this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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Looks like a Kei truck, love those things
Italy had a similar thing going on after WW2, when the economy was in the shitter. Piaggio Ape is a light commercial truck that is actually a Vespa scooter with three wheels, cabin and a box or bed. Cheap and does its thing. They're in continuous production since 1948, also made in India. (A fun detail: 'vespa' means wasp, while 'ape' means 'bee'.)
There are/were various configurations, including curiously a firetruck model of the Ape Pentarò semi:
Que truck
a what truck??
Kei trucks are japan origin work trucks that are basically if you shrank a semi truck cab to be a pickup truck
You might spot a few for tasks like delivery to local grocery stores
Imo way more respectable than pickup trucks, those went from working trucks to manoverse fake masculinity
Kei trucks are so much fun - wish I had one! Sure they don't have enough power to pull a hat off your head, but they're a blast to drive around.
On a side note, it's pretty entertaining trying to drive one in full chem gear 😄
There's a guy on Youtube who's designing an open source kei truck right now. He's planning on selling kits once the design work is done
You can't just say that and not stop a link, or a name
probably this? I haven't watched it but it keeps coming up in my feed
https://youtu.be/tlZlyp55dww
Yep, it's that guy.
Have they provided a timeline past "we're going to do it?"
Yes, nothing more manly than driving around town in a truck half the size of anything on the road with zero crumple zones. If you get into an accident you’ll certainly die like a man.
I’ll just keep my feminized large truck with a heavy frame, crumple zones, air bags and backup sensors. I’m sure I can fit the wreckage of that Kei truck in the bed of my fem. truck and drop it off at the scrap yard if you ever get into a accident and need someone to dispose of it.
And people say women are emotional...
Repeating sexist remarks… check Implying that a idea or statement isn’t manly and/or is feminine in a degrading manner… check
What other sexist degrading statements do you have rattling around over there? I’d expect it’s all you have because you haven’t spoken any facts yet.
why so pissy? relax man
Sorry man if someone is sexist and makes misogynistic statements, I have a hard time letting that fly without responding.
You might feel differently and can let sexist statements about women go, but I’m just not built like that.
Are you illiterate? The only sexist statements made about women were made by you.
Did you conveniently skip that comment or is it cool with you?
The comment he was replying to checks all your little check boxes that got you triggered.
Sounds like it’s cool with you then. Just out of curiosity do you wear a red hat to events?
The problem with these fucking god awful abominations driving the road is their ever increasing mass and dimensions. Every year, companies somehow inflate more and more into personal vehicle sizes, and the fragile, tiny dick men buy these things to shore up their desperate and delicate egos. The trend of larger vehicles driving around incentivized a "safety" (more like a capitalism) war, wherein other vehicles had to increase size so that they didn't turn into a new form of powder during an accident. Now, a lot of people buy giant vehicles, as well as little old grandma getting two bags of groceries in a 6000lb Chevy Suburban behemoth. They keep adding sensors and cameras, because it's borderline impossible to see without them. Do you see the problem here?
I say capitalism war because the total profit per vehicle is higher because the selling price is significantly higher. A company makes more absolute profit on a $60,000 mega SUV than a $25,000 sedan, even if the margin percentage is comparable.
You can continue living in your "feminized" truck and justifying dangerous and increasingly fortified vehicles, or you can come down to earth and stop equating people's choice to make the road actually safer by bucking the trend of economies of scale with "dying like a man". More of these kei trucks on the road means the road is safer. It means your crumplezone on wheels is just for looks and not safety anymore. The pathway for safer roads is not to knuckle down and continue indulging in these ludicrously sized vehicles.
Cool story, I highly encourage you to stick to your convictions and drive around town and the highway in a Kei truck.
Gotta know your surroundings, yo. A lot of folks here live in densely populated urban areas where massive jacked up trucks are less for utility and more for status.
Sounds like a great place for you to own and drive a Kei truck.
Yeah. I dont have a dog in this fight. Just trying to help you. Seemed more than a little defensive.
Seems like you have a it's-all-about-me complex. "I drive around slowly in my truck and be calm, why can't you?1!"
Well there seem to be a lot of people in this sub that fetishized Kei trucks. If you make a comment about how unsafe they are… well just look at the rabid sexist attacks, unhinged aggressive comments. I mean you reacted by flying off and writing a three paragraph essay on the subject.
So yeah you do you.
