I use a kei truck for farming. They are incredibly pragmatic little vehicles. They are very capable driving around on dirt/gravel agricultural roads with 4WD, and they are inexpensive and robust enough that you can really beat them up and use them as a tool without worry. Repairs and replacement parts are ubiquitous and inexpensive. Having the sides of bed fold down is also really useful.
They aren't comfortable to drive at all (although just having A/C at all on a hot summer day in the field is a godsend), and I wouldn't want to do longer trips in one - although you certainly could in a pinch.
It seems like Toyota/Scion is just testing the waters here, and I'm not sure how successful they'll be. But I hope there is a future for kei trucks in the US.
I've been driving a 2 seater manual Ford Ranger for the past 15 years and it definitely feels like the next level up of the kei philosophy. I'll probably drive it for the rest of my life at this point. It has crank windows, it's indestructible, and it climbs stuff like a little buggy - I've taken it places where sometimes even Jeeps struggle. It's not the car you take on a long road trip, but maybe different tools for different jobs.
It's a shame they don't really make them anymore. If I could buy a modern vehicle in the States that had the following properties:
- 2 seater
- Pickup truck
- Manual transmission
- Minimum 6 foot bed
I'd probably do it in a heartbeat. But even these somewhat weak constraints fail every vehicle in the USA market.
25 mph works for golf courses, resort, or island use. In rural areas on the mainland, roads connecting towns often have 45 or 55 mph speed limits so unless you plan on staying on the farm I don't think these are practical for trips to go shopping, dumping, hauling, etc.
As for the imports, I saw one of these 90s-era right-hand drive kei trucks at a parking lot a few months ago and talked with the owner. He was a young guy who lived in Boston, said it was super easy to park. Speed maxed out at 70 mph, which is fine for local trips but maybe not for long highway trips.
For people in jurisdictions that allow 30 year old truck imports, and are interested in getting one, there are other countries that use such trucks and have left-hand drive. Taiwan has models from CMC and Suzuki, and I believe South Korea also makes them.
I had a "car" with a 25mph limit back in 2005 or so, and it was awesome for my inner city living. I barely used my "real" car during the years I had it.
These Kei trucks are everywhere where I live (PNW). They seem like the ideal utility vehicle for city centres if you don’t need seating and are just hauling e.g. soil or bins or something.
With a built in 25mph limiter, that eliminates "city" driving too unfortunately. Most roads around me are 35 mph.
There's sizeable demand for people who want to be able to do runs to the bigbox stores for garden and DIY renovation supplies and store it the rest of the time.
Because they can't bear to make vehicles smaller. That's the real terror on American roads. Something like 60% of vehicles are huge because it makes the driver feel better. And indeed, it makes the driver safer in a collision - at the cost of making everyone else in the area less safe. Something has to be done to stop this trend first and foremost.
After that, when vehicle sizes start trending down towards reasonable, we can look at getting speeds up without reducing overall safety.
I think the reason trucks are so huge these days is not the ride feel. It's the EPA gives more lenient pollution restrictions based on size of vehicle. So instead of making the engine less polluting, just make the truck bigger and keep the same engine. It's like a cereal box that's only 1/3 full.
The idea to introduce light trucks in passenger-car shape to get around pollution limits was the car manufacturers' idea. However, the US public ran with it and bought because of the perceived higher safety and social status that comes with driving a larger, heavier vehicle than everyone else. And they continue to buy to attempt to one-up each other even though the pollution limits now apply to SUVs as well as smaller passenger cars.
I often ride my ebike at 28 MPH (max legal ebike speed in US) on a street with a 25 MPH speed limit and I'll regularly get cars tailgating me honking and crossing the double line to pass.
American here, in practice no. They are generally only the upper bound for dense neighborhood streets, throughout most other roadways you will be considered a poor driver if you go lower than the speed limit.
The city of Tacoma, WA recently implemented new ALPR ticketing systems to enforce speed limits in northern Tacoma. They received so many hits, they had to build out a new system akin to a lottery for sending ticket / infraction notices.
To me, that seems like the city is entrapping its citizens to make up for a lack of revenue, when the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted. But no, they move to develop a lottery system to send the infractions.
Entrapment means the government induced the illegal behavior. An ALPR speed cam doesn't induce anyone to speed. Its not entrapment, just drive the speed limit and you won't get tickets.
> the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted
The problem is a cultural one. Most people interpret a speed limit of N as "I should go N+10" (or something like that). If we remove speed limits, the majority of people would end up driving at unsafe speeds. People will always break speed limits unless they are set at that unsafe level.
And the solution is to build the roads such that going over the speed limit feels dangerous.
Make roads narrower. Add more bends and lateral shifts. Plant trees along the road to obstruct sight lines. Build roads so that only speeds below the speed limit are safe on them and people will travel below the speed limit.
Not true people drive what they feel the safe limit of the road to be. You can easily devise a road that has 55 mile an hour speed limit and no one will go over 35.
Speed limit cameras are highly effective at slowing cars down. They were recently removed in Ontario, and the average road speed increased substantially. The pedestrian death counts spiked in both Toronto and Ottawa this year. This is likely not a coincidence.
But did Toronto and Ottawa have to develop a lottery system to enforce the new systems due to capacity issues? Over the course of a month, it was over 400k infractions captured... 40MPH road.
The only reason for the speed to trend downwards is the increasing threat of a ticket from an automated system that cannot be reasoned with. A real cop generally isn't going to ticket me for going 5, maybe even 10 over a posted 40MPH zone unless they fished me for something else during the the stop. Flow of traffic is everything.
Almost all of the cameras were in front of school zones. 10 mph over in a school zone would definitely result in a ticket here. 5mph likely wouldn't, but the speed cameras didn't issue for 5 over either.
The cameras in Ontario issued an order of magnitude fewer tickets than yours. The highest volume cameras issued about 100 a day.
Yeah, 10mph over in a school zone is absurd. The issue I'm referring to are literally TWO speed cameras on common city corridors, non school zones.
The lottery system they're building to support the capacity issue is going to calculate weights based on the most egregious speeders, which I guess is nice...
25 mph limits abound in Seattle and hardly anyone bothers with following them. The only way they are going to ever enforce that is with speed cameras since we also don't have enough police to even deal with violent crime, let alone with traffic violations.
