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‘Seismic shift’: driving unaffordable for many in US amid push toward SUVs
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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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.
But no, we're NOT talking about those people. At least we're not just talking about those people. And a van that is not being used because you're taking a smaller car is, in fact, more efficient than a pikcup truck. The point isn't "buy a van instead of a pickup", it's "buy a sensible car instead of a pickup, and if you do need a work vehicle get one of those on the side".
The entire point is we're talking about how Americans in general apply this very specific kind of FOMO to determine whether to go for a thing they don't really need in the event they might need it, that was the point of the thread. Like, you know, driving a luxury work vehicle everywhere when you could just have a practical small car for people and a practical cheaper work vehicle for the same price. Then it weirdly morphed into how if you point out that this applies to pickup trucks people get mad at you on the Internet. And then people got mad on the Internet.
Also, second time in this bizarre argument somebody raises "vans are just built on pickup frames with a roof on them". The other guy who said it went to sanity check online and came back reporting that actually no, that wasn't the case, at least for the popular examples he was thinking of. I think that may be a US thing as well where one popular van was built like that and it became common to think that was the norm but the popular vans in places where vans are populars are not built like that. It's weird, I hadn't heard that one before until I accidentally pissed off pickup people the first time.
More to the point, I'm asking why you think vans are a superior option to trucks in this role.
Things like the Ford Transit or Mercedes Metris are built like cars with unibody construction and car suspension. That's fine as far as it goes, but they're not clearly superior to a pickup in the same size range. The Transit Connect is roughly comparable to the Ford Maverick, and I believe even uses the same engine. Comparing fuel economy:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=47363
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=46370
The van has a smidge better city millage, but the truck has a fair bit better highway. That's likely because the truck weighs a bit more (which matters more in the city) but has better aerodynamics (which predominantes for highway cruising).
Why would a truck have better aerodynamics? Frontal cross section. Vans tend to be as tall as a truck, but also sit lower like a sedan. They would tend to have better drag coefficient, but their frontal cross section is worse. By way of contrast, a motorcycle with a rider has a drag coefficient that makes a truck look good, but has a relatively tiny frontal cross section.
And here we might have our answer to why Americans may prefer trucks in this role: more highway driving.
Past the Transit and Metris size, yes, vans are built like trucks. A Ford E350 van is an F350 frame. Same with the Chevy Express and the Silveroto. The Mercedes Sprinter doesn't have a direct pickup analog, but it is sold as a cab chassis for customization.
More specifically, they tend to be body-on-frame construction. They have to in order to support higher weight capacity. The Sprinter is a bit of a hybrid between unibody and body-on-frame--hence allowing a customizable back end--but anything bigger than that has to be built like a truck regardless of what's on the backside. Unibody car-like frames don't cut it.
In what "role"? How is that more to the point? I never said "vans are better than pickups", I said "for the money of an expensive pickup you can get a hatchback and a van". So not that vans are better, but that you can cover the dual role of a very expensive "truck" that you also use as a daily driver for a thing that is a more practical daily driver and a work vehicle.
So no, the idea isn't that you're driving a van to take your kids to school like some deranged weirdo (again, I've been that kid, don't do it, it's a bad idea). The point is that using a work vehicle as your daily driver is expensive and inconvenient for everybody else in the road.
Incidentally, you guys are being obnoxious enough about this that I today I walked past a Citroën Berlingo parked in a compact car spot on the side of the road and went "heh, look at that". That's what you made me do. I shouldn't care about this. This shouldn't even register. Stop making me notice practical vans.
I'm honestly trying to explore this point about vans, because I've seen it come up a lot. Not just your argument, but there's an idea among the FuckCars crowd that vans are superior in every way to pickup trucks, and pickups are only for penis enhancement. It's silly and misunderstands how the two are built and why people might choose one over the other.
Basically, my argument comes down to most people don't need either one (and we seem to be aligned on that), but past a certain point where people actually use their big vehicles, either vans or pickup trucks are fine. Europeans often choose vans because it works for them and Americans often choose pickup trucks because it works for them. Americans need to buy fewer F150s or anything else in that size class, and neither side of the Atlantic should be buying so many crossovers/SUVs.
Yeah, man, so... maybe have that argument with someone who is having that argument?
I mean, cool, I get it, you're itching to make that case to somebody who is making the opposite case, but if you just blast it at people who are not saying the thing you're responding to it just... doesn't really work that well.