I’ll continue enjoying rolling around in my large safe comfortable truck.
My reaction comes from studies done on vehicle safety and the economics behind them. You reacted by saying "I feel safer" and getting all emotional because you're trying to justify your purchase. And everyone else is unhinged. Right.
Also, your reaction of "cool story" disqualifies you from any actual meaningful participation in this. Truth is, larger vehicles means more deaths and accidents. I provided comments you can easily verify with countless studies but you're not here for that.
Well you sound like you have all your facts in a row instead of the dribble you spouted earlier. Can you cite a study where a modern 7000lb truck gets into an accident with a modern 2500lb car. I’d love to hear what a learned individual like yourself has researched!
Or are you just going to provide “comments” again?
Here I’ll start:
https://share.google/aimode/qeS3O27PW3ZstlGh4
When analyzing a collision between a modern sedan and a modern light truck or SUV, extensive safety data from organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reveals a complex dynamic defined by physical scale, structural alignment, and advanced safety technology. [1, 2]
While modern engineering has made multi-vehicle crashes more survivable than they were decades ago, significant disparities still exist when these two vehicle classes clash. [2]
1. The Physics Advantage (Mass and Kinetic Energy)
In a multi-vehicle crash, the laws of physics heavily favor the heavier vehicle. [3]
2. Structural Compatibility (The Override Problem)
Historically, the greatest danger in a sedan-versus-truck crash was "geometrical incompatibility"—meaning the truck’s high bumper would ride up over the sedan's hood, bypassing the sedan's crumple zones and crushing the passenger cabin directly. [2, 6]
3. Collision Type Outcomes
Real-world crash studies show vastly different survival rates depending on where the sedan is struck: [7]
4. The Role of Modern Safety Tech
Modern safety features have altered the baseline of these crashes:
Are you researching this for a legal or insurance case, looking into vehicle crash-test ratings for a new purchase, or exploring mechanical engineering concepts?
[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/
[3] https://safecarcompare.com/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/
[5] https://www.choosecharlie.com/
[6] https://www.nsc.org/
[7] https://curtislegalgroup.com/
My guy, you vomited a bunch of AI slop and call that research, at the bottom of your text it says "Are you researching this for a legal or insurance case, looking into vehicle crash-test ratings for a new purchase, or exploring mechanical engineering concepts?". LMAO great research, dude.
Yes, I do have my facts in order, I studied this in university for urban planning. I find it laughable, and honestly expectable, that you're only concerned with motorists deaths. How carbrained. Even more so, that the pillar of your argument is based on physics, which you are ironically supporting my argument. Yes, vehicles are generally safer today than they were in the past (Tyndall) but the mass and shape of vehicles plays a critical role in whether pedestrians or cyclists are killed. "SUVs and light trucks are taller, heavier, and more rigid than cars, they pose an increased danger to occupants of cars and to pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists" (Hu et al.). Trucks and SUVs disenfranchise other drivers' safety, because they "...are much stiffer. They therefore absorb less of the force of the crash and transfer more to cars" (Hu et al.). To continue this argument, "occupants of vehicles colliding with any type of [SUVs and light trucks] were at higher risk of death compared with occupants colliding with cars" (Ossiander et al.).
More mass does not mean better, despite how safe you feel in your cage of steel, because "For each 1 million light trucks that replace cars, between 34 and 93 additional car occupants, pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists are killed per year... for each fatal crash that occupants of large vehicles avoid, at least 4.3 additional fatal crashes involving others occur" (White). Larger vehicles yield higher fatalities: "Between 2000 and 2019, I estimate that replacing the growth in Sport Utility Vehicles with cars would have averted 1,100 pedestrian deaths. I find no evidence that the shift towards larger vehicles improved aggregate motorist safety... If all light trucks were replaced with cars, over 8,000 pedestrian deaths would have been averted between 2000 and 2019. Vehicle body types appear to be an important determinant of pedestrian deaths in the aggregate" (Tyndall). If you think it's okay to normalize and accept the enormity of SUVs and trucks at the expense of human beings taking other forms of transportation around you, then you have a problem far deeper than I can provide with sources. That's between you and your maker.
How about next comment, skip the AI slop and do some actual research besides showing me some hurled out elementary physics I already know about.
