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Plunging Pickup Truck Sales Threaten Detroit's Profit Engine

36 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

1123581321 3y ago
https://archive.is/yH38z https://archive.is/yH38z
bilsbie 3y ago
They just overdid it with prices. They’d sell like hot cakes for under 40K.
- olliej 3y ago
  Why would “everyone” want a giant truck? Harder to park, we more fuel, carry fewer people for the same size+weight (if you need a bigger vehicle). The reason people aren’t buying pickups is because they’re vastly less convenient and more expensive to run than a regular car for the overwhelming majority of people.
  - koolba 3y ago
    The dream scenario for those people is to have the SUV / sedan and the oversized dualie diesel truck. Sometimes you can only get half the dream so you have to pick which side you start from.
    - jbm 3y ago
      (Don't let them know about minivans, they already have an years-long waiting list where I live...)
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    They’re a status symbol. It’s the same way that men don’t drink “girly” drinks. Men don’t drive Toyota Corollas. They drive trucks, minimum F-250, even if they never use the truck bed and actually work from home.
    - engineer_22 3y ago
      That's exactly what it is. Status. Most of the trucks sold to consumers will never see a construction site.
      - photonbeam 3y ago
        Hmm some EV manufacturers could start running ads to counter this perception. Make the trucks seem silly
        engineer_22 3y ago
        Or the opposite, make EVs seem cool :) In my observation and conversations with people, electric vehicles are associated with the brainiacs and luxury brands. There's a large portion of people that identify with the "blue collar" - they don't perceive EVs as aligning with their values. Some taglines from truck manufacturers: "Built Ford tough" "Guts. Glory. Ram." We might suspect that people buy these vehicles as a reflection of their male virtues.
    - cityofdelusion 3y ago
      Disagree, the modern man of 2024 isn’t that masculine, especially in the big cities where you see giant trucks everywhere. A good amount of women and wifes drive these as well. I think the modern truck replaced the station wagon of old as the default family hauler with big sofa like seats. There really isn’t anything else similar to the old comfy wagon, other than the minivan which is seen as uncool and unstylish. Trucks have a cool factor, comfort factor and ride over the dilapidated infrastructure of the modern city with ease.
      - olliej 3y ago
        That’s quite a definition of masculine you’ve got there. Trucks don’t have a cool factor unless you already like trucks, normal cars - hell my decade old Prius C - handles “the dilapidated infrastructure of the modern city” with ease as well, and it can park easily as well! I’ve driven plenty of pickups (utes!), SUVs, vans, etc and honestly I find super squishy pickup suspension unpleasant, though in fairness that seems more a matter of US car design in general. A small hatchback is better by pretty much every metric in my experience: you can carry loads of stuff - obviously not as much as a pickup could but I’ve needed that much haulage maybe once or twice times in the last five years - but it can also park easily, costs less to run, and can hold as many people as the majority of trucks. I get that you like trucks, that’s really not a problem - it becomes a problem only if you’re going all in on BS like coal rolling and “masculine” driving - but you need to recognize that the overwhelming majority of the time a truck is not the right choice. As for SUVs as far as I can make out that’s just a combination of all the weaknesses of trucks and cars, with a side note pedestrian carnage.
  - munificent 3y ago
    I don't like giant trucks either, but: > Harder to park This is simply not a concern for much of the US where density is low, parking lots are huge, and street parking is a rarity. You can live your entire life in swathes of the country and never once need to parallel park. > we more fuel It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25. > carry fewer people for the same size+weight (if you need a bigger vehicle). Because of the previous two points, size+weight don't really directly matter much. If you've got the room for the size and the weight doesn't hurt the fuel economy much, then it's not much of a downside. In return, you get a vehicle that can fit more people and more stuff. I know it's fun to criticize truck owners as douchebag bros over-compensating, but, honestly, for many regions, the rationale behind owning them makes a lot of sense. If space and gas is cheap, a vehicle that gives you the status symbol and feel of a luxury sedan, the personal safety of a tank, the passenger capacity of a station wagon, and the storage capacity of a moving van. I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road. They are a safety arms race. But people tend to prioritize their own safety first. I would never own one because I don't want to spend that much money or be attached to the kind of cultural associations they have, but if I lived in the 'burbs or a rural area, I would be tempted. They are fun to drive and can do a lot.
