It’s a strange inversion of safety regulation.
The most intelligent vehicle designs are prohibited from being sold in America.
…the state is targeting vehicles that do not meet FMVSS, with a focus on vehicles the state identifies to be in the Kei class. The RMV identifies a Kei vehicle through the above list and through a short VIN. The state’s logic is that this will be for safety since a Kei vehicle is not built to FMVSS.
I’m sure you can see the problem here. Not only does the above list include vehicles outside of the Kei class, but the state doesn’t seem to be aware that short VINs are not limited to Kei vehicles. A large Nissan Civilian bus will have a short VIN, as would a Toyota Century. I asked Natasha about how the state will interpret short VINs and she told me that they will be applied only to vehicles believed to be in the Kei class with a short VIN. The state is not looking to deny registration to vehicles imported from other countries, either. So, you could import a Japanese car that was sold in Europe and the state wouldn’t care. But that same car from Japan would be a problem.
Notably, states have the authority to ban cars, and they do so based on claims of adhering to federal safety rules. Here’s the clever part: States say they are following federal guidelines, while the federal government claims it’s up to the states. This creates a situation where actual inexpensive, intelligent, and safe cars—vehicles with a history of minimal or no harms—are banned under the pretense of safety, even though the real reason has nothing at all to do with actual safety.
Fun history fact. An initial popular Kei car (keijidosha — light vehicle) in Japan was a U.S. occupation-managed 1947 Tama EV, which sported hot-swap battery bay doors that would still be considered advanced technology.
Americans clearly want smaller, more affordable cars, but the major car brands loathe the low margins those cars bring. Instead, they manipulate the system to ensure their higher-margin, larger vehicles dominate the market. The result? Larger vehicles threaten safety, creating a race to excess that defies common sense. Political and corporate interference blocks sane, practical engineering that could improve the quality of life for Americans.
One absurdity in these regulations is the enforcement of a 35 mph speed limit on small cars. This rule is a relic from the 1990s [1], when American car manufacturers exploited low-emission laws by arguing that electric golf carts should count as full cars within their “low emissions” fleet. They imposed a federal 35 mph cap on these vehicles, preventing their widespread use as actual cars. Essentially, they used the low emissions credit to pad their numbers for environmental compliance while continuing to profit from selling higher-margin, gas-guzzling vehicles.
Tesla has merely replaced this golf cart strategy with a new loophole. Instead of golf carts, Tesla sells “clean” credits [2], allowing companies like Stellantis to continue producing massive, polluting vehicles. Worse yet, Tesla’s cars—unnecessarily fast, overpowered electric vehicles often charged using electricity from coal and diesel plants—are marketed as environmental solutions when, in fact, they enable continued environmental damage. Tesla profits from selling credits that fuel the production of gas guzzlers, allowing corporate giants to dodge real emissions reduction, all under a fraudulent “green” banner.
This has led to the worst of both worlds becoming the American standard: inefficient, dangerous cars flooding the market while genuinely affordable, safe, and environmentally sound alternatives are banned.
And then, we come to Tesla’s Cybertruck—the culmination of all these systemic problems. It’s not only a symbol of excess, but also the worst vehicle in history, riddled with basic safety flaws and involved in a string of tragedies.
Despite its glaring design issues and its threat to public safety, it’s not even being considered for a formal ban. The irony is palpable: the vehicles most deserving of being kept off the roads, like the Cybertruck, sail through without much resistance. It’s a bizarre and dangerous reality when a vehicle as inherently unsafe as the Cybertruck is left unchecked.
To draw a parallel: If this were about diet, it would be like banning fresh organic vegetables for being “too dirty” while subsidizing corporations that sell cancer-causing lumps of coal as fast food.
[1] The 25 mph speed limit for small electric vehicles, like Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and Low-Speed Vehicles (LSVs), originated in part from America’s Clean Air Act and low-emission regulations in the 1990s. Automakers used bogus concepts of NEVs and similar vehicles to sponge up credits toward their environmental compliance targets, primarily by buying golf carts and abruptly classifying them as part of an overall vehicle fleet. The speed cap was a cynical ploy for manufacturers to fulfill low-emission quotas without having to do any actual work on their production of gas-powered vehicles. They continued selling larger, high-margin gasoline-powered models while falsely claiming they were making strides toward emissions reduction. The NEVs were shamelessly marketed for “local use” (such as fleet sales to private campuses, with no benefit to urban areas or public roads) by forcing them to stay under speed limits of 35 mph or lower with federal regulations. The baked-in limitation of these “special” fleet numbers prevented adoption of actual widespread urban alternatives to conventional cars.
[2] Tesla has been leveraging the sale of regulatory credits to generate significant revenue, benefiting from emissions credits sold to other automakers who fail to meet strict emissions targets. Tesla made nearly $9 billion by selling these credits (arguably its primary income), particularly to companies like Stellantis, allowing entrenched “gas guzzler” models to avoid fines while continuing to produce high-emissions. This predatory model by Tesla intentionally delayed serious efforts to cut emissions by misrepresenting “clean” credit sales. Tesla itself, fraudulently promoting its vehicles as an environmental solution, has faced not enough scrutiny for how it prefers electricity generated from coal or diesel plants, and how it lied to reduce sales of more popular and environmental EV models (e.g. Nissan LEAF, Chevy Bolt). The anti-science dynamic has raised concerns about the corruption and effectiveness of current regulations in genuinely reducing global emissions, since Tesla’s stock is based on propping up the continued production of large, gas-guzzling vehicles while aggressively undermining other brands’ meaningful reductions in pollution (e.g. lying about safety, lying about range).
