My biggest worry is that once/if the Chinese make cars “good enough for the US market”, all car companies lobby for worse consumer protections since those regulations no longer keep new competitors out of the market.
I’d be OK with it, but with some caveats. Many US safety regs (and some pollution regs, as well) push things towards larger vehicles in indirect ways. Japanese Kei cars can be perfectly good for city use–not for US highways, but a lot of driving doesn’t need to go there–but they would never pass US safety regs. And you don’t need to get much bigger than a Kei to have something that works for US highways. Big is only safer for passengers, not for people outside the vehicle.
So if it comes in the context of also getting smaller cars on the road, that would be fine.
My biggest worry is that once/if the Chinese make cars “good enough for the US market”, all car companies lobby for worse consumer protections since those regulations no longer keep new competitors out of the market.
I’d be OK with it, but with some caveats. Many US safety regs (and some pollution regs, as well) push things towards larger vehicles in indirect ways. Japanese Kei cars can be perfectly good for city use–not for US highways, but a lot of driving doesn’t need to go there–but they would never pass US safety regs. And you don’t need to get much bigger than a Kei to have something that works for US highways. Big is only safer for passengers, not for people outside the vehicle.
So if it comes in the context of also getting smaller cars on the road, that would be fine.
While I agree with you, big cars are like lawyers. You keep big cars around to protect you from other big cars.