The part with the worst availability is the godforsaken shifter, which happens to be shared with the ICE F150s.

That symbolism goes completely against electric/green vehicles. In other words - people who buy F-150 would never buy electric vehicle and people who are looking for electric truck for work wouldn't buy F-150.

This is an unfortunate trope that is oft repeated by those that live their life in constant upgrade cycles.

The regular F-150 is a pinnacle of value engineering for Ford. It's infinitely repairable for owners. Look around on the highway, you will see hundreds of 15+ year old F150s on the road, and a few times a day I will see 25+ year old trucks on the road too. There are thousands of aftermarket parts for repair or customization. Owners are happy with them, and they recognize the truck as something they buy once and keep for a long time.

If it is any kind of expression of self, its one of "I don't need to be consumeristic; I picked something simple that will last a lifetime."

Is there any car that can't do that though? That's just the weight of 5 adults.

Anyway, my point is that it's been a surprisingly good vehicle that just keeps going. Throw some lumber on the rack after loading gravel, it doesn't care until the suspension starts bottoming out. It's not my first truck, and I'm not tied to any brand, but the overall experience has been so solid at high mileage, that it sets a bar for any future trucks.

I'm just a single data point, and I'm sure there are folks who've had poor experiences, but having owned many vehicles over the years, the F-150 feels particularly robust to me. Honda engines give me a similar feeling. As one commenter described "using in anger", there are some things that will take repeated abuse and just love it. Maybe I've been lucky, but in my limited experience, the F-150 has a well-deserved reputation.

Even then, my minivan can pack some pretty long and pretty large things inside. Meanwhile it's got a better turning radius than most trucks, it has way better visibility, it's far less pedestrian unfriendly, it's got an easier loading height, sliding doors make it easier to fit the back five passengers in and out, the stuff I'm hauling doesn't have to risk getting wet or affected by the outside environment. Seems like the minivan is way superior than a bed for suburban life if one needs such a large vehicle.

I've needed to move homes requiring the need for a 24' box truck more than I've needed to haul a stack of drywall around. Should I daily drive a uhaul truck?

A utility trailer could do a lot of that too, if you have a suitable tow vehicle. Sometimes the extra space taken by a trailer is inconvenient.

It's a good idea to use anti-sway bars on, say, a Hayman-Reese hitch when things get technical and loads want to skid sideways.

Rig your trailer right and you can have a removable gull wing hutch for sleeping in / tool security, etc.

IMHO there's more room on a dedicated heavy load trailer than an SUV "truck" bed and there's usually better tie down with a custom trailer as the rope rails run full length for hitching.

You may get away with it but it is not suitable. It doesn't have the brakes or the weight to safely pull a large trailer, and you'll likely burn up the transmission as well. Now, if you're talking about a body-on-frame GM sedan from the 1970s, with a 350 or larger V8 engine, maybe. A 4-cylinder typical family sedan of 2025? Not a chance.

We work in agricultural and mining and have done, in my fathers case, since 1935.

Admittedly he started with horses, bullocks, and kerosene fueled tractors, but hey, we understand engines, how to keep them running, and a host of tangential factors that roll alongside; recovery, survival, first aid, fire fighting, bush mechanics, etc.

Vehicles are maintained, used within their limits, regularly checked before long trips, and routinely clock up 750,000 - 1,300,000 km before being replaced.

To date no transmissions have been burnt out. Multiple long distance trips on sealed and unsealed roads have been taken across the length and breadth of Western Australia - it's reasonably tough country.

As a pro-tip, if you're burning out transmissions pulling loads on a regular basis, I'd suggest parking up to take load facing downhill (and chock the wheels to be safe). That way, when you start up under load you have the advantage of a downhill rolling start. That'll help to prevent spinning tyres, getting bogged, and undue strain on the transmission. If you're not doing it already consider starting off in a low gear rather than relying on an automatic transmission to select for you.

