Sounds like it's a value-judgement free decision from manufacturers to follow the incentives from the policy as we'd predict: way cheaper and less work to make those (now pretty popular) vehicles bigger than R&D and re-tool factories to make smaller and/or more efficient.
The thing about policy is usually somebody big is warning the public ahead of time that the "affordable healthcare bill" (for another example) isn't actually affordable healthcare (it's mandated health insurance), get called debby-downers/negative/hateful, and then it happens that way anyway due to lawmaker and corp PR pushing it through while everyone else cheers. Actually reading the bill and thinking/wargaming how it will apply deterministically with basic thought experiments is discouraged. And all "sides" do this, from incentives.
I question the validity of the spirit of bills when it repeats like that so often. At some point that is the spirit of the bill.
This is of course ignoring the revolving door, regulatory capture, and lobbying angles, which are always in play some (maybe huge) %. Also predictable and deterministic, from incentives.
You didn't reason yourself into this position, so I don't think you'll be reasoned out of it.
More generally, are people doing things because they aren't stopped from doing so a loophole or not?
Are loopholes a feature or a bug? Does it depend on intentions or how it's used to be called this, or not?
More importantly, why don't judges tend to rule in the "spirit of the law" over what's actually the law, if that's so obviously the thing that should matter the most? Are you willing to sign contracts with me on that basis? And see which philosophy wins? Or do you just want to complain because I didn't put ?
There's how things are and how they "should" be and simply describing it in terms of a constellation of competing actors and overlapping interests at different layers and forces that motivate them (not always easy to tell, and I've already taken into account the whole spectrum of characterizations: intentional v not, malicious v not, passive v active) means I'm not reasoning (unlike you). Got it.
It has a bad connotation, but I guess not all things that sound like conspiracy theories are false. Another car themed topic is when Standard Oil and Firestone Tires colluded to buy up trolly lines and shut them down.
Things can be a conspiracy of common interests (and not even necessarily be bad) without involving "smoky rooms" (also known as boardrooms; but for fun on that topic, check out full history of NCR, company was nuts).
Why is it a conspiracy theory?
I'd love to cite GA's Clean Air Act as an example but the rule around qualified vehicles has been amended 11 times since it was enacted in 1996 and I can't figure out how to see previous versions of the rule.
Here's the first google result for "large cars regulation loophole", looks like an interesting read: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo...