Can you elaborate on this? I'd love to have a cheap small truck like they used to make, but CAFE largely killed those.
US manufacturers want margins, and they're not getting margins on little, efficient cars. They get enormous margins on gigantic trucks that start at $55,000. Have you noticed that all the sub $20k cars went away from all the manufacturers around COVID?
Ford makes the Maverick, which is a small truck. They were priced very reasonably at release, at $19,000 or so. However, Ford didn't make very many of them, and the ones they did make got up to $15,000 over MSRP from the dealers, who scalped them. Why would Ford want to cannibalize their pricy gigantic trucks when they know that they can get their $50k asking price because there's nowhere else for people to go?
Why isn't Ford worried that Chevrolet, Toyota, Ram, or Nissan will bring back a small and cheap U.S. built pickup? Is that because all manufacturers are afraid of cannibalizing their more expensive offerings? Are they all colluding? Or do not many people want small pickups? I guess if the Slate becomes a breakout hit, we'll know that people really want the smaller pickups.
CAFE killed them too. You can't have a small vehicle that gets fuck all MPG because it's built like a tank to do work. You gotta have a bigger one that gets slightly worse MPG but has a way huger footprint in order to make the math math.
This didn't just kill compact pickups for 20yr. It also killed the Chevy Astro (the most "fullsize work van" of the minivans) and why you'll never see a car with a giant overhanging cargo area again.
My understanding is that this is due to fuel regulations being enacted by size and weight where it’s simply easier to make bigger vehicles.
