We talk a lot about cars and trucks, and we’re always aware that there is an important distinction between the two. Yet decades of automotive development have blurred the lines. The rise of the SUV first muddied the waters, and the rise of unibody pickups didn’t help the situation, either. It raises the question—what is the difference between a car and a truck?
You can make up your own definition, of course. You could say any vehicle with an open load bed is a truck, and for most of us, that’s enough. However, that definition isn’t as complex as the standards set by government regulators. The official rules are a touch more complicated.
Thankfully, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a no-nonsense flow-chart that answers this question once and for all. With just nine easy questions, you can determine whether any given vehicle is a car or a truck.
The flowchart above sorts vehicles into “car” and “truck” designations for the sake of emissions compliance. The first real questions regard weight. Anything with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) over 10,000 pounds is outside the scope here, as the they’re excluded from CAFE standards and the EPA’s “light duty” greenhouse gas regulations. Vehicles over 8,500 pounds are excluded too, unless they fall under the “medium duty passenger vehicle” MDPV regulation—which covers bigger SUVs and passenger vans. Many of these super-heavy vehicles are trucks by default, but they don’t need to meet the emissions regulations for lighter-duty vehicles.
The next question is simple. If the vehicle transports more than 10 people, acts as a living space, or has greater cargo volume than passenger volume, then you’re indisputably looking at a truck. Similarly, if it “transports property on an open bed,” it’s a truck. If not, it might be a car.
Further questions aim to refine the definition. Third-row seating makes the vehicle a “truck” as far as the EPA is concerned, but only if the seats fold or can be remove to create a flat cargo surface.
Four-wheel drive could also push the vehicle towards a truck definition, as can a gross vehicle weight over 6,000 pounds. But in both cases, the vehicle must also meet certain geometric requirements to qualify as a truck. The vehicle must meet certain benchmarks regarding approach, breakover, and departure angles, as well as ground clearance, as below. Basically, if the vehicle is rugged and designed to handle rough off-road trails, that means it’s a truck.
If the vehicle fails on all those points, it’s not a truck, it’s a lowly little car. Primarily, this means the vehicle has to meet stricter regulations for fuel economy and emissions. Thus, there’s a benefit for automakers if they can tip a vehicle into a truck classification with a few small changes.
It’s worth noting that this EPA definition doesn’t always line up with our intuitive notions of what makes a car and what makes a truck. Indeed, it gets most complicated when it comes to SUVs. In the EPA’s own words:
Pickup trucks, vans, and minivans are classified as light trucks under NHTSA’s regulatory definitions, while sedans, coupes, and wagons are generally classified as cars. Sport utility vehicles (SUVs) can fall into either category depending on the relevant attributes of the specific vehicle. Based on the CAFE and GHG regulatory definitions, most two-wheel drive SUVs under 6,000 pounds GVW are classified as cars, while most SUVs that have four-wheel drive or are above 6,000 pounds GVW are considered trucks. SUV models that are less than 6,000 pounds GVW can have both car and truck variants, with two-wheel drive versions classified as cars and four-wheel drive versions classified as trucks. As the fleet has changed over time, the line drawn between car and truck classes has also evolved.
By the EPA’s definitions, making a vehicle heavier and more off-road capable tilts it towards being a truck. A pickup bed or lots of cargo capacity does the same. If a vehicle is more about personal transportation and less about work or traversing rugged terrain, it’s a car.
In any case, hopefully that sheds some light on the matter. Next time someone mocks your Ford Maverick, for example, you’ll be properly armed. You can point to the open cargo bed and shout “It’s a real truck!” with confidence, knowing the EPA has your back. You can even print out the above flow chart and keep it in your wallet for easy reference. You’ll solve many a bar argument forever more.
Image credits: EPA report, Ford, Honda, Toyota
So anyone who lives in their vehicle, even a geo metro, automatically has a truck? Aztec with the tent certainly qualifies, as does my Bolt when I turn the whole interior into a bed with a folding mattress….
It might be interesting to see the definition of “temporary living quarters”. I would bet that it needs to include a toilet and a kitchenette.
Permanently installed toilet and kitchen is the IRS’s definition for whether or not your camper counts as a residence for tax deduction purposes. Would expect the EPA is the same.
