this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Since it's become legal to import these Kei trucks and vans, I've been loving the pictures of them all over the place. I have no need to haul cargo around, but I'd definitely love one of these things if I did in the future. I just don't like that you're only allowed to buy 20-year-old vehicles like this due to import laws.
Who benefits from keeping these trucks out of american makets?
a) the consumers
b) existing auto manufacturers
Who chooses to keep these trucks out of american markets?
a) the consumers
b) the governments/lawmakers
Edit american not western.
Uh, mate, we see these all the time. Maybe you need to redefine your idea of "western"?
How do american consumers keep trucks like this out?
I mean by not buying the imports, but at the same time it's hard to ignore the impact of not having them visible/available for purchase, decades of cultural engineering related to the auto industry here, etc.
Not sure they belong on this list next to entities that actively craft market conditions to benefit american auto makers (and themselves) financially.
I miss mini-trucks badly and wish there was an American market for them.
Or even what used to be regular size would be fine. My work just got a behemoth and it's technically a "small". I have to literally climb in by jumping to catch the roof (no handle on the basic model) and doing part of a pull-up. I'm short but not a little person.
It's not about consumer markets really. The CAFE emissions regulations essentially allow vehicles with larger dimensions to get lower mileage. So instead of the regulations ostensibly intended to lower emissions forcing better mileage, manufacturers just make bigger cars with the same or worse mileage than before. I used to have an S10 that got almost 20mpg, could park anywhere, could haul full sheets of plywood, and was surprisingly capable of road (came with the ZR2 package).
People still want this, they just aren't built because of asinine laws that get created through massive amounts of lobbying.
Neat!
Probably one of the reasons SUVs are so popular, fold back seats down and tons of unobstructed space.
You can blame the chicken tax for why we don't get light duty trucks imported during their normal production runs.
My mom is disabled and uses a power chair (that does not fold. Medicare won't pay for sensible things like that). Our choices were saving up to buy a wheelchair van, which is so far outside of our means that it may as well cost a million dollars, or buy a pick up truck and a set of ramps. We searched for months and months for anything small, and could not find it. Eventually went with a Nissan frontier, a 2012, so the larger model. I'd kill for one of these little things. Would be perfect for us.
There's one guy around town I see sometimes who has some sort of thing that goes on the hitch receiver of his minivan. If I see him around I might be able to ask him where he got that if I remember to. Saw him use it and it too was a non-folding power chair. He pulled up to it with the power chair, pulled ramps down, drove up onto it, pulled himself to his feet using the rear windshield wiper, stowed the ramps and leaned against the van to get to the driver's door. I'm guessing he has some sort of spinal injury.
If it's what I'm thinking of, it's called a lift gate. They're pretty cool. But her chair is about 450 pounds, so it tends to sit the frame down on the tires when you use one of those because of where the weight is, sadly. :/
I bet a micro van like a Delica or Sambar would fit your needs pretty well. Compact, but large enough to fit like 8 people total and the seats are fully removable so you could totally fit a wheelchair in there. Seen people fit a whole motorcycle in them before.
I'll keep an eye out for both of those! Googled em and they're pretty good sized it looks like. Her chair is pretty tall, but I wonder if it would fit if we took the headrest off.