What? you don’t like corporate-exclusive keitrucks?

Amazon: Kei for me not for thee

A lot of it has to do with well-intentioned but stupid regulation.

The auto companies in the 2000s started calling everything a truck in order to get around fuel economy standards, so in 2008 the EPA announced that beginning in model year 2012, standards would be based on vehicle footprint instead of vehicle classification.

Notice how all the small trucks stopped being made after 2011? It's because small cargo vehicles suddenly had to somehow have better fuel economy than a sedan.

It's also why trucks have gotten stupidly big over the last 15 years. As standards increase, they can just make the footprint bigger.

Kei trucks can't legally travel in bike lanes.

This..

We have blacks picking cotton for free in the prison-industrial complex of the deep south and parts of the midwest. As Americans we have this thing for slavery and subservience. The optics of things. I guess at some unconscious level we just want to see the rickshaw come back in some big, highly visible way.

I work at Portland State University, which is embedded in downtown Portland. They have small maintenance trucks that go on street that have many traits in common with Kei trucks. They are too small, slow, and unsafe for a freeway, but are perfect for carrying cargo around campus. I am unclear why there is a carve out for those trucks, but not for Kei trucks.

I would say so they can use bike lanes as well as the road, so say hello to essentially a small van to dodge in your bike lane

Do they call them bicycles though? I'm guessing Amazon has chosen to call the DC one a "bicycle" (despite 4 wheels) because of some regulation they're avoiding with it or (more likely) some kickback they get for using bikes.

I don't have a problem with the vehicle itself. Seems pretty neat. But it is not a bicycle.

Those ones are specifically designed to be able to fit onto bike lanes, no?

tbf they probably have to go on big busy roads a lot more in the USA, and there's a lot more bigger trucks, and the drivers licence test is probably a bit less comprehensive than Germany, judging by how well people get out of the way of emergency vehicles in Berlin vs NYC in videos 😅

So you want a bigger vehicle just so you dont get squished by a silverado or something where the driver can't even see the first 5m in front of them...

That sure is a tiny image. I wish I could make out what it's about.

The thing that gets me is why people buy stuff from Amazon to begin with. Their search feature is horrid now, the products on there are all cheap Chinese crap that's way overpriced, the reviews aren't reliable, their shitty AI is 100% collecting your data and selling to advertisers, the number of delayed deliveries has been increasing over time, and the list goes on and on. Like it's a genuinely bad product now. I remember Amazon in 2016 was elite, but in 2026? It ain't worth a quarter. This is on top of their shitty labor practices.

It's called a captive market and platform capitalism for a reason. Thanks to the network effect, buyers and sellers gravitate to Amazon. Amazons main product is selling access to it's walled of market to third party sellers (and attention to advertisers). All of this is to avoid competition and extract monopoly rents. "Ethical consumption" (just telling people not to use Amazon) is fine, but not enough to break this monopoly on its own. It will never work as a single strategy. You also need massive organizing for worker and consumer strikes and/or internationally coordinated state power to forcibly break apart the monopoly.

Dont worry, everyone will be as broke as me someday soon.

That's kind of a dumb test. If I make a bicycle out of gold and diamonds and someone steals it, the theft will be taken seriously. Police just respond to crimes of different dollar amounts differently. It has nothing to do with the nature of this vehicle.

Edit. I haven't seen any more details on these vehicles, but it's clearly labeled a vehicle. I'm guessing it's registered and would be treated as an automobile theft.

Capitalism finds a loophole.

Someone who will never have to use it, or likely even interact with someone who does

That's an Amazon driver. The water bottle is not for drinking.

Mail carriers die from heat stroke in similarly spartan vehicles every year here in the southwest, no question in my mind the same will happen with this.

saves amazon money, no need for expensive car insurance, or maintaing an actual ev/ice car.

I dont think it reaches the dangerous speeds.

I am amazed at how this is mostly not mentioned in more upvoter comments. If kei trucks were not outlawed in the US for having the driver see the road too well this wouldn't exist, most likely

Aren't SUVs the loophole mobiles? They're classified as trucks to avoid the gas guzzler tax.

NZ Post has somewhat similar Paxsters, but they have full roadgoing registrations and license plates. I think they might have their own categorisation or exemption to allow them to legally be driven on footpaths like posties on motorbikes. Not used for parcel service, only letter mail

The mistake is looking at this through the eyes of not being American, not having to work for Amazon, and a postal service vs whatever Amazon deliveries is.

This is Amazon, looking for loopholes to use cheaper vehicles. That's it. Minimum, if any, safety for the driver while they're going around major roadways with vehicles that outweigh that thing.

So to recalibrate.... think of the most evil person you can. Cool, now double it. That's Amazon as a company. They can and will do anything they can legally get away with or if profits outweigh the fine(s).

"Sounds woke, no thanks."

That’s quite the assumption

Yes but people only come to this community to be irrationally angry, not thoughtful.