I know, but the american market is gigantic, there is probably a sizable niche for economical vehicles. And if nobody is selling cheap cars, how can we be so sure they won't sell?

They would sell, but there is less profit in them so the manufacturers have optimized for a market where they preferably service the wealthy and those willing to overextend themselves on an expensive loan or lease. The bottom end of the market is left to used vehicles.

You frame it like manufacturers have never sold cheap cars. They have and they don't sell anywhere as much as you think they would. Right now the entry point across most manufacturers is ~$20-23k for a brand new vehicle. 9% of vehicle transactions are accounted for by these cars. The market for them is not large, people want crossover suvs and trucks.

And fuel economy regulations encourage larger vehicles with relatively more lenient emissions standards (moreso than the additional size would require) than is applied to smaller cars.

It’s safe to assume that these regulations have largely been shaped by car manufacturers.

I doubt there are tighter regulation than in the EU. Americans just don't want to buy small vehicles with small motors. They want V8 with 300+hp to sit in the traffic jams.

For example there is a good inexpensive Reanult Clio with 1l 3-cylinder 90hp engine. I doubt any meaningful number of US customers want to buy such car, even if it is less than 20k USD.

You used to be able to buy the Ford Fiesta with a similar engine in the US.

You can’t drive a larger car on Medieval streets. US doesn’t have that problem. We also don’t like towing things like caravans and trailers behind sedans with bottomed out suspensions. BMW won’t even sell the EU stealth hitches in the US.

On the contrary, new england has plenty of tiny city streets, and assholes like my dad will still insist on driving their F350 (really) through the heart of downtown. Hell, we had the local cybertruck do it earlier this year.

They will spend all day griping about how hard it is to park in the city, and how much they hate the city.

Also, even if Europeans would like the look of larger cars, our roads are not built for it lol. Definitely not in cities.

Almost every European road can fit cars up to 2.5 meters wide and about 6 meters long. Parking spaces not so much.

2.2m wide, In almost all road construction spots, the left lane is mostly only 2.2m wide. This is also the width measured in many small streets with cars parked on both sides.

The garage we have, as part of a coop, was built for a 60s European car. Think good old VW Beetle.

While there are a fair number of cars we could park, like the VW ID.4, we couldn't get out of them while parked.

Same here, our house was built in the early 80s and has a tiny garage. Theoretically you could fit our Skoda Octavia (2 kids) in it, but getting out would prove challenging, even if everybody exited on the same side. Also you wouldn’t be able to use the garage for anything else, like storing gardening tools, bicycles, skateboards, etc.

Not quite that bad, but close. I have to park slightly at an angle and offset, so I can can get out. Any passenger wouldn't be able to get out due to this.

And I don't have a big car, it's basically the same size as a Kia Niro EV or Hyundai Kona.

Part is due to people being fearful of buying something smaller since there are so many colossal vehicles on the road that would be considered military-tier equipment in other countries.

Safety ratings are nice and all, but when faced with the very real possibility that a vehicle 3 times the mass of yours will someday hit you at 80+ miles per hour, you just have to accept the fact that Newton's second law is something that is hard to win against.

american pickup trucks are literally as large or larger than ww2 tanks:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9823577/Road-warrio...

It's also because American consumers, on average, are large

On average they're only average - unless you're comparing them with another consumer dataset.

They're larger than people from Asian countries.

43% obesity rate in 2024 according to the WHO.

Or the same data set over time.

"The average American is large" doesn't require another dataset however clearly the implication is comparison with the rest of the world.