If you can even find any manufacturer that makes a truck, any more. Most of them just sell SUVs, and SUVs that are missing part of the roof. There’s absolutely nothing any more with a full-sized 8’ bed.
Last I checked, meanwhile, the largest American car manufacturer was Toyota. And like others have said, they still sell plenty of cars. Ford just couldn’t compete, because the Focus absolutely sucks.
Yeah, that has to be handled by government regulation. There has to be a cost attached to driving a vehicle that offloads the risk onto others that compensates for that offloading. Pedestrian deaths have been going way up in recent years, and it’s clear that those big-ass trucks, SUVs, and so forth are the reason.
I’m no expert and I’ll yield to any proper studies done about this, but my WAG is two things:
First, if my wife’s Honda Accord, a comfortable family sedan, were to hit me while going 35 mph, I’d be hit a little bit above the knee, which would mean my body would be falling onto the hood and into the windshield. Unpleasant and damaging, certainly, but unlikely to be fatal.
With the big pickups, SUVs, etc., that front end is like a high wall. It’s gonna hit me around the shoulders somewhere, knock me to the pavement, and run me over before the driver can stop. Much greater chance of fatalities and more severe injuries than with the Accord.
Second, while driving the Accord, if I’m waiting at a crosswalk, I’m very much at people level. To see the road beyond, I have to look through them; visually speaking, I can’t miss them. But the drivers of those high-up vehicles are looking out over the people walking by. Even when they can see the heads of those people, they can easily be looking beyond them without looking through and between them. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get pedestrian deaths and injuries when some of those drivers are making a right turn on red, thinking it’s clear, when there’s actually someone in the crosswalk in front of them.
As a 70 year old, I realize there will come a time when I’m less ‘with it’ as a driver than I am now. I want a vehicle that will help me maximize my perception of what’s around me. I won’t want a vehicle that will help me overlook stuff - especially people. And that’s my answer to Sam’s question:
Because any car that we buy now, I’m likely to be driving until I have to give up my car keys.
All the truck manufacturers offer 8’ bed versions.
But carrying a 4X8 sheet, the standard size for small pickups, can be done with a 6’ bed with the tailgate down.
Modern trucks have huge hauling capacity compared to the ones of my youth. The standard half-ton pickup back in the day, like a Chevy C10, would be considered a compact truck now.
IMO General Motors has been on the cost cutting train for far, far too long. Most of their cars scream cost cutting everywhere you look. Nothing is really good anymore. Just…okish at best and since they share components across different cars to save money they feel kinda samey.
Our Cadillac Lyriq is pretty lovely. Just sayin’. And it’s really a station wagon with a bit of a lift–which in Montana is appreciated.
General Motors has a huge pension overhead that is killing them. GM starts every car about $6,000 in the hole compared to other manufacturers, due to their employee liabilities. So they have to make it up with cheaper parts or try to sell the cars for more money.
GM is in a real bind due to lavish union beenfit agreements handed out in the past. It’s always easier for executives to trade current employee pay demands for future benefits, because they won’t be around when the benefits have to be paid, but increassing salaries hurts their P&L and bonuses. But eventually the long run shows up, and now GM is paying the price.
What are we calling “offroad” here? Things that you genuinely need a HMMWV or Jeep for? Or simply cruising down Forest Service Roads or two tracks?
Any crossover with 4WD is capable of most off-road driving, and two wheel drive is just fine for the vast majority of those. You really need to seek out places that don’t let a modern CUV pass through them.
I don’t know GM, but with the Ford Focus, it wasn’t even a matter of cheap parts. It was just plain bad design. Like, if this panel were moved a little to the side, you wouldn’t constantly get leaves clogging that vent, or if the seats were positioned just slightly differently, you could fit in a 50% bigger cargo with the back seat down.
why stop in the 80ies?
both models mentioned, were notorious money-pits and nearly legendary for being problematic (powershift-debacle, cruze-engine anybody?)
so there is that …
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there is way more to it than physics …
short version: the long Volvo does not fare good at all against a small Renault in a crash-test
The Escape was not based on the Taurus platform. They have little in common so you’re comparing apples to oranges.