Considered a poor driver, and you can be ticketed for impeding traffic. I'd guess you are also more likely to undergo a field sobriety test if and when that time comes.
Where I live the major strode has a 45 mph speed limit and during most times of the day we only get to 35 mph but people make up for it by running the red light
I know two people who have been pulled over in the US for driving too slow.
If you drive significantly slower than the flow of traffic it can create a hazard for other drivers.
Generally speaking, much of driving is predicting what other drivers will do. If you behave significantly differently than other cars you do raise the chances of an accident.
For those of you clamoring for kei trucks to be street legal in the US, you really need to do some street view comparisons between Japan and the US.
US roads are built for much, much higher speeds. Kei cars purposefully give up safety with the caveat that they’re only used on low speed roadways, and Japan designs their roads with the intention of these vehicles being acceptably safe in that context.
Kei-cars are the smallest class of cars allowed on highways in Japan. Japan highway speeds are quite low at 100km/h, which is still more than twice what this car is limited to.
On intercity highways in Japan you are driving next to as large trucks as anywhere I've driven.
Kei cars in Japan are definitely allowed to go on their freeways. I have done big roadtrips all over Japan and I see kei cars all the time on the freeways. They just stay in the slow lane but I have seen ambitious kei cars drivers even pass regular cars in the passing lane :)
The roads are built to accommodate the cars Americans drive. At minimum, we have to put our money and interest towards alternatives for the system to change.
This newly announced truck is apparently limited to speeds I'd consider borderline unsafe on American public roads (<= 25 mph) because that puts it in the LSV category, and that's apparently the only way you can sell a Kei truck under current US regulations. So they're making it less safe and less useful in order to be able to sell it here, I suppose thanks to reasoning similar to that which appears in your comment.
IIUC a typical "real" Japanese kei truck can manage 60-70 mph easily, if not comfortably. That's more than enough to hang with traffic on the vast majority of American roads, and nobody sane is using these things as long distance transportation. So the "they're too slow" argument is clearly bunk.
That leaves the crash safety angle. I can't help noticing that motorcycles are still legal, or did I miss something? Anyway, it's very emblematic of the American approach to road safety that some small, light vehicles are uncertifiable on safety grounds, but the sizes and weights of personal vehicles are allowed to grow in unbounded fashion. There is clearly no safety issue with getting groceries and picking your kid up from school in something that weighs most of 10K lbs and has such dogshit sight lines that you could run over a whole school bus's worth of kids in a crosswalk and hardly notice.
Freedom? Personal responsibility? Not quite---you can make a choice to endanger other road users, but never yourself! Unless you ride a motorcycle, in which case that's okay.
This would have been an instant buy for me if it weren't for the 25mph limit. That being said, I'm extremely excited by this, because it proves there is demand for Kei trucks in the US. I've done a lot of research into the import process for bringing a truck over from Japan, and I'll likely end up going that route in a year or so unless newer trucks with higher speeds get announced
> And I'm sure Toyota will design it so that hack isn't too difficult.
And that's how to get these banned.
People reflash these to remove the speed governor, then drive them on regular roads. These things hold up traffic, piss people off, who then complain to law enforcement. The police do nothing about it so the issue gets raised to state and federal legislators, who do take action.
You can get away with a lot, so long as you don't bother anyone. The EPA didn't crack down on diesel tuners until coal rolling became enough of an issue that people complained about the lack of enforcement.
That's one issue. There's also safety as LSV regulation do not require any crashworthiness tests, so such trucks may be more dangerous to passengers and others (or may not - as there's no mandated bar, we can't really tell how good/bad they are).
660cc engine at ~40 horsepower is about the same as a mid-70s VW Beetle - not in cc size, but HP potential.
This little truck could do a lot more than 25 mph if it were allowed to do so. Not saying that would be safe, and I'd not want to ever put one on a busy freeway, but for getting around most urban cities in the US it's fine as-is but would be even better if the limit was ~40 mph.
It’s a huge mistake to limit the speed to 25mph. When this is released in 2027, Kei trucks will be street legal in Colorado. I would have pre-ordered this without question but that speed makes it useless for basic commuting or running errands.
AFAICT, This truck will not be able to pass either the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) or the EPA/CARB emissions standards for high speed vehicles. The new Colorado rules for Kei vehicles does not remove those requirements because it relies on the existing exemptions available for 25+ year old vehicles.
IOW, it needs to keep the 25mph speed limiter to qualify as a low speed vehicle, even in Colorado.
EPA/CARB effectively sets a minimum size for trucks. Rather than having a small light truck that can do the job, you get a Ford F250 hauling a single bale of hay.
But rolling back or adding exemptions for small trucks is political suicide despite the clear environmental benefits.
CARB only nudges manufacturers, but the market’s own purchase preferences are doing the big push.
Perhaps the biggest nudge is that gasoline is undertaxed. Consumers will never see a reason to stop driving a 18-25mpg truck when gas being less than $5 a gallon is considered a “high” price. The gas tax hasn’t kept up with inflation.
I don’t love the ford F-150 for being a monster truck, but consider this: with the right configuration it sears 6 adults comfortably, plus having a bed for cargo. Families legitimately replace minivans and other family vehicles with it, plus it can tow and haul being the body on frame truck that it is.
Gas is not undertaxed, weight is undertaxed. Road wear grows exponentially with weight. The biggest factor in road wear is how many loaded semi-trucks drive down it.
Consumer tastes may have changed... but we don't know for sure because nobody builds the trucks we want.
I know I see a lot of light duty fleets that switched from Rangers to F-150s only because the Ranger was discontinued and there were no small trucks to switch to.
These are businesses that need a 6 foot bed for gear, but don't need to have more than one seat (but two is fine), and would like fuel efficiency and dollar efficiency.
Some of them went to work vans, but nobody is selling those right now either.
I used to have a 2007 Ranger I bought new, but sold it due to parking restrictions and no specific current need for a truck. When I needed a light truck again (~ 2019), there was nothing to buy new. I don't want a real truck cause they're too big, I don't want more than one row of seats. I ended up with a 2003 S-10, cause that's what was available in the marketplace for me.
