This is a breath of fresh air. Modern pick up trucks post-2017 are giant vehicles with high danger to pedestrians. They are often touted as off road capable with high utility, and I see them in pristine condition on city streets hauling a totality of one human.
> They are often touted as off road capable with high utility, and I see them in pristine condition on city streets
When I was off-roading and traveling a lot of dirt trails with my truck I would also wash it, wax it, and keep it in pristine condition when I got back home.
What did you expect? That we’d leave the mud on it forever, never wash it, and all of the side panels would be bashed in? If you’d climb under the truck (as I do for oil changes) you could see a lot of scrapes and dings from rocks, but I avoid damaging the side and front because that’s very expensive to repair.
Anyway, most of the trucks sold today aren’t sold in the off-road trim. They’re sold with features like lower clearance air dams up front for better fuel economy, on-road tires for better road noise and fuel economy, and commonly in 2WD trims. A new F150 can get 25mpg on the freeway even without the hybrid option.
I work remote so my truck isn’t used for commutes. I frequently haul things in the bed. I off road with friends.
Yet that doesn’t stop some people from making snide remarks about driving a truck. Some people love being angry at truck drivers and imagining they’re all just making irrational choices. They won’t be happy until we’re driving to Home Depot or UHaul every other weekend to rent a truck or trailer instead of parking one in our driveways.
It doesn’t stop them from calling me up and asking for help moving furniture when they need it, though. :)
You seem very intent (here, and in the loneliness thread) on projecting your own experiences as the baseline on which things should be evaluated.
It is a known fact that the vast majority of truck owners rarely ever use the truck bed. Millions of school pickups happening on massive trucks - and SUVs - are not ceasing to happen because you loaded your own with a pile of grass. People buy them because they’re “safer”, comfortable and look good. This is coming from research data for years now,
and not only in the USA.
It can be hard to relate to changes happening at societal scale that don’t affect your own microcosm, but how else can we be aware of it, and act on, if not through data, averages and trends?
> A new F150 can get 25mpg on the freeway even without the hybrid option.
As a non-American it's super weird that this is considered a good thing. That'd be considered utterly atrocious in most parts of the developed world.
I completely get that a truck is absolutely the best tool for the job for many people. But it's pretty obvious the OP was pointing out the people who own a truck and use it to get from home to their desk job.
This is a deeply emotional response to someone making the completely obvious point that the vast majority of trucks are grocery haulers. That's not opinion - it's statistics.
Nobody wants to tell you you can’t buy a truck, but the rest of us shouldn’t bear the negative externalities of every person who wants to buy a truck - especially when the facts show most of those people would be served (practically if not emotionally) just as well by a smaller vehicle.
Why should we subsidize truck (and SUV) ownership? They ruin roads, are vastly more dangerous, require wider lanes, have worse visibility of pedestrians, pollute more, are louder, and take up more space than other options. Yet we don’t make SUV owners pay for any of that. We subsidize their gas, their road repairs and expansions, their car insurance, their storage space, their car payments, not to mention ignore the injuries, deaths and discomforts they cause.
My 2011 VW Golf gets 40mpg… so I’m not very impressed by an F150 that 99.9% of the time performs the same job (carrying one person and no cargo) getting 25. (Even if this isn’t your experience, the facts show that for most people it is)
You should be free to make your own decisions! I support you in that. I can believe that your lifestyle justifies owning a truck, even though that doesn’t generalize to most SUV owners. I just don’t want to pay for other people’s lifestyle decisions. It’s like we have socialism for truck owners, but market capitalism for people who need healthcare
My truck is used purely and solely for truck shit - getting in and out from where we live, which is absolutely impassible with anything other than a high 4x4 with mudder tyres, and hauling everything from trees to gravel to water to batteries - there’s almost always something substantial in the bed.
It gets washed maybe twice a year, as it ends up filthy within 20 minutes anyway - and the panels all have scratches and dents from forging through brush.
For car shit, I have an (electric) car which I park on the main road.
The idea of waxing my truck is up there with the idea of waxing my legs.
25mpg is still insanely, obscenely profligate when a reasonable vehicle (say a Renault Clio) gets somewhere between 50 and 70. That will make some people angry and it’s hard to see that as entirely irrational.