You do understand, I trust, that there's a perfectly usable 6-cylinder class between a stupidly oversized rarely needed V-8 and the woefully under powered 4 cylinder?

We have trucks, we've just spent the last month on district harvest, and we're dropping a modular house in place later this afternoon (GMT+8) - by trucks we mean prime movers + trailer trains (usually two, sometimes three), nine tonne tippers, ex-military scrabblers that can carry 5-tonne of water up bush tracks (fire control) and the like.

Ultimately if you're serious about contracting work of any kind, or even just craft glass blowing / wood working, etc, you get a workshop in a light industrial area or a rural block with space for sheds, drive ways, loading ramps, car sized LNG tanks, etc.

And if your answer is "well you'd go to the workshop and do that"...well there's your answer on where to park the trailer.

My neighbors are doing extensive renovations to their home. Half the people show up in pretty fancy trucks most days. Nothing in the bed, the trucks look pristine with their company branding. Most of the actual people working hard in the house show up in beater Corollas or Civics. When material shows up, it comes in the back of a flatbed truck by the distributor dropping off pallets of drywall or mud or whatever or in some box van. These people driving trucks to their construction jobs rarely actually need pickup trucks for their construction work. Its like arguing chefs need to carry their own gas ranges to the kitchen. The real work often gets done with the company's equipment, not their own personal luxury toys.

When roofers came to redo the roof on my home a few years ago it was the same story. All the sales people drove big fancy pickup trucks to talk and show off proposals on an iPad. I didn't realize a pickup was absolutely necessary for an iPad, but hey I guess that's what it takes. After all others in this comment area think you need a few tons of towing capacity to move a 50lb canoe. A big box truck came to drop off the pallets of shingles and decking to my roof. The workers showed up in beater cars, the supervisors showed up in pristine fancy pickup trucks. Once again, they can easily write off that big truck cost immediately, but a passenger car would take years to write off the depreciation. I wonder why they chose the big pickup instead of the smaller car.

I've got family working commercial construction as well. He also drives a fancy big truck. When asked if he uses it for work, his words were "fuck no, why would I fuck up my truck for them?" He uses it to drive to job sites on well-paved roads, goes to Twin Peaks for UFC nights, and sometimes get groceries.

Residential construction jobs also existed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, and yet pickup trucks weren't the top sellers in any of those decades. Meanwhile in the 2000s onwards pickups and large SUVs hold a good chunk of the top selling spots. I guess we just all work in residential construction?

I've mostly just had that delivered when doing a big job, but I have just laid a tarp before. It's not that big of a deal really. And I don't even bother with a tarp for the smaller jobs, it's already bagged. Just don't grab bags with holes in it, and use the vacuum later. It's fine.

> Or a bed-load of tree limbs and cut brush?

I live in a suburb. The trash service picks up brush. If it's more than what I can fit in a few bags I just put in a bulky trash request and the send a truck with crane to pick up the pile. Welcome to living in a society, it's quite nice.

> Hauling furniture, firewood, lawn mowers, trash

Once again, large furniture moves have been easily handled with cheap rentals. One-off pieces have usually been easily partially disassembled to load even into a hatchback. I've had no issues putting my lawn mower even into my old Accord, they're not that big when you fold the bar down. Spend a couple of minutes unscrewing things and suddenly you no longer need a truck. Not that I need to move my lawn mower much, I'm not in the lawn service industry. I'm also not in the piano moving industry. But maybe most Americans do move pianos on a quarterly basis.

And once again, a small tarp and I've carried plenty of firewood for my fireplace. But once again like the majority of Americans I live in an "urban" area and don't rely on multiple chords of firewood to make it through a winter. But the family I had that did live in a rural area that did mostly heat by firewood just had it delivered. You might as well argue one needs a trailer rated to carry fuel oil or large quantities of liquid propane.

