When it comes to auto makers around the world everyone wants into the US Market, who can blame them? On average before the recession hit in 2008 Americans on any given average year were buying something like 17 million new cars a year.
Now then, can you imagine how many cars Tata Motors of India or BYD Motors of China might sell if they offered their models here at anywhere near the prices points they sell these cars abroad at? Let's talk.
The Tata Nano (small mini-mini-van) sells for about $3,500 and the BYD small vehicles sell for under $4,000.
How on Earth can they sell them so cheap you ask? Well, they don't have near the regulations in those countries as we do here in the way of safety features; no air bags which in the US adds no less than $1200 per car, usually much more.
Additionally, the cars do not have safety glass or crash tests to contend with either.
But even if they had those things, those cars could perhaps still sell here for just over $10,000 far less than let's say a cute little Smart Car with a similar size and performance.
Recently, in December of 2012 several Toyota Prius models scored very low in crash tests.
Personally, I am not surprised, there is a lot of momentum and mass riding inside of those cars, think of the battery weight, that alone is a huge amount of weight.
The car crashes and everything else keeps going forward, ouch.
Now realize, the US Department of Transportation crash tests are incredibly strict, mostly due to US Auto Makers and lobbyists back in the last 70 and early 80s while Honda, Nissan, and Toyota were bringing in fuel efficient cars, small ones to compete.
By making the regulations for crash tests difficult some models were kept out to give an advantage to Detroit's larger cars with lousy mileage.
I recommend reading the book; "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black to better understand that last comment.
Now then, hybrid cars have batteries which if broken open during a crash putting toxic chemicals onto the roadway, not good, plus, these cars weigh more, thus all that weight of batteries wants to keep going when the vehicle gets into a traffic accident.
Still, it appears that we need to readjust the safety regulations and give waivers to these hybrid cars, just so they can compete at the same level of safety standards.
But if we are willing to do that, why not just let Tata Motors and BYD Motors come into US markets and give the consumer a break, cars which cost less? "Oh please, the autoworkers unions would never allow that," you are thinking, sure true enough, so you do see my point here then.
We have a set of double standards in the auto industry, and either we need to remove some of these rules and regulations, or everyone should be playing on a level playing field.
But I ask you my reader to make the call.
Please consider all this and think on it.