In the U.K. I see many pickups owned by hairdressers (judging by the livery) in suburban areas. Something tells me they’re not transporting generators around with them…
People addicted to online forums love to comment and upvote posts which trash talk trucks. People who own and enjoy trucks are busy leading fun and productive lives and can't be bothered to waste their time with online arguments.
Vehicular elephantiasis is largely the result of perverse incentives from emission regulation. Make something big enough and it fits into different more lax categories. The way we do emission and mileage standards might do more harm than good unless you’re an oil company.
Maybe, but it's clearly worked it's way into fashions as well. The F-150 lightning doesn't have to worry about emissions categories, but it's just as elephantine as the rest, including a child-killing vision-obstructing front hood and grille whose only purpose is to enclose a frunk.
Also the arms race of collision survivablity. I have no interest in driving a big truck, but with all the other big trucks out there I’m seriously tempted just for my own safety…
Yea, it's not like men have a natural preference for tools, liking to repair things, cool toys to carry on the back, or think "why get a mini-cooper when I can get an F-150 to carry my hunting gear, tow the boat". It obviously all culture-imposed gender preferences.
> I see them in pristine condition on city streets hauling a totality of one human.
It’s about having one vehicle that can do it all. Maybe you’re noticing when there’s one human but you don’t really know how else that person is using the vehicle at other times. Trucks can haul people, things, do road trips, etc. pretty well.
A lot of modern “trucks” are pretty crappy for actually hauling anything. A few months ago I had the pleasure of loading some furniture into an Escalade. The outside is huge, but the inside is remarkably small. The height of the interior floor is also ridiculous, so it’s extra difficult to lift anything into the vehicle. I don’t think most full size pickups are a lot better.
Also, check out the underside of most of these monster vehicles. The approach, breakover, and departure angles may be awesome, but that’s only because the definitions assume uniform height transverse to the driving direction. If you drive these things over any substantial bump that the wheels don’t go over, the differential will bottom out. Oops. This means that, for many practical purposes, the height of the vehicle and the absurd suspensions don’t buy nearly as much capability as they might appear to.
This. I have had a 2016 F-150 since late 2017 - I'd never owned a truck before. I can go get mulch, take an entire bed-load of stuff to the dump (couches, mattresses, etc). When we go on vacation within driving distance (usually up to 500ish miles for us, we can bring more or less anything we want without concern for space. We took my wife's SUV 2 weeks ago on a 700 mile trip (her mid-sized SUV is much newer) and we had to pack very carefully compared to when we take the truck. Our son plays ice hockey, his hockey equipment stinks (yes it gets aired out...he's still a stinky teenager), but it's never an issue because with the truck, it's not in the passenger compartment. We live in the south but drove to Pittsburgh through 2 snowstorm there and back...lots of SUVs stranded on the road...my 4x4 F-150 made it through without any trouble. When my father in law passed last year, we moved all of his things out of his apartment with my truck. I let my neighbors borrow it when they need to move something large. The only thing that sucks about it is parking in store parking lots. That and buying a newer (not brand new) costs 2x what I paid for my 2016 in 2017. I've toyed with getting rid of it for something smaller, but it's just too versatile for me to give up.
> Maybe you’re noticing when there’s one human but you don’t really know how else that person is using the vehicle at other times.
95% of big trucks I see on the road have one person in them and beyond my anecdotal experience we know statistically that most vehicle trips involve 1 person. It's not super hard to extrapolate from there.
I'm not even particularly "anti" truck, though I do think the increase in size and weight has gotten totally ridiculous.
You can do all those things with a vehicle half the size. Modern F-150s are industrial vehicles. They weight 5000 pounds. They and their large SUV cousins are a menace to pedestrians, normal-sized vehicles, and the road itself.
The other day, I was just remarking how my minivan makes a better pickup than most pickups for most tasks. For years I've wanted to get another truck (had an old Dakota that I had to sell when kid #3 was on the way). Practicality reigns, though, and I'm extremely satisfied with the usability of the van.