You know what's inconvenient? Navigating urban spaces every day with a giant oversized monstrosity that my kids can't even easily climb into on their own. A vehicle where I can barely open the doors on an average parking spot. A vehicle that gets less than 20mpg compared to 35+ (or even way more than that with my EV). A vehicle where each tire costs $200+ compared to $100. A vehicle where a brake job costs way more than it needs to.

Don't get me wrong, some people definitely have a legit need for a truck. I've eyed them as I've been contemplating the pros/cons of a camper trailer vs. an RV. Some people own businesses that actually need it. But most people don't have a camper trailer or horses or work a small construction company out of their home and yet trucks are most vehicles bought these days.

We have pickups and the minivan and I often prefer to haul with the van. Better fuel efficiency and lower load floor are nice.

What you do is get a regular car that's great for everyday stuff and buy a trailer. You get a flatbed that's what, 4x the size of the one on your truck? And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time.

You won't use it much anyway, because a regular car fits more than you think.

> And it's cheap, at knee-level, and detachable, so you only pay the cost of inconvenience and extra fuel when you use it, not all the time.

You can also hook a trailer up to a truck, giving yourself even more capacity. Many people do this. However, people in urban or suburban areas may not have trailer storage areas.

I think that’s more down to choice than possibility. I’ve hauled all those things home from the diy store in my boring Volvo with its roof rack. Had 600-odd pounds of sand in the back just last week.

4x8 plywood isn’t particularly heavy, and little consumer “150 pounds max” roof racks can hold a lot more than they claim.

In northern maine, the "Manly men" have a road pickup, with a giant cab and all the luxury features and a 7L engine, and an entirely separate "Work" truck that actually has normal work truck features like no infotainment and is easy to clean and is not a luxury vehicle.

They only ever drive the work truck into the muddy farm. They might go "Mudding" in their pavement princess and then take it through a drive through car wash.

Then in the winter, when they need to plow the snow, they have yet another truck, usually an old work truck, that they slap a plow on.

Trucks are a lifestyle brand.

They don't tow things other than once a year, and that thing is a giant RV for the yearly camp trip, because they don't actually like camping. They don't need to tow their Skiddoo in the winter because they just drive it all over the state from their back yard, which is great fun.

My dad bought an F350 for "work" that is full of all the luxury options of course, and is usually towing an oversized box trailer full of tools as a work space, but normal people that don't have free rent and have to work for a living just take the damn tools out of the back of the truck before doing the work. But it doesn't matter because that $80k status symbol is "owned" by his company and is treated as a depreciating asset for tax purposes, so he buys a brand new one every 5 years.

Ironically, he actually does tow multiple times a week, but 90% of his usage WOULD be covered by an electric truck.

The entry of Japanese automakers into the F-150 market is instructive. While the Japanese trucks looked similar, the early versions had a bad reputation for slowly coming apart under the typical workload and stresses people put on the F-150, which Ford had been refining for many decades. Those trucks often get used hard, and because people know an F-150 can take it they aren't afraid to use them hard. The median abuse significantly exceeded what the Japanese engineers anticipated. Japanese trucks are much better now but the attention to survivability is a big part of the F-150's enduring reputation.

I've taken the Ford platform through situations where I've seen many other vehicles get destroyed. That's where the loyalty comes from and why it is a default choice for many. Most people aren't using them as hard as I have but it does provide a safety blanket.

Also, the most green vehicle is the one you keep operating over any new vehicle, electric or not. Truck owners tend to measure their ownership in decades.

How do you (I assume american) define it ?

People buy vehicles based on their needs. The F150 is sort of a hybrid between a work truck and a prestige family SUV like a Ford Explorer. If people are doing serious towing regularly, they will probably upgrade to a 250/350 class (3/4 ton or 1 ton). Plenty of people buy smaller trucks like the Ranger, which is basically like driving a crossover mini-SUV with a bed. People who are doing really serious transport may have a flatbed on an even bigger truck, but nobody uses those as family vehicles. I know people who have those little RHD mini trucks, which seems super useful to me.