Of course it could. But the whole reason for Kei cars being cheap in Japan is that they are light, power-limited and exempt from some emissions and safety regulations. The emissions part made sense ages ago in Japan when emissions was more closely correlated to engine size. Now they are too popular domestically and as an export item for the regulations to be changed easily. It’s a matter of time though.
Where I live the Ford F-250 is not used for falling a single bit of anything other than air. They are in pristine shape and look like they've never been outside the city limits nor off City roads
Toyota doesn't seem to be aiming for your business just yet. From their press release:
> As an intentionally low-volume, niche vehicle, the KEI-01 will initially be offered through a fleet-focused pilot program to help the company learn how it can best serve U.S. customers and use cases.
I doubt Toyota will ever produce a small, inexpensive pickup that you would actually feel comfortable driving on a freeway. It would cut into its Tacoma and Tundra sales, which have a good profit margin. At least, not without some other manufacturer taking market share with such a vehicle.
I think the strategy is specifically not going for customers who want it for those things. It's meant for farms and work sites not commuting or running errands
There's already a market for off road use. They are far superior to SxS UTVs that are overpriced for what they deliver. You usually get heat and air conditioning in an enclosed cab with flexible bed configurations. SxSs are glorified toys in comparison.
This is exploiting the existing LSV classification to bypass the chicken tax that limits the current market to old used imports. It will be easy enough to mod them for higher speeds on farms.
Kei trucks have high utility because they continue to be country-appropriate as American pickup trucks (and cars!) used to be. The confluence of CAFE standards and tax benefits entirely eliminated small vehicles in the United States. It really makes companies like Telo stand out, as they are making small yet fully functional trucks in the US, despite the inherent headwinds.
Another company that deserves plaudits for the same is mutiny.fm who are building an open source kei truck out of a disused factory in Detroit. Similar limitations as the new scion, but aimed at people for whom repairability and modifiability are virtues in a vehicle
> It really makes companies like Telo stand out, as they are making small yet fully functional trucks in the US, despite the inherent headwinds.
I don't know if you are affiliated with Telo or just find them fascinating as a product segment, but a starting price of 42k USD is the thing that "stands out" the most for me about their product. Otherwise, I do like the segment - but this pricing is offensive.
why would they build this? i believe there is a legitimate market for small trucks (actual small trucks, not Mavericks), but less than 25mph is just not useable for anything
I was wondering why they'd keep the same 660cc engine, but it has a 25mph limiter, huh. Waste of an opportunity. 660cc is fine for going 100-120kph here in Japan. I love my kei truck, but speeds in the US are way too fast. I'd want at least a 1L engine.
Just build a small, simple, functional truck that is not hamstrung or gimped, and don't try to sell it for a kidney. Why is this seemingly an impossible task in the states?
It's going to go here for what, $15,000? $25,000? Better than buying a 25 yr old one for $10,000 from a used dealer lot that has no parts or real mechanic trained on them but at that price point..
I remember getting into my father in law's kei truck. He literally was given it for free by someone he knew; that is how disposable they are.
And yeah, absolutely not comfortable.
Toyota selling them for $25k is parasitism. The idea of selling a cheap truck is apparently impossible with their cost structures. (Worse, if it succeeds it will ruin the Japanese market)
The best outcome is that this is a mild success and America gets a second generation shit version for 40 or 50k that has been fattened and rendered worthless, much like the second generation XB. (Hopefully the second generation is on some slop tier SUV platform so it doesn't wreck the economics of the Japanese market.)
The headline excited me but a gas vehicle with a 25mph limit is useless to me. When is someone gonna make an EV truck with a kei-like form factor? The Slate ain't it.
This product makes no sense. Who exactly are they planning to sell to? I don't think people needing a truck for work would ever use something like this over say a F150.
Fleets, as evidenced by Toyota/Scion saying they will exclusively sell to fleet purchasers. My local university, for an example, had 20 or so Daihatsu Hijets when I went to school there, which have given way to far more expensive Ford Bronco Sports and similar. I assume the lack of parts supply and repairability of the Hijets attrited them away. Domestically producing them to keep the chicken tax/tariffs at bay and having dealer service at the local Toyota dealership will make these appealing again in those markets.
I have a few friends who've purchased older kei trucks. One for use on his property, the other got his tagged in NC (IIRC, it was NC). The local bicycle shop also has a kei van as their "shop truck" (another used one imported from Japan). The imports will go faster than 25mph, but they are terrible on the highway. The 25mph is an artificial limit to meet LSV regulations.
All that said, $25k isn't cheap when you can get a basic Polaris SXS for $15k. It might not be street legal in many states, but much of the usage is going to be on private property.
I'm in Western North Carolina(Asheville) and there are an actual number of kei trucks here. Not every other vehicle common but enough to see maybe 5-10 every day.
Farmers and universities have been picking up kei trucks for the last few years for things like groundskeeping work. Being able to sell a brand-new vehicle with parts availability to these customers is what Toyota is trying to capitalize on
LSV's like this are extremely popular in the retirement home communities like The Villages in Florida. They're allowed on the golf cart paths, and also on a few roads where golf carts aren't allowed.
A friend with a WFH tech job, who lives on his own land (with family and various critters), bought one a few years ago for hauling materials and supplies around his property.
“This makes it not really usable as a daily driver, but keeps it in this beautiful sweet spot where it has a shocking number of commercial and agricultural uses.”
In rural Iowa I saw a ton of those little "UTV", gators, or whatever various brands call them which are effectively beefed up golf carts being driven around town. Trucks have become so enormous and expensive that these somewhat street legal vehicles are taking over for people who just need to go here and there.
Kind of glad about this because it f*king sucks that there is such a big export market for these things as that pushes up second hand Kei Truck prices for locals in Japan.
If you want a second hand Kei truck market you're up against hundreds of exporters all bidding at auctions for the best ones who are paying with USD.
This is pretty cool. It's too bad it's just for fleets. Must be they realized how much money was going to imported Kei trucks, and that they could just... do the importing themselves, and pick up some cash. (edit: looks like they sacrificed payload for the AC/heat? only 600lbs?)
The SXS looks cool, but gearheads want a tiny Jeep replacement (which there are none of in the US), not another UTV/buggy we already have
I like the concept, I just find myself wondering if the Big 3 will pull another Chicken Tax move to protect the full-size pickup golden geese.
