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Right the stereotyping here is ridiculous and full of out of control virtue signaling. If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. Bu

Right the stereotyping here is ridiculous and full of out of control virtue signaling. If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. But Even if you own just a reasonable suburban house with a small amount of land you need to do a lot of dirty truck type jobs every year. I only have half an acre of land, but due to tons of trees I have yard work every year that causes me to have to do many many trips to the compost center with my car (Outback) that could probably be accomplished in one trip if I had a truck. And almost without fail every year I have times where I have to make multiple trips so that I don't overload the cargo capacity of the car. Even a gas F-150 would use less gas to make these trips and save CO2. I couldn't see driving an F-150 to work solo commuting with gas as something I could ever stomach, I hate that my Subaru barely gets 20mpg doing that. But with electric I could see it. The ultimate joke would be someone driving a CUV that burns gas or even a hybrid and trying to virtue signal over someone with an electric pickup truck. Do I want to spend $50k on a Tesla Model Y and put yard waste inside it's luxury interior on a semi-regular basis? I'm not sure. Versus destroying a luxury EV an F-150 looks pretty cool. Bottom line you live in an apartment you don't need one of these, because you're paying someone else with a truck to take care of you. When you have to maintain property yourself you either start paying a contractor with a truck to do things for you or you start doing it yourself. When you do it yourself you start going down the slippery slope to wanting a truck.

