Okay I want a broke down one of these, an crate electric motor, and a lifepo4 battery pack
KIA*
We have these trucks in Taiwan. It’s quite literally the majority of the trucks on the road. These things are not allowed on the highways because a crash in them will result in likely death.
Instead they are only allowed on local roads where our speeds don’t reach anything more than 40km/hr. Even then, the crashes I have seen in them, the driver is always hurt.
I know Lemmy likes to dream about owning a kei truck. But keep in mind that these trucks are not safe in crashes. They were never designed with the speeds that Americans see on a daily basis.
What is the too small for road safety thing? That’s pure bullshit, right? Smart cars are legal, how can these not be?
Give us cheap EVs and small trucks god damnit!!!
Sounds like some lack basic safety equipment like seat-belts.
They don’t pass US federal crash tests, probably because of the lack of crumple zone, so they can’t be imported until they’re 25 years old. Which doesn’t make them any safer, but I guess rules are rules:
Because the trucks don’t meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, they’re legal to import only 25 years after having been manufactured. Then, it’s up to each state to decide whether to allow them on public roads.
I have one. No crumple zone. No airbags. Slow acceleration. Can’t reach highway speeds. No headrest.
But it’s my favorite car ever. I just treat it like I’m riding a motorcycle. I’m dead in an accident, so I try to be hyper-aware.
I guess it’s just the lack of any crumple zone, similar to the VW van your legs are essentially the crumple zone.
Yeah, I’d imagine it’s fine down gridlocked Tokyo streets where you might be doing 20mph.
Probably not so good in a 70mph highway collision though.
IIRC, these things exist to exploit a legal loophole around vehicle registration in Japan as well. Safety is not the highest concern lol
It might be more about what vehicles share the road. SUVs and pickups tend to cause the majority of fatalities in crashes because their bumper height basically being non compatible with cars and vans and their larger blindspots… That design might not play particularly well with the Keis in crash situations.
But that being said SUVs and raised pickups are menaces to road safety across the board and we should be looking at phasing them out.
Mazda B series ready for a come back!
How’s my /keitruck subreddit doing? I got banned from reddit as a different username at the IP level so I have no clue. I was thinking about starting it again here on our own instance but it’s been a struggle with de-googlelizing my life at the moment. But maybe someone else has one already? Time to leave that rotten place behind.
I would love a Kei truck, but I don’t live in a state where you can legally have one. That said I really think that if a Japanese manufacturer brought a barebones electric Kei to the American market they could make a killing because “people who want a truck but not a massive truck” is a totally unserved market segment.
If that happened I’d buy one. A truck would make a lot of sense for me but I hate the ones that are available so much I couldn’t stomach buying one. I just make due with my old civic and borrowing my dads colorado when I need to move big stuff.
Chicken tax and EPA nuttery. It’s fucking bullshit.
Kei trucks have the same, if not slightly bigger/smaller, bed size as a modern F-150. But they’re basically the size of Honda Fits.
I’ve wanted one since I worked for USPS and learned to drive on the right side of a vehicle. My state does allow you to register them and drive them on the road, but alas, I cannot afford one. :(
Kei trucks only can carry like 800 pounds. I run a bar and regularly take my pickup truck, a 2500, to its bed capacity of roughly 3000 lbs. I’ve had it sitting low just in empties before. A Kei truck can’t even haul my motorcycle if it breaks down. Now someone who’s a full time contractor, would call that thing useless, a farmer might buy one instead of a John Deere gator or side by side. It’d be suitable for golf course maintenance.
Yeah but most people don’t know what their bed capacity is and they never test it. Maybe something like the old Ranger is the optimal size truck for the average person, but our politicians wrote environmental standards which somehow incentivize making the biggest vehicles that can possibly fit on the road instead of making reasonably sized vehicles but with more efficient engines.
Yeah, a ranger would be ideal for a run around, could even tow my old camper, thing only weighs 3000 lbs. I’d just have to make more frequent beer runs of lesser amounts. At least a ranger can hold an old harley.
