It’s a strange inversion of safety regulation.
The most intelligent vehicle designs are prohibited from being sold in America.
…the state is targeting vehicles that do not meet FMVSS, with a focus on vehicles the state identifies to be in the Kei class. The RMV identifies a Kei vehicle through the above list and through a short VIN. The state’s logic is that this will be for safety since a Kei vehicle is not built to FMVSS.
I’m sure you can see the problem here. Not only does the above list include vehicles outside of the Kei class, but the state doesn’t seem to be aware that short VINs are not limited to Kei vehicles. A large Nissan Civilian bus will have a short VIN, as would a Toyota Century. I asked Natasha about how the state will interpret short VINs and she told me that they will be applied only to vehicles believed to be in the Kei class with a short VIN. The state is not looking to deny registration to vehicles imported from other countries, either. So, you could import a Japanese car that was sold in Europe and the state wouldn’t care. But that same car from Japan would be a problem.
Notably, the states are given authority to ban cars, which they do based on claims to be following a federal safety rule. See the clever problem?
And so, safe cars with a history of low or no harms somehow end up banned by states on a pretense feds don’t want it on roads.
There’s also an important trivia point here, that regulators try to enforce a 25 mph rule. That speed is a relic of the American car brands creating a stupid loophole in low-emission laws.
In the 1990s they tried to argue electric golf carts should count as their “low emissions” fleet, and then put a 25 mph cap into law to restrict use of electric cars as an actual car.
Tesla slid into this loophole by replacing that golf cart strategy with “credits” instead, and going to the opposite extreme. Unnecessarily fast and wasteful electric engines were paid for by selling huge amounts of credits to companies like Stellantis, that wanted to produce gas guzzling monsters in a flagrant disregard for the environment.
So all of this political BS comes down to the best cars being banned, while the worst cars are funded by taxpayers. A predictably dangerous Tesla Cybertruck, riddled with basic safety design flaws and tragedy after tragedy, isn’t even being considered for a formal ban.