President Trump announced plans to allow ultra-compact "K cars" to be built and sold in the United States, sparking a major debate about safety, affordability, and American driving culture. Automotive journalist Paul Ficks breaks down what this means: ✓ What are K cars? ✓ The appeal ✓ The catch ✓ Who would buy them? ✓ Manufacturing challenges
Tiny Cars Coming to America? What Trump's Plan Means for Drivers -- - SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=THERUNLISTCHANNEL
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00:00President Trump last week said he had approved tiny cars to be built in America.
00:05Joining us for Insight and what you need to know for all of that is automotive journalist with Car Coach Reports, Paul Fix.
00:11Good to see you, Paul. It's been a little while.
00:15Yes, thanks for bringing me back.
00:16For sure. Now, these tiny cars, they have strict limits on horsepower and size.
00:21Let's start with what it might be like to drive one of them.
00:24Yeah, it was actually a really surprising comment that Trump made in the middle of his press conference talking about the Freedom Means Affordable Cars executive order that he signed there.
00:35While there's a lot of things around what tiny cars, how it could possibly be legal in the States, the biggest thing is crash ratings.
00:44That's one of the reasons why we don't have them.
00:46We used to have something called the smart car, if you remember that, really, really tiny.
00:51And unfortunately, they didn't really sell here.
00:53They were low horsepower.
00:54They were very small.
00:56And people didn't seem to really want them.
00:58But there's a lot of interest going on with, oh, well, actually, I could use something that's really good on fuel economy, something that's really easy to park and small.
01:07Keeping in mind that this is not a highway vehicle.
01:10A lot of these have under 100 horsepower.
01:12And they're smaller than a Fiat 500 at about 12 feet long-ish.
01:17And they're all Japan exclusive for now.
01:21Although there are some other types of vehicles that are on sale in Italy and India that are somewhat similar, this would be very, very new for the U.S. market to have something like this here.
01:33I think it would really shake things up for the U.S. consumer.
01:36Yeah, considering SUVs and pickup trucks are a large part of the consumer market here, I mean, do you expect if they do come in that they'll be kind of like a second, third, fourth car for a family or more just for city dwellers?
01:52Yeah, that's a good question because it kind of depends on who's buying the car.
01:59If you're living in the city and you only need one car, this could be a really great option because they're usually on the very affordable side, under $20,000.
02:09If you are living in a rural area, you need to get on the highway, this would not be for you.
02:14This would be a bad idea more than likely because I don't think that these things would be legal on the highway.
02:19In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if NHTSA put some rules into place with special registrations for tiny cars like this.
02:28In Japan, they call them K cars.
02:30It means lightweight vehicle, but it's shortened into like a little catchphrase.
02:34So these things are really cute and everybody that I've talked to really likes them.
02:39There's even a collector market for them.
02:41People really like certain ones that have gull wings or they make performance cars out of them or they just really like that they're tiny little minivans.
02:48So there's a market for people to buy them.
02:52And yet, as you mentioned, there are potentially, but there are already some regulations that are in the way.
02:58President Trump seems to be alluding to making plans to get some of those roadblocks out of the way.
03:05But how likely is it, do you think, that this plan will pan out?
03:08It's just been one initial statement so far.
03:12So what are you seeing in terms of the longevity of the idea?
03:17Yeah, the biggest roadblock here is crash test ratings.
03:20They would have to be rigorously tested.
03:22And that's one of the reasons why vehicles are getting bigger.
03:25The other reason is emissions regulations, though that's a longer topic.
03:28These tiny cars need to be tested to be able to handle these very large vehicles that we have on U.S. roads.
03:35The vast majority of vehicles on the road are SUVs and trucks.
03:38And it would need to be able to stand up to a crash in a situation up to a certain reasonable speed on surface roads.
03:45I can see if he's able to work with NHTSA on making some regulations that would allow these cars, they would have to manipulate a lot of things here.
03:56And like I mentioned, probably not allowed on the highway.
04:00So it could be a special registration for this vehicle that if a cop sees you on the highway, they ticket you and they tell you to get off, which could really restrict who wants to buy one of these cars.
04:09But I can see a future where with some clever manipulation of the law or maybe creating a special segment of registration for these vehicles, I can see it being very possible.
04:23And I can see some people wanting to buy something like this because if you're going to get really good fuel economy in a really light car, you don't need much to get around if that works for you.
04:31I think that this is a reasonable future that we could be seeing here.
04:35And what could be the impact on the auto manufacturing industry here in the U.S.?
04:42Yeah, so these would be built in the U.S. only as far as Trump said, which means that you would have to either take a Toyota Pica, for example, and you'd have to bring the tooling over here and start building them over here.
04:56And if you did, then that could drastically increase the cost of that vehicle because of all of the R&D behind it for the manufacturing process.
05:04Or let's say that Ford wants to start building a K car.
05:09They could either license one out from a company like Daihatsu or they could start building one on their own.
05:15But at that point, you're talking about the cost being prohibitively high for what you're trying to sell.
05:20And you would run into the same issue that Fiat had with the 500 and Mini had with the Cooper.
05:25It just doesn't make sense at a certain point where, oh, this car is really small and gets great fuel economy.
05:31But now it's priced itself out of the market of somebody that would buy that in the first place.
05:36So there's a lot of challenges ahead here.
05:38Certainly.
05:38Well, you know, we really don't know.
05:41It could come quick.
05:41It could take a while.
05:43But for folks who are thinking about they may be interested, what are some quick tips that you have for those who might be looking to buy one of these tiny cars?
05:53Well, let's say that you wanted to buy one that's already on the market right now.
05:57It would have to be 25 years old.
06:00There's a lot of really, really interesting K cars out there.
06:03One of my favorite is the AutoZam AZ1.
06:05It has gull wings like Mercedes from the 50s, and you can import them from Japan.
06:11There's actually a lot here in the U.S. already.
06:14And there's a whole bunch of other vehicles that fit into that category.
06:17And they're fun little cars.
06:18So let's say that you wanted to go out and buy a 25-year-old used car that fits into this category, and that works for your life.
06:25You might have some trouble getting parts for repairs, but you can go ahead and go and buy a K car and register on the road legally right now
06:33because the 25-year rule for the imported cars, you do not have to follow current regulations.
06:39It kind of bypasses that as a collector vehicle.
06:42So that's an option for people that are really interested in getting one.
06:45And in our last 10 seconds, what is the scene behind you?
06:50This is Buffalo.
06:51Oh, nice.
06:52It's very snowy here.
06:53Yeah, it sure is.
06:54Winter is fully set in.
06:56I woke up with five degrees this morning, and I just scrape ice off my car.
07:00Okay.
07:00Well, so good to see you this morning.
07:03I'm glad you could come on when it is so cold out.
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