    - sofixa 3y ago
      > This is simply not a concern for much of the US where density is low, parking lots are huge, and street parking is a rarity. You can live your entire life in swathes of the country and never once need to parallel park. What about garages in homes? I've seen plenty of photos of massive trucks parked outside or sticking out because they cannot fit inside. > It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25. And a Ford Focus does 30-40 mpg depending on travel type. A Renault Clio does 47 mpg. Both can fit the same amount of people, just less cargo. > I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road. You're also forgetting the outsized impact on roads that everyone else pays for and the extra pollution everyone else is breathing.
- reaperman 3y ago
  It’s not just prices. I’m taller than 80% of Americans (6’0”) and I cannot effectively reach into the bed of a pickup truck. Used to be I could easily grab almost anything by reaching over the side or leaning on top of an opened tailgate. Now the trucks are so tall that the walls are higher than my armpit and the tailgate comes down to my nipples. I drove trucks a lot, split my time between city home with Mom and rural home in the middle of farms with Dad. Lots of backing up open hauling trailers (dirt, rocks, furniture, lumber, whatever) and boat trailers. Modern trucks are so much less usable than they were 25 years ago. They’re not just expensive, they’re impractical. Why would I pay more to get less? It’s past time to reform the CAFE standards to incentivize smaller trucks and slowly phase out the 25% “chicken tax” on imported trucks to let domestic manufacturers compete on design and quality. I’m also very uncomfortable driving around with the giant blind spot in front of the truck. This did not used to be a problem with my old pickup trucks. Now you need front cameras in addition to backup cameras just to not run over your own kids!? New trucks have some wonderful features but I don’t think theres any reason that smaller trucks couldn't have these too. These include higher towing capacity than in the past, 360 birds eye cameras, trailer back-up computer aid, apple carplay / android auto, excellent crash protection for passengers. Of those, the only two that size can affect are crash protection and towing capacity. I think you could still get most of the performance with a smaller truck that is more usable for 90% of the population.
  - xyst 3y ago
    Because insecurity issues. Obviously.
  - nurple 3y ago
    Agreed on the chicken tax. Man, I miss zooming around in my Toyota pickup.
  - foobarian 3y ago
    You know what else? I've been toying with the idea of getting a pickup truck because I often go to home improvement stores and do other light transport of common construction materials. I've been doing this with a hatchback Focus for ages now and it's been working OK, but I keep thinking all these pickup truck owners must know something I don't. Then I realized you can't fit an 8' 2x4 into an average pickup truck bed, where it fits perfectly fine into my Focus. WTF?
- rs999gti 3y ago
  > They just overdid it with prices. I'd argue vehicle and home pricing increased to match the decreasing values of currency.
baggy_trough 3y ago
You'd have to be mad to pay these prices.
PedroBatista 3y ago
What do you mean?! Americans don't want to keep buying $80K pickup-trucks? What is the world coming to.. Also car leases from 2021's COVID money are coming to the end. Not only dealers can't move anything but also people are going to have a "nice" surprise when they learn the value of their overpriced 2021 car is nowhere near what they imagined.
- nurple 3y ago
  Good point on the lease returns! I suspect they'll probably be quietly offering sweetheart deals for lease buyouts. They'd be stupid to let those vehicles hit the used market.
- acdha 3y ago
  Not just pandemic aid money but also loan rates - many people were making those luxury trucks and SUVs work by getting 5+ year loans under 4% but rates are over 7% now and that’s going to make a big difference in your monthly payments. If you’ve been feeling pinched anywhere else, that’s going to make you reconsider if you’re one of the many pickup owners who bought it as a fashion accessory rather than for need: > According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less. https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
  - ta1243 3y ago