Where I'm from, people often own a car for their commute to work, and rent a van when they're moving. Their regular car is way less of a hassle for other people than the van is, but that's okay, cause the van is just for a few days.
I now own a truck. I’m actually
regretting not getting a bigger/heavier duty one. The biggest limitation is payload capacity. Payload is anything that puts weight on the vehicle - occupants, dogs, gear, food, supplies, bed covers/caps, etc. You must legally be under payload capacity or you can risk fines or liability in an accident. A lot of people are willing to push these limits, but cops pay a lot more attention to people towing/hauling.
If you want to actually tow with your truck, you need to allot a good portion of your payload to trailer weight (and hitches) that rests on the truck (tongue weight). This can range from 200lbs to 1k+ lbs, but is typically in the 500 to 600lb range for something like a boat or travel trailer. It can easily go higher if you load the trailer up with stuff.
A typical light duty truck might have 1500 lbs of payload capacity. Four people and their belongings can easily add up to 800lbs. Add pets, bikes, travel gear, food, etc and your suddenly well over 1k lbs of payload. You literally have no capacity to tow anything but the smallest of trailers.
So what do you do, well you get a bigger truck. You don’t need it all of the time, but it just doesn’t make sense to own a vehicle that cannot legally handle a family road trip.
Before people say “rent”. That comes with its own major set of issues. The biggest being little to no ability to tow with a rental vehicle. Most rentals flat out prohibit towing (even if technically capable and equipped). Those that do allow towing, generally limit it to 1st party trailers (U-Haul truck can only tow u-haul trailer).
The risk to pedestrians is pretty much a non-factor in this. It’s going to come down to business / agriculture adoption where I see the largest market opportunity. Think service technicians such as HVAC, plumbers, construction. If these can make financial sense in terms of ROI and cost of ownership then Telo can make it. Currently the base price of $41,500 is a bit on the higher end, though of course will save dramatically on fuel and maintenance over industry standard vans and light trucks.
I want a tiny car. The problem is that road design is unsafe so people buy bigger cars so they are safer when they get into an accident. I've seen the aftermath of a Chrysler Fiat getting into a collision with an SUV and lets just say the Fiat driver had much worse day than the SUV driver.
I don't think you thought this one through... if anything you're making the opposite point you're (I believe) trying to make.
I'm writing this on a macbook air that sizes up to <2.5% of the weight and volume of a desktop computer you're describing (screen, case and peripherals). It's also idling at about 2-3 watt, which is also <10% of the computer you're describing. It also produces much less sound, it's entirely quiet.
So size, weight and power usage and noise are way down.
The idea that I'd use a pentium 3 instead is ridiculous for these very reasons (heavier, bigger, noisier, using more energy), even in private use, and especially in public use.
It's also the reason why bigger, heavier, noisier and more energy-consuming cars, are also ridiculous to many people, particularly those not driving them and having to face them in the public sphere.
People by and large don’t really know what they want, they purchase based on vibes and manipulation. If people in general really wanted these trucks they’d be more popular outside of America. The truck has been a boiled frog, slowly growing in size and people haven’t realised it. Also Americans in general have a bit of a cultural issue with ego, individualism and all that, which doesn’t help.
Even Tacomas are larger than they used to be. One day not too long ago when I was running errands I came across an early 2000s Tacoma (before they got bumped up to midsize trucks) and was almost dumbfounded, because it’d been so long since I’d seen a truck that size. It’s a great size, but nobody makes them like that any more.
I’d like a small truck for DIY house projects in a suburb, but even the “small” Ford Maverick is nearly a foot longer than a 2000 Tacoma and the 2025 Tacoma is about two feet longer, both of which would be awkward to park and maneuver on the tight streets around here. Their increased height is dangeorus with all the kids running around, too. So, well, I don’t have a truck.
The Telo and maybe Slate are the first two modern trucks that I could realistically consider. Hoping for an R3T that’s sized similarly to Rivian’s upcoming R3 (which is comparable in size to a VW Golf) but that’s probably not going to happen.
Aurornis|7 months ago
When I was off-roading and traveling a lot of dirt trails with my truck I would also wash it, wax it, and keep it in pristine condition when I got back home.