Koshkin 5y ago
> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. There's nothing "ridiculous" about people loving their toys. (People often own things not because they need them, but because they want them.)
- ben7799 5y ago
  Different argument but I can support that. Point being people who live an apartment are far more likely to be buying a truck because they want it, and far less need for it for actual jobs & chores.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    Also, plenty of people use pickups for work (plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc) and there's no reason they might not live in an apartment. There's even a whole class of pickups for the people that find the occasional use but don't need the big ones, and want to fit easier in places designed for cars. The small pickup.
    - carabiner 5y ago
      Toyota has pivoted marketing for the Tacoma as an adventure vehicle rather than a work vehicle. It is awesome for that. Small enough to get around in a city, but big enough to fit four sets of skiing/climbing/backpacking gear. You don't have all that crap in the cab getting snagged on stuff or falling into the foot wells. No skis knocking my elbows while driving. I've had mine packed up to the ceiling of the camper shell. I used to live out of it. Now I usually spend 10-15 nights per year in it rather than getting a motel for $100/night.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >Toyota has pivoted marketing for the Tacoma as an adventure vehicle rather than a work vehicle. Toyota spends good money on market research. They know the difference between Tacoma buyers and Colorado buyers.
- ndespres 5y ago
  There's something worse than "ridiculous" for insisting on a toy that has so many drawbacks for the people around you while you're using it for your own enjoyment. It's selfish.
  - enjo 5y ago
    What are the drawbacks exactly?
    - kevincrane 5y ago
      They're basically custom-designed to kill pedestrians and bikers if you're not paying attention for one.
      - munificent 5y ago
        You're 5x more likely to kill a pedestrian in an urban area than a rural one, and 2x as likely to do so after 6:00pm. The relative risk of being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater) and is 0.96 for a heavy truck (in other words less likely than being killed by a car). Buses have a relative risk of 7.97. So living in a city and driving at night is custom-designed to kill pedestrians and selfish to do so. Encouraging public transit is even worse. Or you could just, you know, not turn this into a giant moral argument.
        kevincrane 5y ago
        Just to clarify, he asked for a downside of trucks, I said they're far more likely to kill pedestrians and bikers than normal-sized cars in the event the driver hits someone (which is true). And the next logical step is "we should all live in the farmland and not leave the house at night"?
        munificent 5y ago
        I think there's a difference between "One drawback is higher pedestrian fatality rates" and "They're basically custom-designed to kill pedestrians and bikers".
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  I drive an older "full size" SUV ('04 Ford Expedition), mainly because my parents' gave the thing to me when I graduated college. It's fairly easy to work on, so I kind of just keep the thing running. The fuel economy is very bad (like 17 mph highway, 11 in the city), but it's one of those situations where even if I bought a new car with double the fuel economy, it'd take me over a hundred thousand miles of driving to make up the cost difference in fuel savings alone. It's also really nice to be in a situation where literally everything I own can be moved with it. Strapped my box spring / bed frame to the top of it once.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Yeah, but often the toys people want are ridiculous.
ianai 5y ago
Have you considered renting a truck for a day or two around those events? I think the rate I’ve seen is like 20/day.
- ben7799 5y ago
  I have rented trucks and cars plenty.. it would be quite a bit of a hassle for a lot of these jobs though. The traveling back and forth to pick up the rental and then take it back would add significant time and require someone else to take me back and forth. $20/day would rent a truck like an F-150 plus extra costs for mileage. (not a big deal at all.) It's not necessarily worth it with my Outback, which is itself a large car that city folks would sneer at. But until this F-150 EV was introduced I was pretty much fully convinced I was buying a Tesla when my Outback needed to be replaced. Spending $40-50k on a Model Y vs one of these F-150s is a whole different scenario, that's all. Gas F-150 I'd feel like a jerk on my commute, EV F-150 I would not, I'd feel better than doing the same in my Subaru, and in many ways it would fit my use case better. My Outback was < $30k and it's 8 years old. Putting dirty stuff in the back of it is not the same as putting dirty stuff in a brand new Tesla.
  - ianai 5y ago
    Agree. Bigger vehicles going EV quells a huge portion of my resistance from owning one. The safety tests of these for pedestrians being better would further the point for me. It’ll be interesting to see those tests.
  - realreality 5y ago
    Using a huge EV to commute one person to an office is still a waste of energy.
    - shard 5y ago
      One thing I've noticed from doing WFH all this time during the pandemic is that I started noticing the inefficiencies of burning gasoline to move a one ton piece of metal to some store and do some minor thing like mail a package or buy some small items.
eldaisfish 5y ago
this is a weak argument on several levels. if you need to move things five times a year, rent a pickup truck. Unless you're moving things on the regular, there's no point owning a very inefficient and heavy vehicle.
- bluGill 5y ago
  You can't do that. You can rent a truck no problem, but a truck that you can actually use as a truck cannot be rented. They carefully check to ensure you didn't scratch any paint, and that means no hauling. There are work a rounds, but they are limited (home depot will rent a truck but the fine print is only to go from home depot to your house, no other trips). If you have a CDL you can rent a commercial truck that lets you work it. However for general purpose I need a truck to be a truck the average person can't rent.
  - ben7799 5y ago
    You can rent from U-haul and use it as an actual work truck no problem. I damaged a U-haul once and it was fine, it was all covered. We rented a U-haul this year and hauled about 2000lbs of stuff to the dump with it in one trip.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Home Depot et al also rent pickup trucks by the hour (something like $20) and they're quite capable and nobody checks the paint. As long as you bring it back and it's not on fire they're unlikely to care. You can even optimize by buying your own trailer so you can load and unload at your convenience, and only rent the truck to move the trailer - and trailers (even enclosed ones or dump ones) are significantly cheaper than trucks, and really only need tires as maintenance.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    I don’t know about your state, but here in WA you can rent a “commercial” big box truck from UHaul, Penske and others with no CDL. I rented a 26 feet box truck for my move and drove it around town just fine. They do care about damage, but they don’t consider scratches to be damage.
bluGill 5y ago
Depending on how you drive and what options you get (engine is the big one), the F150 may well get the same fuel mileage if you are barely getting 20mpg. Though the real answer is a truck for times when you need a truck, and bus/bike for everything else. Too bad transit in the US is in general horrible.
- nightski 5y ago
  I think if you are going to take an environmental stance all the city dwelling commuters (the ones who drive an hour+ each day) are the real offenders, Trucks or not. I'm considering buying a Truck, but I work from home and drive only a few thousand miles each year or less.
realreality 5y ago
The concept of “yard waste” that has to be exported in a vehicle should make you see a flaw in the system. Can you change your system to use trimmings on site or nearby?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway9870 5y ago
  There is not flaw in the system. Trees and large shrubs come down. Municipal compost sites have the space and equipment compost large amount of material that home owners can't deal with. The arrogance in this thread is unbelievable.
  - OminousWeapons 5y ago
    Its because environmentalism is quite literally a religion for a subset of users on this forum and they cannot believe that other people don't want to optimize their entire life around reducing their carbon footprint. The attitude in this thread is even more ridiculous considering that this is the exact sort of product which could bring EVs main steam (so you would think environmentalists would love it), but of course this vehicle is unacceptable because you aren't forced to make a whole series of quality of life compromises to use it like you are with a bike, public transportation, or an impractically small car.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Religion requires penance, and there's no penance in a non-believer buying a quality product that they like based solely on its merit per value. If someone's not buying their EV out of a sense of guilt (for the original sin that is exhaling CO2), then how are they supposed to exploit that guilt into other forms of behavioral modification?
    - realreality 5y ago
      People in the global south, who have a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of those in the north, are the first to be devastated by the climate and ecological crises, which they're least responsible for. If you're considering shopping for your next $40k monstrosity of a vehicle, try to take a broader perspective than your own short-term desires.
TheHypnotist 5y ago
I live in an apartment and am about to move to a house, I wish I had a truck right about now.
throwaway9870 5y ago
> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. Many tradesmen that don't get company vehicles like to own pickups because they can haul stuff for work and their jobsite. Some of those people might even live in apartments. Imagine that! The amount of arrogance on this site is ridiculous. Just because you might know how to hook up a NAND gate or write some javascript code doesn't mean you are qualified to decide what vehicle someone should own. Please just stop the judgemental posts.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  I live in a rural area. I personally know plenty of people that own truck that shouldn’t, and plenty that actually use them. Both sides are right. There’s a significant portion of the population that think trucks are “men’s vehicles,” even if they never actually use the bed. All of the dealerships around here (usually) have their front highway facing row all pickups and maybe one sports car.
blisterpeanuts 5y ago
>> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. Maybe better to say, if you live in an apartment complex, it can be difficult to keep a truck. There are a lot of people in the trades (carpentry, construction, etc.) who can't afford to own a standalone house.