There is a list of rules. Of the top of my head: bed, toilet, running water, secondary heat, stove.
A truck is something you can do an oil change on without ramps or a jack
Then I guess my Mercedes wagon really is a truck! You don’t need to get under it at all to change the oil. Factory method is sucking the oil out the dipstick tube (which is properly designed for that), and the oil filter housing is on top.
My Dodge Dakota is not a truck apparently, or everything is if you go to jiffy lube
So my Honda Fit was a truck?
So a Tesla Model S with the 3rd row jump seats is a truck.
Also, does any vehicle really have more cargo capacity than passenger capacity given that I carried 8+ people in the bed of my std cap Toyota p/u? You can stick a person anywhere you can stick a box.
So the wagons I rode around in as a kid were actually trucks?
Yup! My Roadmaster Estate is a truck! Which actually makes sense… I certainly treat it like one.
Many states had (and some actually still do) a separate registration category called “Station Wagon” My XJ Cherokee was considered a station wagon, and thus I paid car registration costs to Pennsylvania.
In the 70s it caused situations where if you had a Bronco, that was a truck, Scout that was a station wago. Bascially the same sort of vehicle. one person lost out and got to pay more to register it.
Maine keeps it simple. All that matters generally is how much it cost new. Excise tax every single year based on that. Gets really expensive for old luxury cars. Why yes, my Range Rover that I paid $5500 for was $80K new, and thus cost $500 every single year to register.
Yep, Delaware has “P/C” plates, “Passenger/Combination”, that get put on anything with a wagon-like body. Station wagons, suburbans, SUVs.
So an old Taurus Wagon with the folding rear jump seats is a truck? Neat.
Anecdotally, my 20-month-old keeps pointing at the daycare Ford Transit vans and calling them Trucks. I have suspected that she’s of above-average intelligence.
Oddly, Ford Transit vans intended for cargo use get imported to the US with cheap seats in the back in order to get classed as “cars” and thus evade the “chicken tax”. The seats are scrapped once the vehicle clears Customs.
That used to be a thing for the Transit Connect. Ford stopped after they paid a fine over it, and then just stopped selling the Transit Connect (and stopped plans for the Transit Courier coming over) in a tantrum because they couldn’t exploit cheap Turkish assembly anymore. Currently I believe for the big Transit they actually install and then remove the windows so that it doesn’t get counted as a cargo vehicle and gets hit less but doesn’t dodge it. As for the Ranger and the Escape, both of which we sometimes get foreign built versions of via weird trade shit with Canada, I dunno how they avoid it other than them getting a pass for most being built in Kentucky and Michigan.
The chicken tax doesn’t apply to vehicles built in Canada or Mexico, although with the incoming administration, who knows what’s gonna happen.
Few well-intentioned flow charts have influenced marketing departments as much as this one, directly leading to the demise of the sedan and wagon and the rise of the SUV and glamor truck, directly leading to higher emissions, bigger lanes and parking spaces in cities, and more pedestrian and bicycle deaths. Regulators have to think about not just the honest application of their work, but how profit-seeking companies will respond in the real world.
Oops! All light trucks
This is one of the reasons I do not believe that JUST being a station wagon with a 3rd row resulted in being classified as a truck by the EPA. Because the biggest reason for the demise of the station wagon was that they had to meet the same emissions and fuel economy standards for CAFE as the sedan they were based on, but Exploders and Cherokees and such did not.
My understanding is that the footprint-based CAFE standards have largely made the whole distinction moot anyway. The bigger the footprint, the lower the standard is that needs to be met. Which of course, ALSO incentives making vehicles bigger and bigger.
so a folding third row for cats can make anything a truck
Only if you cat likes riding around in the vehicle. Mine sure doesn’t.
Do cats like riding in catapults?
There is only one way to find out.
ROFL – my crazy feline just might!
My definition of a truck is a vehicle, that in its normal configuration, has more space devoted for cargo than for passengers.
Econoline cargo van=truck. 15-passenger Econoline=not a truck.
F-150 RCLB=truck. F-150 CC with 5′ bed=not a truck (it’s a sedan missing its trunk lid)
Chevrolet HHR=not a truck. Chevrolet HHR Panel=truck
That’s way too simple. You’d make a terrible bureaucrat.
