sabconsulting wrote:
1) Commercial trucks up to around 40 tons (Volvo, Scania, TATA, etc.) - require a commercial drivers license, have air brakes, have low power to weight ratio - you probably wouldn't want to drive one of these on vacation.
2) Van-based pickup trucks / flat beds (Full size Ford Transit, Mitsubishi Fuso, etc.) - often also low power to weight ratio and few luxuries as they are designed for commercial fleet use not private buyers. Equivalent I guess to the 350/3500 & 450 / 4500 range of US trucks.
3) Compact pick-up trucks. These therefore have to cover a much wider range of uses, effectively replacing the compact, 150 / 1500 and 250 / 2500 ranges of trucks in the US. They are of more compact dimensions with shorter load beds than the 150/1500 trucks, but are all rated to carry one ton payload.
Just add to that ,
something Steve would not see in Europe is Japanese Light Trucks used as RV bases. They are very successful here.
"I ton payload" means generally more than that. A Dual Cab Pickup will have up to a 2,500lb payload. Single Cab 3000lbs roughly.
Where we differ from Steve and Flaxi's European Scenario is the sheer number of very heavy MDT Trucks that are closer to Class 8 US trucks.
European Highways are full of HDT trucks. Vans, Cab Chassis variants, that cover US the Pickup range, but have vastly more diversity and 7 Tonne plus trucks the MDT's of Europe.
