system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why doesn't anyone make a reasonably sized truck anymore?

All the small trucks are either discontinued or gigantic. Why on earth does no one make a reasonably sized truck?
gpt
This is a real easy answer: Because people weren't buying them. 

There's a lot of sunk cost in making cars.  Buying up a factory, tooling it to build the car you want, etc., etc., so before you even build the first car (unless you're building a one-off) you have to spend millions of dollars.  The Tesla factory cost $42 million to get started. 

On top of that, there are costs to running the factory -- paying the people, the light bill, the mortgage and all that costs real money too. 

Because of those sunk costs, cars need to make a certain profit per car, as well as a certain profit overall to merit its continuation.  

In the case of the Dodge Dakota, it was clearly worth it to make them when they were introduced, as their first year sales were good, at 144,000 units sold in 1999.  From 2000 onward though, their sales declined every year, until 2012, when they sold only 12,000 units.  12,000 units is probably running at a loss, or closer to breakeven than the execs at Chrysler were happy with, so they opted to end the line altogether.