So does that mean super heavy EVs with over 10k GVWR do not provide an offset for CAFE numbers? I would have thought even those like the Hummer EV and the like would try to offset some of the heavier ICE vehicles in that respect.
There are fleet GHG requirements for medium and heavy duty trucks. They are just different from the ones for light duty vehicles. CARB also has ZEV mandates for MD and HD vehicles So that Hummer EV is offsetting some Chevy 3500 – 5500s + earning ZEV credits.
Ah thank you for the clarification and additional insight.
What’s even more confusing is that these classifications do not apply to state vehicle registration. For example, in PA, the Ford Maverick is indeed classified as a truck, and therefore must pay higher registration fees, but a Lincoln Navigator is classified as a wagon (!).
Therefore, a lot of absolutely massive SUVs pay less in annual vehicle registration costs than small pickup trucks.
My friend with a 1928 Ford Model A truck had to pay the truck registration fees in PA.
We had a 1930 Model A pickup in California. Same thing; paid commercial fees.
PA is just weird in so many ways. I personally love their famous catch-22 around non-residents who do actually live there registering cars there.
So, my 2013 Mazda5 is a truck. Note to self: do not tell the wife.
Wait, I’m missing something. With the 3rd row seating thing, doesn’t that mean minivans are pretty much all trucks? They have a third row, and it’s stowable or removable to make a flat cargo surface. Ergo… Truck?
Yup, I too did not realize I have been rocking a ‘truck’ all this time. Good times….
I mean I use and abuse mine like it’s an old work truck, so I guess that checks out haha.
A lot of minivans, including mine, see a lot more plywood, lumber, drywall, bagged concrete, dump runs, etc than 90% of “real” trucks.
Absolutely! I have hauled plywood and drywall on many occasions. It doesn’t like it, but it’ll handle a pretty significant amount of extra weight in there without any real issues.
It is so annoying when the big box loader questions if it can handle it…it was designed for 800+ lbs of passengers plus baggage, it can handle 800 lbs of bagged concrete. I have thought about rear air bags regularly though…
Oh I have overloaded mine by a significant margin on many occasions, but somehow the rear suspension is still the original despite the front needing a complete rebuild this year. Vans just love to be tortured. It handles like straight trash when sitting on the bumpstops, but I never do it for more than a few miles. If I need to go on the freeway I won’t do it, but 10 miles or less around town, and I’ll just go slow and it’s fine.
A minivan is the best truck that your neighbors will never ask to borrow.
You couldn’t remove the 3rd row or fold it into the floor on my old Mercury Villager, but you could remove the 2nd row captain chairs and slide the 3rd row bench up in their place. Therefore you could Tetris the Villager into a truck, right?
Interesting. I would guess yes? I don’t know though, prior to this I would have said my minivans have been cars.
How the description reads to me, that counts, since it folds/pivots. So the final gen Nissan Quest, the GM CSVs, or the ID.Buzz where the third row folds down to be flush with another panel would count as well.*
I’m trying to think of any vehicles that existed that would have 3 rows and wouldn’t allow you to fold or remove the back seats. Of course with the right tools anything is, but seems like it’s a definition leading to a large van or bus or transport vehicle, that also seats <10.
*Those usually fold flush with the 2nd row too even if that row is removable. But then I also think of the original Mazda MPV where the 3rd row folded and flipped against the 2nd row, but required tools to remove, and wouldn’t be a flat load floor with the middle row out because of the RWD hump. It’s still a larger flat cargo area though, and even if that didn’t count it offered 4WD.
If a Land Rover Disco I or II that HAS rear jump seatss, they don’t fold flat into the floor, they just fold up against the side of the cargo area. But it meets departure angle and ground clearance requirements to definitely be a “truck”.
The previous gen Kia Sorrento also has a weird 3rd row that doesn’t really get out of the way. A friend has one, but I can’t remember exactly what it does that makes it super annoying. He’s single and wishes it was a 2-row, but they didn’t offer that initially. He was pissed when they did the next model year.
Better go get some truck nutz so the bros know.
Important distinction: ONLY…
if…it’s…parked…DOWN BY THE RIVER! (And loaded down w/ a ton of government cheese…)
Bookmarked for future arguments in the comment section.
