Right, but in this scenario you end up with two vehicles: a light, economical car to drive and a dedicated work vehicle. The original point is that expensive, heavy vehicles as daily drivers can be less practical and economical than mutiple cheaper, dedicated vehicles.
For some reason, this makes Americans, and especially American car people VERY angry to hear, and it’s bizarre.
I don’t want two vehicles that don’t do what I want. I want one vehicle, that is the same size and gets the same gas mileage as a car that does what I want by having an open bed in the back instead of an enclosed hatchback.
Its like you can’t read.
Note: The Subaru Brat, which is one of the example I said that I wished they sold trucks in today, was smaller than a Honda Fit. Do you think a Honda Fit is big?
No, hey, I get it. You want a cool toy, not a boring practical solution. That’s legitimate. I own many things that are not the optimal answer to a problem just because I like them.
The sheer rage at the insinuation that the option may not be optimal is fascinating, though. So uniquely American. Which is what this thread is about. “The maximal use case”.
For the record, I had not heard of the “Honda Fit”. I guess it’s like a Japanese Fiat Punto. Also for the record, what both the Fiat Punto and the Honda Fit seem to have is a back seat. But hey, again, a cool toy, not an optimal solution. Maximal use case. It’s a good observation.
Considering you have absolutely no idea of what he does on a daily basis and no idea of how often he needs the vehicle for those situations. Plus no idea of his parking space. I’m not sure how you are able to tell him what he should buy.
I’m amazed they haven’t accused you have having a small penis because you want a (checks again to be sure) Subaru Brat.
The original point is that expensive, heavy vehicles as daily drivers can be less practical and economical than mutiple cheaper, dedicated vehicles.
Hold up here. Americans have too many cars per capita as it is. Your solution is to increase that? Especially when cars come with a big environmental footprint right out of the factory. Because I’m over here trying to consolidate how many cars we have and use an e-bike more often.
I don’t think you’ve thought this through.
Well, see, the secret is you probably don’t really need that truck bed in the first place, so if I was to guess, I’d say that’s why there’s a bit of resistance to that idea. The working hypothesis here is that if you bought a sensible car that makes sense as a car… and a separate van to work, then you’d never buy a van. Which is what most people do here, honestly. You don’t so much buy a van as you know a guy who does own a van and will let you use it for the thirty minutes that you actually need it once or twice a year in exchange for a beer later.
Which is probably how you end up with fewer cars per capita than the US and still have work vehicles separate from whatever you use to take the kids to school or go get groceries.
Also, you send the kids to school in a bus and walk to the shop. That also helps, I bet.
I’m not sure why you think a van is a better option. If we’re talking about people who actually use their big hauling thing for more than running to Starbucks, they’re different options for different uses. They’re not more efficient, and on fact may may be less efficient in comparable models. The bigger ones are built on exactly the same truck frames.
People who actually need one can choose whatever. I don’t have a need for either, don’t have either, and probably never will. But I’ve seen this van argument a lot, and I think it’s silly and misunderstands how the two are built and their tradeoffs.
