US carmakers say proposed EU rules could block large pickup trucks from Europe | Hacker News Reader

US carmakers say proposed EU rules could block large pickup trucks from Europe

reuters.com

20 pointscomebhack30 comments

There is absolutely no reason for this cars to be available in Europe. The demand is so extremly low, that you couldn't even call it a niche in a niche. If there would be a market and demand, car importers would already have created a foothold for this cars in Europe. It's like arguing, no one buys surfboards in central sahara because of hostile regulations.

I will take a wild risk here and say that… it’s probably by design.

Yeah, it's pretty normal with automotive regulation to promote whatever domestic manufacturers make over imports. In the US, EPA regulations so heavily favored domestic trucks that that PT Cruiser was somewhat famously classified as a truck.

It is not only about domestic manufacturing.

The trend is that roads are becoming more dangerous in the US, with the cars being bigger as a major contributor.

People in US are fine with increasing casualties for some reason, and I’m glad that in EU the general consensus is to continue with keeping roads safer.

Might be road design. I think european roads are generally narrower than US roads which have 12' wide lanes. I remember the F-150 raptor was > 7' wide (without mirrors).

Our UK roads are not designed for oversized pickups.

Good. They’re fuel-inefficient, low visibility murder machines that do not belong in Europe, where city roads and parking spaces tend to be narrower. Not once in the last few years have I seen a pickup truck bed in use. Average number of occupants: one, male. And it’s always the same kind of person. Like with cybertruck owners, there’s an air of overcompensation. Where they’re not compensating, unfortunately: road taxes, where they’re taxed as a non-commercial vehicle, despite polluting and weighing as much as a small van, while being driven by some of the least road safety conscious, tailgating assholes I’ve encountered.

(/rant. Pickup trucks have a purpose, such as in low density rural areas. That’s not the case in Belgium, for instance. Either you need a van because it’s for work, or you rent a lightweight van on the few occasions you actually need to transport a lot of stuff.)

It's disgusting that they were ever allowed in the first place. Cars have extremely high externalities, the bare minimum is that people pay for them.

An EU directive implementing vehicle tax proportional to weight is urgent. Heavier cars pollute more, damage the road more, are much more dangerous for pedestrians and bicycles.

US: Makes personal city trucks larger to skirt US regulations

EU: Bans those trucks because they were created skirting regulations to the extreme

The trucks are fully conformant w/ EPA & FMVSS regs.

That you don't like how those have been implemented isn't the fault of a manufacturer.

The loophole is to classify them as “light” commercial vehicles.

I’m fine with that if US regulation was consistent with that commercial classification and they required a CDL to drive (and all the associated annual medical checks and zero BAC etc.)

If that consistency was there every manufacturer would immediately drop the commercial classification and figure out how to make their trucks satisfy the passenger classification in FMVSS.

>The loophole is to classify them as “light” commercial vehicles.

Not a loophole. There are (broadly) eight different FMCSA classifications; and a CDL is usually required only when the GVWR is at or over ...26,000lbs. Everything below that is medium or light duty. Heavy-duty is the upper end of class 6 (think school busses), class 7 ( garbage trucks & cement mixers ) and class 8 (18-wheel semis).

I know all that (I have a class A). That’s why I am calling out the inconsistency as a loophole.

One part of the regulatory/legislative system allows a vehicle to be classified as commercial (to get the benefits of looser regulation) but another part does not consider it a commercial vehicle (and it benefits from the looser regulations of a passenger vehicle).

Ah, I see.

Yes, there's too much ambiguity in the adjective 'commercial' used in multiple contexts in legislation.

If we cared about reducing road casualties, then objectively speaking, we should ban bikes. Roads are designed for cars (people in protective metal boxes with hundreds of sophisticated safety features).

Roads were never intended for people on flimsy two wheeled contraptions with nothing more than a polystyrene cap to protect them.

Seems about 5x as many pedestrians die on the roads than cyclists, so by that logic pedestrians are banned from roads too? No more pedestrian accessible roadside shops?

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-pedestrians-and-cycli...

7000 sales per year, come on. They are too big and unpractical for Europe.

And nothing of value was lost.

What's the point of these things? They're not useful for anything. They're horrible to drive, get through fuel like a burning oil well, can't tow, and can't carry anything.

If you need something to haul building materials around, get a van.

Can't tow and can't carry anything, "get a van". Yeah, vans are known for their amazing tow capacity.

It's what all the builders round here use. Full-size Ford Transit and if they need to carry more than about three tonnes, a trailer on the back.

One of the downsides to using a van for these heavy duty use cases (speaking from experience) is that they're typically not equipped with powerful enough engines. So you end up straining the engine when towing heavy loads, which reduces the life of it considerably.

Also for a lot of vehicles, a GVM/GCM upgrade is needed to be able to tow certain loads.

Not defending these large american trucks. I think there are valid use cases for them (in smaller bodies), but the majority of the ones I see driving around are just for peoples pleasure and not utility.

Not only the engine, but also the transmissions and suspensions on commercial vans in the US aren't rated for duty past a certain gross weight.

Well, not really. The biggest size Transits have a 2.4 or 3.2 litre diesel which will pull hell up a high wall.

Compare that to these pickups which have neither the power nor the grip to get out of their own way.

I am a landscaper and would absolutely not be able to do my job without a large truck. I agree that for most cases a truck is not needed, but some jobs simply require their use.

I see plenty of landscapers in Ireland with utility vans. What’s wrong with those?

(I’m not a landscaper, but they seem to pack in everything from hand tools to those petrol powered tiller & compacting tools)

Well, just from today, I had to have two trucks just to haul debris away from a job site (which we were both fuller that I'd like). Also something to consider, is that a lot of our work trucks double as snow plows in the winter, which is something a van absolutely can't do.

Ever try to hose out the back of a van after you've carried a 1/2 ton of manure in it? Or, say, a carcass or two from a feedlot?

In the US, a sizeable % of pickups are equipped w/ dump &&|| stake beds for precisely this type of work.

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