Great sequence in Buckaroo Banzai.
Buckaroo: It flies like a truck.
John Parker: Good. What is a truck?
https://y.yarn.co/573fff49-0b76-4f17-8c44-2bbee94bc6c9_text.gif
In Canada, or at least Ontario where I live, my 2012 Kia Soul is classified as a Truck/Van.
Is this a truck?
No, this is Patrick.
I think the 2CV Sahara and original Fiat Panda 4×4 might both be trucks.
And the Citroen CX Familiale, but not the CX Safari.
Fun loopholing aside: why are trucks, regardless of definition, given much, much easier emissions limits? I get that work trucks are necessary, and can’t be as efficient as a car, but they don’t have to be half as efficient.
In this Hagerty video, Jason Cammisa talks about the government incentives that pushed us to big trucks and SUVs and how Japan did the same thing but for Kei cars instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcB-nFt_bm0
Special interest groups purchase the loop holes from their legislators, so it’s not about what’s fair, right, or sensible.
Stuff like this is why I no longer want to retire to the US.
I’m thinking of going to Central America to help sloths, maybe anteaters. I gave up on people.
Jerry: Yeah…he specializing in whales. He’s working on lowering the cholesterol level in whales…all that blubber– quite unhealthy.
You know its the largest mammal on earth but as George says “they
don’t have to be.”
TIL my ’21 Jeep Compass Trailhawk is a truck. It has all 5 of the offroad physical dimension requirements that it needs 4 of. So thats neat I guess. It also helps explain the dysmal 21-22mpg I average.
weights in pounds, lengths in centimeters. check
Keep pointing that out and they’ll start measuring weight in stone and height in hands to spite us.
As long as you respond within a fortnight.
At least the angles aren’t in radians.
Everyone’s least favourite SI unit.
Wait you mean to tell me you don’t have an intuitive understanding of radians when measuring angles? I’ll have you know that π/8 rad is my minimum departure angle for any of my truck purchases, despite the EPA only requiring π/9. Don’t even get me started on the breakover angle! π/12? What is this mess? That ain’t a real truck!
Oh I don’t know, at least the answer to “How many radians?” is constantly “Go fuck yourself”, so there’s that.
Speedometer in furlongs per fortnight.
Well, you certainly won’t get weight in kilograms.
Legally in the UK stuff sold by weight is measured in kilograms.
Not Newtons. And not sold by mass. It’s very disappointing.
I have long said that the Brits have no right to assert superiority in weights and measures.
God no.
Leave that to the French.
We’re getting to the point soon where truck size will be measured in football fields.
How many furlongs make for a truck?
You have to watch this one. https://youtu.be/2QUum9NymZY?si=tKvIBpqN28Zf3EBD
i did, in fact, have to watch that. thanks!
My Mazda3 has the approach, departure, break over, and ground clearance to drive over grassy hills. Since that’s the same amount of off-roading that most “trucks” will ever do I’m calling my Mazda a truck from now on. Time to go buy some truck nutz!
Take off the trunk lid and it is officially a truck
At this point the way the incentives line up for manufacturers, I’m surprised you can buy a sedan with a factory-installed trunk lid at all instead of having to drive your new, um, vehicle off the lot with an “open load bed” with cheap and tacky but legally compliant tailgate and come back the next day for your Genuine (Automaker) Accessory “One-Piece Lockable Cargo Cover” you-can-call-it-a-trunk-lid-but-Legal-tells-us-not-to.
… for which you have to buy a subscription
I used to drive my 2010 Mazda6 on Moab dirt roads. I would often pass Jeeps (not wranglers) that struggled more than I did. So that sedan is now a truck too, right? Right??? 😉
And this is why we have had people using trucks as daily drivers for decades because of emission regs and the auto industry.
Well this is definately why we have “full line” automakers *cough Ford cough* forcing CUVs instead of selling cars. Convince people that’s what they want (they should honestly be paying royalties to Subaru on this), get bigger profit margins (it costs 20% more to build an ecosport than a fiesta, right?), and worry less about emissions regs and the accompanying fines. Win and win.
I think you can put most of the blame on people driving pickups towards “masculinity” and cultural norms, but the automakers are sure happy to supply them.
