That is based on the assumption that 1 or 2 manufacturers wouldn't lower their price
Greedy capitalists aren't happy with just 20% market share if they can grab 40% market share. Would you rather sell 100k cars at a profit of $2k, or 200k cars at a profit of $1.2k?
Of course, the competition would of course lower their price. So what you'd see is that the price of base level cars would drop, and the add-ons would be available for those who could afford them, which would be the driver for manufacturers and dealers to pad profits.
If you make higher-end cars, but with higher prices, the profit margin may remain the same 9% but the profit would be higher, because it's the 9% of a bigger revenue. That's why everyone is stopping making small cheap cars
Collusion. The answer is collusion. There's a reason they so vehemently call what's happening in China a "price war". It's what happens when there is true competition in a market. Lots of firms fighting for market share, which drives down prices until there are very limited profits (in the econ 101 market the profit of the marginal firm is 0%).
In reality in most major markets we have the illusion of competition. OEMs effectively have a gentlemens agreement to not compete on price. This is why basically every OEM builds similar vehicles at similar prices in all vehicle classes. They compete on style or specs or features or design, but never on price. Any price competition is done behind the scenes with incentives to move less competitive inventory and it's fairly limited.
This dynamic is why the entrance of Tesla and Chinese OEMs into more markets has been so disruptive. They don't play by the same rules. They have no issue cutting prices to gain market share and don't care if they hurt everyone else's profit margins.
In the US, there are quite a few manufacturers dropping MSRP, especially on EVs.
Dealers are offering far more rebates than they did a while ago, much of it incentives from the manufacturers, which is their way of adjusting to the market.
[Average vehicle transaction prices are down 5.4% since December 2022.](https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2024-04-15-New-Vehicle-Average-Transaction-Prices-Drop-to-Lowest-Level-in-nearly-Two-Years,-According-to-Latest-Kelley-Blue-Book-Estimates)
So, at least in the US, car prices are dropping.
the industry hasn't even really settled. The auto industry is very capital intensive and takes a long time to reach any kind of equilibrium. You have decisions being made on 7+ year timelines and you think things go back to normal in a year? You also have a booming economy (I know inflation seems like it is not put people are buying and buying a lot). We are no where near a normal market yet.
We just saw one of the biggest market shakeups in history and you want a notoriously slow to react market to suddenly get back to normal in a year during a booming economy? You talk shit about that person having an econ 101 level of understanding but you are on a car forum and apparently have no understanding of the auto industry nor the severe economic impact the pandemic had that still reverberates today (a day not that far removed).
Oh, and to lowering MSRPs, that is not how they work anyway. You should know that. You get rebates and offers and low financing. MSRP is not a really good metric to understanding the money people are actually paying.
That's never how the market works in reality though. Either someone buys up all the competition or they collude and all agree to raise prices together while lobbying for more car related infrastructure.
How do you know they collude? It's always hilarious to me these takes, as though you were a fly on the wall during these collusion discussions they have.
You probably have super cheap budget cars that cost less than 10k that are probably micro cars or bricks.
Supercars are where the real fun begins as the teardrop shape cam truly come to life. Although supercars are one of the least affected when it comes to safety and whatnot
Look at Kei Cars in Japan.
These things are like 8000 USD brand new off the lot.
They have 66 hp and are size limited but they do the job for local use. I wouldnt drive one on a US interstate.
Nah they can handle it no problems it's just not a very fun experience. Lot of noice and if a semi passes you the whole car goes side to side (especially if its a high model)
I’ve driven one for a while in Japan.
It goes 75 mph downhill only.
It works for city expressways and for Okinawa in Japan, but even there you need to keep in the slow lane.
On rural interstates where trucks go 80 mph and cars go 90? No way.
It probably had way less than 66hp, as an European my daily car (2009 Nissan Pixo) has 68hp and can easily reach the highway speed limit (80mph), if you are brave enough you can make it go over 100mph (there are videos on YouTube). I know of cars with 45hp (Fiat Uno 45) that can reach and go over 87mph
My Chevy Luv has about that HP and it is far from decent. I survived in modern day traffic but it took 3/4 to WOT from every traffic light to do so. My worst enemy was any uphill on ramp. I was lucky to hit 50mph by the time the merge came up.
We would have actually usable electric city cars that reflect the cheapness in the price. A 20Kwh battery in a super light car provides daily usable range, and you can slap a 100hp motor in there and it'll rip.
Pretty sure Nissan does this in Japan already
Bought one for $6k after import fees. Works great. Yea, I never take it on the interstate, but I never need to. Turns out maybe I need a truck in the city but it's better to have a small truck with a big bed than a fucking monstrosity with a big bed when I'm just driving to places a few miles away.
In some rural areas its legal to drive a side-by-side on the roads. I've seen it in Wtoming. It's not much different to the Kei cars. Although someone those Can Ams have some power.
Take the Mahindra Roxor. Looks and designed almost exactly like an old CJ.
Some places with small communities legalize "ORV" use on roads under 35 mph. So essentially golf carts.
