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Can anyone explain America's love affair with the pickup truck? This is prompted by this Matt Yglesias post talking about abundance politics, and acknowledging that for working-class Hispanics (among others) owning a pickup is a key measuring stick for material prosperity and that it would be politically stupid for abundance-orientated Democrats to argue this point.
This isn't a question about why Americans drive much bigger personal vehicles than people in other countries - that is obvious. (Generally richer country, cheaper fuel, wider roads, more idiot drivers such that "mass wins" is seen as an important part of being safe on the roads). I think I understand why so many of these are built on a truck chassis (mostly CAFE arbitrage). But the thing I don't get is why the pickup as the big-ass form factor of choice. If you look at the big-ass personal vehicles in the London suburbs, you will see at least 5 full-size SUVs (as in the US, the most common form factor in affluent suburbia is the crossover, which no longer counts as big-ass) for every clean pickup. And if you look at work vehicles, you will see at least 10 vans for every pickup. Most of the work pickups I see in the London suburbs are owned by landscapers who regularly haul large quantities of fertilizer, so "ease of cleaning the bed" is the obvious reason for them. The pattern seems to be the same in other European cities, and googling "Tokyo traffic jam" brings up pictures with more pickups than Europe, but still many fewer pickups than vans or big-ass SUVs.
So my small-scale questions are:
I'm reminded of the odd demographics/tribal affiliations of this forum reading the replies you got. The luxury 4wd pickup truck is the greatest motor vehicle ever constructed for your average American suburban/rural man, it's available at a reasonable price from numerous manufacturers, and the drawbacks mostly don't matter to the people who buy them. If you compare them to other choices along the metrics that matter to the people that buy them, the big dumb pickup truck, much maligned, wins frequently.
The modern American pickup truck is as comfortable as any luxury car, with enormous storage capacity, complete capability across any situation, power and style. But most importantly: people buy them because they like them:
People like big V8 engines. Not even necessarily for speed reasons, but they like the way they feel, the sound, the rumble, the sense of owning and using a powerful well engineered machine. A family friend of mine recently signed to buy a Z06 Corvette, which gets to 60 in under 3 seconds, but told me he never intends to drive it fast at all, he simple enjoys the sound and rumble of the bigger engine. Of course, modern pickups are about as fast as sporty cars of the past: a V8 F150 in 2025 gets to 60 in about the same amount of time as a V8 Mustang from 1995. They're not exactly slow, they cruise at highway speeds and pull out no problem.
People like big comfortable cars. They like having space to stretch out. They like having an excess of space for stuff, so they don't have to worry about how much they are carrying, or carefully clean and sort things each day.
People like having an excess of capability. Being able to haul things at any time, even if you don't need to often, is nice. Being able to haul way more than you need, is nice.
The reasons not to get one: it's difficult to park, it's bad on gas, stylistic reasons. Most suburbanites and rural dwellers never parallel park, and live in areas with abundant parking, so it doesn't matter to them. The increased gas cost of a pickup vs an SUV or full size van is pretty negligible. Gas might be annoyingly pricey, but it is factually cheap: the price difference between a 20mpg vehicle and a 30mpg vehicle is $600/10,000 miles, or about $6k over 100k miles, assuming an average of $3.50/gal. $6k is a pretty unimportant difference over the life of a car between one you like and one you don't, probably shouldn't make your decision for you. Stylistically, some people don't like them, some people do. The people who do, buy them.
I do think part of this discourse is poisoned by a weird belief in the anti-pickup truck crowd that if they see a truck without anything in the bed once or twice, it must never have anything in the bed. So I'd ask the crowd: how many times a year do you need to use your truck for truck things before you are "allowed" to own a truck?
Personally: I have a distaste for anyone who doesn't use the things they own. I have an American aristocratic horror of things that are "kept nice."
Can confirm. I've rented pickup trucks for cross-state drives, and when they're hauling nothing and you shift them into "sport" mode, they accelerate effortlessly and will blow doors on most other vehicles that aren't trucks or sports cars.
And since muscle cars are functionally illegal these days, a truck with a giant engine is arguably the only way you can GET that 'performance' for an affordable price.
But you have to be fair and also include repair costs in the delta between owning an efficient sedan vs. a big ol' truck.
That's the big reason I'd prefer to rent them for now rather than own.
Are these significantly different over the lifetime of a like-for-like comparison? Does a Tacoma or Tundra have that much higher costs than a Rav4 or Camry?
I don't think that has been my experience where usage is similar.
Well just an example:
A set of Tacoma tires will set you back $500-700, compared to a set of Camry Tires being $320 on the high end.
That's pretty marginal though, unless you're getting lots of tire punctures.
This Source puts the maintenance costs for a Tacoma at $6,731 for the first ten years (most of that almost certainly after the first five, and a Camry at $4,455. So you're spending a least a few hundred extra bucks a year on average, on top of the up front costs.
On the full list, large pickups are listed as the most expensive for maintain, almost all of them requiring over $10k over the first 10 years.
Whether that is all worth it for the cargo capacity, towing, or extra performance, well, I dunno.
I think if I had my choice, I'd own both a smaller electric car for local commutes and have a mid-size pickup for long haul drives or moving cargo around.
Less than $3,000 over ten years on a $30,000-50,000 purchase is fairly unimportant. If you can't afford the maintenance on your Tacoma, it's unlikely that the extra $3k over ten years would save you.
It all comes down to style. People buy a car primarily for what they want to look like, not for what they need or want to do. You can tell, because minivans are a tiny segment of the market these days.
I've always been in a weird place with cars, I've always had multiple vehicles available to me. Having a truck available is the best, driving one everywhere all the time less so.
Probably.
But I'd bet a lot are getting in over their heads on payments up front, which is starting to show up in delinquency rates.
I think some people are just not good with money and they buy cars that make them look good but I really don't know how to translate the status and affirmation points having a really nice car gets you, into a dollar amount.
I've only ever driven Honda or Toyota for the last 15 years since their engines cannot be killed by conventional means and I do NOT like large unexpected expenses from my vehicles.
I definitely don't need to tow or tote stuff around on a regular basis, and its pretty trivial to rent a truck for a while for when I do, so it never made sense for me to buy a truck when I have other things I'd rather do with the spare money.
Absolutely, but this is a general financial intelligence/literacy/freedom of choice question, not one specific to pickup trucks. From long experience of trying to explain to Red-Tribe Pickup-Truck-Shoppers in my immediate circle that they don't need to spend all that money, they aren't cross-shopping with a Toyota Corolla or even a Rav4. If they didn't blow $50,000 they didn't have on a pickup, they would blow it on a Land Cruiser, or a Mercedes E Class, or a tarted out Jeep Wrangler. "Why do Americans like pickup trucks?" is mostly a separate question from "Why do Americans go into too much debt to buy vehicles they can't afford on loans that will bankrupt them?" The former is about the traits of the pickup truck, the latter is about the traits and cultural choices of individual Americans.
Or, generally, we can ask "Why do companies like Dodge Nissan and Land Rover continue to exist when they consistently sell inferior products?"
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