The Onion

I think small trucks make a lot od sense, but they're virtually impossible to find now.

Ever notice how the old Ranger, S10, and Dakota left the market at the same time. Then a few years later the "small" models came back larger than the 2000s full-size trucks, which had gotten ludicrously large?

There was a change in the CAFE standards that accidentally led to this mess. Lots of manufacturers were classifying vehicles incorrectly to cheat on their emissions numbers. The freaking PT Cruiser was classified as a truck by Chrysler.

So the CAFE standards were changed starting in 2012 to be based on vehicle footprint. It closed one loophole, but created a massive new one. Trucks are inherently less fuel-efficient than more aerodynamic vehicles with different engines and transmissions. Making a small truck that met CAFE standards was really, really difficult. And on top of that, CAFE gets stricter over time, so it gets even harder.

You know what's easier than solving the efficiency problem? Increasing the vehicle's footprint to improve the score. By making trucks bigger and bigger, they don't have to make them more fuel efficient.

It's actually why the Ford Maverick has the hybrid engine as the standard and the traditional engine as the "upgrade." With the hybrid as the standard they meet CAFE.

The hybrid Maverick is probably the vehicle I'd own right now if they weren't impossible to buy when I was last vehicle hunting. They're affordable, get 40 miles per gallon, have 4 doors, and a small bed. It checks every box for me.

But I'm pretty happy with my NV200. Though all the manufacturers have also stopped making small cargo vans now (Transit Connect, RAM ProMaster City, and NV200 are all discontinued), because their footprint is no longer large enough to meet fuel economy standards.