Developers of Excitebots explain why trucks were ditched

“The original Excite Truck stood out from the crowd because of the unlikeliness of trying crazy tricks with regular trucks that you might see every day. This time, we’re bringing every more insane stunts and tricks. However, when we raced the new tracks with the trucks, we felt that the two elements didn’t match up quite as well as we hoped, and we couldn’t get immersed int he game like we wanted to. So, we really wanted to create an offbeat, unconventional design that no one would find anywhere else and would fit with the wacky action. That’s how we came up with the robot critters.” – Excitebots developers

I don’t really mind that the trucks have been replaced. Based on the information provided thus far, the game is still very similar to its predecessor…Which is great!