What did you expect? That we’d leave the mud on it forever, never wash it, and all of the side panels would be bashed in? If you’d climb under the truck (as I do for oil changes) you could see a lot of scrapes and dings from rocks, but I avoid damaging the side and front because that’s very expensive to repair.
Anyway, most of the trucks sold today aren’t sold in the off-road trim. They’re sold with features like lower clearance air dams up front for better fuel economy, on-road tires for better road noise and fuel economy, and commonly in 2WD trims. A new F150 can get 25mpg on the freeway even without the hybrid option.
I work remote so my truck isn’t used for commutes. I frequently haul things in the bed. I off road with friends.
Yet that doesn’t stop some people from making snide remarks about driving a truck. Some people love being angry at truck drivers and imagining they’re all just making irrational choices. They won’t be happy until we’re driving to Home Depot or UHaul every other weekend to rent a truck or trailer instead of parking one in our driveways.
It doesn’t stop them from calling me up and asking for help moving furniture when they need it, though. :)
ricardobeat|7 months ago
It is a known fact that the vast majority of truck owners rarely ever use the truck bed. Millions of school pickups happening on massive trucks - and SUVs - are not ceasing to happen because you loaded your own with a pile of grass. People buy them because they’re “safer”, comfortable and look good. This is coming from research data for years now, and not only in the USA.
It can be hard to relate to changes happening at societal scale that don’t affect your own microcosm, but how else can we be aware of it, and act on, if not through data, averages and trends?
rco8786|7 months ago
That's exactly how we always did it growing up.
esskay|7 months ago
As a non-American it's super weird that this is considered a good thing. That'd be considered utterly atrocious in most parts of the developed world.
I completely get that a truck is absolutely the best tool for the job for many people. But it's pretty obvious the OP was pointing out the people who own a truck and use it to get from home to their desk job.
idiotsecant|7 months ago
kristo|7 months ago
Why should we subsidize truck (and SUV) ownership? They ruin roads, are vastly more dangerous, require wider lanes, have worse visibility of pedestrians, pollute more, are louder, and take up more space than other options. Yet we don’t make SUV owners pay for any of that. We subsidize their gas, their road repairs and expansions, their car insurance, their storage space, their car payments, not to mention ignore the injuries, deaths and discomforts they cause.
My 2011 VW Golf gets 40mpg… so I’m not very impressed by an F150 that 99.9% of the time performs the same job (carrying one person and no cargo) getting 25. (Even if this isn’t your experience, the facts show that for most people it is)
You should be free to make your own decisions! I support you in that. I can believe that your lifestyle justifies owning a truck, even though that doesn’t generalize to most SUV owners. I just don’t want to pay for other people’s lifestyle decisions. It’s like we have socialism for truck owners, but market capitalism for people who need healthcare
madaxe_again|7 months ago
It gets washed maybe twice a year, as it ends up filthy within 20 minutes anyway - and the panels all have scratches and dents from forging through brush.
For car shit, I have an (electric) car which I park on the main road.
The idea of waxing my truck is up there with the idea of waxing my legs.
adw|7 months ago
scott_w|7 months ago
01100011|7 months ago
api|7 months ago
mitthrowaway2|7 months ago
adastra22|7 months ago
iambateman|7 months ago
kube-system|7 months ago
KevinGlass|7 months ago
aaron695|7 months ago
[deleted]
hereme888|7 months ago
monkeyelite|7 months ago
rcpt|7 months ago
SilverElfin|7 months ago
It’s about having one vehicle that can do it all. Maybe you’re noticing when there’s one human but you don’t really know how else that person is using the vehicle at other times. Trucks can haul people, things, do road trips, etc. pretty well.
toomuchtodo|7 months ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638394 - January 2025
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21631704 - November 2019
Ray Delahanty | CityNerd: Rural Cosplay is, Unfortunately, A Thing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_BE5KPp18
(Americans buy trucks out of emotion and cosplay, not realized utility and rational TCO, based on the evidence and data)
amluto|7 months ago
Also, check out the underside of most of these monster vehicles. The approach, breakover, and departure angles may be awesome, but that’s only because the definitions assume uniform height transverse to the driving direction. If you drive these things over any substantial bump that the wheels don’t go over, the differential will bottom out. Oops. This means that, for many practical purposes, the height of the vehicle and the absurd suspensions don’t buy nearly as much capability as they might appear to.
