Why would foreign vehicles be exempt from safety and emissions regulations?

Because vehicles over a certain age are grandfather-exempted.

The key is often that ALL vehicles are exempt from various regulations past a certain age. CA doesn’t smog check vehicles older than a certain date, for example.

Seems better to just enforce the same emissions regulations on imported vehicles

I believe the point is that older vehicles are exempt from newer rules, regardless of where they are from. Is why I can legally drive my 2000 truck, despite it almost certainly being less than up to current standards.

I think there is a reasonable logic that scrapping the truck would probably be pretty bad for the environment, such that some of the standards are "water under the bridge", as it were. The rest of the logic almost certainly falls on the numbers just not mattering? I don't know.

Besides 25 year limitation, the regulations are a main pain here as it can be difficult to comply with the letter of multiple overlapping regulations, and have the certifications for those. I know headlights end up being a pain for people trying to import cars to the US as all headlights must meet DOT standards. Rinse and repeat with every regulation affecting every part of the car.

What makes you believe otherwise? The parent comment is misleading.

It's even less likely that a 25 year old vehicle will meet current safety and emissions regulations.

The amount of those vehicles will obviously be limited.

Removing it would allow people to buy cheap cars in places like Mexico, that have loose emissions standards, and drive them around California, which has some of the most stringent emissions standards in the world. Not to mention the safety requirements issues...

So only allow imports from countries with emissions and safety standards equal to or greater than American ones.

I don't understand why the age of the vehicle should matter.

That's already the case. You can legally import a modern kei car if you can modify it to meet relevant safety and emissions standards. You can import any modern car. I imported a 2001 BMW from Canada a few years back and it was a breeze because it already had the EPA stickers and BMW NA signed off on the safety stuff.

The 25 (well I think DOT is 20 years and EPA is 25 or vice versa) means you can import shit without it having to meet relevant federal standards. States (e.g. California) will still want to see proof it doesn't pollute too much, and CARB tests are expensive. Sates like Washington will let you register pretty much anything with wheels which is how you see a lot of non-US. market cars for sale out here with Washington plates.

In a similar vein, I have a Canadian market '02 Highlander that was imported by a dealership to shuffle stock around back when it was new. It helps that AFAIK there aren't any physical differences between CDM and USDM Highlanders.

More importantly it also allows us to import reasonably-sized 4WD trucks from other countries instead of having to decide between a mini-van or a station wagon.

California has an answer to that: imported cars are generally required to meet the same emissions standards as cars intended for the domestic market:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/new-regis...

From the California DMV's web page on direct imported vehicles: "If your direct foreign import vehicle was not originally manufactured to meet California emissions standards and DOT FMVSS, the vehicle cannot be registered in California, unless the vehicle is modified and tested under CARB’s direct import program."

Based on research that I done years ago, my understanding is that the modifications required to get many foreign vehicles to conform to California's emission standards, combined with the testing fees (which is far more expensive than the cost of a traditional biennial smog check), make it prohibitively expensive for casual buyers to legally register imported vehicles in California.

Some people get around this by registering their vehicles in other states where only the EPA 25 year rule applies; occasionally in California I do see cars with their steering wheels on the right side with Nevada or Oregon license plates. However, California generally requires its residents to have their vehicles registered in California.

One thing I'm curious about is whether California allows direct imported vehicles to be converted to run on battery-backed electric motors as a legal modification. If this is the case, then the vehicle would certainly pass the emissions test.

Emissions, sure. If you're someone deeply involved in the car industry, you'll have a DMV person (not officially, just from having spent that much time there), and they'll help you work through the process, which includes an inspector examining your car in the DMV parking lot. The harder one to meet is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) you mentioned above, which includes crash testing.

It's one thing to work on your car and get it to pass smog. It's another thing entirely to buy a dozen of them.

Why not allow imported cars that meet the requirements?

Easy, DOT headlights, literally stopped innovation for 30-40 years from the 1950s to the mid 1970s. It is still an issue and is one reason why motorcycles have a very different stateside vs rest of the world design (till recently). Just one of several regulations that...can't be fixed if the car doesn't have parts shared.

> stopped innovation for 30-40 years from the 1950s to the mid 1970s.

The 1950s to mid-1970s isn’t, even at the widest extreme that fits that description, 30-40 years.