    Personal loans in the UK are typically a fixed interest rate for the length of the loan -- I did some home improvements in 2021 and took a 7 year loan at 2%
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      The same is true for many auto and home loans in the US. The point, I think, is that you have much less purchasing power now that rates have gone up than before. Trucks are fantastic vehicles if you can afford them, but a 7% rate on a new $80k truck is beyond most people right now.
nurple 3y ago
Who would have thought that $120,000 vehicles would stay viable post-zirp? What did they think was going to happen once they saturated the market for predatory auto loans?
xyst 3y ago
Good. These things are absolute monstrosities and a menace to pedestrians and cyclists. The number of close calls with the drivers of these vehicles is way too high. Doesn’t help state DMVs basically hand out licenses to anybody that can pass these useless tests. Hope the entire industry comes crashing down tbh.
- kungfooey 3y ago
  This guy ties grill height directly to fatalities. They really are a menace, but it's by design. Quoth one designer, "I want it to look like a fist coming through the air." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I'm reminded of an article[1] a while back about trucks getting bigger where a commenter pointed out they are also getting "meaner" looking. I'd argue that maybe aggressive, belligerent, menacing truck styling is popular because [some] Americans themselves are getting more aggressive, belligerent and menacing. Vehicles have traditionally been used by people as personality extensions, so this "My truck should be like a big fist" attitude shouldn't be surprising. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425028
    - xyst 3y ago
      Look at the “Market researching” section: > “SUV buyers want to be able to take on street gangs with their vehicles and run them down” This was in 2002 … https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911b51/t/6065dbeb73734b58372d797b/1617288180453 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911...
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        Fascinating. An interesting part of that document: > The point of these explicit associations with violence was not to reflect a growing brutalisation of society, but to identify people the market researchers describe as “especially self-centred”. Which would contradict my guess: They're actually going after self-centered buyers, not necessarily angry, belligerent ones.
nawgz 3y ago
There's a ridiculous number of these vehicles on the road but only a certain amount of chavs that really exist to buy them, can't say I'm shocked. Actually I feel like all of auto is in for a bit of a reckoning, the peak of the auto-car-buyers inflating the used car market has long since passed (RIP shift.com, I'll never forget you paying me over MSRP for my 3 year old car which I used to buy a brand new version of it).
kungfooey 3y ago
I hope those trucks become white elephants. I haul a lot of dirt, hay, etc for gardening and drive a 1993 Ford Ranger. Even the new Rangers are twice as large (sits higher, taller, and wider) and the bed is 1-2 feet smaller. I just really don't understand the appeal from a usefulness perspective.
- recursivedoubts 3y ago
  1981 Toyota Pickup/HiLux was the peak
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    My father has an 83 that's been used as a hunting truck for the past 40 years. I'm convinced that truck caused toyota to go back to the drawing board and redesign for planned obsolescence.
    - recursivedoubts 3y ago
      my rage is immense and my day is ruined
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  That's officially a classic car now, soon it may be worth quite a bit. But yeah only a small percentage people who buy trucks use them for truck purposes, it's mostly about making themselves feel a certain way by driving such a vehicle.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    They are extremely comfortable to ride in. I struggle with 90+ percent of sedans and crossovers because I have to slouch just to see out the front of the car. I also use it for towing trailers and moving fallen trees that I buck and split for firewood, which is something I don't want to do with a lighter framed vehicle. I don't know that I'd own one if I didn't do that, I suppose.
laweijfmvo 3y ago
I'm sure we'll bail them out and blame the ~consumer~ "economy" for their (literally, in Ford's case) abandoning all non-Trucks.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  I was surprised by this comment, I thought "surely, Ford still makes a sedan", but no, the closest you get is their lineup of cross-over SUVs and mustangs. That said, in my opinion, many of the SUVs on the market now are in name only - they roll on a car chassis. https://www.ford.com/ https://www.ford.com/
darth_avocado 3y ago
