A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

For anyone curious, if you made a similarly sized gas-powered pickup with an i4 engine, it would be penalized more than a full-sized pickup for being too fuel inefficient, despite likely getting much better mileage than an F-150 because, since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

This is largely why all the vehicles around us have become supersized. It's completely idiotic.

Anybody know how it got to this point? It can't be because of regulatory capture, right? I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

> I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

The famous 67MPG requirement was for a hypothetical 2026 model year car

But Honda discontinued the Fit in the United States in 2020, long before the hypothetical 2026 target.

The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them. There are thousands of lightly used Honda Fits on the used market for reasonable prices, but they're not moving.

Yes, the regulations are flawed, but that doesn't change the lack of consumer demand.

> The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them.

I think this over-simplifies things. Strict milage standards force a set of compromises on ICE car design that make them both shittier and more expensive[1]. Why would anyone buy such a product when they can get an SUV instead?

[1] Some examples: turbochargers, CVTs, start/stop systems. All of these increase both the cost and complexity of building as well as repairing the car. And with higher complexity comes higher chances for something to fail as well so reliability suffers.

> Why would anyone buy such a product when they can get an SUV instead?

Isn't this just a circular way of admitting that people actually wanted SUVs?

This doesn't explain why the used car market is full of very cheap cars like the Honda Fit for much less than a new SUV.

> [1] Some examples: turbochargers,

Have to disagree. These are a great way to downsize the engine and maintain the same torque output. Yes it's more parts, but modern OEM turbochargers are very reliable. If you can reduce the number of cylinders from 6 to 4 or 3, that's a net win in moving parts, consumables, and repair costs.