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Why Do Americans Love Trucks?
The U.S. is presently one of the world's largest manufacturers, and consumers, of automobiles. What percentage of Detroit's profits, would you guess, comes from trucks as opposed to passenger cars? The Big Three aren't saying, but according to a Reuters analysis looking at the EBIT—that's Earnings Before Interest & Taxes—an astonishing 71%* comes from trucks and SUVs.
"There is no doubt that full-size trucks are still the single largest component" of pre-tax profits at General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler Group LLC, a unit of Italy's Fiat SpA, according to Sterne Agee auto analyst Michael Ward.
Even more surprising is that sales of full-size pickups grew 20% from last year.
Gas is still expensive (by American standards) and the economy is still pretty lousy, so what's going on? Why do hybrids continue to be money-losers while low-MPG truck sales are soaring? Why has Ford's F-150 been the best-selling automobile for three decades? The old stereotype of soccer moms with misconceptions of safety ensconcing themselves in SUVs doesn't explain the bump in full-size pick-up sales, nor the F-150's success. Well, talk to someone who drives a truck. I rang up a former ID classmate of mine who now runs an appliance repair business and has owned over half-a-dozen full-sized models. While he now drives around town in something the size of a small submarine, I asked him about his favorite ride, a monstrous '05 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab with the 5.7-liter Hemi. The thing got 10, maybe 11 miles to the gallon and required a three-figure fill-up. Why drive it?
Power and versatility—that thing never stopped hauling. Never mind all my tools, I'm talking lumber, refrigerators, I towed a 25-foot boat, you name it.
And it was fast. 100% Detroit power with that Hemi. I could physically get to jobs faster [to beat nearby competitors]. You don't want to lose a contract because you're stuck behind some idiot on the Turnpike.
And trucks are comfortable now, they're not like they used to be. If I wanna take my wife out for date night, or take some buddies on a trip with the Quad Cab, it's no problem. I used it for work and I used it for pleasure.
I asked him if he could've done what he was doing with a lesser vehicle. "Absolutely not," he said. "I would've needed three different cars to do all the types of things I was doing." So he lived with the outrageous gas costs, as he found it ultimately cheaper than purchasing multiple vehicles.
It's my belief that for every high-profile Hollywood celeb who forgoes a Bugatti for a Prius, there are thousands and thousands of Americans like my buddy who need, rather than want, a truck. Our entire physical environment has been constructed by, and continues to be serviced by, guys who drive trucks.
Outside of America is different, of course, and what I'd like to know is why—and how. With the exception of Iceland, I never saw full-sized pickups in American numbers anywhere else, whether it was Scandinavia, Europe or Asia. To our readers in those parts of the world, how do your tradespeople get around? How about you folks in Australia/NZ? And to our American readers who drive trucks—not you armchair QBs who blindly hate them and can't be bothered with underlying causes—tell us about your beasts, why you drive them, and what you'd like to see done differently.
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Gas mileage ain't so bad. I can get almost twenty miles out of a full tank. I mean, it's not the best, but it's not TERRIBLE. I transport camping gear, guns, fishing gear, my buddies, my family, groceries, my tools...once, even all at the same time. The reason we Americans have trucks is because they can go anywhere and do anything.
- A brand new RAM 1500 Laramie will costs you approx. EUR 50,000 + insurance. This means veeeeerrrryyy expensive. For such amount of cash you can buy yourself a nice sedan/sports car/station wagon. And having a truck here means you do things by yourself – not a chick magnet at all – women prefer guys who are rich enough to pay OTHER guys to do dirty stuff while they can concentrate on choosing a right jewelry for the beloved ïŠ
- Gas prices a double comparing to US
- It’s hard to get around in it in towns and cities, you have a real hard time parking it on open parking lots, forget about parking in underground garages.
- 99% of the jobs can be done with “normal size†vehicles (mainly hatchbacks or station wagons) , sometimes with the addition of a trailer, or by renting a van.
- Some jobs you would typically use a truck for are not even legal to be done by yourself – e.g. here in Poland you simply cannot take an old sofa to the dump side, it is illegal – you need to hire a certified company to pick it up and dump it for you.
- We live in apartments or small houses, we do not own a lot of stuff – if we want to jet ski, we would go to the mountains and rent one instead of owning one a hauling it across the country. We do not camp much – we go places and rent a room there.
- A lot of people rent their place so they are not even allowed to do any projects in their rented apartment/houses.