There are manufacturers that have made sedan and suv versions using a nearly identical platform and often using the same power train. These provide more consistent apples to apples comparisons. For example, the Tesla Models 3 and Y. The Y has more room in the back seat and rear. The 3 is lighter and lower so it’s superior in every performance metric: acceleration, braking, turning, and range.
the lip/deep footwell is a carryover from 4x4 times … I recall my Suzuki Samurai having a 15cm high lip, to avoid water-ingress while fording rivers (for the same reason people use wellingtons)
… and also had rubber-plugs in the footwell to drain out any water that you might have taken on - just like emptying a bathtub… When taking those out, you could see the road… 
of course those types of vehicles had no carpets in the interior …
that always drove me nuts in american vehicles … the $70k Grand Cherokee had the same cheap turquoise digital clock that a $10k Chevy Cavalier had …
This. A local joke is that you can tell a real off-roader here because it has Arizona pinstriping (brush scratches).
I wasn’t trying to do a truck vs car comparison like that. I was just pointing out that SUVs in the same class as sedans really aren’t giving up much in fuel economy these days, and fuel economy was likely the #1 reason why SUVs weren’t as popular in the past.
Another factor is simply refinement. Older SUVs were often pretty raw vehicles. Especially the cheaper ones. But the newer unibody crossovers and CUVs have excellent ride and handling characteristics.
Yet another factor was the introduction of stability control which mitigates the most dangerous aspect of SUVs - their incresed tendency to roll over when out of control.
SUVs are the default now because they give up little to sedans while offering very compelling features like better visibility, better traction in bad conditions with AWD, more cabin space and more cargo space. Losing the trunk allows manufacturers to build vehicles with a bigger cabin with the same wheelbase but shorter length.
I just drove back from the place this evening, through the city, and it occurs to me at this point one more reason for wanting a taller vehicle: headlights.
Honestly, there is no reason we should be without a placement standard for headlights. Pickups simply do not need to have them 4’ off the ground. They should all be the same height. And also, tunneling them about 8" back from the front would help enormously with glare: blinding other drivers does not make the road safer for you.
Come to think of it, my '84 CJ7 had that. Just sheet metal though. The new lips now are wider, and don’t exist in many SUV’s.
Now, my 4Runner is probably not as good offroad as some as it’s box stock. But it’s still a true SUV, and does not have any lip/sill.
As I understand it, the actual difference beween crossovers and SUVs is structural - one built on a car platform, the other a truck. But when I see a big boxy vehicle on the road, the platform it is built on really makes no difference. So I question th eutility of distinguishing between SUVs and CUVs in many aspects of this discussion.
My wife drives a Subaru Crosstrek, replacing her previous Impreza. To me, they are essentially the same vehicle, except one is a couple of inches higher. Is it a CUV? Is an Outback?
I’m surprised to realize my Forester has a smaller footprint than my Sienna did, because driving, that hood looks MASSIVE. And - after driving a GTI (which I thought a wonderful, utilitarian vehicle), it feel HUGE! But when I see some of the land-yachts these parents drive to pick up their kids at the school at the end of our street, it seems downright petite!
I now drive an Outback. It replaced my Jeep Grand Cherokee. While the Jeep was definitely an SUV, while the OB is like an SUV I simply consider it a station wagon.
These are mine. I didn’t need the bigger size of the Jeep, and the OB fits us nicely.
A while ago, my buddies and I did a ‘Jeep’ trip all around Colorado. That’s my truck named it ‘Puddles’
ok, enough with the truck-jacking of the thread
I think it is an important distinction, because since they’re based on car platforms CUVs don’t have many of the drawbacks the old school truck based SUVs had. SUVs had terrible space utilization due to the ladder frames the trucks they were based on used. CUVs use unibody construction like a car, so they have better space utilization. CUVs are lighter than truck based SUVs for the same reason. Truck based SUVs got terrible fuel economy; CUVs get mileage pretty close to the cars they’re based on. Maybe slightly worse, but nowhere near as bad as the old school SUVs.