Toyota - and Japan in general - has a helluva trade relationship with the US, but that's effectively all Detroit knows how to beat the world at anymore and they love the margins on their truck portfolios, to the point that they considered sedans and most coupes to be too thin to warrant continued production.
Would be interesting to know if they're built-built in Indiana, or if they're doing what Ford did with the first-gen Transit Connects: bringing them in from another country (I think it was Turkey in that case) as passenger vehicles with trim and seats, stripping them of those things almost as soon as they hit shore, and getting around the Chicken Tax that way.
"Build" is a stretch of the word for them to knock down some HiJets in Japan, ship them over, then put them back together again. Toyota's PR even says they're only adding another 50 jobs with their "expansion" to build the kei in Indiana.
600 LB weight limit including passengers, top speed of 25 mph, and right hand drive this feels specifically design to be toothless against American pickups. This is a novelty product, I saw an image of one loaded with half a dozen hay bails and I'm wondering who even needs that? This is a novelty car for vineyard owners and show pony stables. Like you'd get just as much use out of a JD Gator and they probably have worse weight distribution.
It wasn't "designed" for or against anything American. This is a purely Japanese design designed to Japanese tastes that has historically seen enough success in American markets that Toyota's market research has deemed the juice worth the squeeze to begin manufacturing them in the US to get around the Chicken Tax that previously made them prohibitively expensive and sell them to fleet purchasers. My local university had 20 or so Daihatsu Hijets running around until (I assume) parts supply dried up and they were replaced with far-more-expensive Ford Bronco Sports and similar compact crossovers.
The nice thing about a minitruck over something like a Gator is you get an interior.
I worked golf course landscaping during some summers in college and drove Gators, which did their job well. But they certainly weren't any relief from being out in the sun all day. This Scion minitruck has heat and air conditioning. And locking doors. So it'll be a respite from the outdoors, as well as a secure (well, as secure as any car) place to leave your personal items.
The concern I'm imagining is that once you start offering much smaller pickups, they could potentially get customers thinking that maybe the bigger pickups just aren't necessary. You already see a bit of this if you look at the discourse around kei trucks and the smaller ute-sized Ford Maverick. The end result would be a cannibalization of the full-size market by trucks that are much, much lower margin.
Right now, if you want certain things in a truck in the US and Canada, you must buy a full-size, even if they could be offered as features on smaller trucks that would not justify the same MSRP in the minds of customers. I think this is part of why we don't see any real competition from GM or Stellantis to the Ford Maverick almost three years on. GM would rather you buy a mid- or full-size truck, and Stellantis doesn't offer anything other than full-size Rams.
I use a kei truck for farming. They are incredibly pragmatic little vehicles. They are very capable driving around on dirt/gravel agricultural roads with 4WD, and they are inexpensive and robust enough that you can really beat them up and use them as a tool without worry. Repairs and replacement parts are ubiquitous and inexpensive. Having the sides of bed fold down is also really useful.
They aren't comfortable to drive at all (although just having A/C at all on a hot summer day in the field is a godsend), and I wouldn't want to do longer trips in one - although you certainly could in a pinch.
It seems like Toyota/Scion is just testing the waters here, and I'm not sure how successful they'll be. But I hope there is a future for kei trucks in the US.
I've been driving a 2 seater manual Ford Ranger for the past 15 years and it definitely feels like the next level up of the kei philosophy. I'll probably drive it for the rest of my life at this point. It has crank windows, it's indestructible, and it climbs stuff like a little buggy - I've taken it places where sometimes even Jeeps struggle. It's not the car you take on a long road trip, but maybe different tools for different jobs.
It's a shame they don't really make them anymore. If I could buy a modern vehicle in the States that had the following properties:
- 2 seater
- Pickup truck
- Manual transmission
- Minimum 6 foot bed
I'd probably do it in a heartbeat. But even these somewhat weak constraints fail every vehicle in the USA market.
Isn't the smallest Ranger 2x heavier for maybe 1.3x payload? It's almost as far from kei trucks philosophically as one can get.
25 mph works for golf courses, resort, or island use. In rural areas on the mainland, roads connecting towns often have 45 or 55 mph speed limits so unless you plan on staying on the farm I don't think these are practical for trips to go shopping, dumping, hauling, etc.
As for the imports, I saw one of these 90s-era right-hand drive kei trucks at a parking lot a few months ago and talked with the owner. He was a young guy who lived in Boston, said it was super easy to park. Speed maxed out at 70 mph, which is fine for local trips but maybe not for long highway trips.
For people in jurisdictions that allow 30 year old truck imports, and are interested in getting one, there are other countries that use such trucks and have left-hand drive. Taiwan has models from CMC and Suzuki, and I believe South Korea also makes them.
I had a "car" with a 25mph limit back in 2005 or so, and it was awesome for my inner city living. I barely used my "real" car during the years I had it.
Kei cars are designed for cities. These will likely be fine in dense areas on local surface streets where traffic is high.
These Kei trucks are everywhere where I live (PNW). They seem like the ideal utility vehicle for city centres if you don’t need seating and are just hauling e.g. soil or bins or something.
That's what aftermarket Turbos (sold on eBay) are for.
With a built in 25mph limiter, that eliminates "city" driving too unfortunately. Most roads around me are 35 mph.
There's sizeable demand for people who want to be able to do runs to the bigbox stores for garden and DIY renovation supplies and store it the rest of the time.
You need to complain to your congressman, not to Toyota. The 25mph limit is set by the Low Speed Vehicle standards.
Why? If they can't make a vehicle safe enough to not require low speed vehicle standards then they should make their vehicles safer.
Because they can't bear to make vehicles smaller. That's the real terror on American roads. Something like 60% of vehicles are huge because it makes the driver feel better. And indeed, it makes the driver safer in a collision - at the cost of making everyone else in the area less safe. Something has to be done to stop this trend first and foremost.
After that, when vehicle sizes start trending down towards reasonable, we can look at getting speeds up without reducing overall safety.
I think the reason trucks are so huge these days is not the ride feel. It's the EPA gives more lenient pollution restrictions based on size of vehicle. So instead of making the engine less polluting, just make the truck bigger and keep the same engine. It's like a cereal box that's only 1/3 full.
