Kei Cars - prisoners dilemma

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/climate/could-president-trump-bring-japans-tiny-cars-to-america-not-so-fast.html

Would be great to have kei cars, efficient and safer for pedestrians. Of course it can’t go on highways, it’s essentially a gold cart.

I think we should allow them in the states, but they are licensed like motorcycles — special insurance & lifense, no use on some roadways, no child passengers.

[Anonymous]

Last week Sean Duffy was complaining that the Biden EPA was discouraging automakers from building station wagons and this week they want to build tiny trucks?

These things don’t belong on the road. I mean sure use them as a golf carts or something but they’d be unsafe on highways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last week Sean Duffy was complaining that the Biden EPA was discouraging automakers from building station wagons and this week they want to build tiny trucks?

These things don’t belong on the road. I mean sure use them as a golf carts or something but they’d be unsafe on highways.

It’s a play on affordability. Make $10k car-carts and then the poor can afford a “new car” and everyone is happy. The poor also die off sooner on those death traps, so health insurance costs drop.

As a country moving to smaller cars would be great, but we would need to have huge suvs go away in tandem.

[Anonymous]

They make a lot of sense for urban delivery, construction, and moving applications - situations where you need cargo space and to fit tight spaces and aren't going very fast.

[Anonymous]

Americans aren't very interested in buying cars that small.

The Fiat 500 and Smart Cars have not sold well. They were only able to be sold here because they had good sales in Europe.

[Anonymous]

PP. There are golf-cart-like multi-seat shuttles suitable for communities with 25 mph speed limits. Those also don't sell very well.

An example are Polaris GEM vehicles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Americans aren't very interested in buying cars that small.

The Fiat 500 and Smart Cars have not sold well. They were only able to be sold here because they had good sales in Europe.

Americans absolutely are! My 16 year old son really wanted a small truck so he could throw a mountain bike or surfboard (we now live in CA) in the cab. I looked to see how much a new truck was just to see and had no idea there are no real small and reasonably priced trucks on the market. The cheapest truck was over 30K. Toyota sells 10K to 15K pickup trucks in other parts of the word.

The reason is the Chicken Tax which is a 25% tariff on imported light trucks imposed by the U.S. in 1964 as a response to European tariffs on American chicken. This tax has significantly impacted the automotive market by protecting U.S. manufacturers from foreign competition.

Then add to that EPA standards have historically provided more lenient emissions regulations for larger vehicles like trucks and SUVs, which has led to an increase in their size and prevalence on the roads. This is due to a regulatory framework that treats larger vehicles differently, allowing manufacturers to meet less stringent emissions targets compared to smaller cars.

So that equals no small trucks in US. So my son bought a used 20 year old Toyota Tacoma. It is crazy how popular they because of the lack of small trucks for sale in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/climate/could-president-trump-bring-japans-tiny-cars-to-america-not-so-fast.html

Would be great to have kei cars, efficient and safer for pedestrians. Of course it can’t go on highways, it’s essentially a gold cart.

I think we should allow them in the states, but they are licensed like motorcycles — special insurance & lifense, no use on some roadways, no child passengers.

Don’t need one yet and hopefully never will but would certainly want more power in my motorized wheel chair than a Kei car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/climate/could-president-trump-bring-japans-tiny-cars-to-america-not-so-fast.html

Would be great to have kei cars, efficient and safer for pedestrians. Of course it can’t go on highways, it’s essentially a gold cart.

I think we should allow them in the states, but they are licensed like motorcycles — special insurance & lifense, no use on some roadways, no child passengers.

They can go up to 80mph so there's no real reason not to let them on highways, They should be treated like any other car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/climate/could-president-trump-bring-japans-tiny-cars-to-america-not-so-fast.html

Would be great to have kei cars, efficient and safer for pedestrians. Of course it can’t go on highways, it’s essentially a gold cart.

I think we should allow them in the states, but they are licensed like motorcycles — special insurance & lifense, no use on some roadways, no child passengers.

They can go up to 80mph so there's no real reason not to let them on highways, They should be treated like any other car.

The reason it might be dangerous to have them on the highway- think Kei car vs Tesla truck. The kei weighs around 1500 to 2200 pounds while a Tesla truck weighs 6,000 to 7,000 pounds (a Ford f-150 weighs around 5,000).

Electric vehicles are heavier by around 20% which over time is leading to roads deteriorating faster. There should be an incentive to have lighter vehicles.