It was a backlash to auto manufacturers classifying everything as a truck to get around emissions and fuel economy standards. The fucking PT Cruiser was a “truck” according to Chrysler.
So they started classifying standards based on vehicle footprint with the idiotic hope that would make the manufacturers act better, but the manufacturers realized they could just make cars bigger every refresh cycle to stay ahead of CAFE.
Station wagons are classed as trucks, is why the PT Cruiser fell in there.
Yep, I’m a contractor, I would absolutely only own one to use for work if I had a big property, and it’d be groundskeeping. Just FYI though, Kei trucks are used as contractor/work trucks in Japan, as are Kei vans.
But your average person’s Home Depot trip isn’t going to be close to what a contractor would use. And, just like what currently happens, if your vehicle can’t handle an outlying circumstance, you either rent one that can or have the materials delivered.
So beyond work applications, and towing which most people don’t need the size vehicle they have for what they’re towing, modern pickup trucks are oversized and unnecessary for probably 95% of people.
ten sheets of 3/4 inch plywood is pushing the capacity of a Kei. That’s right in the middle of homeowner use.
I got one off of marketplace in great condition for a good deal. It is very practical and fun to drive. Also you get a lot of looks.
Ford and Hyundai have tried to bring service to that market with the Maverick and Santa Cruz, respectively. My folks have one and love it, but I’ve found most people still complain because they “don’t need that big if a truck” but then you mention towing/hauling capacity and they say “well why can’t it just tow something small like an F150 does? I’m not trying to get a dually but if I didn’t want to do X then I’d just get a car!” I suspect most people’s “truck needs” would be accommodated but fomo and marketing leads buyers astray even when they already know what they want. Or they’re fickle and just need something to complain about.
What do you find people want to tow? I’m often at a loss when people bring this up because I’ve never once had a moment in my life where I was disappointed by the lack of towing capacity of my small car
Note that Americans basically all drive automatic transmissions, those have a thing called a torque converter. Unless that part is actively cooled it’s going to overheat when asked to do high-torque stuff over prolonged durations and as that active cooling needs space and weight it generally only comes with truck-sized vehicles.
In short: The reason Americans don’t haul caravans and horses and boats with cars is because they can’t drive stick.
They stopped SELLING THEM TO US!!!
?
Every automatic transmission car sold since the 1970’s and probably earlier has had a transmission cooler, right there alongside or in front of the radiator.
Also all of them have locking torque converters so there is no energy loss at constant speed. Also also, unless going upward at an incline. Most of the power requirements come from aerodynamic drag, not rolling friction of the trailer.
You can’t lock the converter when accelerating because that’s not a constant speed, and to accelerate you need to overcome momentum. Neither drag nor rolling friction are anywhere close to high torque.
And I have no idea what the previous poster meant with a transmission cooler, I guess it’s a different thing because a torque converter very much is not a transmission, if you want to compare it to anything then to a clutch. In any case I’ve got that explanation from an actual American actual car mechanic and random lemmings aren’t going to change my mind especially while making no mechanical sense.
Torque converters use transmission fluid to operate, that tranny fluid goes through a cooler.
A torque converter is part of the whole transmission system even if it’s a separate housing. When you buy a new transmission, it comes with a torque converter.
Torque converters also create the majority of heat in automatic transmissions and are why automatic transmissions get coolers in the first place. How many manuals have you seen with transmission coolers?
Wow. The remaining 7,950,999,999 people on this planet now have something to be thankful for, because none of them are as wrong as you.
You clearly did not actually understand what your mechanic told you.
A transmission cooler is exactly what it sounds like. It is built exactly like a radiator and works the same way. It is mounted in front of or next to the radiator for the engine. On a lot of newer cars it is actually part of the main radiator. Transmission fluid flows through it and excess heat is dumped into the air. On many vehicles it’s also served by the radiator fan, i.e. for situations where the vehicle is not getting airflow because it’s not moving.