- The environmentalists are growing in power and it gets politicaly incorrect to drive gas guzzlers. It is more visible in western Europe, though.
So, why do I love full size PU trucks and want one? Because they are…..darn awesome looking rigs! And it is solely enough good reason to buy one if someone wishes to. I personally hate the whole disscution “do you need a truck?†– no, I don’t, but I WANT one. Just like people do not need huge houses or do not need to by Versace cloths. They want them cos they like them or like the concept of having them. And, at least to me, it is legitimate enough reason to buy things. We thought for a long time to have a freedom of choice – I would be the first one not to let some people who think they can tell me what to drive to take this freedom away from me.
This is about 98.4 liters. It costs a little over $100 to fill the tank. Most of the time the pump shuts off at $99. In AUD it might be $120 or so.
Mention 'turbo' to most non-EcoBoost Ford truck owners and you will likely be chased out of the room. There is a somewhat crazy reaction against anything with forced induction especially turbochargers. The new Raptor is rumored to be coming with a huge engine PLUS turbochargers.
Must be cheaper that most countries, to be able to afford
to drive the petrol (gas) guzzeling models.
Pick up trucks are way to big for the metropolitan areas of Australia. You would struggle to park one in street parking bays.
I love the F150 Raptor, but it would to come as a turbo diesel.
Here's the thing; watch any truck commercial/advert and what do you see? Cowboys, fireworks, horses, farmers, construction workers, amber waves of grain, purple mountains majesty, country music, etc. They're not selling you a truck, they're selling an IMAGE. That you're "more American" when you drive this truck. You don't see all that imagery when in an ad for a Ford Focus. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with that, but at the same time it's sending a message that you're not doing your patriotic duty as an "Merican!" unless you drive this truck, burn as much gas as possible, and give the rest of the world a giant middle finger in the process.
Now before anyone says anything, I did drive a Ford Ranger back in the 90's. It was decent, but it burned a ton of gas, and it broke down frequently. The few times a year I did actually haul stuff with it, can now be accomplished by renting a truck from Lowes or Home Depot.
We haul our own water in a 350gal water tank and get all of our own water in the summer. We usually pay someone to do it for us in the winter and have the truck tank for emergencies.
I haul dirt and manure/compost for the garden...how many times varies on the state of the garden.
We haul 100 gal of fuel oil for our generator (we are off grid) when we need to. How often depends on the state of the solar panels and the time of year.
We haul lumber and building supplies regularly work on our own place or helping friends and family.
We often let our friends that don't have a big truck use the truck when they need it.
The truck hauls heavy equipment that we rent to and from town - which we lately do a few times a year.
When we go moose or caribou hunting on the road system, it hauls back our success or failure.
Occasionally, we haul snowmachines in the winter to go have a weekends worth of fun somewhere farther away from the chores at home.
I can see if you have a small or no yard and live in a truly urban area that a truck may seem pretty silly. But we get ton of work done with the truck, it has been a great investment for us. We just have to use it judiciously.
Larger Light Commercial Vehicles are more common outside the cities.
But of course roads are way better here in France than in the US and we don't haul much stuff around here, neither do we go off road all the time. Campsites can be reached by decent road, so you really don't NEED a truck for your everyday life. I'm curious to see how it's gonna be when gas reaches 7 or 8$ a gallon if car manufacturers don't really start looking into better mileage.
For whatever reason I think of at which ever time I'm asked, I have a Landrover Defender, and even that being a bit 'underpowered' versus a big Detroit truck, I have to pay nearly 800.- a year (that's like a grand in USD). for a Dodge ram, at 3 and a bit tonnes or whatever it weighs and 300-400hp, it would probably cost 3000 or more per year just in road tax. Then insurance would be crazy expensive too...
Doesn't stop heaps of people round Geneva having Range Rovers and Porsche Cayennes mind....
We also have our V6 and V8 Holden Comodore and Ford Falcon utes which are popular with the guys who don't require the ground clearance such as painters, plumbers and sparkies.
Obviously we still have our share of vans etc too.
In saying all this it has been interesting watching the market develop, the most recent generation (2012) of the Holden Colorado and Ford Ranger "Trucks" along with VW Amarok have all increased in size and styling taking a step towards their American relatives while maintaining the much more efficient small diesel engines.
