Ranger is coming back... so is Bronco?

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:
The reason the mid size pick ups went away IMO is they were no longer mid size nor did they make better mileage over their full sized brothers. Unless you went with the smallest engine.

The reason why the old Ranger, S-10(first gen Colorado)n and Dakota went away was due to CAFE or Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations. The CAFE standards are an average mpg of a manufacturers entire fleet. It also takes into effect of how many vehicles of each is being sold. Furthermore, large trucks get a pass and more leniency with the CAFE regulations, but this does not pass on to compact or midsize trucks. It was these regulations that killed the compact (NOT midsize) truck.

The new regulations that took effect in 2011 (notice that that was the last year of the Ramger and Canyonado) which also took a vehicles "footprint" into effect on determining it's CAFE numbers. To make it fair, the regulation also gave those manufacturers that sold mainly large footprint vehicles some leway meaning they can have a less strict CAFE number if they sold a lot of large footprint vehicles. It was this very loophole that led to the demise of the compact truck since they have a small footprint like a car, but don't get nearly the fuel mileage.

Take Ford as an example. They sale mostly large trucks and the small vehicles they do sale get considerably better fuel economy than the large trucks they sale. Due to this, their CAFE number may be around 25 mpg as an example. The is means their entire average has to be about 25 mpg. Any more and they would have to start making their main selling vehicles more fuel efficient which costs time, and money, and the towing performance they tout so heavily. If you added a compact truck that has a small footprint with horrible fuel economy into that mix, and it sells well then that my increase your CAFE mileage to offset it. This means more money being spent for no gain, and as we all know business are in the business of making money. So a wise business decision given the regulation would be to nix your small footprint vehicles that get horrible fuel economy.

Now, the compact truck is all but gone. What has taken its place is a larger midsize truck with a larger footprint. Also, new changes to regulations now favor midsize trucks which is why you are seeing more being made in the US.

If you want to read more about it then here are some interesting articles.


How CAFE killed compact trucks.


Good and Bad emerges from CAFE.