Sources
Hu, Wen, et al. “The Association Between Passenger-vehicle Front-end Profiles and Pedestrian Injury Severity in Motor Vehicle Crashes.” Journal of Safety Research, vol. 90, June 2024, pp. 115–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2024.06.007.
Ossiander, Eric M., et al. “Crash Fatality and Vehicle Incompatibility in Collisions Between Cars and Light Trucks or Vans.” Injury Prevention, vol. 20, no. 6, May 2014, pp. 373–79. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2013-041146.
Tyndall, Justin. “Pedestrian Deaths and Large Vehicles.” Economics of Transportation, vol. 26–27, June 2021, p. 100219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecotra.2021.100219.
White, Michelle J. “The ‘Arms Race’ on American Roads: The Effect of Sport Utility Vehicles And Pickup Trucks on Traffic Safety.” The Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 47, no. 2, Oct. 2004, pp. 333–55. https://doi.org/10.1086/422979.
My man, remember your original premise above? That I only felt safer but didn’t have any supporting data making me emotional? I posted it above for your edification. I appreciate you spending who knows how long putting together an argument that attacks your original statement in this thread. The paragraph you wrote below… Chefs kiss I appreciate how well you document how safe I am in my large truck.
I am safer driving around town in the safety of my large 7000 lb truck. Than a Kei truck driver would be.
Congratulations you played yourself.
I'm wondering if you can read or having memory issues, or blissfully ignoring everything I wrote. In no way did I say large vehicles are less safe for the person driving them. The problem is that they kill more people than they save around them. Read that again. So while you can feel snuggly safe in your ridiculous truck, know that cumulatively more fatalities are happening because vehicles keep getting bigger. Again, it just means you're only thinking of yourself. I'm done talking to a narcissist.
Are you dense or just don’t understand the English language? I quoted the relevant text of a comment you made:
Well let me spell it out below:
I am safer in a large vehicle and both you and I verified that statement.
Smaller cars like the Kei truck being a prime example of unsafe cars. Which you and I proved.
I am glad you finally agreed with my original comment. I do take great satisfaction that you have admitted I should feel “snuggly” safe in my large truck.
My purchase is justified by the statistic you love so much and everyone else is unhinged. That was the only point I was making.
I highly encourage you to stand by your convictions and purchase a small truck like the Kei. You can be the change you so vehemently advocate for. May you drive it proudly maybe even recklessly in dangerous heavy traffic around large vehicles.
Sometimes you need to look like a man.
Other times you just need to work like one.
Evidently sarcasm not only goes over your head, it is so far over your head it’s in orbit.
Yeah, I think kei trucks look cool as hell but. The driver is sitting right above the motor and fuel tank. They’re fundamentally not safe in crashes. That’s probably okay because they’re also very slow. No one talks about this because it’s not fun.
How many things are you planning to run into? I don't need a tank to do my job, this truck has airbags, it passes all the crash tests, and it has sensors for tire pressure and traction. That's good enough for me.
Is your truck bulletproof? Are you sure you don't need a pope mobile to get to work?
I’m not sure what kind of traffic you’re driving through where you envision driving into things or needing bullet proof cars. Perhaps you should calm down when driving or find new areas to drive in?
I just drive around my town in the comfort and security of my truck.
Sure, but Japanese drivers are far more disciplined, resulting in fewer traffic fatalities, than the dolts on the US roads who drive like they received their driver's license out of damn cereal box. By the way, SUV's and pick-up trucks have less stringent crash standards than passenger cars.
I'm fine with Mexica exporting it only to countries with disciplined drivers, it would still be leagues better than SUVs (although those countries don't have Kei trucks banned, usually)
Sounds like you have decided to passive aggressively agree that Kei cars are dangerously unsafe on American roads.
¿Qué truck?
(a nice reliant automobile)
I hope these won't cost a million dollars.
I thought the same thing but a Kei truck is probably more versatile.
Can't fault Mexico for trying to kick start its own EV brand though.
Looks pretty decent as long as the bed is deep (looks to be) and they invest also in ev infrastructure (otherwise theres no point to evs)
Since it is an early render, the bed may change a bit.
The article says it features plug in charging. If I remember correctly the previously announced model features the same. This would make sense for broader appeal. While fast charging would be possible in the larger cities, it would be a bit harder out in the country.
IMO the fast charge at home doesn't matter, it's the throughout the day charging that matters the most. 120 km is not the highest range and i can see folks using more than half just throughout the day