Personally I've just picked up a new Holden Colorado. I'm lucky enough to live and work as a designer in a coastal town an hour and a half south of Melbourne. Being out of the city owning the "truck" suits my lifestyle, I can throw all mine and my mates surf gear in the back, or the dog who is generally filthy and covered in sand and not worry about the mess and I enjoy building things in my shed so I love no longer having to borrow a mates ute on the weekend to move materials around. Having a 2.8L Turbo Diesel I get around 9L/100km, which isn't too bad and with 470Nm Torque and 3.5 Ton tow capacity there isn't much on the road that your big trucks can haul that I can't.
Our contractors or tradespeople drive 'white vans'. Mostly Japanese or German, all diesel, usually turbo diesel injection engines. They'll fit 6 guys (3 x 3) and loads of tools and you can still park them. They are quite economic, surprisingly comfortable and a 2.5 TDI will do almost 124 miles/hour.
I've even worked out of my truck for two years as a contractor.
The difference, is that I do all of this with a Toyota Tacoma 2wd that get's about 28 mpg and has cleared 300k miles without major mechanical failures. It's hauled everything I've put in or behind it without complaint. I 4 wheel with it as well as most vehicles as long as it's not icy or loose. The gas mileage is as good or better than average for cars, and I don't look like I'm in a ridiculous pissing contest. Most Americans, even with the need to haul stuff, just don't need a full size pickup (or van). It's wasteful.
I think people just find it nice to drive a large vehicle. It gives a sense of power, and having the sole ability to do just about anything you'll want with it gives that feeling of freedom which has made the car popular since they were invented. Even if that means you'll move two tonnes of excess material around 90 percent of the time.
that line of thinking is used by bicycle advocates as well, "why do you need a car when a bike will do, when you want to go someplace further you could just rent a car".
In Canada for the most part people are buying larger vehicles for our horrible winters. The best part about that are those vehicles seem to end up in the ditch ever more often than small cars.
Over confidence and thinking AWD actually means better traction while driving is probably why.
I think for actual tradesmen here in the US trucks or vans are a must have, for one thing you have to be able to get your tools and materials to a job site, I pulled a 7500 lbs trailer every where, that immediately put me in a class where I needed a truck and a bigger one at that.
Also there is the aspect that if as a tradesman you pull up to a job site driving a prius, what is the client, other contractors or subs going to think of you. There is a certain idea of what a contractor is, you have to live up to that and portray that you are capable, experienced and that you can handle anything that might come up.
On another note I think that as Americans in general we like to be in control of every aspect of our lives and never be reliant on somebody else the pickup truck helps us with this, we can do anything in a truck. Just look at the current toyota commercials, with a truck you can build a $100000 un-permitable tree house in your backyard on a whim.
Finally a huge part of trucks being the number one vehicles in the US are fleet sales, many half ton pickups are fleet sales that never see life outside of work.
Lets be honest, the people who aren't using their truck for work (actually hauling stuff) just want to be higher up.
Was this before or after spitting out some chew? I had no idea that contracting jobs were candy scrambles for grown men and it's a ding dang bawls out death race to be the first there. I just imagine all these ridiculously jacked-up monster trucks screeching to a stop outside someone's front lawn to be the first in line for the big tree house job.
This is my first truck, coming from a long line of inexpensive yet sporty German hatchbacks. Some of those cars got double the mileage I'm now getting. Lets set the MPG discussion aside and focus on utility.
I'm going to have a hard time going back to a car, even an SUV. Unlike some designers, I enjoy getting dirty, doing dirty sports, and hauling the family off to do camping stuff in the woods. Growing up all the men had trucks (Hawaii). Its just part of being able to get stuff done.
This particular truck is an outstanding value when you compare all of its abilities to virtually anything else on the road. It rides on the road very nicely, plus there's that 'commanding view' thing. Visibility is better than in an SUV.
Entry level sports/luxury cars cost more, get slightly better MPG, and are limited by street lights and traffic. The Raptor can go stupid fast where none of these things exist.
What would I change? Removing weight through lighter materials, as Ford is supposed to be doing with the new Atlas F-150 models, would improve performance and MPG. Interior design is so-so, the seats are very nice but the rest of the dash is plasticky. If this truck had the interior of a new Audi, and the transmission from a GT-R or new M3, it would be the Perfect Vehicle.
Oh yes - the selling point to my wife? Zombie apocalypse. Its coming. You don't want a Nissan Leaf when that happens.