Toyota RAV4 overtakes the Ford F-150 as the best selling in the US.

If by “stick time,” you mean stick shift/manual transmission, then, yes, I really miss those. Our Ford was stick shift; it was so much fun to drive despte being a sedan, but. . . .

Our Ford developed electrical issues, some due to battery acid leaking on wiring and wire looms cracking due to age, exposing wires to heat and friction. Furthermore, in the 10-days since failing, the Ford has been sitting on the side of our driveway, and a rat or a mouse has already moved into the engine bay.

 

gen 4 over the last 10 years has been pretty reliable, def better than gen 3

 

I've owned sportbikes, sedans, hatches, and vans -- defo prefer hatches as my cage, as do most families who don't have giant parking spaces nor tolerance for crap mpg. Hot hatches were not a game-changer in their time for nothing (still are in EU and Asia, at least for younger buyers).

Since crossies are so much more profitable (whilst making you spend more for higher weight and consumables costs like fuel, tires and shocks / struts due to it), hatches have been disappearing from larger mfr swimlanes a while now -- Ford stopped making all its car lines for entirely profit-related reasons, save the Mustang (yep, technically a hatch too, if not exactly utilitarian). So was happy the 5G was a true hatch -- even if the concept were heavily compromised vs. 4G.

Lived with a little Paseo rollerskate (not a hatch, btw) over 15y -- and got thru life just fine, g/fs occasionally inhabiting the right seat. Buying my first new car (turbo Honda Civic), had to be a hatch -- one thing that Honda were actually good at, was being a warm hatch (tho lots of past hot Civics were much better at space utilisation than 10th-gen).

Funny thing about 'liftback' -- that's what Corolla hatches were called in the '70s -- so really, they've brought the term back Does sort of make me laugh the concept of 5D being rebranded as a new thing If Toyota would wise up and offer the HyCam as a hatch or better yet, sell their wagon / estate models here as the only variant... no need for the lukewarmly-received-and-defo-overpriced Crown, maybe?

Tbh, unless you have a garden allotment somewhere, or are trying to build a new wall around your property every year... a HyCam can easily do a 4-person family's clean hauling like moving, then pivot to a U-Haul for the big / dirty stuff. Moved houses 3x like this during the Paseo years... works fine for me, and don't have to be penalised for 16 mpg every other day I'm not hauling something big or filthy, in a truck bed.

Low ride height's never bothered me, after riding a motorcycle 21 yrs -- some of it thru storms hundreds of miles wide. I gauge my youth on the ability to climb into a car w/o b*tching about it, by doing it I guess. But may not feel that way, when up in years where some of us here are

 

Fourth gen Prius interior was a bit tighter than third gen as well. This is the sense I get, from hazy recollection, mostly comment here. Posing a neutral question to Google AI yields corroboration:

https://share.google/aimode/eubjIVOG48r1X0EZb

Too, components of storage “disappeared”: the second glove box*, and under hatch floor storage.

* we had our 2010 a few years before I even realized there was second glove box…

(Geeze, early morning here in the Pacific Northwest, and the crows are just losing their minds, over something. Rivalries, bird of prey, god knows…)

 

I don't have a problem with hatchbacks at all. I've owned several of them.
Our GMC Terrain is a small, front wheel drive hatchback - actually classified by people who keep track of such things as a "Compact Crossover SUV."
I agree with that designation completely - except the "SUV" part.

IN FACT.....it's a lot like my old 2010 Prius except:
It's 30MHP faster, 9 inches longer, 4 inches wider, and about 8 inches taller.
The Terrain has a longer wheelbase by half a foot and it's 750 pounds heavier.
It's interior is vastly larger than my old Prius - which somehow got labeled, AGAIN by people who track these sorts of things as a......"midsized car."

-can't make that up.
FWIW....
I never felt unsafe in a G3 and it made good use of its interior volume, but it's not the sort of car that you'd want to use to haul trash, building material, limbs, refrigerators, motorcycles, etc....etc.

Key word: Clean.

You do not 'pivot' to a U-Haul, and they're not cheap.
THAT is why I bought a trailer capable of hauling a 3000# load - and I used to tell myself, AND others...in this forum even that I could 'get by' without a truck, and that my 09 Sierra would be my last truck.

Maybe when I start slowing down in my 80s I will get one of the trucklets that they're making like FOMOCOs Maverick.

 

Dunn o man -- lived 30y without a van or truck -- driving a 351 Windsor-powered '78 E150 Chateau in mil briefly with everything wrong with it... literally drove me -- or not -- down that path (what a pile a late-'70s Econoline was, even in '93) And certainly do 'pivot' to a U-Haul for the stuff that didn't fit in the Paseo. Just gotta work a bit harder, to not have a sub-20-mpg vehicle yoked around your neck, indefinitely...

Then again never owned a domicile with a yard (nor the mortgage what come with)... so hauling trees and big appliances / furniture if ever, can go in a rental -- as an IT droid in WA, and tech and moto-wrenching business owner in AZ, was affordable enough (just $50 a day back then), and $75 per here, on everything--is-30%-higher-than-even-covid-mainland-prices Maui. Just get your hauling done in a couple of days, and clean it out afterwards so you don't get a slob charge, golden days

Don't need to own a sub-20-mpg vehicle just for chores, unless you own property what needs that -- in fact you'd need to find the hauling chores full-stop, to even justify owning one

Moved from AZ to WA in the Paseo, 1500 mis w\ 500 lbs+ of my apartment crap Tetris'd into that rollerskate -- and that little tank handled it like it was designed for milquetoasts like me (not anymore). Made it over the Siskyous in winter, no problem (was actually better, as the weight made it more stable and aerodynamic, hoofing it 75 mph at 3am down the backside of the range, to get to Seattle in < 30 hrs). Was all my stuff, so were pretty clean -- no palm trees, A/Cs, or jacuzzis in sight. Did have to go back and get my 700-lb top box and rollaway a month later tho -- with, you guessed it, a rental box truck (graciously discounted for me at their business rate, by old workmates holding the toolboxes for me at their data center). Moving costs in total: <$300 in 2005

Pivot accomplished, would pivot again Tho do see you on the Maverick -- the hybrid tech is licensed from Toyota anyway, so that part should be reliable as they come, esp over the SKs and Honda's iffy hybrids w\ wet clutches in them (suuure that'll make it 100K, riiight).

That I see loads of Mavs here w\ biz logos from Upcountry (where all the high-dollar produce farms are), on $4.70/gal-for-bathwater Maui, defo significant -- the rest drive 25yo Kei-class trucklets from Japan and Taiwan, struggling to get to 50 mph. 40 mpg in a smol FWD HEV Escape with a bed, nothing to sniff at -- not sure about how much more you can squeeze past it, with aero like a Rubik's cube... but halving the fillups in a month over your last vehicle's always a plus...

So Ford, if they actually cared (debatable), should offer an uglier but super-utilitarian biz version, body-on-frame so bed/box configurable, for maybe $16K -- much like Toyota's Stout they keep talking about (but haven't seen a thing in half a year ).

 

My son traded his 2015 Prius V for a new 2023 RAV4 Prime XSE a few years ago. He could not get another Prius V since they are no longer sold in the US. He usually travels hos work commute on straight EV but easily makes other trips in hybrid mode.