>Now we have a market that's almost entirely bound to congressional whim

Agree 100%

>mostly disconnected from consumer demand

Disagree. Sedans are still around (Camry, Corolla, Civic, Accord), but consumers are voting with their wallets for crossovers. Ford killed the Focus and Fusion because they simply couldn't be sold for a profit since most people didn't get the high end models, and to be honest, I'm surprised Chevy still makes the Malibu. The Company Formerly Known As Chrysler doesn't even make a car anymore.

> Ford killed the Focus and Fusion because they simply couldn't be sold for a profit since most people didn't get the high end models

They stopped providing it as a model to the American market. It's based off a Ford platform, though, and other automakers are continuing to use that platform. The Focus also continues to be a model in European markets.

During the beginning of the pandemic there were also parts shortages. Many manufacturers stopped making their lower end vehicles and only produced the higher end ones with the limited parts they could get, because, they can convert those parts into higher profits.

I think these decisions are best viewed as the awful intersection of short term wall street thinking combined with latent and intentionally imperfect measures of consumer demand.

Ford Europe also stops producing Focus sadly.

Still produced in the UK: https://www.ford.co.uk/cars/focus

> Sedans are still around (Camry, Corolla, Civic, Accord), but consumers are voting with their wallets for crossovers

This is objectively true but it’s happening against three decades of marketing pushing SUVs hard and especially the messaging that if you drive a small car you’re putting your safety at risk. I think there’s an arm’s race here which is going to be hard to stop absent something causing gas prices to spike or a shift in insurance requirements.

Given that the damage to roads is linked to miles, and then the square of the vehicle's weight, it'd not be difficult for a state to stop putting the road maintenance related taxes on gas itself, and instead just measure those two things. Odometer change, times the square of the weight. Suddenly the really large truck that carries a single person is far more expensive to run than a sedan.

Something kind of like this is already done with stickers for electric cars in many states: Doing that for every car is just extending the program. It won't happen though, because a lot of people would be angry to internalize the cost of their choices

It’s more than the square. I’m I remember right it’s to the 4th power of axle weight.

Yeah, I’d love that - or things like charging for parking by the square foot - but your last point is what I had in mind for the pessimistic ending: people REALLY don’t like losing subsidies, so I think a lot of governments are hoping buying preferences change or the insurance companies will do something because then they don’t take the political heat.

Weirdly the same thing has happened with smartphones. Every phone is a truck.

A small phone puts your safety at risk?

But you're right that there's far too little choice in smartphones. They're all fragile thin big touch screens. In the early days, you had smartphones made out of steel with sliding keyboards. What happened to that?

> The Company Formerly Known As Chrysler doesn't even make a car anymore.

Dodge Charger

Both the charger and challenger are discontinued and won’t be made after this year.

The problem is that you get unfair competition if one type of car is held to different standards than another type. Pickups and SUVs should be held to the same standards of regular cars. And maybe also require a stricter driving license, because from everything I hear, they're a lot more dangerous.