Koshkin 5y ago

> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. There's nothing "ridiculous" about people loving their toys. (People often own things not because they need them, but because they want them.)

ben7799 5y ago
Different argument but I can support that. Point being people who live an apartment are far more likely to be buying a truck because they want it, and far less need for it for actual jobs & chores.
- kbenson 5y ago
  Also, plenty of people use pickups for work (plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc) and there's no reason they might not live in an apartment. There's even a whole class of pickups for the people that find the occasional use but don't need the big ones, and want to fit easier in places designed for cars. The small pickup.
  - carabiner 5y ago
    Toyota has pivoted marketing for the Tacoma as an adventure vehicle rather than a work vehicle. It is awesome for that. Small enough to get around in a city, but big enough to fit four sets of skiing/climbing/backpacking gear. You don't have all that crap in the cab getting snagged on stuff or falling into the foot wells. No skis knocking my elbows while driving. I've had mine packed up to the ceiling of the camper shell. I used to live out of it. Now I usually spend 10-15 nights per year in it rather than getting a motel for $100/night.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Toyota has pivoted marketing for the Tacoma as an adventure vehicle rather than a work vehicle. Toyota spends good money on market research. They know the difference between Tacoma buyers and Colorado buyers.
ndespres 5y ago
There's something worse than "ridiculous" for insisting on a toy that has so many drawbacks for the people around you while you're using it for your own enjoyment. It's selfish.
- enjo 5y ago
  What are the drawbacks exactly?
  - kevincrane 5y ago
    They're basically custom-designed to kill pedestrians and bikers if you're not paying attention for one.
    - munificent 5y ago
      You're 5x more likely to kill a pedestrian in an urban area than a rural one, and 2x as likely to do so after 6:00pm. The relative risk of being killed by a light truck compared to a car is only 1.45 (i.e. 45% greater) and is 0.96 for a heavy truck (in other words less likely than being killed by a car). Buses have a relative risk of 7.97. So living in a city and driving at night is custom-designed to kill pedestrians and selfish to do so. Encouraging public transit is even worse. Or you could just, you know, not turn this into a giant moral argument.
      - kevincrane 5y ago
        Just to clarify, he asked for a downside of trucks, I said they're far more likely to kill pedestrians and bikers than normal-sized cars in the event the driver hits someone (which is true). And the next logical step is "we should all live in the farmland and not leave the house at night"?
        munificent 5y ago
        I think there's a difference between "One drawback is higher pedestrian fatality rates" and "They're basically custom-designed to kill pedestrians and bikers".
Teknoman117 5y ago
I drive an older "full size" SUV ('04 Ford Expedition), mainly because my parents' gave the thing to me when I graduated college. It's fairly easy to work on, so I kind of just keep the thing running. The fuel economy is very bad (like 17 mph highway, 11 in the city), but it's one of those situations where even if I bought a new car with double the fuel economy, it'd take me over a hundred thousand miles of driving to make up the cost difference in fuel savings alone. It's also really nice to be in a situation where literally everything I own can be moved with it. Strapped my box spring / bed frame to the top of it once.
CRConrad 5y ago
Yeah, but often the toys people want are ridiculous.

ianai 5y ago

Have you considered renting a truck for a day or two around those events? I think the rate I’ve seen is like 20/day.

ben7799 5y ago
I have rented trucks and cars plenty.. it would be quite a bit of a hassle for a lot of these jobs though. The traveling back and forth to pick up the rental and then take it back would add significant time and require someone else to take me back and forth. $20/day would rent a truck like an F-150 plus extra costs for mileage. (not a big deal at all.) It's not necessarily worth it with my Outback, which is itself a large car that city folks would sneer at. But until this F-150 EV was introduced I was pretty much fully convinced I was buying a Tesla when my Outback needed to be replaced. Spending $40-50k on a Model Y vs one of these F-150s is a whole different scenario, that's all. Gas F-150 I'd feel like a jerk on my commute, EV F-150 I would not, I'd feel better than doing the same in my Subaru, and in many ways it would fit my use case better. My Outback was < $30k and it's 8 years old. Putting dirty stuff in the back of it is not the same as putting dirty stuff in a brand new Tesla.
- ianai 5y ago
  Agree. Bigger vehicles going EV quells a huge portion of my resistance from owning one. The safety tests of these for pedestrians being better would further the point for me. It’ll be interesting to see those tests.
- realreality 5y ago
  Using a huge EV to commute one person to an office is still a waste of energy.
  - shard 5y ago
    One thing I've noticed from doing WFH all this time during the pandemic is that I started noticing the inefficiencies of burning gasoline to move a one ton piece of metal to some store and do some minor thing like mail a package or buy some small items.

eldaisfish 5y ago

this is a weak argument on several levels. if you need to move things five times a year, rent a pickup truck. Unless you're moving things on the regular, there's no point owning a very inefficient and heavy vehicle.

