The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger

Perhaps some of you remember trucks of the 80s. Not much has changed dimensionally, without safety improvements. Those did ~8-10 mpg unloaded while making 25% of the power with half the tow rating of a recent truck and none of the modern safety features for collision avoidance, blind spot monitoring, etc. The armchair distortion is real here. Please visit the numbers before making blanket anecdotes—the manufacturer websites have good uptime for their brochures. :)

Thank goodness you drive a diesel.

Can somebody explain why people tend to prefer petrol engines for trucks America?

Doesn't diesels haul better, because of all that torque from a lower RPM, from a smaller engine?

Fuel and maintenance costs. Gasoline is currently $3.58/gallon here, and diesel almost $5/gallon. Also, diesel isn't necessary for most pickup truck usage. I would consider replacing my gasoline truck with diesel if I had to haul lots of weight often. I would also have to upgrade from a half ton. I have no problem hauling most building materials that I need for work, but I wouldn't want to move for example heavy equipment on a regular basis with my (comparatively) small gasoline truck.

More people drive gas, so more gas vehicles continue to be available.

Biodiesel along with moving more of these passenger trucks to diesel would go a long way toward reducing overall carbon, but cost is the main issue there.

Why is diesel more expensive? Don't you get diesel earlier in the refinement process?

> The lightest 2016 Chevrolet Colorado outweighs the full-size 1986 version by about 260 kilograms.

> The Frontier and Tacoma never went away, but overall buyer preference for larger trucks brought an end to smaller models like the Ford Ranger and its Mazda B-Series sibling, Dodge’s Dakota, and Chevrolet’s S10.

A majority of truck owners in the US will never haul anything more than groceries, and we love V8's

Completely untrue. I have a 2003 GM 1 ton extended cab truck. A 2022 long bed, extended cab F150 is longer, hood is higher, has much larger blind spots, and significantly larger wheels. My truck is wider because of dual wheels but if it was single it would be about the same width.

Trucks have gotten unnecessarily large with ridiculous blind spots.

As for your other comments, my truck does get worse mileage unloaded but about the same while towing. I've upgraded the injectors and tuned it so it has a lot more power than it did stock. The $50k I saved over a new truck will pay for more than a lifetime of fuel.