I believe it's a mix of both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV#United_States
The idea to introduce light trucks in passenger-car shape to get around pollution limits was the car manufacturers' idea. However, the US public ran with it and bought because of the perceived higher safety and social status that comes with driving a larger, heavier vehicle than everyone else. And they continue to buy to attempt to one-up each other even though the pollution limits now apply to SUVs as well as smaller passenger cars.
And you can expense a >6000lb vehicle
Low-speed vehicles are essentially golf carts. Do you expect golf carts to be safe at 65 mph?
Will classify them as motorcycles
Yes, the other option Toyota had was to classify then as UTV's, like quad bikes and gators. No speed limit, but not street legal either.
They should probably do that: sell a variant without doors and with knobby tires as a UTV.
Note that LSVs are allowed on roads with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or less.
Whether you feel safe doing so is a separate question, of course.
https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/5954
Speed limits are an upper bound.
I often ride my ebike at 28 MPH (max legal ebike speed in US) on a street with a 25 MPH speed limit and I'll regularly get cars tailgating me honking and crossing the double line to pass.
American here, in practice no. They are generally only the upper bound for dense neighborhood streets, throughout most other roadways you will be considered a poor driver if you go lower than the speed limit.
The city of Tacoma, WA recently implemented new ALPR ticketing systems to enforce speed limits in northern Tacoma. They received so many hits, they had to build out a new system akin to a lottery for sending ticket / infraction notices.
To me, that seems like the city is entrapping its citizens to make up for a lack of revenue, when the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted. But no, they move to develop a lottery system to send the infractions.
Entrapment means the government induced the illegal behavior. An ALPR speed cam doesn't induce anyone to speed. Its not entrapment, just drive the speed limit and you won't get tickets.
> the data clearly shows the speed limit should probably be adjusted
The problem is a cultural one. Most people interpret a speed limit of N as "I should go N+10" (or something like that). If we remove speed limits, the majority of people would end up driving at unsafe speeds. People will always break speed limits unless they are set at that unsafe level.
And the solution is to build the roads such that going over the speed limit feels dangerous.
Make roads narrower. Add more bends and lateral shifts. Plant trees along the road to obstruct sight lines. Build roads so that only speeds below the speed limit are safe on them and people will travel below the speed limit.
I don't think that's true. When I was in Montana, where the limit is 80mph on freeways, there were very few people going faster than the limit.
Not true people drive what they feel the safe limit of the road to be. You can easily devise a road that has 55 mile an hour speed limit and no one will go over 35.
> If we remove speed limits, the majority of people would end up driving at unsafe speeds.
[[citation needed]]
[delayed]
I mean, isn’t that the idea? That people will be bad unless you give them citations?
My neighbors could steal my packages. They do not. Not all people will be bad if not micromanaged, some people are just nice.
Speed limit cameras are highly effective at slowing cars down. They were recently removed in Ontario, and the average road speed increased substantially. The pedestrian death counts spiked in both Toronto and Ottawa this year. This is likely not a coincidence.
But did Toronto and Ottawa have to develop a lottery system to enforce the new systems due to capacity issues? Over the course of a month, it was over 400k infractions captured... 40MPH road.
The only reason for the speed to trend downwards is the increasing threat of a ticket from an automated system that cannot be reasoned with. A real cop generally isn't going to ticket me for going 5, maybe even 10 over a posted 40MPH zone unless they fished me for something else during the the stop. Flow of traffic is everything.
Almost all of the cameras were in front of school zones. 10 mph over in a school zone would definitely result in a ticket here. 5mph likely wouldn't, but the speed cameras didn't issue for 5 over either.
The cameras in Ontario issued an order of magnitude fewer tickets than yours. The highest volume cameras issued about 100 a day.
Yeah, 10mph over in a school zone is absurd. The issue I'm referring to are literally TWO speed cameras on common city corridors, non school zones.
The lottery system they're building to support the capacity issue is going to calculate weights based on the most egregious speeders, which I guess is nice...
I prefer that people drive under the speed limit actually.
25 mph limits abound in Seattle and hardly anyone bothers with following them. The only way they are going to ever enforce that is with speed cameras since we also don't have enough police to even deal with violent crime, let alone with traffic violations.
Considered a poor driver, and you can be ticketed for impeding traffic. I'd guess you are also more likely to undergo a field sobriety test if and when that time comes.
Where I live the major strode has a 45 mph speed limit and during most times of the day we only get to 35 mph but people make up for it by running the red light
And yet if traffic is traveling at the speed limit and you’re going 20 MPH slower you’re a hazard.
Most cops will likely even pull you over for that.
I’ve seen more than one person try to merge onto a highway at 45 MPH and every time they very nearly caused an accident.
I know two people who have been pulled over in the US for driving too slow.
If you drive significantly slower than the flow of traffic it can create a hazard for other drivers.
Generally speaking, much of driving is predicting what other drivers will do. If you behave significantly differently than other cars you do raise the chances of an accident.
Imagine how many diesel exhaust clouds this clown car going 25mph is going to be served at green lights in the bible belt of the US
Uh, zero?
It's a work truck not a Prius with a Coexist sticker.
Yeah, I see quads on Main Street in the small rural towns in the Midwaste, golf carts tearing around the 'burbs in larger cities…
I see folks going 25mph in 35mph every time I drive!
For those of you clamoring for kei trucks to be street legal in the US, you really need to do some street view comparisons between Japan and the US.
US roads are built for much, much higher speeds. Kei cars purposefully give up safety with the caveat that they’re only used on low speed roadways, and Japan designs their roads with the intention of these vehicles being acceptably safe in that context.
Kei-cars are the smallest class of cars allowed on highways in Japan. Japan highway speeds are quite low at 100km/h, which is still more than twice what this car is limited to.
On intercity highways in Japan you are driving next to as large trucks as anywhere I've driven.
Good correction, I was pretty sure they weren’t allowed on highways but I must have misunderstood.
Kei cars in Japan are definitely allowed to go on their freeways. I have done big roadtrips all over Japan and I see kei cars all the time on the freeways. They just stay in the slow lane but I have seen ambitious kei cars drivers even pass regular cars in the passing lane :)
The roads are built to accommodate the cars Americans drive. At minimum, we have to put our money and interest towards alternatives for the system to change.