Another item in the list of “only exists because ZIRP”. My 2020 auto loan is nearly 0%. Today, the rates are 5-6% if you have good credit. That’s almost another 10-20k added on top considering the average auto loan length has gone to almost 70 months. Not a lot of people can afford that.
PeterCorless 3y ago
I am old enough to remember the OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s when Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles getting 10-12 mpg were surprisingly, shockingly, suddenly unpopular when you could get a Toyota or a Honda that gave you 30+ mpg. In 1975, a new Cadillac El Dorado would cost >$10,000. A basic Corolla would run around $2,700. No amount of "Buy American" could hold back the tide. Detroit keeps rug pulling themselves, decade after decade. But "roll coal," amirite?
- sofixa 3y ago
  To be fair, one of the big 3 in Detroit is a European company (Stellantis, the result of the merger of Fiat-Chrysler and Peugeot, Citroen, Opel) so "buy American" hardly applies to them - a Toyota manufactured in Texas is just as American as a Ram manufactured in Detroit.
outside1234 3y ago
It would not surprise me if GM goes bankrupt within 7 years - this company has bet in all of the wrong directions.
- warrenm 3y ago
  They should have gone bankrupt 16 years ago ... but they were "too big to fail"
outside1234 3y ago
And BYD is knocking on the door* with their $10k car. Just all around bad news for all of Detroit's car makers. * https://insideevs.com/news/663595/byd-seagull-ev-priced-11400-usd-gets-10000-orders-first-day/ https://insideevs.com/news/663595/byd-seagull-ev-priced-1140...
recursivedoubts 3y ago
Modern trucks (an all vehicles, tbh, even electric) need a massive size & complexity reset. There should be 1980's sized pickups available with good visibility via reduced pillar sizes.
- rs999gti 3y ago
  > Modern trucks (an all vehicles, tbh, even electric) need a massive size & complexity reset You would need to rollback safety standards to achieve this. One of the reasons vehicles are so big now is to allow passengers to survive diagonal and side impacts and rollovers. If it was all front and back collisions then vehicles could get smaller again.
  - recursivedoubts 3y ago
    I feel like there's gotta be a way. I also feel like modern vehicles lack of visibility causes a lot of accidents that aren't counted. I have no evidence for either of these claims.
  - Lance_ET_Compte 3y ago
    These huge vehicles are deadly to pedestrians and cyclists. They also require more space for parking that simply places things further away and makes our cities less friendly for pedestrians and cyclists. Oh, and they are melting glaciers and polluting our environment.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > You would need to rollback safety standards to achieve this. Or add new safety standards targeting people outside the car too (e.g. pedestrians and cyclists, or people in smaller cars) which can and do get crushed by modern monstrosities.
- warrenm 3y ago
  It's EPA regs that push size increases
Hasz 3y ago
I love these threads, because invariably you get dozens of people claiming that the majority of Americans don’t need a truck, are compensating for a small penis, etc etc. they always bring out a ton of vitriol. They might be right! But. This comes off as both elitist and is a terrible way to make change. The F-150 is the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 30 years for a good reason, and it’s not indoctrination, fragile male egos, advertising, or anything else. Trucks are versatile, flexible, and given how cheap oil is, most Americans don’t see a downside. If you want less people to drive super sized trucks, we need to shift regulation, not shame/blame people driving the best vehicle for them. Rules tying vehicle size to fuel effiency standards, rules around GVWR (ime, regularly flouted!) and safe height would encourage mfgs to make the much lusted after 90s tacomas, rangers and colorados people love.
xnx 3y ago
Good overview of auto loan delinquencies (2 months old): https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/auto-loan-delinquency-revs-up-as-car-prices-stress-budgets/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/auto-l...
maxglute 3y ago
I wish they sold 13k Hilux Champs, spending 20k on customization.
mikewarot 3y ago
If you listen to Peter Zeihan at all, you know this was all predictable 20+ years ago, all you had to do is look at US demographics. Now that us boomers are retiring or like me, were yeeted out of the labor market due to long covid... our risk appetite has dropped to zero, and we're tightening our belts as much as we can. Interest rates will be above the historic normal for a generation. The era of huge trucks that guzzle fuel is over. We're in a similar situation as after the Oil Shock of the 1970s. Smaller, less expensive cars will become the normal.

