Now, I'm a big fan of pickup trucks, but I can see a lot of merit to the arguments people make. Some thoughts:
- There is definitely an "arms race" - between the big three at least, over towing capacity, payload, etc. Of course 90% of people never need them, but when they make a truck that is capable for the 10% that do, there's a big segment that want to buy that just so they can have the best there is.
-this is definitely fuelled by low interest and long term loans. That's how I could afford my truck -7 years at 0%. I'm thankfully almost done, a 20 year old brain doesn't really have a good grasp of how long 7 years paying for something is.
-Automakers do their best to push this, since people are willing to pay lots of money for the super-capable, super luxurious vehicles. What company wouldn't push their highest-margin product?
-There used to SMALL truck options. The payload/towing arms race has somewhat by necessity led to larger and larger trucks. Part of it is consumer taste as well, but not all. You need a lot of spring travel to smoothly suspend 2000lbs in a box going 120. But, through a combination of market preference and dealerships pushing the most expensive ones, the option to buy a small truck is being taken away. The new "midsize" trucks, i.e. Colorado/Canyon/Ranger, are as big old full size trucks used to be. Nowhere to be found is an equivalent to the old s10, rangers, or those tiny Mazda or Toyota trucks.
-This leads leads to a personal gripe of mine. The death of the TWO DOOR pickup. The classic truck configuration. GM will no longer sell you a 2-door-shortbox, you have to get the 8' bed work truck (they sell them in Mexico and the middle east, but that's a different complaint altogether). Ram took a year off of even making 2doors - explained as being part of model year production changeover. The midsizes dont even come in a two door option!
I
think, but have not looked into it specifically to know for sure, that this has something to do with CAFE regulations, where gas mileage allowance is partially based on vehicle footprint. So a short truck with the same engine gets a worse rating. And since fewer people will pay as much for a two door as they will for a four door, both the automakers and dealers are incetivized to push the bigger trucks. There are fewer on the lots, and they give way better deals on big ones. They (well, GM anyway) severely limit the options and trim level on the two doors trucks, so if there's a certain feature you gotta have, you're forced to get the larger truck.
I bought my (2door, 6 foot box) new in 2014 for $42,000. They
would. not. budge. on that price. But happily offered me a better-optioned, 4 door version, for WAY less money, like under $40k. If I had only cared about the money, OF COURSE I'd take the 10-15k discounts for "more truck". I didn't WANT more truck, but I'm very clearly in a tiny majority.
I'm glad I didn't go bigger, now at my current house, my (shortest possible truck I could buy) overhangs the sidewalk by about an inch, if I touch the back bumper to my porch.
-There's also a bit of a gearhead/performance aspect. For a while there was a real dearth of "muscle car" type options for new cars, and trucks offer a decent way to get old school big American V8 engines for a reasonable price compared to actual performance cars.
In my defense
I did live on a farm when I bought my truck. So now I'm one of those office workers with a truck who doesn't really need one, and I freely admit that. But it sure is REALLY handy to have. And I determined that the only way to actually make my not-great decision of buying a new vehicle worth it it to drive it as long as possible.
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