Part of the reason for that is that truck manufacturers have been gradually transitioning to focus on behemoth vehicles with larger standard cabin capacity and smaller standard bed capacity.
Americans have forgotten that the whole point of owning a pickup truck used to be for hauling shit around rather than showing everyone how manly they were.
They don’t look longer. Just that people want different things in their vehicles than 50 years ago.
I’m not interested in looking manly. Though pickups were always advertised as being manly - that’s not new.
Ranger - what I’m looking at - vs F150.
Exactly, like how they used to want the ability to haul around building supplies. Nowadays you need a so-called “long bed” to do that.
If the majority of the public wanted that - they would be selling more of them. People who think it’s manly to haul plywood but not to haul people aren’t as numerous.
That’s definitely been the trend, but electrification is now presenting a new opportunity that no auto manufacturers seem to be taking up: Cabover trucks that include both a large cab and a reasonably long bed. Everyone making electric trucks right now is going for big frunks that block visibility and extend the vehicle length, but they don’t have to. I think everyone is just afraid to try selling something with a radically different form factor.
(Edit to add: just to be clear, I think the the form factor of the cybertruck is terrible)
Well that diagram is grossly misleading because they switch from a standard cab long box to a king cab short box in the photo. You can still buy standard cab long box trucks, it’s just that people don’t. Which tells you that the short box does what most people need a truck for, and the four doors are nice. My Ridgeline is my first king cab short box truck, and I can say it’s really nice. Four doors is really great for carpooling, locking things up, etc. The rear seats fold up and you can put your bike inside. The box still holds a 4x8 sheet. It’s great.
Trucks have not gotten “worse” (cybertrash aside) for practical things there are just more options and people have voted with their wallets.
People still use king cab short box trucks for that, but now you can also actually bring the crew to the site at the same time. I don’t get all the hate for this format. It’s really practical and a great evolution of truck design.
They exist outside North America.
But are they electric pickup trucks, targeted for use as private vehicles?
I know that Canoo is working on one of those but as a startup I don’t know how likely it is that they ever reach mass production.
That’s the thing that has me hesitant, yeah. Plus the fact that it’s almost as ugly as the CT, but I’d deal with it if I could trust that I can get repairs in five years.
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