I see this take quite a lot, and I have to disagree. Have you ever actually talked to REGULAR people about what they want in a car? Specifically: not car people. I always hear the same thing: “Oh I want it to be high up so I can see, have awd, and be able to take a bunch of stuff.”
I’ll admit that it’s a complicated topic – as more cars get bigger/taller and there are more trucks on the road, then people want to sit higher so they can see what’s going on, which in turn puts more tall vehicles on the road.
AWD’s rise in popularity coincides with the tech allowing cars to have it without so much of a fuel economy hit.
Crossovers can be more practical than sedans, but for Americans that were pretty anti-hatchback/wagon, that seems like a thinly veiled excuse. However it could be said that now people do need more practicality from fewer vehicles because of wage stagnation, so again, a little complex.
There’s a lot of things that have helped make small crossovers the go-to vehicle for a lot of people, but I can’t help but think that good marketing isn’t one of the top things.
So at what point is being high up pointless when everyone around you is just as high?
I am chagrined when these lifted, quad-cab pickups roar past me at 85mph on the highway. Talk about running a brick through the wind!
Yeah those are the losers that whine about gas prices.
This chart fails to explain how the standard PT Cruiser was a light truck
The google said the pt was a truck because of the removable rear seats. Not sure if that is true but it seems like it and the rules may have been different back then.
My guess is this one:
-Does the vehicle provide greater cargo carrying than passenger carrying volume?
Otherwise I’m stumped too.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2108816/definition-truck-cafe-loophole-critics-say/ removable rear seat and flat floor.
That was it, and why the PT Cruiser convertible was classified as a car.
I was disappointed this article didn’t include that notable example.
The rules changed – I believe in 2010 to require a 3rd row + folding seats to create a flat cargo floor. Chrysler classifying the PT Cruiser as a truck was said to be the inspiration for that change.
I’ve seen the Kia Soul classified as a “truck”, but how does it meet all four of the angle criteria? Same for the old Dodge Magnum and Chrysler PT Cruiser.
The google said the pt was a truck because of the removable rear seats. Not sure if that is true but it seems like it and the rules may have been different back then. https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2108816/definition-truck-cafe-loophole-critics-say/
I just made a comment about mine being classified as a truck/van in Canada. When I was getting insurance it took me a few minutes to figure out why it wasn’t coming up when I selected “car” from the first drop down menu.
So by that flow chart – Grandpa’s Country Squire or your Dad’s Volvo 240 Wagon would be classified as a Truck if equipped with the rear seats in the cargo area.
Which begs the question – What is the point of Mercedes-Benz doing the Outback thing with the E Class Wagon if it’s already classified as a Truck by the EPA?
Marketing and conquest buyers
110% pure marketing.
And based on talking to the sales dudes at the dealership – sales of them DROPPED when they did that. I certainly didn’t buy one because of it. I very well might have bought a new one instead of the minty used S212 I bought. The siren song of European Delivery is strong, and Mercedes still does it. But be damned if I am going to drive an idiotic ugly-ass Mercedes Outback in *Florida*.
“The siren song of European Delivery is strong, and Mercedes still does it”
I don’t believe thats the case anymore
– It was discontinued for COVID, and I do not see any mention of it on the MBUSA site.
If they have discontinued it as well, oh well. Nothing I want to buy currently anyway, given they ruined the E-class wagon by Outbacking it.
Same.
S Class Coupe/Convertible – Dead
E Class Coupe/Convertible – Dead
SL – Nobody needs an AWD convertible.
CLE – Just a super-sized C Class Coupe/Cabriolet that looks like the old one with a 1999 Ford ZX2 rear light array – and again, nobody needs an AWD coupe/convertible.
E Class Outback – No thanks.
The only Mercedes-Benz I want are old ones.
I LOVE the way the non-Outbacked wagon looks on the outside. But that plus the current screens, screens, screens interior, yeeesh. Otherwise, they got nothin’.
I should probably send the designers/marketers thank you cards these days – they sure are saving me a ton of money. I bought a brand-new car every other year for a dozen years. Expensive fun while it lasted.
My taste in cars gets older and older. I like my ’14 E350 wagon, but in hindsight I wish I had spent the same money on the nicest W124 wagon left on the planet. I would LOVE another one of those. Or a Euro-spec w123 280TE wagon