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.
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.
I think that the amount a small truck was valued by American consumers, including business consumers, is vastly overstated.
The reality is that most American businesses don't see any downside to the large size of the F-150. To them, a parking space is a parking space. The fact that you had parking restrictions probably makes you something of an outlier in the US market.
The single-row seating for whatever reason is particularly unpopular. I suspect that more people really want to be able to fit more than 3 people in the truck, and the additional benefit of the crew cab is locked interior storage.
Anyone else who needs a long bed can also buy a van, and in my area I see way more businesses with work vans than with pickup trucks. If you put your stuff in a pickup truck it can't be locked and secured, and it's exposed to the elements. That's a no-go if you're an electrician, plumber, HVAC technician, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that work vans aren't being sold right now:
Ford Transit
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter
Chevy Express/GMC Savana
RAM ProMaster
Certainly the smaller work vans like the Transit Connect and Nissan NV200 are no longer with us, and that's unfortunate.
Americans collectively purchase over 1 million trucks a year. They come in all kinds of different form factors from work truck with unpainted bumpers to 700HP supercharged dune runners, there are massive couches on wheels with interior made from saddle leather, to trucks pushing 1000ft-lbs to torque. There are EVs trucks with 400 miles of range and crossovers with the hatch turned into a tiny bed. There's even a Jeep Wranger with a bed (Gladiator).
If there's a significant market for a truck niche, it's covered. Trucks are far and away the most diverse segment of the US auto market. If manufactures killed of the truck you want, it's because they apparently can't find 1,999 other people to buy that trim.
Substitute "car" for "truck" in that statement, and you have exactly the justification Ford and GM had for not building the first minivans in the late '70s.
Ford even had all the detailed market research that said you could move ~700K units of such a vehicle per year; but disbelieved it, "b/c if that were truly the case, GM would've made those already."
Hal Sperlich took that information with him to Chrysler after Henry Ford II fired him, and the first thing he did at Chrysler was to convince John Riccardo to develop the K-car, which provided the parts Sperlich would need for the minivan a few years later. Despite the staggering profits generated by the first minivans, it took GM another six years, and Ford another ten to begin selling a competitive product.
Point is, don't assume every addressable profitable niche is actually being addressed.
They do not come in all form factors. Compact trucks are missing.
> If manufactures killed of the truck you want, it's because they apparently can't find 1,999 other people to buy that trim.
If that were true, Ford wouldn't have stopped selling the Ranger in the US. They stopped making them in December 2011.
Yearly sales [2] were
2005 120,958
2006 92,420
2007 72,711
2008 65,872
2009 55,600
2010 55,364
2011 70,832
2012 23,848
Canadian sales were about 20k a year, with 2011 and 2012 combining to hit 20k-ish. [2]
If it's not sales, and it's not competition (because all of the competition stopped servicing this market, too), it's because CAFE forced us to buy bigger or older trucks.
[1] https://carfigures.com/us-market-brand/ford/ranger#year-sale...
[2] https://carfigures.com/canada-market-brand/ford/ranger#year-...
The Maverick is a compact truck. It's slightly shorter and somewhat wider than the Ranger.
It's specifically only the 2-seat compact truck form factor that's missing.