36 points by mfiguiere 3y ago

1123581321 3y ago

https://archive.is/yH38z https://archive.is/yH38z

bilsbie 3y ago

They just overdid it with prices. They’d sell like hot cakes for under 40K.

olliej 3y ago
Why would “everyone” want a giant truck? Harder to park, we more fuel, carry fewer people for the same size+weight (if you need a bigger vehicle). The reason people aren’t buying pickups is because they’re vastly less convenient and more expensive to run than a regular car for the overwhelming majority of people.
- koolba 3y ago
  The dream scenario for those people is to have the SUV / sedan and the oversized dualie diesel truck. Sometimes you can only get half the dream so you have to pick which side you start from.
  - jbm 3y ago
    (Don't let them know about minivans, they already have an years-long waiting list where I live...)
- jimbob45 3y ago
  They’re a status symbol. It’s the same way that men don’t drink “girly” drinks. Men don’t drive Toyota Corollas. They drive trucks, minimum F-250, even if they never use the truck bed and actually work from home.
  - engineer_22 3y ago
    That's exactly what it is. Status. Most of the trucks sold to consumers will never see a construction site.
    - photonbeam 3y ago
      Hmm some EV manufacturers could start running ads to counter this perception. Make the trucks seem silly
      - engineer_22 3y ago
        Or the opposite, make EVs seem cool :) In my observation and conversations with people, electric vehicles are associated with the brainiacs and luxury brands. There's a large portion of people that identify with the "blue collar" - they don't perceive EVs as aligning with their values. Some taglines from truck manufacturers: "Built Ford tough" "Guts. Glory. Ram." We might suspect that people buy these vehicles as a reflection of their male virtues.
  - cityofdelusion 3y ago
    Disagree, the modern man of 2024 isn’t that masculine, especially in the big cities where you see giant trucks everywhere. A good amount of women and wifes drive these as well. I think the modern truck replaced the station wagon of old as the default family hauler with big sofa like seats. There really isn’t anything else similar to the old comfy wagon, other than the minivan which is seen as uncool and unstylish. Trucks have a cool factor, comfort factor and ride over the dilapidated infrastructure of the modern city with ease.
    - olliej 3y ago
      That’s quite a definition of masculine you’ve got there. Trucks don’t have a cool factor unless you already like trucks, normal cars - hell my decade old Prius C - handles “the dilapidated infrastructure of the modern city” with ease as well, and it can park easily as well! I’ve driven plenty of pickups (utes!), SUVs, vans, etc and honestly I find super squishy pickup suspension unpleasant, though in fairness that seems more a matter of US car design in general. A small hatchback is better by pretty much every metric in my experience: you can carry loads of stuff - obviously not as much as a pickup could but I’ve needed that much haulage maybe once or twice times in the last five years - but it can also park easily, costs less to run, and can hold as many people as the majority of trucks. I get that you like trucks, that’s really not a problem - it becomes a problem only if you’re going all in on BS like coal rolling and “masculine” driving - but you need to recognize that the overwhelming majority of the time a truck is not the right choice. As for SUVs as far as I can make out that’s just a combination of all the weaknesses of trucks and cars, with a side note pedestrian carnage.
- munificent 3y ago
  I don't like giant trucks either, but: > Harder to park This is simply not a concern for much of the US where density is low, parking lots are huge, and street parking is a rarity. You can live your entire life in swathes of the country and never once need to parallel park. > we more fuel It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25. > carry fewer people for the same size+weight (if you need a bigger vehicle). Because of the previous two points, size+weight don't really directly matter much. If you've got the room for the size and the weight doesn't hurt the fuel economy much, then it's not much of a downside. In return, you get a vehicle that can fit more people and more stuff. I know it's fun to criticize truck owners as douchebag bros over-compensating, but, honestly, for many regions, the rationale behind owning them makes a lot of sense. If space and gas is cheap, a vehicle that gives you the status symbol and feel of a luxury sedan, the personal safety of a tank, the passenger capacity of a station wagon, and the storage capacity of a moving van. I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road. They are a safety arms race. But people tend to prioritize their own safety first. I would never own one because I don't want to spend that much money or be attached to the kind of cultural associations they have, but if I lived in the 'burbs or a rural area, I would be tempted. They are fun to drive and can do a lot.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > This is simply not a concern for much of the US where density is low, parking lots are huge, and street parking is a rarity. You can live your entire life in swathes of the country and never once need to parallel park. What about garages in homes? I've seen plenty of photos of massive trucks parked outside or sticking out because they cannot fit inside. > It's not as big a difference as you might imagine. The widely criticized big Ford F-150 gets 21 MPG combined and a smaller Maverick gets 25. And a Ford Focus does 30-40 mpg depending on travel type. A Renault Clio does 47 mpg. Both can fit the same amount of people, just less cargo. > I think they're bad for the world because they make passengers safer at the expense of everyone else on the road. You're also forgetting the outsized impact on roads that everyone else pays for and the extra pollution everyone else is breathing.
reaperman 3y ago
It’s not just prices. I’m taller than 80% of Americans (6’0”) and I cannot effectively reach into the bed of a pickup truck. Used to be I could easily grab almost anything by reaching over the side or leaning on top of an opened tailgate. Now the trucks are so tall that the walls are higher than my armpit and the tailgate comes down to my nipples. I drove trucks a lot, split my time between city home with Mom and rural home in the middle of farms with Dad. Lots of backing up open hauling trailers (dirt, rocks, furniture, lumber, whatever) and boat trailers. Modern trucks are so much less usable than they were 25 years ago. They’re not just expensive, they’re impractical. Why would I pay more to get less? It’s past time to reform the CAFE standards to incentivize smaller trucks and slowly phase out the 25% “chicken tax” on imported trucks to let domestic manufacturers compete on design and quality. I’m also very uncomfortable driving around with the giant blind spot in front of the truck. This did not used to be a problem with my old pickup trucks. Now you need front cameras in addition to backup cameras just to not run over your own kids!? New trucks have some wonderful features but I don’t think theres any reason that smaller trucks couldn't have these too. These include higher towing capacity than in the past, 360 birds eye cameras, trailer back-up computer aid, apple carplay / android auto, excellent crash protection for passengers. Of those, the only two that size can affect are crash protection and towing capacity. I think you could still get most of the performance with a smaller truck that is more usable for 90% of the population.
- xyst 3y ago
  Because insecurity issues. Obviously.
- nurple 3y ago
  Agreed on the chicken tax. Man, I miss zooming around in my Toyota pickup.
- foobarian 3y ago
  You know what else? I've been toying with the idea of getting a pickup truck because I often go to home improvement stores and do other light transport of common construction materials. I've been doing this with a hatchback Focus for ages now and it's been working OK, but I keep thinking all these pickup truck owners must know something I don't. Then I realized you can't fit an 8' 2x4 into an average pickup truck bed, where it fits perfectly fine into my Focus. WTF?
rs999gti 3y ago
> They just overdid it with prices. I'd argue vehicle and home pricing increased to match the decreasing values of currency.

