When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.
“Reuters is lying,” he posted, without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.
Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.
Domestic manufacturers almost entirely phased out small cars long ago before EVs were even significant because they can’t build them as well as companies like Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda. Even those companies have phased out tiny cars because nobody in the US was buying them.
Why don’t you buy a Chevy Bolt, or Nissan Leaf if you want a small, cheap EV?
It isn’t they can’t build them, it is moreso they don’t want to because of profit margins and influences from CAFE standards makes small cars hard to build and big SUVs easier due to some backwards fuel economy regulations.
The same profit margins and CAFE standards that companies like Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda have to abide by too? This makes no sense as these companies were outselling domestic maker’s cars 5 to 1 in the exact same financial and regulatory environment.
Toyota and Honda have to meet similar regulations in markets that have those regulations but aren’t as insanely car focused as the US. They aren’t going to make a radically different Accord or Corolla for the US market just because they can. The leadership for US manufacturers are just lazy and have been for the past 50 years.
What does this have to do with the discussion?
Initial poster claimed that companies don’t want to sell small cars because of greed.
I argued that domestic manufacturers can’t build cars as well as the popular Asian brands and even those brands stopped selling small cars here because of low sales.
Person replies to me claiming the real reason why we don’t have small cars is because of stock prices and a loophole in CAFE standards that allow “trucks” to get worse mileage and still be in compliance.
I reply stating that Honda and Toyota have to meet these same regulations and financial responsibilities yet they aren’t selling small cars either
You reply with some random comment about Toyota and Honda having to sell their cars in more markets therefore it’s easier for them to meet efficiency regulations.
???