It never ceases to amaze me how often I still learn about how much stuff is illegal in the US. All I ever heard growing up was how it’s the freedomest country in the world and that the entire concept of its government was built on personal freedoms, and yet it doesn’t even seem to be true on its own terms.
So many conspiracy theories in these comments about why American manufacturers don’t build smaller cars.
It’s very simple, American Auto Companies are loan companies, not auto manufacturers.
Why would they produce a $10k go-kart with a useable bed when they can get people to finance a $110k SUV at 18% APR?
It’s not about oil, or other resources, or even labor and tooling.
It’s just much more profitable to put you into debt.
Especially because we are a captive market. Public transport is essentially non existent in most areas. You have to get a car, and you have to take a loan on it. Without a car, a lot of places won’t even hire you.
you have to take a loan on it.
Can’t you buy cheaper or 2nd hand cars?
It’s still going to be at least $10k or so, unless you scour Facebook marketplace or know how not to get scammed.
My stepfather’s job was to negotiate deals between the car dealerships and the banks. They were all fucking sharks. Used car salesmen are terrible people as a rule.
Yes. It is quite straightforward. First you figure out the kind of car you want - eg, Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. Peruse fb marketplace / Craigslist / etc to look at your options, note typical price for what you want based on model year and condition. Check your market once per day for a few weeks or months, and eventually a deal will come up - or else you can search in other areas you’d be willing to travel to. When you find a good (or at least reasonable) deal, you message the seller, and tell them the following things:
- You are very interested.
- The earliest time you are available to meet - ideally “right now or any time today”. Also ideally, this would occur during normal business hours for mechanics and banks.
- You can pay in cash.
- You want it inspected by a mechanic before you buy.
When you agree on a time / place to meet, start looking up mechanics nearby. Getting a pre-sale inspection is a service offered by most shops for a small fee. Call ahead and ask if they can do an inspection around the time you are meeting the seller.
Before you meet with the seller, look up a checklist of things to inspect yourself. These are basic things that are easy to check - do the lights work? The blinkers? The AC/heat/defroster? You can find inspection lists pretty easily online.
Meet with the seller. Ask them about the car, its history, maintenance records, and why they are selling it. Take it for a test drive on neighborhood roads and on the highway. Drive to the mechanic and have them inspect the car.
After all this, it is time to negotiate. If you or the mechanic found anything concerning, you can use this to haggle with the seller, who is likely ready to take a few hundred less in order to be done dealing with the headache of selling their car. With an agreed upon price, head to your bank.
Most banks provide members with free notary services. You can have them notarize a bill of sale or the car’s title if necessary. Once the title is signed over to your name, go to the teller, withdrawal cash, and hand that fat stack to the seller.
Drive away with your new car.
Also make sure the shop knows its a pre-sale inspection
I’ve noticed that Americans do not consider using an armed rebellion against evil corporate practices but talk about 2A rights all the time.
No armed rebellion is complete without a technical built from a Toyota Hilux, which we sadly only get the slightly larger variant, the Tacoma.
As an American I can break it down for you. The people who wont stop about 2A are sheep, sheep get told what to think, so when the “news” tells them that doing anything to make life better in America will actually make life worse and is some form of evil -ism (communism, socialism, etc.) that they have been programmed to hate, they believe it without question. These clowns are incapable of creating a personal opinion, they just accept the narrative that their favorite talking head gives them, and think they came up with it all on their own.
This is without even getting into the tribalism that makes these beliefs they have been given feel like a part of their identity, and thus making it near impossible to change.
That sounds more conspiracists than “Americans like shit vehicles”
The Canyonero Simpsons episode came out in 98 to make fun of this
Not disagreeing with you, but Kei trucks lack a lot of standard safety features, so it’s not a black and white issue
They don’t have standard safety features because it’s illegal to import the ones that do.
So the reason is because it’s unsafe, unlike, oh, idk, the sharp-edged Cybertruck?
…both things can be true?
For the record I’d love to get a Kei truck. But they like… don’t have airbags lol
My point is that the Cybertruck is unsafe, and it’s on the market. So the American car market clearly doesn’t require safety, it’s just a marketing point.
I think we can all agree that Cybertrucks are a bit of an outlier here. I mean we used to ridicule vehicles with safety this poor. But yeah I wouldn’t want to be on the freeway in either a cybertruck or a kei truck. But moving stuff downtown would be perfect for them - basically give them moped permissions.
But yeah I wouldn’t want to be on the freeway in either a cybertruck or a kei truck.
Why not? Because everyone else is in a truck so large they wouldn’t be able to see you?