baggy_trough 3y ago

You'd have to be mad to pay these prices.

PedroBatista 3y ago

What do you mean?! Americans don't want to keep buying $80K pickup-trucks? What is the world coming to.. Also car leases from 2021's COVID money are coming to the end. Not only dealers can't move anything but also people are going to have a "nice" surprise when they learn the value of their overpriced 2021 car is nowhere near what they imagined.

nurple 3y ago
Good point on the lease returns! I suspect they'll probably be quietly offering sweetheart deals for lease buyouts. They'd be stupid to let those vehicles hit the used market.
acdha 3y ago
Not just pandemic aid money but also loan rates - many people were making those luxury trucks and SUVs work by getting 5+ year loans under 4% but rates are over 7% now and that’s going to make a big difference in your monthly payments. If you’ve been feeling pinched anywhere else, that’s going to make you reconsider if you’re one of the many pickup owners who bought it as a fashion accessory rather than for need: > According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less. https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
- ta1243 3y ago
  Personal loans in the UK are typically a fixed interest rate for the length of the loan -- I did some home improvements in 2021 and took a 7 year loan at 2%
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    The same is true for many auto and home loans in the US. The point, I think, is that you have much less purchasing power now that rates have gone up than before. Trucks are fantastic vehicles if you can afford them, but a 7% rate on a new $80k truck is beyond most people right now.