The torque converter is part of your automatic transmission literally operates by moving the transmission fluid. There is no separation between the transmission fluid used in the torque converter and the rest of the transmission where the hydraulic valves use it to actuate the clutch bands, etc. to shift gears. The same bath of transmission fluid is circulated through the torque converter, the rest of the transmission, and the transmission cooler.
This is not a truck thing. Even my dinkum Saturn SL I had when I was a teenager that was so pathetic it was literally made of plastic and did not crack 100 horsepower had a transmission cooler – as designed from the factory. The vast majority of passenger vehicles made in the last half century or more with automatic transmissions have transmission coolers built in. It has nothing to do with towing, either.
Your torque converter absolutely can be locked under acceleration and in fact, nearly all vehicles equipped with a locking torque converter do so as part of their normal shifting pattern when moving up through their gears. This is observable from the driver’s seat if you know what’s happening. The locking and unlocking of the torque converter feels like an “extra gear” in between the gears. Some Japanese cars from the 80’s have a “TC Locked” light on a dash that illuminates when the converter is locked and you can watch this happen in real time. The usual pattern is 1st gear, shift to 2nd gear, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 3rd, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 4th, etc. A traditional automatic transmission only has 4 gear ratios, but it will feel like it has seven. Guess why.
Think about it real hard for a minute. A locked torque converter is the same, mechanically, as a fully engaged clutch. If you could not lock the torque converter during acceleration, by the same logic you would not be able to fully release the clutch pedal during acceleration on a manual transmission car, either. It is glaringly obvious that this is not the case.
I am not a “random lemming.” I have four decades of actual real world mechanical experience and have disassembled and rebuilt more transmissions, engines, and vehicles in general than you have probably sat in throughout your entire life.
No, you can accelerate and deccelerate. Only needs to unlock for gear changes.
Only in city would the torque converter spend an appreciable amount of time unlocked but then again, in the city you won’t be moving fast either
Ah I see! You see I am also American and have an automatic, but don’t have the funds or space for boats, caravans, or horses. I definitely did not know that about the torque converter, so thank you for that info!
I guess I just always assumed that those with the money and land for those activities you listed are wealthy enough to be in the extreme minority, but the way you say this makes me think my friends across the pond have a different perspective. Perhaps I am also in a bit of a bubble, having grown up in and only talk to people in a similar economic class.
Oh boats are definitely a big money thing (unless we’re talking inflatable, even with outboard motor), horses well you just may have a crazy horse girl on your hands – they definitely cost money but are affordable on an insurance clerk’s salary, but caravans aren’t expensive. You can get a decent used one for 5k and camping grounds and cooking for yourself are quite a bit cheaper than hotels and restaurants. Maybe the difference is that over here, people do have vacations.
And simple flatbed trailers are even cheaper, under 1k if you’re lucky, new. If you’re DIYing and are transporting material regularly but don’t want a VW Transporter or such (as most contractors would use) those definitely make a lot of sense.
Camping. Boats. Moving furniture. Gay party floats. The list goes on.
What the heck do you need to tow for camping if you have a pickup truck? I can see boats, but boat people buy the towing capacity they need. Not the size of truck.
Is legal here to tow two trailers if the first is 5th wheel. You can bumper hitch a boat behind your camper. This take a fairly serious truck, and is why I have a 5th wheel trailer that’s only 19 feet.
Yeah, but the second you need a fifth wheel then you need a pickup truck bed to put the receiver in.
Well yeah. It looks funny when I only tow the camper, as my truck is 21 feet long, the camper 19, and with the fifth wheel setup, the truck appears to dwarf that camper.
I drove a 99 Ranger into the ground. It was absolutely fine in every way that truck people care about. Give us back our small trucks!
The Ranger/B2000, S-10, and first Tacoma were really the sweet spot for compact pickup trucks but you won’t get them back, because all of them got killed by CAFE.
CAFE, safety, larger wheels, more gadgets. These mega corps do their research. Turns out the “real small truck lovers” are a vocal minority, or the things you say you want didn’t include all the things you take for granted in every new car because they just…are.
