A couple months ago, we were informed that Trump had decided to “approve” the building (manufacturing) of so-called “tiny cars” – which are actually non-compliant cars – in the United States. These are the small, inexpensive cars and small pick-ups and so on that are available in other places, such as Asia and South America where people are free to buy vehicles that meet their needs as opposed to what government demands. Trump said such vehicles can be built in America now, because he said so.
It sounds magical, almost.
So far, none are available – and not one major car company has said they plan to offer them for sale in America anytime soon.
Or ever.
This is probably on account of the fact that while they can be built here (there was never any law forbidding that) they cannot be legally sold here, because they are non-compliant – and Trump has not (with a wage of his magic executive order wand) disappeared the regulations that have to be complied with before any new vehicle may legally be sold in the United States. Sure, they could be built in America. But that is not quite the same thing as being legal for sale in America. What would be the point of building that which cannot (legally) be sold in America, in America?
To ship these non-compliant cars back to Asia, to sell them there?
Trump is a willful ignoramus when it comes to details. He seems to think he can breezily say – make it so, like Captain Picard from Star Trek – and it will be so.
But it ain’t so.
Maybe he just hopes we’ll forget all about it. Like the Epstein stuff. Like those $5,000 rebate checks Americans were supposed to be getting courtesy of Elon Musk and DOGE. Whatever happened to DOGE?
Never mind. It all sounded good in the moment. And then the moment passed. It’s like those 15 minute ecstatic experiences you’re supposed to get when you take a dose of DMT. The problem is you ned to keep getting high to feel the ecstasy.
Back to compliance cars and why we’re not going to get tiny cars that aren’t.
The federal requirement that all new vehicles have driver and front seat air bags, for instance – as well as the de facto requirement that they have side-impact air bags, too (in order to comply with federal side-impact occupant protection standards) – have not been eliminated and therefore must be complied with.
There is also the potentially thorny problem that would arise if Trump waved his magic wand and exempted “tiny cars” from air bag requirements while leaving them in force for all the other cars. This would impose a massive competitive disadvantage on air-bag-equipped vehicles – which is all of the ones we’ree allowed to buy – and the companies that have to try to sell them. Just like that, it would be much harder to sell them. 
There would be immense wailing and gnashing of teeth. The only way to curtail it would be to generally exempt all new vehicles from any federal requirement that any of them have to have air bags. There would also need to be a general amnesty from all of of the other federal “safety” – and “emissions” – regulations that must currently be complied with before any passenger vehicle may legally be offered for sale in this country. Then we’d be able to buy – and drive on public (really, the government’s) roads models such as the Mahindra Roxor as well as side-by-sides such as the Can Am Spyder, too. Plus the plethora of other such vehicles that aren’t yet available but would be, if they could be sold for use on public roads.
The odds of that happening are on par with Americans getting those $5,000 DOGE rebate checks that were – briefly – dangled – in front of them.
Trump, to be fair, probably does not understand any of this. He is not a “car guy.” Much less a guy who has any understanding of the way the regulatory regime operates. I would be willing to bet the title to my Trans-Am that he could not (without the aid of a TelePrompter) explain what “CAFE” stands for, much less when and how it came about. Nor “SRS” – which is the acronym that stands for Supplemental Restrain System, which is “air bags” in federal regulatory-speak.
I doubt he has ever heard of “FMVSS” – Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. These are the litany of regulations that must be complied with by every new vehicle before it may legally be offered for sale in the United States.
“Tiny cars” don’t comply with many FMVSS standards – not just those pertaining to air bags. Making them compliant would, in most cases, entail a complete makeover. More finely, it would entail making them like the compliance cars that are already on the market; i.e., the cars we’re allowed to buy. They would have driver and front seat passenger as well as side-impact air bags. Also back-up cameras. They would need to be compliant with roof-crush standards, too. End result? They’d no longer be as tiny – and they’d be much heavier and also much more expensive.
We already have such cars.
They are the compliant cars.
. . .
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“Whatever happened to DOGE?”
DOGE’s old news and mere $5000 won’t cut it now. The near future is SO much brighter!
Because Elon said just the other day that young people should forget about saving for retirement. There will be high universal basic income and an Optimus robot soon for everyone, so no need to make any effort with working, or be bothered with such quaint concepts as personal responsibility.
Also, everyone will live till at least 120 – presumably thanks to Elon’s Neuralink chip being implanted in every brain from birth. That’s the same chip that will make quadriplegics walk any day now.
I was a bit disappointed though that there won’t be a free Tesla Roadster and a trip to Mars thrown in as well. I guess I can’t have everything…
The Ford employee who shouted ‘pedophile protector’ as Trump toured the plant is named TJ Sabula:
“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” 40-year-old TJ Sabula told the Washington Post. “And today I think I did that.”