I drive my Kei Truck on highways all the time, I'm not going to tell you it's safe, but it works fine.
This newly announced truck is apparently limited to speeds I'd consider borderline unsafe on American public roads (<= 25 mph) because that puts it in the LSV category, and that's apparently the only way you can sell a Kei truck under current US regulations. So they're making it less safe and less useful in order to be able to sell it here, I suppose thanks to reasoning similar to that which appears in your comment.
IIUC a typical "real" Japanese kei truck can manage 60-70 mph easily, if not comfortably. That's more than enough to hang with traffic on the vast majority of American roads, and nobody sane is using these things as long distance transportation. So the "they're too slow" argument is clearly bunk.
That leaves the crash safety angle. I can't help noticing that motorcycles are still legal, or did I miss something? Anyway, it's very emblematic of the American approach to road safety that some small, light vehicles are uncertifiable on safety grounds, but the sizes and weights of personal vehicles are allowed to grow in unbounded fashion. There is clearly no safety issue with getting groceries and picking your kid up from school in something that weighs most of 10K lbs and has such dogshit sight lines that you could run over a whole school bus's worth of kids in a crosswalk and hardly notice.
Freedom? Personal responsibility? Not quite---you can make a choice to endanger other road users, but never yourself! Unless you ride a motorcycle, in which case that's okay.
This would have been an instant buy for me if it weren't for the 25mph limit. That being said, I'm extremely excited by this, because it proves there is demand for Kei trucks in the US. I've done a lot of research into the import process for bringing a truck over from Japan, and I'll likely end up going that route in a year or so unless newer trucks with higher speeds get announced
I am sure someone will hack it to remove any enforced speed limit. And I'm sure Toyota will design it so that hack isn't too difficult.
> And I'm sure Toyota will design it so that hack isn't too difficult.
And that's how to get these banned.
People reflash these to remove the speed governor, then drive them on regular roads. These things hold up traffic, piss people off, who then complain to law enforcement. The police do nothing about it so the issue gets raised to state and federal legislators, who do take action.
You can get away with a lot, so long as you don't bother anyone. The EPA didn't crack down on diesel tuners until coal rolling became enough of an issue that people complained about the lack of enforcement.
The trucks can go faster. The issue is where they can drive legally.
That's one issue. There's also safety as LSV regulation do not require any crashworthiness tests, so such trucks may be more dangerous to passengers and others (or may not - as there's no mandated bar, we can't really tell how good/bad they are).
I'd think these are not any more unsafe than any other cab-over truck?
660cc engine at ~40 horsepower is about the same as a mid-70s VW Beetle - not in cc size, but HP potential.
This little truck could do a lot more than 25 mph if it were allowed to do so. Not saying that would be safe, and I'd not want to ever put one on a busy freeway, but for getting around most urban cities in the US it's fine as-is but would be even better if the limit was ~40 mph.
It’s a huge mistake to limit the speed to 25mph. When this is released in 2027, Kei trucks will be street legal in Colorado. I would have pre-ordered this without question but that speed makes it useless for basic commuting or running errands.
AFAICT, This truck will not be able to pass either the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) or the EPA/CARB emissions standards for high speed vehicles. The new Colorado rules for Kei vehicles does not remove those requirements because it relies on the existing exemptions available for 25+ year old vehicles.
IOW, it needs to keep the 25mph speed limiter to qualify as a low speed vehicle, even in Colorado.
EPA/CARB effectively sets a minimum size for trucks. Rather than having a small light truck that can do the job, you get a Ford F250 hauling a single bale of hay.
But rolling back or adding exemptions for small trucks is political suicide despite the clear environmental benefits.
This isn’t really true. See: Ford Maverick.
CARB only nudges manufacturers, but the market’s own purchase preferences are doing the big push.
Perhaps the biggest nudge is that gasoline is undertaxed. Consumers will never see a reason to stop driving a 18-25mpg truck when gas being less than $5 a gallon is considered a “high” price. The gas tax hasn’t kept up with inflation.
I don’t love the ford F-150 for being a monster truck, but consider this: with the right configuration it sears 6 adults comfortably, plus having a bed for cargo. Families legitimately replace minivans and other family vehicles with it, plus it can tow and haul being the body on frame truck that it is.
Gas is not undertaxed, weight is undertaxed. Road wear grows exponentially with weight. The biggest factor in road wear is how many loaded semi-trucks drive down it.
This vehicle gets 37mpg. For a vehicle with this footprint, CARB requires 63 mpg for the 2026 standard and 121 for the 2032 standard.
CARB was basically nullified by the Trump administration, right?
Either way, if the Maverick gets 37MPG already, seems like it’s not that much of an ask to get it to 67mpg.
If Slate can make a $25,000 EV truck I don’t see why Ford can’t do the same.
The Ford Maverick is wider and longer than a 1994 s-10 based on a random site [1].
All while the Maverick has a bed that probably can't properly move a couch.
You probably can't really fit a couch on the back of a kei truck either, but it's ok because they're cute.
[1] https://www.vehiclesizes.com/compare/3771-7714/ford-maverick...
The Maverick seats 4-5 adults comfortably. I think we can be a little more accepting that consumer tastes have changed.
The appeal of a Maverick is that it’s a normal family vehicle that drives just like a passenger car while having a bed where you can put dirty stuff.
Consumer tastes may have changed... but we don't know for sure because nobody builds the trucks we want.
I know I see a lot of light duty fleets that switched from Rangers to F-150s only because the Ranger was discontinued and there were no small trucks to switch to.
These are businesses that need a 6 foot bed for gear, but don't need to have more than one seat (but two is fine), and would like fuel efficiency and dollar efficiency.
Some of them went to work vans, but nobody is selling those right now either.
I used to have a 2007 Ranger I bought new, but sold it due to parking restrictions and no specific current need for a truck. When I needed a light truck again (~ 2019), there was nothing to buy new. I don't want a real truck cause they're too big, I don't want more than one row of seats. I ended up with a 2003 S-10, cause that's what was available in the marketplace for me.
The fact that this tiny engine couldn't meet emissions standards is bonkers. But that's the law as written right now.