Not a problem here in Europe. Wiki says they can do 120 ungoverned. Seems fine enough. Large commercial trucks, as in “semis” to Americans, but even the smaller Large Heavy Goods vehicles, as in lorries in Britain, aren’t allowed to do more than 80km/h on the freeway. I’m sure the Kei trucks can do that even when encumbered.
The other huge vehicles are a factor, but you’re fine doing 120 without airbags?
You are missing the point, the cyber truck will kill/maim/damage pedestrians (no biggie), cyclists (no biggie) and other cars (darn, gotta deal with insurance) most of the time! It’s a feature for the kind of people that buy them.
Colorado’s Division of Motor Vehicles also tried to explicitly ban them last year, though it later pulled its proposed rule. Some kei vehicle owners, however, say the state is still trying to keep them off the road by refusing to allow them into the emissions testing process.
As usual it’s confusion from news when reporting on public policy. So are they proposing that there be exceptions to emissions rules for these vehicles or not? Because that will make a huge amount of difference in how much I or pretty much anyone else should support this.
Considering?! Just fuckin’ do it, who does it hurt?
It hurts GM and Ford. They don’t want competition! And worse yet they don’t even build anything to compete with kei trucks! Think of the shareholders, you monster!
Itll hurt the cyber cucks for sure
I don’t think the customers of small, affordable, useful trucks are the same customers as the cybertruck owners.
It takes away more of teslas marketshare. Eventually making it not economically viable to produce them.
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This passed a couple days ago and will be signed by the Governor today! Takes effect July 2027.
Maybe US car manufacturers could, y’know, make their own compact trucks? 😀
American Auto Manufacturers are run by ancient douche bags that are desperately holding on to the past.
No, they’re run by ancient douche bags that are constantly finding loopholes in the current laws that allow (if not encourage) them to make bigger vehicles.
If they were desperately trying to hold onto the past, the new Ford Ranger reboot wouldn’t be nearly the same size as an F-150.
The only good Ranger was the Mazda B2000.
that requires a shift in design and engineering, not to mention retooling the actual manufacturing process
less expensive to just keep selling shit in the status quo. change is effort, effort is waste, waste is less profit margins
They don’t have as much profit as large trucks. Capitalism strikes again.
This is COMMUNISM! TRUE FREEDOM is FORCING us to use OVERSIZED Cars that use a LOT of EXPENSIVE Gas! ANYTHING else is WOKE!
why aren’t they allowed now?
Because they used emissions standards in the 80s to remove light trucks from the market. Which is why everything is bigger now, blowback: unintended consequences of shitty legislation.
They used the “Chicken Tax” to remove light trucks on the 80s, not emissions issues.
Ford used to skirt the law by having Transits made in Europe shipped to the US as passenger vehicles. Once in the states they would recycle the seats and replace the rear windows with panels.
They generally don’t meet safety requirements.
In many export markets kei trucks are sold with larger engines than is mandated by the keijidousha regulations of Japan, and come in left hand drive. For example here’s the Suzuki Carry in one export market. These international variants might be more suitable for the US market.
What’s the point of one of these over a small commercial van?
The trucks appeal is its utility. The bed is lower than any US truck. the sides and tail drop down for easy access. The bed is just as big as a regular truck. They often come in 4WD. The engine is tiny so they sip gasoline. Most important is they are very cheap.
They sell small commercial vans too.
You’re not allowed to drive those? Why not?
Edit: article touches on it. Low top speed and missing safety features. They aren’t fit for highways but not all roads are highways, so outright bans are stupid.
My electric golf cart goes up to 33 mph max. I had to put lights on it but I got it titled, insured, and plated. I have to keep it on 35 and under roads but I take it all over the place instead of driving my car. Seems silly these trucks couldn’t be approved for at minimum 45 and under roadways.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of US vehicles are missing the same safety features. Where’s the seatbelt and airbag on a motorcycle, for example? A lot of semis also don’t have airbags at all.
Even at 55mph they’re actually not that unsafe in a sane country with sane cars- the driver is so high up that they’re ‘above’ the crash (t’s the same reason semis don’t have air bags- they’re not as needed)
… unless you’re in the US and driving around a dick-measuring contest pavement princess that puts you eye level with a semi truck so you can murder small children easier, that weighs 8000lb.
Yes, they can’t go 70mph, but that basically just limits them to not being able to go on highways and interstates, which is perfectly fine- frankly, we need to have less things being hauled that way, the highways will last longer and our microplastic issue will be largely solved if we stop shipping things in the single dumbest, least efficient manner.
Finally… modern kei trucks DO have a lot of those improvements. They have airbags, seatbelts, all the modern safety features, and can go 60mph. Keep in mind, in most cases semis have to go 5-10 under the speed limit anyway, which means they can basically hit the same speed limits as semis. We just aren’t even currently allowed to import the modern kei trucks.
