I don’t see them often, but they are almost always used as actual work vehicles. Very few people who want a “big” truck want a long truck. It’s just a total pain.
It’s common to use a Hall effect sensor for positioning. It gives off an analog value. You might be able adjust the signal threshold that you consider to be “open” or “closed” in software.
Further, this is probably something that you just don’t spend a bunch of time engineering. Pick a value that’s well with your tolerance range and move onto harder problems. When a problem comes up, you can fine turn the range.
Oil change costs the same in my truck as every other vehicle.
None of the other parts are materially different in cost over the life of a vehicle. The size difference is trivial compared to the cost of manufacturing, distributing, and selling. If you’re paying for labor, the price difference is even proportionally smaller.
These are all items you change 2 or 3 times over the life of a vehicle. The truck part being 20% more expensive doesn’t add up to a drastic difference in overall cost of ownership.
I would also know. I’m driving a hybrid truck right now.
I truly think you’re comparing an old car to a modern one. None of the stuff you listed needed changing with any regularity, one any modern car.
Could changed happen every 9k miles, brake pads are entirely usage based (going 80k+ miles on original), coolants might get changed once in the 200k lifetime of the truck, etc, etc, etc.
Underground.
Frost line depths vary, but they’re typically not more than a few feet deep. Ants just dig deeper then rely on stored food.