I don't know Utes, which by googling, basically looks like a midsize (Ford Ranger, Toyota Tacoma) with a flatbed. We don't really use those.

Actually, it's kind of a market problem. Tons of people I know have expressed desire for a smaller truck like that little barebones Toyota Truck, but they don't make them here and we aren't allowed to import them.

-owner starts you up from the hotel parking lot

-3-5 guys get in, you get your morning coffee via a drive through

-You pick up a 'slip tank' of diesel (think a metal box with its own fuel pump that sits in the bed and holds about a ton of liquid when full). You might fill up your own tank at the same time, typically on the employer's dime.

-you drive 1-3 hours over dirt roads and ice to get to the work site

-you fill up the heavy equipment from your slip tank, then stand for about 10 hours - you might be idling for part of that depending on temperature

- you drive another 1-3 hours back to the hotel parking lot. the owner plugs in your block heater so your fuel doesn't solidify overnight and you get ready to do it again the next day.

Trucks look impractical when they're getting groceries in the city, but everything about them - the height, the large cabs, all of it - is highly optimized for a particular kind of job. It might not be as common a job as it was when this design rose to prominence, I have no insight as to that, but there is a reason for everything about them being the way it is.

This is way more extreme of usage than 99.99% of trucks made will ever see.

That said, my SO has a large SUV, mostly in that I have trouble getting in and out of a low car now, and I'm no longer able to drive myself. My daughter has a smaller SUV/Truck (Hyundai Santa Cruz) with a smaller bed, that suits her needs nicely.

For that matter, there are plenty of people here that would do well if they could import the Japanese sized smaller trucks, which have a lot of import restrictions.

That said, I wouldn't want to drive such a thing offroad, up and over hills etc. regularly. I know a lot of Jeep/Pickup drivers that tow heavier things than you can with a car and go offroad to places you can't get to in a light vehicle regularly. Being functional for workloads as well is another benefit even if it isn't your job. That doesn't cover tradesmen who need the utility regularly and includes those who live in an apartment and can't otherwise just keep a large trailer parked at a random spot.

And yeah, it might be a status symbol... so is a typical super car, large suv or things like a Range Rover. There's nothing wrong with it, if someone wants to have it and anyone who has a problem with that can fuck right off.

If it's the same person doing the same activities, why would you prefer if it's a large truck instead of an SUV? Shouldn't we prefer people realistically right-size their vehicle choices? If it's just a small person driving around running small errands shouldn't they probably be in something other than a large SUV or a large truck?

Also, you mention the SUV has less utility than the truck. That's all about perspective and needs. I used to drive a large Durango back in the early 2000s. We regularly rented and towed camper trailers a few times a year, so we needed the towing capacity. But we regularly also needed to seat six or seven. A truck would have had less utility for us and been a worse fit for our needs.

IRT small trucks, while import restrictions limit bringing those exact cars there's nothing legally stopping them from making similar-ish small trucks in the US. Examples are like the Santa Cruz and Maverick, but I understand many Kei trucks can be significantly smaller than that. But in the end there's tax incentives for vehicles that have a GWVR > 6,000lbs, so as a company truck fleet machine buying a tiny truck is a non-starter. There's also the image of "not a real truck" of these smaller trucks that make them unpopular with a lot of traditional US truck culture. Between safety regulations, emissions regulations, tax incentives, and the market demands such a truck would probably be hard to sell at any kind of big profit compared to the giant trucks they sell today.

> I know a lot of Jeep/Pickup drivers that tow heavier things than you can with a car and go offroad to places you can't get to in a light vehicle regularly

Sure, I get it. I too know people who actually do take their vehicles off-road, or who actually do regularly haul things or tow their boat to the lake every other weekend or whatever. I'm not against someone buying a machine and actually using it, that's cool. Have fun. As mentioned above, I did the same when I had camper trailers often. But for everyone I know buying a Wrangler or FJ to go do off-roading, I know several who would never do so. For every truck owner I know who actually use it as a truck I know several who just use it to commute to their office job and pick up the kids from school. I know several who bought a big truck specifically because they could expense it better with their small businesses, even when their business was insurance sales or real estate sales or marketing or whatever.