‘Suspended and with his job in peril, Sabula said he’s being “targeted for political retribution” for “embarrassing Trump in front of his friends.”
‘The suspended employee, TJ Sabula, has raised over $300,000 via GoFundMe since the incident.’
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-flips-mouths-f-k-you-ford-worker-who-called-him-pedophile-protector
TJ Sabula is an actual American. Whereas Trump is a treasonous, Israel-cucked piece of shit. He toured that plant with a bulging wad of Miriam Adelson’s greasy shekels burning a hole in his pocket.
Why are 330,000,000 people subject to the demands of an office full of jackasses in DC?
Smell that freedom
Even if Herr Trump could, by the wave of his magic wand, do away withe CAFE, FMVSS, et al, no car company would change their cars. Why? Because Trump will be out of office in three years time. There’s not enough time in car makers’ product development cycles to bring those cars here, only to have the door slammed shut on January 20, 2029.
Morning, Mark!
Yup. This is a temporary abatement. About which more to come…
That’s all such, pardon me, super fucked up shit.
The Jack Boot. The Empire. The EPA assholes. The, “regulations”.
SOmeday, it might all cease to exist.
‘The Wizard of Oz (1939) Dorothy singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow Scene.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNQ_9St-6uM
[…] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2026/01/14/where-are-the-tiny-cars/ […]
The tiny cars will have the same problem the remaining small cars have. Big price tags.
Just too d**med expensive for what it is. So they sit unsold.
More bullshit from the bullshit king.
I’m reminded of that Dutch Proverb about “Promising the fools much but delivering little making the fools happy”.
That’s what the politicians do and we the fools are happy. I wish it were not so.
I’ll be very surprised if we can ever buy a new KEI car in this country.
Anything that fucking clown dump put out don’t believe usually does a 180 on everything don’t really need tiny car just remove all the Nazi dictates on building a car sell what’s already available without all the safety and electronic crap problem solved.
Amen, Angelo! How about selling what we actually want? 8-cylinder, manual trans engines. The gas mileage be damned. No safety crap. Just a set of wheels that one would be willing to fork their hard earned over and be proud to own. Not the tin-can-on-wheels we have today.
Who’s “we”? Speak for yourself. Once automatics were common, I lost any interest I ever had in “manual transmissions”. Why be bothered doing the shifting when you don’t have to?
Hi No Spam,
You ask: “Why be bothered doing the shifting when you don’t have to?”
Because it’s fun.
Why bother doing the shifting? It’s fun as hell, especially in a sportier vehicle than can handle being DRIVEN. Also, manuals are easier to drive in the Winter. As for you, you just got here, No Spam and I was not talking to or about you anyway. Go back to your automatic, and let the rest of us reminisce a bit.
Morning, Shadow!
Well said. It’s fascinating to me that we sometimes get people here – a car site, after all – who seem to not like cars/driving them. It is like encountering a vegetarian at a steakhouse.
Well, No Spam when all cars become self driving will you miss driving?
RE: “when all cars become self driving”
Not here. No way. No, how. I don’t have a sthmart phone, either.
Fuck them – and their midget ponies – and donkeys, too.
Kiss my grits, assholes. ‘Masters of the Universe’, my ass.
Turtles, all the way down.
/Rant OFF.
I don’t want a self driving car either Helot and most people probably don’t want one either but it doesn’t matter what we want because GovCo will decide what we want whether we want it or not.
That’s it, Aneglo –
But the die-hard deluded will continue to “trust the plan.”
Fuck the, “die-hard deluded” as well!
They’ll collect their due justice from the All-Mighty, one way or another.
Or, maybe they’ll wake-the-heck Up, Idk?
One version, not, ‘the war’ version:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/01/no_author/seeing-truth-in-the-age-of-information-overload/
…So many versions.
It’s in his tiny hands
Yeah – his “tiny hands” – tiny hands he gets more done with than any 50 other people.
And besides, “owange man baaaaaaad.
An arrogant mind is a dangerous one, No Spam. You might have more in common with Orange Man than you ever want to see, let alone admit.
‘[Trump] is not a “car guy.”‘ — eric
Nope. But he KNOWS some car guys … such as Jim ‘Meatball’ Farley. Went to see him just yesterday, as a matter of fact. Hilarity did not ensue:
‘Donald Trump turned into Donald Grump during a Tuesday appearance at a Ford plant … launching into an F-bomb attack on a worker who appeared to yell “pedophile protector” at the Prez.
’47 toured the Ford F-150 plant at the Detroit Economic Club before giving a speech … while walking the factory floor on his tour, someone began shouting at Trump. It’s hard to make out the full sentence shouted at Trump, but it seems to have included the words “pedophile protector.”
