Cheap, affordable cars have all but disappeared from showrooms, replaced by high-priced crossovers and SUVs that many Americans can’t really afford. That’s a problem in 99 percent of the country where a vehicle is required for daily life. If you have a job, go to school, or want to buy groceries, you need a car.
And you don’t want just any car—you probably want something that’s at least reliable. A safe car would be nice, too, but if you’re just scraping by, like millions of others, then you know that even safety is a luxury you can’t truly afford.
New car prices are hovering around $50,000, and the latest data shows the average monthly new-car payment is $750. That’s unsustainable, and President Donald Trump believes tiny Asian Kei cars might be the savior cash-strapped Americans need.
Trump called them “really cute” earlier this month and said that he instructed his Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to “immediately approve the production of those cars.” Duffy quickly followed up Trump’s remarks by saying, “We have cleared the deck,” so automakers “can make them in America and sell them in America.”
It remains unclear exactly what is changing to allow automakers to produce Kei cars in the US, but doing so would be a mistake that defeats the entire purpose of these vehicles. Instead of forcing companies to build them here, which would greatly increase costs for consumers, just let people import new ones built in Asia.
It seems like a radical idea. Some will claim they’re unsafe for American roads, that they will undermine the strength of American manufacturing, or that no one truly wants these little runabouts.
None of those are good arguments as to why we need to prevent Americans from buying and driving them—we already allow unsafe, unregistered, and unregulated vehicles on our roads. Drive across America’s great vastness, and you will find yourself stuck behind a slow-moving tractor with an instrument of death attached to the front or an Amish horse and buggy.
Venture into the towns, and you’ll find bicycles, mopeds, golf carts, lawnmowers, and other vehicles operating on public roads that a normal car would obliterate in a collision. Despite these vehicles failing to meet the federal safety standards of new cars, many states allow people to operate various types of low-speed vehicles (LSVs).