> And yeah, it might be a status symbol... so is a typical super car, large suv or things like a Range Rover. There's nothing wrong with it

There is a lot of things wrong with people massively oversizing their vehicles to their actual needs. It makes our parking lots bigger as they restripe for ever larger vehicles. It makes our roads wider and harder to cross as a pedestrian. It means you're more likely to die as a pedestrian in a collision. It means you're more likely to die in a car accident when a larger vehicle hits you. It means we're releasing more emissions and making the air less healthy to breathe. It means we're worse off just because someone wants to feel big in their big pick up truck.

Imagine if someone had a machine that they could press a button and it would just give them a bit of happiness, but gave your kids asthma and lung cancer, poisoned the water, killed crops, and could potentially kill a random innocent person in a gruesome way. Should they press that button? Are you good with them pressing that button all the time for practically any reason? Do you feel you should have a say on if they should press that button, or how often they could press that button? Do you think you'd probably go around talking to people about these machines and the issues of pressing that button, to try and convince others to only buy the machine and press the button if they actually need to, or maybe buy the machine that poisons us less per press?

Should you have a say when a company excessively releases cancer-causing particulates into the air? Should we have a say when a company releases machines into our communities that have an excessively higher risk to maim and kill the people around those machines? If we should have a say when a company does these things, why shouldn't we when its private individuals doing the same?

I've said in my previous comment, if you actually do drive around in places where you need the ground clearance, when you actually do tow things, when you actually do use the bed in ways that are needed, fine by me. I see lots of trucks doing actual truck things as well. But the vast majority of these vehicles aren't used in these ways. This is the problem I'm talking about. I've had someone say to me they needed their pickup truck, no other vehicle could possibly be used because sometimes they have to carry their kids bicycles around and the only way that could be done effectively was in the bed of their truck. There was someone in the comment section here suggesting a truck was necessary to take a canoe someplace, as if that's something only a truck could do. The craziest thing about that canoe story, I've heard it from several other people as well, incredible this is a common idea it seems.

- To be able to help your friends move.

- To be able to purchase supplies and move big things over long distances.

- If you raise horses, you have to have a truck to pull your trailer.

- If you own a tow behind or fifth wheel, you have to have a truck to pull it.

- If you like canoeing or camping it is a lot easier if you have a truck.

- If you live in a seriously rural area, or you enjoy hiking, you will need a truck or other vehicle in order to reach your home or many other destinations. I've gone up mountain roads in a Camry, and it's not a great experience.

- To comfortably haul a family

The vast majority of people don't have horses.

The vast majority of people don't have a fifth wheel.

I've tossed canoes on top of a focus hatchback. You don't need a truck to go canoeing. A canoe is like 50lbs, you don't need a few tons of towing capacity to carry a canoe. I've also gone camping in small cars. Get this, I've gone camping with just what I've carried in person for many miles! You don't need a few tons of towing to go camping.

I comfortably carry multiple kids and a spouse in vehicles other than a pickup truck. In fact, other vehicles have generally been comfier and easier. In the minivan the little kids can easily get in their seats and buckle up on their own. In the truck I had as a rental, there was practically no chance they had to climb in on their own, much less open the doors.

And yet trucks make up the majority of the most sold vehicles in the US.

I do all these things with my Camry, I'm pretty sick of having to park 5 miles down the trail, and I wish I had a truck.

When I was working at Boeing, my lead engineer explained it to me this way. When the airplane is flying with a payload (note the word "pay" in payload), the airline is making money. When the airplane is sitting on the ground, it is losing money at a prodigious rate.

The point of making an airliner is so the airline can make money, and that means minimizing time on the ground and maximizing time in the air carrying payload.