There are products that people like, products that people really enjoy, and there are products that owners evangelize. I'm not certain what pushes some goods over that final threshold — these things are in existing categories, the shortcomings are often as apparent as the strengths, etc. — but there's a certain je ne sais quoi that all the evangelized products have. In the US, the kei truck has that level of appreciation.
I work in marketing. It happens when a product aligns strongly with users' personal values and fosters an emotional bond with it. It becomes more than a practical solution, it’s part of the user’s identity and thus intertwines with their subjective feelings. That can lead to the formation of a community where users feel part of an exclusive club or a movement.
i think, at least in the US, there's the one-two punch of a full-size truck near-hegemony (blah blah, chicken tax, CAFE, etc, whatever) and that full-size trucks have gradually taken on a symbolic identifier of status, wealth, political affiliation, and what one might or might not value
your comment, to me, is the thing i picture happening to the oakley-clad calvin-peeing-on-something-sticker-having full size truck driver forming an emotional bond with their F-150 Tremor
and i'm not saying this same dynamic is not at work with people who buy Kei trucks, but rather it feels like there is some in-group out-group dynamics of classic truck ownership and what it can signify that might be accelerating the same identity or emotional interest in small trucks
Kei car is the smallest category of Japanese, expressway-legal motor vehicles. 'Kei' is diminutive for kei-jidōsha, (kanji: 軽自動車), "light automobile" or "compact automobile" (pronounced [keːdʑidoːɕa]).
*Key word* is “alternative” which is what I alluded to. It fits most of the use cases of the *Kei* class of vehicles and the price is really attractive.
Yeah, but that's an EV with a base price of $49,999, whereas the Hi-lux is around $10-12K. That's coming from someone who has been an all-EV household since 2017.
I remember many of them from germany. As small vans, for maybe 6 to 8 people. As delivery cars, used by handyman/tradespeople/landscapers/gardeners, utility/cleaner cars driving through parks, car-free downtown/CBD, and so on. Until about a decade ago.
Nowadays I'm only visiting, and the picture seems to have changed somehow, they are still there, but less so. Most recently grocery deliveries by http://picnic.de come to mind. Don't know which brand/model that car is, but it looks 'Kei' to me.
Plenty of people export them, annoyingly for Japanese , this drives up the prices on second hand vehicles…what’s supposed to be a cheap inexpensive cars becomes a delicacy in the US lol
