Screenshot from Ford showing it's relative size to other trucks on the market. It's significantly smaller, and making it any smaller would get it killed by CAFE. This is the rare case where regulation really, truly is the enemy of progress.

The automakers fucked around classifying everything as trucks to get around CAFE, and the well-meaning regulation designed to fix that loophole accidentally outlawed small cargo-haulers and encouraged automakers to just keep making things bigger instead of improving efficiency.

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What's a CAFE? I don't remember any such rule in my country.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It's the US Federal Regulation that establishes required fuel economy standards for vehicle fleets in the US. For instance, by 2026 the average fuel economy for a vehicle fleet, based on number of vehicles sold, must be 49 miles per gallon.

For manufacturers that sell a lot of trucks, that's a problem. The #1 selling vehicle in the US for 50+ years has been the Ford F-150. So they split consumer vehicles into 2 major categories: passenger vehicles and light trucks, which had less-strict standards and an adjusted mpg-rating. After all, a truck designed for low-end torque for hauling gear and pulling trailers isn't gonna be able to compete with a Civic for fuel economy.

To game the system, the manufacturers started pushing vehicles they could classify as light trucks. The classification was supposed to be reserved for cargo vehicles, vehicles rated for 12 or more passengers, or off-road vehicles. So the manufacturers started making everything "off-road." Remember how the minivan disappeared and suddenly all the manufacturers had SUVs instead? Light Truck classification is the reason.

The final straw was the Chrysler PT Cruiser being classified as a light truck.

So in 2008 the feds announced that, starting in 2012, more weight would be given to a vehicle's footprint in calculating an adjusted mpg to discourage the manufacturers simply raising a car a few inches and calling it an off-road vehicle to game the numbers. But the unintended consequence was a system where they just have to make trucks a little bigger every few years to stay ahead of the increasingly-strict mileage standards.

It's about to get worse, too. Starting soon, manufacturers won't be able to use the improved mileage of Hybrids to improve their CAFE numbers (it'll only use traditional ICE for calculations), so I expect a lot of hybrids and plug-in hybrid models to be discontinued, including the Maverick.

The Maverick is the cheapest truck on the market AND it comes standard with a hybrid. That's not because Ford is generous.

It exists almost exclusively to sell enough fuel-efficient vehicles to improve the CAFE numbers for the rest of the truck fleet to avoid fines, and when the hybrid engine no longer gives Ford a bonus in the numbers I doubt they'll keep making it, or at least not as cheaply with the hybrid engine as the standard.