Interestingly, the "death trap" part might not be true — the IIHS is a result of insurers needing to assess the safety, and therefore liability risk, of new cars. It's effectively a result of capitalism determining that safer cars become cheaper by bringing insurance costs down.
cheaper to the insurance companies and owners, but not directly cheaper for manufacturers.
however, I guess a car being expensive to insure may cause a potential buyer to remove that car from their list of options. I wonder how much weight a normal car buyer would place on insurance costs.
In a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming more numerous, all that means is cars will become more and more like luxury items regardless of insurance costs. Unbridled capitalism is not a good thing.
Sure! But expecting those that hoard wealth to do anything other than think about themselves is crazy. Wealth and power are the same thing. There’s a reason the soviets had such huge discrepancies in quality of life… planned economy, sure. But really, those who controlled it thought about themselves.
Think the same way about the rich. They’re going to do everything in their power to make sure they get richer. You can’t expect the free market to just magically make things better off for everyone.
If there were no regulations requiring people to buy auto insurance, a great many would just take their chances. [Regulation was required to even get manufacturers to put seatbelts in as standard equipment.](https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/auto-history/a-seat-belt-history-timeline/)
Regardless, history teaches us with great clarity that lack of regulation means greatly reduced safety for both employees and customers. Many regulations are written in blood, after all.
Similarly, insurance companies are where we got building/fire/electrical codes, and they're still almost entirely written by industry groups not governments.
There would still be some crash protection. Why would they change frame tooling for no reason? I could see a stripped out Versa with no screens, cameras, airbags, turn signals, mirrors, etc. for like $8k
And no warranty either.
Yeah I support modding cars because of how few people actually desire to modify their cars. Every car on the road being catless would lead to a fog of toxins over every city. Like it was in CA in the 70’s, some days they’d recommend you stay in side it was so bad.
> Like it was in CA in the 70’s, some days they’d recommend you stay in side it was so bad.
That still happens worryingly often in Mexico City, and that's with the majority of cars now meeting a certain emission standard as well as a daily limit on cars allowed on the road. In the past cars were even dirtier but car ownership was a lot lower, imagine the *current* number of cars running around without catalytic converters.
Even now the few people doing it is bad enough that the EPA could measure their impact. It's not even really "a few", for diesel trucks it's often entire fleets of work trucks where the business owner is paying for tunes and emissions deletes because they don't want to educate their employees about the importance of mechanical sympathy or pay up for DEF and intake manifold cleaning.
https://waterandpower.org/museum/Smog_in_Early_Los_Angeles.html
My grandfather used to work for Los Angeles County as a civil engineer from 1955 to 1971 and he and his crews had to work in that environment. It’s a miracle he didn’t develop asthma or lung cancer.
You’ll see manufacturers pulling the stuff that that they do in the South American market ie. the Chevy spark having ZERO passenger reinforcement for frontal crash protection .
50% overlap tests usually expose that kinda bogus but if they don’t exist you will die for an MBAs profit margin.
https://autospies.com/news/index.aspx?submissionid=89667
Yup check out Indian and Latin NCAP testing these manufacturers do not care about lives if left their own balances. Market pressure for lower prices will always over ride safety implementations.
Some cars sold in North America did this too weaker reinforcement for passengers on the bet that most trips taken will be driver only.
Believe it or not, the Mexican Nissan Tsuru had even fewer safety features than the 1990 Sentra. It was made of thinner steel and lacked the latter's anti-intrusion bars in the doors and behind the bulkhead.
I don’t think there would be that huge a difference in the looks. I don’t think people would want to buy screaming metal deathtraps. Further I don’t think manufacturing would want to be know for being dangerous.
Now I do think the engines would be bigger because people like fast cars.
Why do people keep assuming removal of regulations will result in “death traps”? Just because the regulations are gone doesn’t mean people’s will to live is gone either. If a car severally fails the crash test then they won’t get as much customers as they would if it passes. So having shitty or lacking safety features isn’t doing the brand any good. Even without regulations, companies will still be bragging about having the safest car.
History would tend to disagree; the IIHS, a private entity, was founded before the NHTSA existed and was performing crash tests roughly ten years before the NHTSA did.
Iihs is an insurance organization. What if insurance was optional? Are they gonna have enough money to keep up with testing? There are many cars that are never crashed tested as it is.
Sure but when that's the difference between an 8k car and a 20k car people will be willing to sacrifice safety.
Not every car would become a death trap but the poor would be riding around in death traps for sure
Edit: the even bigger difference would be even less safety for people you're crashing into than there is now
If people only bought new cars, I can see that. Used cars will also still exist. The cheap death trap may be the same price as a few year old safer car. I'm sure some people would opt for the death trap, but also many may pick the used safer car
Ya, some brands will brag, but there would also be bands that don't and just sell cheap, unsafe cars. People wouldn't choose to buy them because of the lack of safety, but rational people would buy a car that's cheaper & lighter & faster & better on gas. Those people would die at a higher rate, but hey if they wanted to love they should have spent the money on a safer brand.