‘The angry worker is obviously referencing Trump’s association with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein … and the Dept. of Justice’s slow release of the infamous Epstein Files. In true presidential fashion, Trump responds by yelling down at the guy … pretty clearly saying “F*** you” before flipping him the bald eagle.’
https://www.tmz.com/2026/01/13/trump-flips-off-ford-worker/
Funny, innit, how the soi disant Viceroy of Venezuela made all public references to his peripatetic erstwhile boon companion disappear, after kidnapping a foreign leader. That’s how our
watchdoglapdog presstitutes roll.And what of that plain-spoken Ford worker who cried out that the Orange Emperor has no clothes? She-Wolf Kristi’s ICE goons are working him over with rubber hoses, in a cell right next to Maduro’s, for the capital offense of lèse-majesté.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
— John Lennon, Working Class Hero (1970)
She-Wolf Kristi’s brownshirts yank another woman out of her car in Minneapolis:
https://x.com/noturtlesoup17/status/2011148947411407258
Hi Jim,
Also saw an interview last night with Mary Barra, who still insists that EeeeeeVeeeees are the future of automobiles. Wish I had a job that paid me $millions of dollars for being spectacularly wrong on every decision made.
She of course called it the end game. Which it is, not in the way she thinks, it won’t be an all electric GM. It will be the end of GM completely, no gas, no electric either.
She is a disaster for GM. Paying her millions to blow it all up.
Would u want a tiny car with all those huge gas guzzling SUV’s on the road. I wonder why these women drive these. I had a small Kia and it had more trunk space than a huge SUV. I want normal sized cars back. THe nice 4 door cars that were 6 cylinder and comfy. I see these cars on the road with one person in them every day.
Hi Babumanje,
I’d like for all such cars to be available again. I’d like for the government to get the fuck out of telling us what kinds of vehicles we’re allowed to buy.
Eric,I want the government to stay the hell out of my life PERIOD. I am 92 and fear I am going to die under a COMMIE country. Makes me sick to see what is going on in our once great nation. Makes me scared to see how are schools are destroying the minds of our children. I see it in my own family. But until we get off our butts and start fighting the government we will be under COMMIE/MUSLIM RULE VERY SHORTLY. If I sound crazy so be it, Ihave been around along time and have witnessed the slow take over of our country because of lazy citizens on both sides of the aisle, Mothers no longer bring up their kids, fathers MIA, etc. Time is short, we have no time to waste.
I agree, babumjane!
But time may be running short…
With ya except make mine a two door. Hate that pillar next to my head. Eric’s Firebird is ideal, even with the seat all the way back it’s nice clear glass next your left site line.
sight
Oh ye of little faith. You sound like a leftist…
Hi Hiram,
I get called a “leftist” by people who dislike my pointing out facts about Trump. Just like I got called a “liberal” by pointing out facts about The Chimp. This is what happens when you’re principled rather than political.
By the way: Where are those $5,000 DOGE rebate checks? I could sure use mine. It’d pay for the remainder of the parts I need to finish the conversion of my Trans-Am from automatic to manual!
By the time we get a $5,000 DOGE check, the five thousand will only be worth enough to buy you a loaf of bread. If you are lucky.
The check is in the mail. Dropped it off on Day 1, right next to the Epstein files and a brand-new Nobel Prize-worthy world peace plan.
Tomorrow he’ll be announcing a brand new post office reform plan:Go Postal!
more importantly, where was replacing the income tax with tariffs? I am fine with some overlap time for getting things set up and the legislature, but having both income tax and tariffs is major BS and I am seeing no progress or even mention of this
I would like to know what happened to not taxing Social Security benefits, which money was already taxed when it was stolen from my paycheck. Orange douchebag still insists that “we’re not taxing tips or Social Security benefits” in his rambling tirades about how wonderful he is. Guess that fell down the same memory hole as those $5,000 checks.
How about we tax government itself.
How come we have to pay them? If they want to be in charge, they should be paying us for the privilege.
Out of their own pockets, of course.
And the more they want to boss us around, the more they should have to pay us.
Just like the bosses at work.
I believe that was attached to a piece of legislation involving funding for a top secret and highly experimental Air Force project involving goose feathers and genetically modified pigs. It’s currently stuck in committee.
Congrats Hiram on your faith in politicians. Yikes.
How about bullet proof glass. Seems like that should at least be an option.
In our Huckster Economy (E-Con O’Me?) the words of Tom Waits’ Step Right Up ring true, the LARGE print giveth and the small print taketh away.
From the FMVSS to every EULA we are bombarded with promises that ring hollow. It’s relentless.
There’s also the drive to “improve” everything with either “connectedness” or a 2-cycle engine. Simplicity and ease of operation are just so 20th Century.
Contrived Complexity is thy god. You will bow down before it.
It’s hard to have a legal monopoly on simple. Contrived complexity can be patented, trademarked, and make you a mini government able to coin your own money/impose your own taxes for decades. And the Silicon Valley geeks are really good/bad at it.