It’s the same shit as with smartphones. “If people wanted a headphone jack/removable battery/SD slot/whatever then why are they still buying smartphones?” BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OPTIONS THAT HAVE WHAT THEY WANT. I haven’t bought a phone since 2017 and I won’t until forced into it by circumstances. We literally can’t vote with our wallets because what we want isn’t on the ballot.
Look up manufactured consent. When you mix American conservative male identity with American consumerism then it no longer matters that they would prefer smaller trucks. They will buy what’s offered, at the insane price it’s offered. (Pickup truck margin and dealer mark up is one of the highest)
So no, the mere sale of larger vehicles doesn’t mean I’m in a minority. In order to get that data you’d need to have smaller pickups on offer at the same time.
Not me. I’m content to be the minority. My truck is from '99 and newer vehicles annoy the shit out of me.
I don’t want gadgets and I don’t want to need a stepladder to get in it, either. 8’ bed, single cab, crank windows.
Ford and Hyundai have tried to bring service to that market with the Maverick and Santa Cruz
They didn’t try very hard. The Maverick doesn’t have a single cab or full size bed option and the santa cruz looks like a SUV with 1/4 of the back chopped off.
Here’s a comparison of a 2008 Ranger vs. a 2022 Maverick to show what I mean better. They’re roughly the same size but you lose so much with the Maverick.
2008 RANGER Height 67.7 in. Length 203.6 in. Width 69.4 in. Wheelbase 125.9 in.
2022 MAVERICK Height 68.7 in. Length 199.7 in. Width 72.6 in. Wheelbase 121.1 in.
I drive a 98 Ranger XLT, it has a 5900 lb towing capacity. I’m pretty much going to keep fixing it forever.
the 2008 ranger is such a nice truck. Maverick is just a minivan with an open trunk. Might as well just get a real minivan.
I have a minivan and it carries everything we need. If I put down the back seats, it carries about as much ae a Ford Maverick, perhaps more. I can also fold or remove the middle seats for even more space, which is comparable to a full bed. The only thing it can’t really do is take dumps of mulch, gravel, etc, but it can tow a trailer for that.
Minivans are fantastic.
I’m in the “hatchback car or tiny truck” market for my next car.
As much as overpaying sucks, that thing is just asking to get obliterated on an American road.
Are American roads like one of those bumper car thingies of the amusement parks?
Or just use them in cities or rural areas. Not everyone goes onto the freeway everyday.
I’d honestly love one of these, depending in if it’s powerful enough to haul a decently heavy load up a hill.
I woodwork as a hobby, and have been wanting an old truck for a while, but the used truck market is pretty insane right now. All I want is an old beater with a reliable engine and a standard sized bed that’s capable of hauling sheet goods (4ft wide) without hassle.
This would check those marks. If the price was right, I’d happily drive this little guy around.
Instead, the market is full of ridiculously sized pickups with tiny truck beds because either the cab is huge, or they waste so much space making the truck look “tough” that the beds shrink narrower than 4ft.
As long as I can get a small truck in a V6 so that I don’t stall out hauling something heavy like cement bags, I’m in.
Look into Telo trucks. Modern, electric, safe, small. I know they haven’t launched yet, but i have high hopes they get everyone rethinking their pickup choices.
A guy in a common group as me owns https://luckysminitrucks.com
If you are in the US, look into minivans, or cargo vans. They are not popular here, so you’re not paying the pretty tax on them, and most vans with the rear seats removed can easily fit 4x8 plywood in the back. A beater van with a strong engine should be a lot cheaper than a beater pickup truck.
Yeah, I used to borrow my parents van on occasion, but they got a newer model of the same van (Odyssey) that could no longer fit sheet goods.
Also was pretty awkward tying the trunk door on the occasions where I needed longer material, which I would be doing more of nowadays. And TBH, despite my best efforts to pad things and load materials gently, I did scrap up the interior a bit, which wouldn’t be a factor with a truck.
A work van might do, though. Those seem pretty huge.
People around here usually have trailers behind their normal cars for that. Works fine.
