Safety requirements. Here's a crash test between a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in Mexico, and a 2016 Nissan Versa, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0

Put a 2017 Nissan Versa against a 2017 Harley Davidson. They're both allowed on the road.

I've wondered if less safe vehicles (lighter, cheaper, smaller) could be made and required NOT to be on high speed roadways (above 45mph, freeways, etc.), or just have the US admit their regs are too strenuous.

The crash in that video was only at 40 mph. I'm not sure I'd agree with them being too strenuous...

Did you know you can buy baby formula in third world countries for a fraction of the price here? All because evil regulations make companies make use actual safe ingredients and manufacturing practices.

When will this big government madness end. When will the US admit their regs are too strenuous so we can finally buy our cut rate industrial runoff baby formula in peace.

Your comment isn't up to HN standards, and it also misses the point. We already allow two-wheeled death machines on freeways, and we allow people to ride them without helmets, and we allow children to ride as passengers.

Your sarcasm would have made a valid point if modern sedans were the low bar in vehicular safety in the US.

I thought it was illegal to ride a motorcycle/bicycle without a helmet? I'm trying to find a flaw in your argument...but it's not easy. Though I feel as if we shouldn't go back on safety standard progress just because there is a subset of vehicles where there's not much we can do in terms of the vehicle...but I'm sure there is a lot we can do in terms of what the rider wears.

I don't know about US, but in EU you can buy mini-cars that have 4 wheels, but are equipped with 50-250cc engines, and do not classify as cars legally, so you don't even need a car driving licence - a moped driving licence is usually enough. They also don't have to conform to "car" safety standards(they usually do have seatbelts though), and yeah, they are not allowed on the motorways in most EU countries, just like mopeds aren't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2nI7VdS_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdw6mgtTwt8

Might as well just ride a bicycle and put that money into developing good cycling infrastructure.

The first 15 seconds are enough.

Spoilers, The Versa is totalled, but the driver can probably survive. The Tsuru has the front half obliterated and the crash test dummy's skin comes out. No airbags on the Tsuru, but who cares, the car body can't survive the crash anyway.

There are other ways to satisfy safety requirements; they just result in cars that are unappealing in most markets. Big rubber wrap-around bumpers, for example. Those are cheap!

That was traumatizing to watch. The Tsuru looks like a 90s Nissan Sentra though that might just be appearances. It makes me sick to see the passenger compartment just plain collapse.

It's pretty much an early nineties Sentra (B13 chassis), yes. There must be some minor production improvements that snuck in there over the years, one would hope, but definitely not much.

That was amazing. The Mexican car just vanished.

$10,000 is a pretty arbitrary line to draw, such that we should consider anything above it "so expensive."

It'd probably be very easy to strip out the catalytic converter, airbags, ABS, no-stick upholstery, and a bunch of other modern stuff from a Toyota Yaris to get it below the $10k line. It wouldn't make a huge amount of sense, even if you didn't care about safety and emissions. A lot of that modern stuff (engine management! corrosion resistance!) is responsible for cars lasting so much longer than they used to, with relatively little maintenance required.

In the UK, you can get the Dacia Sandero for £6k (~$8k). £1k of that is VAT (tax), so that is impressively cheap.

http://www.dacia.co.uk/vehicles/new-sandero/

A modern car takes about 4 years and a team of about a few hundred engineers to design and bring it mass market. That would be a contributing factor to the price.

Emissions and safety standards play a huge role, I'd imagine.

It's $3-5k to replace airbags after an accident, for example. The Kwid lacks them entirely.

Looking at the video of the Nissan Tsuru vs. Versa posted above, it seems to me that an airbag might not have been much help in the Tsuru - the passenger compartment in the Tsuru just plain collapsed whereas the Versa's remained whole.

Yeah, I'd imagine the lack of airbags is just the start of a very, very long list of safety issues.

Surely, but at a profit ? Probably not. It would hurt them more I guess.

You can get the Hyundai i10 for under 10k?