GiorgioG|7 months ago
rco8786|7 months ago
95% of big trucks I see on the road have one person in them and beyond my anecdotal experience we know statistically that most vehicle trips involve 1 person. It's not super hard to extrapolate from there.
I'm not even particularly "anti" truck, though I do think the increase in size and weight has gotten totally ridiculous.
bix6|7 months ago
stouset|7 months ago
Yes, as can most vehicles?
jnwatson|7 months ago
stn8188|7 months ago
lo_zamoyski|7 months ago
The main objection is the buffoonish size. Look at trucks in the 1990s and compare the size.
There is absolutely an element of clownish machismo involved.
Vinnl|7 months ago
SkyPuncher|7 months ago
If you want to actually tow with your truck, you need to allot a good portion of your payload to trailer weight (and hitches) that rests on the truck (tongue weight). This can range from 200lbs to 1k+ lbs, but is typically in the 500 to 600lb range for something like a boat or travel trailer. It can easily go higher if you load the trailer up with stuff.
A typical light duty truck might have 1500 lbs of payload capacity. Four people and their belongings can easily add up to 800lbs. Add pets, bikes, travel gear, food, etc and your suddenly well over 1k lbs of payload. You literally have no capacity to tow anything but the smallest of trailers.
So what do you do, well you get a bigger truck. You don’t need it all of the time, but it just doesn’t make sense to own a vehicle that cannot legally handle a family road trip.
Before people say “rent”. That comes with its own major set of issues. The biggest being little to no ability to tow with a rental vehicle. Most rentals flat out prohibit towing (even if technically capable and equipped). Those that do allow towing, generally limit it to 1st party trailers (U-Haul truck can only tow u-haul trailer).
Marazan|7 months ago
jonplackett|7 months ago
kimixa|7 months ago
Abishek_Muthian|7 months ago
nodesocket|7 months ago
roncesvalles|7 months ago
kortilla|7 months ago
If you off-road with a truck and keep it clean afterwards, this is exactly what it looks like on the street.
65|7 months ago
TimTheTinker|7 months ago
But for $41,000? To me that's an automatic nope... I can import a used Kei truck that works just fine from Japan for less than $10,000.
sneak|7 months ago
Americans generally don’t want tiny vehicles. The option that leaves them is trucks and, increasingly, SUVs.
ujkhsjkdhf234|7 months ago
andrepd|7 months ago
unknown|7 months ago
[deleted]
carlosjobim|7 months ago
NoLinkToMe|7 months ago
I'm writing this on a macbook air that sizes up to <2.5% of the weight and volume of a desktop computer you're describing (screen, case and peripherals). It's also idling at about 2-3 watt, which is also <10% of the computer you're describing. It also produces much less sound, it's entirely quiet.
So size, weight and power usage and noise are way down.
The idea that I'd use a pentium 3 instead is ridiculous for these very reasons (heavier, bigger, noisier, using more energy), even in private use, and especially in public use.
It's also the reason why bigger, heavier, noisier and more energy-consuming cars, are also ridiculous to many people, particularly those not driving them and having to face them in the public sphere.
sneak|7 months ago
topato|7 months ago
daymanstep|7 months ago
dyauspitr|7 months ago
yahoozoo|7 months ago
jama211|7 months ago
cosmic_cheese|7 months ago
I’d like a small truck for DIY house projects in a suburb, but even the “small” Ford Maverick is nearly a foot longer than a 2000 Tacoma and the 2025 Tacoma is about two feet longer, both of which would be awkward to park and maneuver on the tight streets around here. Their increased height is dangeorus with all the kids running around, too. So, well, I don’t have a truck.
The Telo and maybe Slate are the first two modern trucks that I could realistically consider. Hoping for an R3T that’s sized similarly to Rivian’s upcoming R3 (which is comparable in size to a VW Golf) but that’s probably not going to happen.
neogodless|7 months ago
Still those have basically caught up with full-sized vehicles from ~15 years ago..