bluGill 5y ago
You can't do that. You can rent a truck no problem, but a truck that you can actually use as a truck cannot be rented. They carefully check to ensure you didn't scratch any paint, and that means no hauling. There are work a rounds, but they are limited (home depot will rent a truck but the fine print is only to go from home depot to your house, no other trips). If you have a CDL you can rent a commercial truck that lets you work it. However for general purpose I need a truck to be a truck the average person can't rent.
- ben7799 5y ago
  You can rent from U-haul and use it as an actual work truck no problem. I damaged a U-haul once and it was fine, it was all covered. We rented a U-haul this year and hauled about 2000lbs of stuff to the dump with it in one trip.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Home Depot et al also rent pickup trucks by the hour (something like $20) and they're quite capable and nobody checks the paint. As long as you bring it back and it's not on fire they're unlikely to care. You can even optimize by buying your own trailer so you can load and unload at your convenience, and only rent the truck to move the trailer - and trailers (even enclosed ones or dump ones) are significantly cheaper than trucks, and really only need tires as maintenance.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  I don’t know about your state, but here in WA you can rent a “commercial” big box truck from UHaul, Penske and others with no CDL. I rented a 26 feet box truck for my move and drove it around town just fine. They do care about damage, but they don’t consider scratches to be damage.

bluGill 5y ago

Depending on how you drive and what options you get (engine is the big one), the F150 may well get the same fuel mileage if you are barely getting 20mpg. Though the real answer is a truck for times when you need a truck, and bus/bike for everything else. Too bad transit in the US is in general horrible.

nightski 5y ago
I think if you are going to take an environmental stance all the city dwelling commuters (the ones who drive an hour+ each day) are the real offenders, Trucks or not. I'm considering buying a Truck, but I work from home and drive only a few thousand miles each year or less.

realreality 5y ago

The concept of “yard waste” that has to be exported in a vehicle should make you see a flaw in the system. Can you change your system to use trimmings on site or nearby?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway9870 5y ago
There is not flaw in the system. Trees and large shrubs come down. Municipal compost sites have the space and equipment compost large amount of material that home owners can't deal with. The arrogance in this thread is unbelievable.
- OminousWeapons 5y ago
  Its because environmentalism is quite literally a religion for a subset of users on this forum and they cannot believe that other people don't want to optimize their entire life around reducing their carbon footprint. The attitude in this thread is even more ridiculous considering that this is the exact sort of product which could bring EVs main steam (so you would think environmentalists would love it), but of course this vehicle is unacceptable because you aren't forced to make a whole series of quality of life compromises to use it like you are with a bike, public transportation, or an impractically small car.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Religion requires penance, and there's no penance in a non-believer buying a quality product that they like based solely on its merit per value. If someone's not buying their EV out of a sense of guilt (for the original sin that is exhaling CO2), then how are they supposed to exploit that guilt into other forms of behavioral modification?
  - realreality 5y ago
    People in the global south, who have a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of those in the north, are the first to be devastated by the climate and ecological crises, which they're least responsible for. If you're considering shopping for your next $40k monstrosity of a vehicle, try to take a broader perspective than your own short-term desires.

TheHypnotist 5y ago

I live in an apartment and am about to move to a house, I wish I had a truck right about now.

throwaway9870 5y ago

> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. Many tradesmen that don't get company vehicles like to own pickups because they can haul stuff for work and their jobsite. Some of those people might even live in apartments. Imagine that! The amount of arrogance on this site is ridiculous. Just because you might know how to hook up a NAND gate or write some javascript code doesn't mean you are qualified to decide what vehicle someone should own. Please just stop the judgemental posts.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
I live in a rural area. I personally know plenty of people that own truck that shouldn’t, and plenty that actually use them. Both sides are right. There’s a significant portion of the population that think trucks are “men’s vehicles,” even if they never actually use the bed. All of the dealerships around here (usually) have their front highway facing row all pickups and maybe one sports car.

blisterpeanuts 5y ago

>> If you live in an apartment complex it's ridiculous to have a truck. Maybe better to say, if you live in an apartment complex, it can be difficult to keep a truck. There are a lot of people in the trades (carpentry, construction, etc.) who can't afford to own a standalone house.