Few years ago? Okay, few is 2 or 3 years. I see MSRP for a base model of Mirage in 2023 was $16,245... 2022 was $14,625? When I was buying a car in that time period, there were no discounts below MSRP anywhere I looked for almost anything. Especially anything cheap. I've read a lot of reports of big mark ups for even Mirage's during that time period.
COVID wasn't a good time to buy anything. Companies go where the profits are, if americans were buying tons of smaller cars instead of large trucks and suvs, the companies would be building that.
All Asian/European carmakers have tons of options available everywhere else they could bring here but they don't cos people just don't buy them. Even sedans are harder to sell today, the US is its own cosmos and trying to coerce it into "small family car" when all the ads are about being a rugged f150 driver is very hard.
Look at how people talk about minivans here, all about "the emasculation of men". It would require a lot of leadership to change the market perspective on these cars or americans getting very poor for it to work. It is also incredibly convenient, I myself drive a large SUV that's larger than the average WW2 tank and its insanely convenient to have that much space for a family of 6.
If American car manufacturers think no one will buy them anyway, I think we should let in all the cheap EVs that are available and see how it plays out then. Can't be worse off.
Up until 2024 there were no restrictions on cheap Chinese EVs that didn't apply to any other car. The cheap ~$10k Chinese EVs simply don't meet US safety standards.
There has been constant political discourse in the U.S. about keeping cheap Chinese EVs out of the United States (yes, I know Polestar and Volvo are owned by Chinese corporations, they are older and at higher price point). You may have missed this in the last couple years if you're not from the US, but it would be hard to miss if you're from here.
I didn't miss it, which is exactly why I specified "up until 2024" which was when policies regarding Chinese EVs changed.
Further up this thread the discussion was about Asian market cars that are still sub $10k. There are both gasoline and EV vehicles that exist in this price range, but they are very different than the types of cars sold in the US market. They're more similar to off-road low-speed utility vehicles (and some are literally sold for this purpose in the US).
If you look at the western markets where there are Chinese EVs, higher safety standards, and higher buyer expectations, you'll see that they're very closely priced.
The idea that other countries have equivalent cars that are cheaper just doesn't hold water. Asia has cars that are cheaper because you get less car.
As another example here, the cheapest BYD sold in the UK is the Dolphin Surf starting at $25,614 (18,650 GBP). Even if it doesn't require any changes to meet US regulations (which many cars do), I don't think many Americans are going to run out to buy what is considered a microcar here, just to save $2500 over a Leaf, that Americans already don't buy. It certainly isn't going to compete with the Corolla or Corolla Hybrid which starts at $22,325/$23,825 respectively.
