It’s easier more profitable to make a larger footprint the consumer buy a larger vehicle than a more efficient vehicle.

Minor fixes, spot on otherwise.

When a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure.

I can see how 2 can be gamed by car makers, but I don't know how I would fix it. Seems intuitive larger cars will use more fuel, e.g. can't use the same standards on 18 wheelers and sedans.

Are there good alternatives? Is my intuition dead wrong

refusing to build small trucks

It's taxes, yes, if they build larger trucks then the metrics they use to calculate taxes drops.

My current daily driver, which I won't upload my own photo of because it's literally enough to dox me (by people who know me IRL), is one of these:

It's not an SUV, but air suspension allows it to rise taller than some crossover SUVs, providing decent clearance. And on the road you can lower and stiffen it for better handling (or keep it in the comfort position for normal height and soft suspension). Both axles are always being driven, with front and rear diff locks being electronic, based on the ESP system.

It doesn't do as much work as your truck, but then I don't live on a farm. If I did, I'd have a truck too. It does however do significantly more work than any of those pavement princesses. In particular, it's been used for towing trailers, I've had the entire trunk, with rear seats folded down, filled when I moved most of my furniture. I've gone off road in it because I needed to go to the woods. Everything was muddy afterwards.

I'll use yank units for the fun of it, so it's got around 250k miles on it. It's a remapped 3.0 diesel, so it does over 40 mpg very easily unloaded, and can keep up with pretty much anything on the road because of the ridiculous amount of torque it puts out. I paid less than 2k EUR for it (paid pretty much exactly 2000 USD given current exchange rates actually). With all the torque it has, you could also easily tow way more than the legal limit of such a vehicle - which I've never needed to.

It's also rusty, scratched up, dented, etc. Some of the unnecessary extras don't work (park distance control? lol no, it's shorted out) It's not the best car I've owned, but it's the best one I've had for getting shit done. 3 months and 6000 miles so far, I've spent ~500 to replace some safety-critical neglected parts (brake, suspension) some of which will last the next 100k miles and some hopefully indefinitely (updated to a newer, more reliable ABS module).

It wasn't cheap for the first person who bought it, but neither are modern trucks. It was cheap to buy used though, unlike trucks. Parts are cheaper too, but that's partly because I'm in Europe.

I see F350 work trucks all the time but they rarely have stock beds, most of them run a full dedicated tool box usually with ladder racks or a custom bed made of diamond sheet. Same deal for the 550 and 650 if they aren't box trucks.

Your truck reminds me of the garage kept spare cars I see on farms. Sometimes they just live outside near the house but they get driven. Often to pull the bigger trucks out of mud somehow

that's one sexy looking truck! practical and it has a nice color!

Gender affirming care mobiles for small, weak men

As someone who has an extended bed standard cab 2001 Tacoma I can assure you I do many things with my truck bed. Just as the 4 metal Jerry cans from the 1960s! They are doing something called looking cool, also the bed has gotten used for the most random crap because my life is just that way, I smuggled a couple trees from Idaho through Death Valley with it.

I see plenty of these modern roided out status symbols on actual construction sites, probably used as commuters.

Is it ok to wiggle your little finger at men with tiny beds

Lmfao

It's a vestigial bed.

Trunkvertible

It's because they're emotional support vehicles for suburban dudes who have an incredibly fragile ego. What they need is a van or a "sensible" SUV or even just y'know a fuckin car but these men are too sensitive and scared to drive one of those so they buy a truck as a family car instead.

It's kind of pathetic honestly.

I'd be pissed if I bought a pickup that can't fit a damn couch

When this vehicle eats shit, whoever makes a normal sized pickup is getting my money.

So... either you'll be buying used or not a truck.

I thought the bed size was chosen as standard so it would fit a standard 4x8 sheet of plywood. What's the point of it can't fit that?

For the sake of bigger profits.

Not likely to happen. Both by culture and directly street/parking/garage size.

They literally don't fit on European streets.

Kinda like the Škoda Felicia pickup.

And those people who do buy trucks would often be happy with a much smaller one. They don't exist. No, not even the Maverick. That's "well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it" for trucks.