Yeah, I’ve considered that too. Neither of us have a car with a hitch, and we don’t have a good place to store a trailer for extended periods of time, but it’s an option I’m considering for sure.
U-Haul trailer when you need it?
Essentially what I’ve been doing. HD rental truck. But truck availability and requiring multiple round trips to return and pick up my car means I put it off until I’m blocked, and then needlessly stock up on sheet goods that I might need in the future, but ultimately sit around for a year or two before I use them.
But yeah, this is what I’m doing while I bide my time for truck prices to drop. And I’ve push back a bunch of projects that rely on ply because I just don’t want to deal with the hassle.
To your point, I bet the trailers are probably more readily available. The trucks themselves are very hit or miss in my experience. But there always seems to be trailers in the lot.
Most kei trucks have 3 cylinders. A few have 4. Here’s a starting point.. Here’s another.
I had a 2016 GMC Sierra. Cost $100 a week to take my son to daycare. Sold it and got a Sienna Hybrid and a classic truck for hauling shit. I hate all the technology in cars these days. My van tracks me and in the app it says “this feature can be disabled but the tracking will not stop” or to that affect. Garbage.
five-speed manual transmission
I like having an automatic transmission.
You know they come in automatic, too? 4-speed, usually.
So you don’t like actually driving.
You’re goddamn right I don’t, but I don’t have a choice due to where I live. A car is a tool to me, in the same way that a vacuum cleaner or a push lawnmower is a tool. The most important thing a car should do for me is reliably get me from point a to point b in relative comfort. I could give a fuck about the “true driving experience” of a manual transmission.
But has he owned an Alfa?
I too am fed up with all the data rape. Fuck off car companies, greedy assholes.
It’s not just FUD either, this shit is actively happening NOW: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html
After you traded your Sierra for a Sienna, did you take a Siesta?
smaller, cheaper
Just say better.
They are better vehicles and the ad campaigns for ‘bigger, more expensive’ vehicles are finally hitting their stupid wall.Now lets do SUVs next.
Man, I always thought the bigger SUVs looked like those oversized clown shoes, but the size comparison picture does drive home just how much dead air is in them.
So people are tired of paying 60 to 90k for an f150 or a Dodge ram? You don’t say!
Besides taking way less space on the road or while parking, you’ll only have to lift your stuff half the way up to the RAM or something like it. I personally like not breaking my back.
Been to Japan lately. There are even Kei Fire Trucks, for the many small roads with wooden houses and shrines etc.
And then there are hundreds of different kei truck and van types for all purposes, even concrete mixers.
Also, private houses in cities are often small and space-saving and so are the cars. A sensible use of public space – and cars only park on private property or rented parking spaces.
I guess the size has something to do with the size of Japanese roads and back alley space?
Yes in some neighborhoods and villages the roads are so narrow that they can practically only be driven on by Kei cars.
Japan as an Island has limited space available for natural reasons, plus large parts of the country are mountain area. So the old cities have been built in plains and reached high density. Building is strictly regulated.
And that has also grown into the culture. The Japanese sense for efficiency is legendary and so you simply don’t waste space. And in general, you don’t show off with oversized cars. Understatement is part of the general habitus. Shintoism and Buddhism have deep roots and that certainly plays a role too.
The fire truck’s not a kei-- keis have yellow plates
This is just freaking adorable!
WHAT IS THE WHITE HONDA?
I’ve wanted an upgrade to my element but this looks adorbs and 4 door.
Looks like an N-Box. The rear doors are sliding.
TYVM
These are rad. Weird they’re not more popular internationally.
Neither the fire truck nor the concrete truck are Kei class vehicles.
They are small diesel trucks, yes, but Kei literally means ‘light’ and have strict weight limits on both the weight of the vehicle and how much load they can carry.
I will promise you that those two are not even close to the size of traditional versions you’ll see in Germany.
Well, those are also not vehicles that the average citizen buys. In a certain way they follow the same design philosophy.
That much is certainly true. It’s such a shame that small trucks are not available to buy new in the US.
Ok that black van model goes way harder than it has any right to
