Comparison left vs right for a craftsman who doesnt know which one he should buy:
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l/r same bed size
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r lower bed for way easier loading/unloading
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r less likely to crash
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r less fuel consumption and costs
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r less expensive to repair
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r easy to park
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r easy to get around in narrow places like crowded construction sites or towns
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r not participating in road arms race
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l You get taken serious by your fellow carbrained americans because ““trucks”” are normalized and small handy cars are ridiculed.
So unless you are a fragile piece of human, choose the right one.
It’s not about consumer markets really. The CAFE emissions regulations essentially allow vehicles with larger dimensions to get lower mileage. So instead of the regulations ostensibly intended to lower emissions forcing better mileage, manufacturers just make bigger cars with the same or worse mileage than before. I used to have an S10 that got almost 20mpg, could park anywhere, could haul full sheets of plywood, and was surprisingly capable of road (came with the ZR2 package).
People still want this, they just aren’t built because of asinine laws that get created through massive amounts of lobbying.
Neat!