nurple 3y ago

Who would have thought that $120,000 vehicles would stay viable post-zirp? What did they think was going to happen once they saturated the market for predatory auto loans?

xyst 3y ago

Good. These things are absolute monstrosities and a menace to pedestrians and cyclists. The number of close calls with the drivers of these vehicles is way too high. Doesn’t help state DMVs basically hand out licenses to anybody that can pass these useless tests. Hope the entire industry comes crashing down tbh.

kungfooey 3y ago
This guy ties grill height directly to fatalities. They really are a menace, but it's by design. Quoth one designer, "I want it to look like a fist coming through the air." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I'm reminded of an article[1] a while back about trucks getting bigger where a commenter pointed out they are also getting "meaner" looking. I'd argue that maybe aggressive, belligerent, menacing truck styling is popular because [some] Americans themselves are getting more aggressive, belligerent and menacing. Vehicles have traditionally been used by people as personality extensions, so this "My truck should be like a big fist" attitude shouldn't be surprising. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425028
  - xyst 3y ago
    Look at the “Market researching” section: > “SUV buyers want to be able to take on street gangs with their vehicles and run them down” This was in 2002 … https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911b51/t/6065dbeb73734b58372d797b/1617288180453 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ebd0080238e863d04911...
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Fascinating. An interesting part of that document: > The point of these explicit associations with violence was not to reflect a growing brutalisation of society, but to identify people the market researchers describe as “especially self-centred”. Which would contradict my guess: They're actually going after self-centered buyers, not necessarily angry, belligerent ones.

nawgz 3y ago

There's a ridiculous number of these vehicles on the road but only a certain amount of chavs that really exist to buy them, can't say I'm shocked. Actually I feel like all of auto is in for a bit of a reckoning, the peak of the auto-car-buyers inflating the used car market has long since passed (RIP shift.com, I'll never forget you paying me over MSRP for my 3 year old car which I used to buy a brand new version of it).

kungfooey 3y ago

I hope those trucks become white elephants. I haul a lot of dirt, hay, etc for gardening and drive a 1993 Ford Ranger. Even the new Rangers are twice as large (sits higher, taller, and wider) and the bed is 1-2 feet smaller. I just really don't understand the appeal from a usefulness perspective.

recursivedoubts 3y ago
1981 Toyota Pickup/HiLux was the peak
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  My father has an 83 that's been used as a hunting truck for the past 40 years. I'm convinced that truck caused toyota to go back to the drawing board and redesign for planned obsolescence.
  - recursivedoubts 3y ago
    my rage is immense and my day is ruined
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
That's officially a classic car now, soon it may be worth quite a bit. But yeah only a small percentage people who buy trucks use them for truck purposes, it's mostly about making themselves feel a certain way by driving such a vehicle.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  They are extremely comfortable to ride in. I struggle with 90+ percent of sedans and crossovers because I have to slouch just to see out the front of the car. I also use it for towing trailers and moving fallen trees that I buck and split for firewood, which is something I don't want to do with a lighter framed vehicle. I don't know that I'd own one if I didn't do that, I suppose.

laweijfmvo 3y ago

I'm sure we'll bail them out and blame the ~consumer~ "economy" for their (literally, in Ford's case) abandoning all non-Trucks.

engineer_22 3y ago
I was surprised by this comment, I thought "surely, Ford still makes a sedan", but no, the closest you get is their lineup of cross-over SUVs and mustangs. That said, in my opinion, many of the SUVs on the market now are in name only - they roll on a car chassis. https://www.ford.com/ https://www.ford.com/

darth_avocado 3y ago

Another item in the list of “only exists because ZIRP”. My 2020 auto loan is nearly 0%. Today, the rates are 5-6% if you have good credit. That’s almost another 10-20k added on top considering the average auto loan length has gone to almost 70 months. Not a lot of people can afford that.

