In Hawaii, kei trucks and smaller import vehicles are pretty common and useful as a town commuter, where you can get one for $4k and then put some surfboards and small children in the back. It won't have power steering, won't have AC, uses your knees as the crumple zone, but it's pretty convenient. The choices are basically massive lifted Tacoma, tiny 30 year old kei truck, or Rav-4 with a 2 year long waiting list.

But compared to the comparable electric ones in China, which are even cheaper and way more feature loaded, these choices and the new Scion are so, so far behind. I'm currently in Taiwan and was just in Japan last week, and in both places it's like stepping 30 years back in time.