While I can buy and drive any new car, I prefer my 14 year old Prius v.

I saw where the president said he's making it possible to build what are basically Kei cars in the USA, and he referenced the original VW Beetle that was a small, efficient and cost effective way to drive.

I do wonder though if such vehicles would have a market here. Namely, they wouldn't have the safety that we've been accustomed to here in the USA with our up-to-85-mph highways and everyone in the USA speeds except the little old lady from Pasadena. Well, actually she speeds too.

On the other hand, motorcycles are legal, and in most states you don't even need to use a helmet. Does it make sense to have motorcycles but not Kei cars?

I'm wondering to myself if I'd buy a brand new Kei car... Wait a second... Give me a Suzuki Jimny for $25,000 and I'll take it!!!

 

At the risk of relegating this to the other "House of", he may have forgotten all about that, in a day or two (or an hour or two?). Like his BBC lawsuit.

 

who, the great exaggerator?

 

His Transportation Sec looked surprised when he talked about kei cars here.

I'd like to see them here, but they would have to seriously undercut the lowest priced cars and SUVs.

 

Yeah. I don't see a $23,000 and up Suzuki Jimny selling much when there are $22,000 and up Chevy Trax available. Maybe if the Suzuki were $15,000, then it would sell more. But then again, I don't see American car buyers interested in kei cars enough to have a market here.

 

Toyota in the sixties was the cheapest car in America and everybody with a Chevy Impala or Ford Galaxy land yacht laughed at the Japanese upstart. Everybody "knew" Japanese stuff was poorly designed and unreliable. By 1975 Toyota was the number one import surpassing VW.

 

Kei trucks are a 'thing'......

 

Our daughter and her hubby still drives Gen2 Prius. It has rusted through fender, bumper falling off, and few other things, but it still runs and drives her from point A to point B. It is paid for but I really don't know what its real cost to operate, including repair, maintenance, tax, insurance, and fuel. If my 2008 Civic Hybrid was still running, I may not have bought a new car. But it was totaled. I needed a new car, back in 2015, Gen3 Prius.

Since then I switched car on average every 17 months, 6 new cars including 2015 Gen3 in 10 years span. The additional purchasing cost? None. I managed to swap cars now five times without paying extra (trade-in and incentives covered purchase price). It was mostly even trade or better. Repair cost? None, at least one I had to pay for. Maintenance cost? Mostly none, except new set of winter tires I had to buy for different model of cars. Fuel cost? Keep getting less from Civic Hybrid (43.1mpg) costing $0.066/mile to 3 PriusPrime (average 83.5mpg) costing average $0.046/mile and now mostly free on our Equinox BEV by pure electricity (solar generated). The only cost increase was maybe more tax and insurance cost for a newer cars. But driving less than 2 years new car is far better than keep driving 15 years old clunker considering no additional cost.

 

I knew a guy back in '74, who had a Honda 600, I believe it was called. Twin cylinder, probably 600cc motorcycle and engine, and transmission. Not sure how it did reverse.