Of course it could. But the whole reason for Kei cars being cheap in Japan is that they are light, power-limited and exempt from some emissions and safety regulations. The emissions part made sense ages ago in Japan when emissions was more closely correlated to engine size. Now they are too popular domestically and as an export item for the regulations to be changed easily. It’s a matter of time though.
Where I live the Ford F-250 is not used for falling a single bit of anything other than air. They are in pristine shape and look like they've never been outside the city limits nor off City roads
My favorite example of this is the big lifted pickups innnnnnnching over slightly bumpy railroad crossings.
Good point.
Toyota doesn't seem to be aiming for your business just yet. From their press release:
> As an intentionally low-volume, niche vehicle, the KEI-01 will initially be offered through a fleet-focused pilot program to help the company learn how it can best serve U.S. customers and use cases.
https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-says-okei-to-america-int...
I do hope they're able to build on this, and maybe offer left-hand-drive and a more reasonable top speed eventually.
I doubt Toyota will ever produce a small, inexpensive pickup that you would actually feel comfortable driving on a freeway. It would cut into its Tacoma and Tundra sales, which have a good profit margin. At least, not without some other manufacturer taking market share with such a vehicle.
This and the Tacoma are incredibly different markets
I think the strategy is specifically not going for customers who want it for those things. It's meant for farms and work sites not commuting or running errands
It's RHD. I suspect they are testing the waters before they build a proper LHD model targeting the broader US consumer market.
There's already a market for off road use. They are far superior to SxS UTVs that are overpriced for what they deliver. You usually get heat and air conditioning in an enclosed cab with flexible bed configurations. SxSs are glorified toys in comparison.
This is exploiting the existing LSV classification to bypass the chicken tax that limits the current market to old used imports. It will be easy enough to mod them for higher speeds on farms.
Limiter delete will likely be readily available in the aftermarket.
Kei trucks have high utility because they continue to be country-appropriate as American pickup trucks (and cars!) used to be. The confluence of CAFE standards and tax benefits entirely eliminated small vehicles in the United States. It really makes companies like Telo stand out, as they are making small yet fully functional trucks in the US, despite the inherent headwinds.
Another company that deserves plaudits for the same is mutiny.fm who are building an open source kei truck out of a disused factory in Detroit. Similar limitations as the new scion, but aimed at people for whom repairability and modifiability are virtues in a vehicle
> It really makes companies like Telo stand out, as they are making small yet fully functional trucks in the US, despite the inherent headwinds.
I don't know if you are affiliated with Telo or just find them fascinating as a product segment, but a starting price of 42k USD is the thing that "stands out" the most for me about their product. Otherwise, I do like the segment - but this pricing is offensive.
The Toyota press release: https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-says-okei-to-america-int... .
NYT article: ''Toyota Sees a U.S. Future for Tiny Trucks With a Devoted Following''
http://archive.today/rLNx6
why would they build this? i believe there is a legitimate market for small trucks (actual small trucks, not Mavericks), but less than 25mph is just not useable for anything
John Deere sells tons of Gators, lots of farms have them. This seems more capable and similarly priced.
Not useful, large brands will moat them out of existance for everyday use
Can I please post my favourite song about Kei Trucks: https://youtu.be/MHAOvKJngTQ
I was wondering why they'd keep the same 660cc engine, but it has a 25mph limiter, huh. Waste of an opportunity. 660cc is fine for going 100-120kph here in Japan. I love my kei truck, but speeds in the US are way too fast. I'd want at least a 1L engine.
In 1963 Lyndon Johnson added "light trucks" to the Chicken Tax as a quid pro quo to prevent the auto workers union from striking before the election.
As a result we don't get "right sized" trucks like the kei or more efficient farm vehicles like the hilux.
Just build a small, simple, functional truck that is not hamstrung or gimped, and don't try to sell it for a kidney. Why is this seemingly an impossible task in the states?
So many people here have never driven a kei truck or a wigo/daihatsu agya.
They are not fun cars, they should be cheap and disposable.
The MSRP for this in japan is less than $10,000,$6000 for the base model:
https://toyota.jp/pixistruck/
It's going to go here for what, $15,000? $25,000? Better than buying a 25 yr old one for $10,000 from a used dealer lot that has no parts or real mechanic trained on them but at that price point..
a Mavrick is better.
The amazon truck is better.
$20K (ish) will get you a Slate EV truck with no options, or a forthcoming REO. Those are real, road-legal trucks not carts with a lawn-mower engine.
I remember getting into my father in law's kei truck. He literally was given it for free by someone he knew; that is how disposable they are.
And yeah, absolutely not comfortable.
Toyota selling them for $25k is parasitism. The idea of selling a cheap truck is apparently impossible with their cost structures. (Worse, if it succeeds it will ruin the Japanese market)
The best outcome is that this is a mild success and America gets a second generation shit version for 40 or 50k that has been fattened and rendered worthless, much like the second generation XB. (Hopefully the second generation is on some slop tier SUV platform so it doesn't wreck the economics of the Japanese market.)
The headline excited me but a gas vehicle with a 25mph limit is useless to me. When is someone gonna make an EV truck with a kei-like form factor? The Slate ain't it.
Let's see if the vocal internet crowd puts their money where their posts are. I predict this being a market failure.
Can’t wait for Floridians to jailbreak the ECU and set it the top speed for max 35 MPH in order to treat it like a long bed golf cart.
This product makes no sense. Who exactly are they planning to sell to? I don't think people needing a truck for work would ever use something like this over say a F150.
It's probably the same market fit as the John Deere Gator. We see them used all over in Hawaii like that.
Presumably people who need to haul up to 600lbs regularly in an industrial or farm setting that don’t want to spend $40k? What an odd question.
Think you could bench a Scion KEI?
Leg press, probably.
Who is the target market for this? It’s an ICE vehicle, 4wd and limited to a maximum speed of 25mph. Farmers?
Fleets, as evidenced by Toyota/Scion saying they will exclusively sell to fleet purchasers. My local university, for an example, had 20 or so Daihatsu Hijets when I went to school there, which have given way to far more expensive Ford Bronco Sports and similar. I assume the lack of parts supply and repairability of the Hijets attrited them away. Domestically producing them to keep the chicken tax/tariffs at bay and having dealer service at the local Toyota dealership will make these appealing again in those markets.