PeterCorless 3y ago

I am old enough to remember the OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s when Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles getting 10-12 mpg were surprisingly, shockingly, suddenly unpopular when you could get a Toyota or a Honda that gave you 30+ mpg. In 1975, a new Cadillac El Dorado would cost >$10,000. A basic Corolla would run around $2,700. No amount of "Buy American" could hold back the tide. Detroit keeps rug pulling themselves, decade after decade. But "roll coal," amirite?

sofixa 3y ago
To be fair, one of the big 3 in Detroit is a European company (Stellantis, the result of the merger of Fiat-Chrysler and Peugeot, Citroen, Opel) so "buy American" hardly applies to them - a Toyota manufactured in Texas is just as American as a Ram manufactured in Detroit.

outside1234 3y ago

It would not surprise me if GM goes bankrupt within 7 years - this company has bet in all of the wrong directions.

warrenm 3y ago
They should have gone bankrupt 16 years ago ... but they were "too big to fail"

outside1234 3y ago

And BYD is knocking on the door* with their $10k car. Just all around bad news for all of Detroit's car makers. * https://insideevs.com/news/663595/byd-seagull-ev-priced-11400-usd-gets-10000-orders-first-day/ https://insideevs.com/news/663595/byd-seagull-ev-priced-1140...

recursivedoubts 3y ago

Modern trucks (an all vehicles, tbh, even electric) need a massive size & complexity reset. There should be 1980's sized pickups available with good visibility via reduced pillar sizes.

rs999gti 3y ago
> Modern trucks (an all vehicles, tbh, even electric) need a massive size & complexity reset You would need to rollback safety standards to achieve this. One of the reasons vehicles are so big now is to allow passengers to survive diagonal and side impacts and rollovers. If it was all front and back collisions then vehicles could get smaller again.
- recursivedoubts 3y ago
  I feel like there's gotta be a way. I also feel like modern vehicles lack of visibility causes a lot of accidents that aren't counted. I have no evidence for either of these claims.
- Lance_ET_Compte 3y ago
  These huge vehicles are deadly to pedestrians and cyclists. They also require more space for parking that simply places things further away and makes our cities less friendly for pedestrians and cyclists. Oh, and they are melting glaciers and polluting our environment.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > You would need to rollback safety standards to achieve this. Or add new safety standards targeting people outside the car too (e.g. pedestrians and cyclists, or people in smaller cars) which can and do get crushed by modern monstrosities.
warrenm 3y ago
It's EPA regs that push size increases

Hasz 3y ago

I love these threads, because invariably you get dozens of people claiming that the majority of Americans don’t need a truck, are compensating for a small penis, etc etc. they always bring out a ton of vitriol. They might be right! But. This comes off as both elitist and is a terrible way to make change. The F-150 is the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 30 years for a good reason, and it’s not indoctrination, fragile male egos, advertising, or anything else. Trucks are versatile, flexible, and given how cheap oil is, most Americans don’t see a downside. If you want less people to drive super sized trucks, we need to shift regulation, not shame/blame people driving the best vehicle for them. Rules tying vehicle size to fuel effiency standards, rules around GVWR (ime, regularly flouted!) and safe height would encourage mfgs to make the much lusted after 90s tacomas, rangers and colorados people love.

xnx 3y ago

Good overview of auto loan delinquencies (2 months old): https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/auto-loan-delinquency-revs-up-as-car-prices-stress-budgets/ https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/02/auto-l...

maxglute 3y ago

I wish they sold 13k Hilux Champs, spending 20k on customization.

mikewarot 3y ago

If you listen to Peter Zeihan at all, you know this was all predictable 20+ years ago, all you had to do is look at US demographics. Now that us boomers are retiring or like me, were yeeted out of the labor market due to long covid... our risk appetite has dropped to zero, and we're tightening our belts as much as we can. Interest rates will be above the historic normal for a generation. The era of huge trucks that guzzle fuel is over. We're in a similar situation as after the Oil Shock of the 1970s. Smaller, less expensive cars will become the normal.