost of fuel absolutely goes up and down. It has bounced back and forth between $2 and $6 of today's money for the past century.

If you're looking only at nominal figures, then what you're seeing is the inflation of the dollar, not the change in how much gasoline costs.

This is a roundabout way of saying Americans are willing to spend more money on bigger car because they like them better.

Aside from urban cores with limited parking and lots of narrow streets, it’s obvious that “bigger” means more utility regardless of marketing. You can fit more people and more stuff more comfortably (apparently people really prefer the spacious people room even above room for stuff). People are not being brainwashed by ads.

The current Hilux really isn't much different than a Tacoma to call it "amazing"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Upacara_...

The old Hilux that was on Top Gear hasn't been made for a quarter century.

It is vastly different. Different engine, gearbox, axles, brakes.

They share no parts.

Its payload is double, its fuel economy is way better. It’s way, way tougher.

I’m an Aussie living in Canada, I’ve driven many models of both extensively, family have them all.

They are both offered in a variety of configurations, and some parts are sometimes shared between the two. e.g. the 2TR-FE engine and AC60 transmission. Parts sharing is routine in the industry. The vast majority of parts on most vehicles are shared with other vehicles.

But yes, the Hilux is built to be a work truck, the Tacoma is built as a passenger vehicle that can do truck things.

Nobody in the history of ever bought a Hilux with a gas engine.

I’ve driven through 70 countries on five continents, I’ve never seen a non-diesel Hilux.

Even vehicles that are largely the same as those we get here are banned from being brought in. All because Mercedes didn't like being undercut by gray market imports and lobbied the government.

There's a similar thing currently going on in some parts of Europe, but the imported cars are for the Chinese market.

In one high-profile case a Berlin-based VW dealership was importing the VW ID.6, which is a model exclusive to China:

https://www.shop4ev.com/en/blogs/news/verkaufsverbot-id-6-bl...

America will become like East Germany and the Trabant.

And thanks to Trump's antics Detroit is losing the Mexican and Canadian markets...

Have you been to eastern Europe lately? That's an insult for them

The Hilux isn't "banned" from the USA. Toyota can federalize it and sell it here at any time. Toyota doesn't bring it here because we have the Tacoma - a truck designed to be more inline with American consumer tastes.

If Toyota wanted to, they could readily start manufacturing Hiluxes in Mexico and importing them into the USA. Presumably, the reason they don't do this is because Americans hate small pickup trucks. Every single truck on sale in the USDM sells better in larger footprint spec.

There's maybe 20k American who are willing to buy a new truck with the wheelbase the size of a Mustang (smallest Hilux). Even small BoF SUVs have the same problem. Take the FJ Cruiser, despite being a cult classic, it sold terribly in the USA, likely due to being too small.

Plus, they are expensive. In Australia, the cheapest non-work-spec Hilux trim is ~$55k - which is like $38kUSD. A Tacoma starts cheaper than that and is much larger.

They can't produce them here because of CAFE.

CAFE doesn't prevent them from producing or selling it here, plenty of automakers just pay CAFE fines. The Tacoma and Hilux are very similar in overall size, but the Tacoma does have the wheels pushed slightly closer to the corners, likely for this reason.

However, current CAFE fines are capped to a whopping $0.00

The Hilux is also pretty tall and narrow, which I am guessing is very advantageous in markets where most buyers drive them on unpaved roads, and not very advantageous in countries where highway rollover tests are performed and they are primarily operated on highways with 12' wide lanes.

Toyota must not think it is that amazing, else they would use their pickup factory in Texas to make Hilux's to sell here.

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