I have a few friends who've purchased older kei trucks. One for use on his property, the other got his tagged in NC (IIRC, it was NC). The local bicycle shop also has a kei van as their "shop truck" (another used one imported from Japan). The imports will go faster than 25mph, but they are terrible on the highway. The 25mph is an artificial limit to meet LSV regulations.
All that said, $25k isn't cheap when you can get a basic Polaris SXS for $15k. It might not be street legal in many states, but much of the usage is going to be on private property.
I'm in Western North Carolina(Asheville) and there are an actual number of kei trucks here. Not every other vehicle common but enough to see maybe 5-10 every day.
There are even a few businesses that specialize in these vehicles: https://www.marsminitrucks.com
I think a kei truck might be a better choice than a sxs if noise ordinances are a concern. e.g. utility vehicles for groundskeeping staff
The utility SXS aren't particuarlly loud; it's the "racing" SXS that have minimal off-road exhausts that are as bad a pipe-less crotch rockets.
Farmers and universities have been picking up kei trucks for the last few years for things like groundskeeping work. Being able to sell a brand-new vehicle with parts availability to these customers is what Toyota is trying to capitalize on
LSV's like this are extremely popular in the retirement home communities like The Villages in Florida. They're allowed on the golf cart paths, and also on a few roads where golf carts aren't allowed.
It also seems like it'd be a really good city pickup truck.
A friend with a WFH tech job, who lives on his own land (with family and various critters), bought one a few years ago for hauling materials and supplies around his property.
My neighborhood in Seattle has a lot of kei trucks
College campuses, jobsites, large sports complexes, golf courses, farms, solar fields, junkyards, parks departments, road construction crews, etc.
The same places small golf carts, Cushman carts, or side-by-sides are being used already.
“This makes it not really usable as a daily driver, but keeps it in this beautiful sweet spot where it has a shocking number of commercial and agricultural uses.”
Doh thank you. No excuses I can give for my poor reading comprehension.
In rural Iowa I saw a ton of those little "UTV", gators, or whatever various brands call them which are effectively beefed up golf carts being driven around town. Trucks have become so enormous and expensive that these somewhat street legal vehicles are taking over for people who just need to go here and there.
The colloquial name used in my area (Minnesota) is “side-by-side”. It’s also the title of the Wikipedia article too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-by-side_(vehicle)
Farmers or land owners. Great for hauling around your property. Like a 4 wheeler with a trailer but road legal.
You do see people taking tractors on roads between farms pretty often, and they usually have the speed limit stuff on.
Kind of glad about this because it f*king sucks that there is such a big export market for these things as that pushes up second hand Kei Truck prices for locals in Japan.
If you want a second hand Kei truck market you're up against hundreds of exporters all bidding at auctions for the best ones who are paying with USD.
I didn't know Scion had left...
bruh
If we change the low-speed vehicle standards to 35 mph or 40 mph, KEI trucks could thrive in America as a low-cost mobility solution!
This is pretty cool. It's too bad it's just for fleets. Must be they realized how much money was going to imported Kei trucks, and that they could just... do the importing themselves, and pick up some cash. (edit: looks like they sacrificed payload for the AC/heat? only 600lbs?)
The SXS looks cool, but gearheads want a tiny Jeep replacement (which there are none of in the US), not another UTV/buggy we already have
I like the concept, I just find myself wondering if the Big 3 will pull another Chicken Tax move to protect the full-size pickup golden geese.
Toyota - and Japan in general - has a helluva trade relationship with the US, but that's effectively all Detroit knows how to beat the world at anymore and they love the margins on their truck portfolios, to the point that they considered sedans and most coupes to be too thin to warrant continued production.
I recently saw an old kei truck on the road with a CHKNTAX license plate.
Toyota will build this truck in Indiana.
Would be interesting to know if they're built-built in Indiana, or if they're doing what Ford did with the first-gen Transit Connects: bringing them in from another country (I think it was Turkey in that case) as passenger vehicles with trim and seats, stripping them of those things almost as soon as they hit shore, and getting around the Chicken Tax that way.
"Build" is a stretch of the word for them to knock down some HiJets in Japan, ship them over, then put them back together again. Toyota's PR even says they're only adding another 50 jobs with their "expansion" to build the kei in Indiana.
That is NOT a lot of people involved.
600 LB weight limit including passengers, top speed of 25 mph, and right hand drive this feels specifically design to be toothless against American pickups. This is a novelty product, I saw an image of one loaded with half a dozen hay bails and I'm wondering who even needs that? This is a novelty car for vineyard owners and show pony stables. Like you'd get just as much use out of a JD Gator and they probably have worse weight distribution.
It wasn't "designed" for or against anything American. This is a purely Japanese design designed to Japanese tastes that has historically seen enough success in American markets that Toyota's market research has deemed the juice worth the squeeze to begin manufacturing them in the US to get around the Chicken Tax that previously made them prohibitively expensive and sell them to fleet purchasers. My local university had 20 or so Daihatsu Hijets running around until (I assume) parts supply dried up and they were replaced with far-more-expensive Ford Bronco Sports and similar compact crossovers.
The nice thing about a minitruck over something like a Gator is you get an interior.
I worked golf course landscaping during some summers in college and drove Gators, which did their job well. But they certainly weren't any relief from being out in the sun all day. This Scion minitruck has heat and air conditioning. And locking doors. So it'll be a respite from the outdoors, as well as a secure (well, as secure as any car) place to leave your personal items.
The concern I'm imagining is that once you start offering much smaller pickups, they could potentially get customers thinking that maybe the bigger pickups just aren't necessary. You already see a bit of this if you look at the discourse around kei trucks and the smaller ute-sized Ford Maverick. The end result would be a cannibalization of the full-size market by trucks that are much, much lower margin.
Right now, if you want certain things in a truck in the US and Canada, you must buy a full-size, even if they could be offered as features on smaller trucks that would not justify the same MSRP in the minds of customers. I think this is part of why we don't see any real competition from GM or Stellantis to the Ford Maverick almost three years on. GM would rather you buy a mid- or full-size truck, and Stellantis doesn't offer anything other than full-size Rams.
tl;dr: it's for the neighborhood golf cart market
Mom, Dad, I'm kei