They’re doing it right now.
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But…
…it’s still a FORD.
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But conservatives are thralls to petroleum producers, so its not a concern for them.
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I can’t speak for anyone else, I know plenty of people who do see it as a luxury SUV and don’t get it, but in my case, I’m selling my house and becoming a full-time RVer next month. So the cab needs to hold me, my wife, our cat and dog, and 3 harps that need to be climate controlled on travel days, plus we need a ~12k lb towing capacity. That pretty much locks us into 3/4 ton truck territory. And it will be our only vehicle. (Note: In the US there are about a million full time RVers, though many are mostly stationary, as well as about 9 million other households that own RVs, most of which are towables (travel trailer or fifth wheel). Those are all people that need regular access to a truck whether or not it’s for work, and probably use it for regular driving too, because they already have it.
That said: it is really hard to find a non-luxury truck to buy these days on dealer lots. I had to go two trim levels higher than I wanted, because that’s what was available in a multi-hundred-mile radius
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Better MPG than the 2022 Corolla too, which is damn impressive for a truck, even if it is a small one by today’s standards.
Jalopnik put it well when they suggested not thinking of it as a truck, but more as a “small, affordable, do-anything family vehicle that gets great gas mileage.” It’s filling an important segment in the market that no other auto manufacturers in the US are serving right now.
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This thing is comparable in price and can tow something like 3,800 lbs. or you could just turn it into a camper.
(Range is a bit limited though)
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An electric NASCAR race would likely spur some innovations – do a 500 mile race with electric vehicles, and you have to come up with a technology for rapid modular battery swaps, since you can’t sit there and charge in the pit. Come up with something like that that could be commercialized for consumer use, and then you have cracked the road trip problem that most people use as an excuse. Make a battery pack you could just slide in and out of a car in the amount of time it takes to pump gas, and then we’re talking. Also, an SAE standard for a modular battery assembly would lower the prices and encourage continuous improvement to furnish ever-more-capacious battery modules. Kinda like AA NiMH.
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My dream vehicle would be a plug in hybrid El Camino, single row and small enough to parallel park easily. Perhaps with a fold flat lift gate for aerodynamics when not hauling.
Given the “must be prepared for anything” mindset of suburban truck owners, I am surprised plug in hybrid trucks didn’t appear before full electric. I guess they require more development time than full electric, but perhaps the dam is breaking.
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I work in renewable energy, and I’m no fan of fossil fuels. Having said that, this seems… normal? If a bakery is selling fewer donuts, they’ll make fewer donuts. Or is there more to the US version of the story I don’t know?
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When there is an over supply of crude - oil companies have taken refineries off line to artificially raise scarcity and prices.
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We all learned supply and demand in high school, and then later we learn about “supply” and demand crafted by the policy makers.
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The demand for gas is high now yet they are tapping the brakes on production trying to make up profits lost to Covid shutdowns. Shareholders are happy as they cash out and Wall Street is keeping the party going.
There is plenty of oil to go around even as Biden is releasing millions of barrels from the strategic reserve hoping to glut the market.
Will investors/stockholders be satisfied with their resulting profits and will oil and gas cartels turn the refineries up to 11 to reduce pump prices? We’ll see…
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Yep. The US is a net exporter of oil. Yet there’s no effect on price.
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I know a family with a small oil claim, no investors no debt, they all work for a living in other fields. When oil is cheap they simply shut it all down and wait for prices to rise again.
It sounds like how supply and demand works, why should a supplier be forced to produce something that is not earning it’s potential?
I’m guessing there are also tax loopholes to claim losses and such when they shut down. Reminds me of all the empty retail space (pre pandemic) that will sit vacant for years but yet still be too costly for a small business owner to lease.
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It’s value isn’t determined by the market? Well shut my mouth.
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8’ beds do exist, most people don’t get them because they want the extended cab
I guess that’s kind of my point. If someone wants the extended cab, and is willing to sacrifice bed length, then (IMO) what they really want is something other than a pickup. Like, maybe a big-ass Suburban or something.
The one defining thing about pickup trucks is the cargo bed, and to me, it’s the primary value add of a pickup. The bigger the bed, the better the truck. I really hate the direction the pickup market has taken over the last 40 years.
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Or - they want a pickup with that sized bed.
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Au contraire, high fossil fuel prices are an existential threat to our freedom and national security.
when the DNC is in the White House
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When oil prices are high: “Buy my planet-killing product or else!”
When oil prices are low: “Pay me to not extract my planet-killing product or else!”
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Or - maybe they actually want a big-ass Suburban, but they don’t want to be seen driving a SUV, because that’s somehow “embarrassing”.
So, instead they buy what amounts to a SUV with an embarrassing tiny little cargo bed. But, hey, the manufacturer says it’s a “pickup”, so it makes it OK.
