[mulmen]

> hauling yards of soil or towing boats

I'm not defending the number of pickups on the road in America but this is an out of touch comment. Some common uses of pickup beds include:

* Hauling motorcycles and ATVs including snowmobiles.

* Carrying campers.

* Carrying home improvement projects such as bags of soil, plants, and raw material such as 8'x2"x4" lumber or 4'x8' plywood. At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of plywood will not fit in a compact pickup but lays flat in a fullsize.

Some common uses of pickups include:

* Towing pull-behind RVs or fifth-wheels.

* Towing boats.

* Camping with the family.

A lot of modern pickups seem to include some kind of bed cover that makes them well suited to mundane tasks like hauling groceries as well.

All of that suggests to me that pickup manufacturers do in fact know their customers.

> 2 Seats + 6 Foot bed seems like a winning combination in practicality, but is quite rare in the US.

Because it's too small to be useful. You can't fit a sheet of plywood in that easily. You might be able to get a small motorcycle in there with some wrangling, but maybe not. 2 seats means you can't carry the whole family, so now you need a second car if you have kids, or friends. And if you actually do use the truck for weekend activity like hauling boats or an RV then you need to drive both cars.

The fact is the fullsize truck actually does work for American consumers. That's why people buy them. And why manufacturers make them.

All of this totally ignores the hundreds of thousands of "work trucks" that are being fully loaded every day. Landscapers, farmers, contractors, etc all rely on the pickup form factor for obvious reasons. And looking around those are often used trucks, including the high trim level luxury versions from a previous generation.

[SandersAK]

About 2/3rds of truck owners don't use the bed much at all.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...

[mulmen]

> And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.

Reads to me like 2/3 of truck owners use their bed at least twice a year.

From the same paragraph:

> 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never).

Over 25% of trucks are used for towing.

> Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less.

A third of truck owners go offroad.

Add all that up and it sounds like pickups are getting a lot of use. There are no stats on what percentage of people do at least one of those things so we are left to guess but by the claims in the article it is at least "most".

[bluGill]

> 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never).

Even once is not never, because nothing else will do that job.

Note too that there people who use their bed but never tow, the fact that a truck could serve either purpose but for some only does one doesn't mean that those people don't use a truck.

[yread]

Or you could just drive a much smaller cheaper and easier to park car most of the year and rent a truck once a year when you need it

[SoftTalker]

As mentioned in another subthread, rental contracts for pickup trucks often prohibit towing, and the trucks aren't even fitted with a tow hitch. If you want to tow with a rented truck, you'll need to rent from a "commercial" rental company and you'll be paying a lot more.

[bluGill]

Even then, the rental trucks i've found that let me tow have the wrong hitch (bolted on ball of the wrong size) and don't have a brake controller meaning they can't tow my trailer.

[jerlam]

In the suburbs, there is no penalty for owning a large vehicle.

Even if it doesn't fit in your garage (because it's full of cars/stuff), you can park in your driveway. No one will complain if you block the sidewalk, because no one walks anywhere.

Shopping areas have large parking areas and structures. It is not unusual to see pickup trucks taking up more than two spaces. Parallel parking is uncommon and usually can be avoided.

[mulmen]

Yes. I would have liked if they bucketed the responses. Something like 0, 1-10, 20-50, etc. But they just asked (or The Drive only reported) the 0-1 numbers.

What is conspicuously absent from these numbers is a response to the question "do you never use the bed or go offroad or tow with your truck". Which is the case that the article seems to be trying to make but can't.

[ozarker]

Probably all the trucks I see driving in cities. Come out to the country and see how much trucks get used.

[mulmen]

I live in the city and I see pickup trucks every day. Most of them are "work trucks" but that just means city trucks are getting a lot of use too.

[wink]

Still seems to be an American phenomenon (saw it first hand in Mexico, not US/Canada) - in Europe everyone has a van for (construction) work, not a pickup truck. And by everyone I mean easily 90% (unless you're talking real truck of 7.5t+) with maybe an exception for garden workers.

[yardie]

> At least in the 2000s a 4x8 sheet of plywood will not fit in a compact pickup but lays flat in a fullsize.

I hate to break it to you but the F150 XLT Crew Cab tops out at 6.5ft. Your 4x8 plywood won't fit with the gate up. And if you have to put the gate down for standard sizes do you really need a fullsize pickup to do it?

[rascul]

If I'm only hauling a few sheets than I leave the tailgate gate up and lean the board on it. Straps can't hold just a few sheets very well laying flat unless the attachment points are significantly lower. I learned this the hard way when I had to pick up a couple sheets of plywood off the highway. The other option is to lay a few 2x4s under it to raise the sheets and give the straps a better capability to hold.

[mulmen]

Yes because in a smaller truck (like a Tacoma) the plywood doesn't fit between the wheel wells so it has to be loaded awkwardly and reduces what else you can haul because you can't put things on top of the plywood.

[thecrumb]

Pfft. Not sure where you live but I usually you see pickups doing none of the above, with one person in the cab.

[mulmen]

And you follow these trucks for their entire service lives?

[dieselgate]

I presume the availability of 4x4 helps with trucks as well? Does for me at least