That’s one of the laughable things in the article. They keep talking about the emissions and safety but they’re talking about the older vehicles that are being used in the US because the older vehicles are the only ones that are allowed to be used in the US. They don’t even come close to mentioning the new vehicles that are being made that have all those safety features and better emissions.
It’s a plain and simple fact is that these vehicles threaten profit margins of the dealerships that sell the unnecessary monster trucks that are primarily sold in America.
P.S. The emissions thing is especially stupid since trucks tend to be exempt from a lot of emissions regulations anyhow.
There is a reason the guy in the article bought a 1990. The US has a 25 year rule for importing vehicles that weren’t sold here. These became legal in Utah a few years ago because they made off road side by sides legal as long as you made some modifications (horn, turn signals, mirrors, etc). There’s a particular weight range they need to fall between. They also have to hold the same insurance requirements and registration as any other road vehicle. I don’t think they can be used on any road above 45.
And I think that’s a good set of regulations for Kei trucks. Particularly the speed. It should keep them off of high speed roadways and more on urban side streets where the speeds are supposed to be slower. They can find a good use in those situations.
Utah’s goal to my knowledge was to get things like this to be road legal since everybody has them out here. I think the kei trucks was mostly a happy accident because of the way they wrote it. Still not use to seeing these at the grocery store just in a parking spot.
These are all over the place in Victoria. It’s still idiots in big pickups that are smoking all the pedestrians. Weird huh?
This is what is so dumb. Safety is only ever considered for the people INSIDE the vehicle. It’s insane.
That’s America for you. It’s also the reason American cars can’t be sold in Japan without modifications.
I mean, also because American cars have the steering wheel on the wrong side.
A lot of today’s safety standards are based on pedestrian protection, that’s why pop up headlights aren’t a thing anymore for example.
Dude. You can’t look at modern American vehicles and tell me they are designed with pedestrian protection in mind.
I mean… It’s regulations that are in place, I don’t make the rules, all I know is that the shape of cars need to respect certain criterias to help pedestrian safety in case they get hit, including making sure they’re deflected on the hood and not under the car for example. Crash avoidance systems, obstacle warnings will be mandatory in 2029 and that’s a US regulation…
It really feels like people on here only think about trucks that are exempted from certain regulations when talking about cars, well I look at the roads around me and not all vehicles are trucks.
The US has no ped safety rules for the front end of cars/trucks. Europe on the other hand…
And most cars are built to sell in both markets, crazy right?
I don’t know what physical reality you live in that the snub nose and lifted style vehicles on the roads today, not just limited to trucks, is going to “deflect” a pedestrian anywhere but directly into the pavement.
“built to sell in both markets” my ass!! American brands are virtually non-existent over there and better yet have completely discontinued any remotely normal sized vehicle that would “sell in both markets”!! If they were “built to sell in both markets” Trump wouldn’t be flirting with trade war just to somehow force our shitty inflated cars to sell in Europe. Beyond EU regulations, Europeans are harder to sell to at american prices because far more of them have the option not to own a car. Americans do not have that option!
Jesus christ you’re fucking delusional. Hey dumbass!! Capitalists don’t give a fuck about what you or any market or regulation wants, they care about making money!! If by some ‘supply and demand’ miracle that ends up being what you wanted in the first place, then it’s a happy accident. But most of the time, at a certain level of market saturation; they will just use their vast amounts of wealth to convince you, by hook or by crook, that “what you want” is actually “what will make us the most money”. They are not the same thing, learn the fucking difference!!!
There is no American regulation against pop-up headlights.
https://blog.betterautomotivelighting.com/why-dont-cars-have-pop-up-headlights-anymore
Guess what, manufacturers want to be able to sell their vehicles in multiple markets so they follow European regulations for cars made to sell in the US.
These trucks work pretty great up here in Seattle and the surrounding areas. They hold very close to as much as a full size American 8ft truck, plus a lot of em have sides which fully fold down.
Is this common the the Seattle area? I see one dude driving one all the time near me. Always give him a wave and he waves back. Are they legal in King county only? Or whole state?
Semi-common, it seems.
Additionally, I’ve seen them upstate. In fact, it looks like if your Kei is registered in WA, you can drive down the interstate anywhere else in the US and they have to be ok with it due to interstate commerce laws. I’m not a lawyer.
This dude seems to corroborate that at the 6min mark, besides being east WA, and having generally good overview of what a good Kei choice from several options might be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqrfYTIxiWI
E: it’s nuts that my motorcycle has more displacement hahahaha
I spotted one in Bloomington, Indiana recently. It parked next to a superbig truck and I’m sorry I didn’t get that photo.
They’re totally legal in Indiana, as long as it’s more than 25 yrs old.
Thank you Colorado
