If you ever find yourself tempted to buy a truck and/or SUV, just remember one thing: they’re not worth it. They’re a societal nuisance. They’re a massive pollutant. The maintenance, repair, and insurance will cost you a whole lot more. Aside from the aforementioned pollution, They’re overall environmental impact is egregious. These monstrosities are best left alone.
If you ever have to do any sort heavy work, rent one instead. Want to live that outdoors lifestyle? A sedan and/or hatchback will do. Just buy a bike and roof rack. Got a family? Again, sedan and/or hatchback will do but also consider a station wagon. Better yet, buy a cargo bike like the Urban Arrow or the Dutch bakfiets. These are way better options to those climate-changing abominations.
I know what I’m writing isn’t anything groundbreaking but I’m writing this mostly get something off my chest in relation to a dream I had last night. The dream itself was quite boring: I was driving around in a new Ford Bronco. The thing was that, in the dream, I was quite happy about it. This happy feeling was still felt when I woke up. For a brief moment, I was thinking about buying a Bronco. I soon returned to reality. But I’m not going to lie; the temptation was strong. The temptation was made stronger by nostalgia. I grew up with these kinds of vehicles. My dad worked in labor-intense, blue collar jobs that used trucks. He even owned some himself. But, once again, they’re not worth it.
Car manufacturers cheating fuel requirements. When I was younger I had a Ranger that is what I think you describe. It was an early 90s model. We had them at one point. Federal fuel efficiency standards gradually made it so that car makers had to make them more and more efficient, and ICE was just never going to get that efficient. Either by lobbying or whatever, the regulations made exceptions for larger trucks. Some people do need to pull trailers and haul big loads. So instead of trying to make an ICE achieve this standard they just made the trucks and SUVs bigger. Today’s ranger is nearly as big as the F150 and it’s bigger than an F150 from a few years ago. It’s just a bit narrower now.
What’s crazy to me is with them electrifying the F150 there’s a ton of demand for them to make a cheaper electric truck. An old ranger size truck on the MachE platform that could sell for $25-30k would be a wild success.