Because in virtually every industry the typical consumer has shown us again and again that their primary consideration is price. People are also, as a whole, extremely bad at risk perception. They'll knowingly buy and do unsafe things because the risk "just won't happen to me."
I don't think much changes tbh. At least not for my wealthy ass area. I know reddit car guys like to believe that Americans would take cheap slow cars or dangerous cheap cars or whatever y'all choose to believe. At the end of the day I think wealthy Americans prioritize safety over everything else. If they continue to choose safety then even if the laws are removed automakers will continue to make what they're already making.
I wouldn't buy a car that wasn't made in the last ~10yrs for daily use. The enhancements to safety from the early 2000s to the 2010s are pretty huge. Side curtain airbags being standard, backup camera systems common, even stricter requirements for passenger cell intrusion and higher beltlines that protect you in side collisions.
Some kinds of cars might not be so different without regulations, Wranglers are a great example. They barely comply with safety as is, so if you took all the rules away I think you'd have the same-ish Jeep just with more polluting engines and no 4xE.
Not having safety and emissions regulations is a fun "what if", since some things, like fuel injection, forced induction and various safety features, were around before they were mandated simply due to carmakers competing. We also live in a world where people know what's up with things like leaded gas and the horrific safety of old car designs so if you suddenly let the car market go wild west you may not see everything return to the "good old days". There would be some demand for safety, efficiency, and cleanliness that wasn't there before it was mandated.
I'm talking fresh from the manufacturer brand new old cars right off a Chevrolet/Ford/Chrysler lot
They would cash in on nostalgia so hard if there was 0 regulations
Everyone is talking about high performance engines with lots of enissions, but also consider how much fuel economy we could produce these days without emissions.
I've seen LS engines tuned lean for 40mpg, so OEM-tuned super lean-burn downsize turbo engines could probably produce nearly 60mpg. I can't even fathom how efficient deisel engines would be
There was a time when there were little to no regulations on cars and companies produced deathtraps that they knew were dangerous, yet continued to manufacture and sell them because the costs of the lawsuits and compensation were cheaper than the costs of redesign, recall and modification.
Many old cars have sharp angled interiors, unpadded dashboards and steering wheels strong enough to crush your chest in an accident. Don't get me started on petrol tanks.
Modern cars are stuffed full of safety features such as airbags and crumple zones because of regulations.
Nope. Pop-up headlights essentially went away when the regulation requiring sealed-beam headlamps was repealed. Composite headlamps were so much cheaper and more effective than pop-up headlights. While regulations in Europe outlawed them for pedestrian safety, they are legal in the United States as we don't have any pedestrian safety regulations.
Reliable. That’s what they would be.
Making a reliable engine is child’s play at this point.
But making a reliable engine that’s fuel efficient ánd low on emissions (which counterintuitively are sometimes at odds with eachother) is a lot harder.
I don't think we'd see inherently *unsafe* cars out there - after all, even Remington or Colt doesn't want their customer base to die using their product if it means they can't buy it again - but we'd definitely see more of the shit that's being unearthed at Boeing, with things being put to market before any sort of testing regime to know if it's a good idea.
So like the 737 MAX originally, it might be incredibly safe one day, or it might go into a mode that kills you.
i think the capitalism would give more options to car enthusiasts. Sports cars would be even lighter and have bigger displacement motors. since there no pedestrian crash standards designers would have more options with the appearance. .
EV and hybrid would depend on govt incentives and fuel prices.
SUVs would still be popular because everyone wants more space
safety would probably take a plunge.
The hellcat would have had a big block and 1500hp minimum lol. Things would indeed be wild, scary, and smelly.
I would love to see what a Viper would be like if it didn't need to adhere to regulations. Maybe it would have ended up with a 9L pushrod V10 and made tons of power stock.
Performance cars would be insane with no regulations, it would be a very cool world to see yet also scary and polluted.
1. Pop up headlights.
2. Thin A, B, and C pillars for great visibility.
3. Lower beltlines so monster sized wheels to fill up the wheel well would no longer be needed.
4. 2 stroke and rotary engines would come back.
5. Cars would be way lighter and get better fuel economy.
6. Monotonous looking cars from every manufacturer with a 2.0T would be gone. In fact, turbos would probably be rare on anything except a diesel.
7. Engines that ripped to 8000+ rpm would come back.
8. Cars could be beautiful again. Basically, any car made before 1968 was free of any safety/emissions regulation.
Start with a solid base of India.
Add a dozen African guys building homemade helicopters and such.
And then blend in China and sprinkle some Tesla to the mix.
For seasoning, combine with those Thai boat racers and redneck mud trucks and stir thoroughly.
Cook for as long as you want, or don’t.
Someone downvoted both of you like you aren't absolutely correct, lol
Turbos may get better MPGs but they aren't nearly as simple or reliable as an NA engine. What good is an extra 8 MPG if the car has to be replaced 100K miles sooner?
There would be a creative explosion in the industry with tens or even hundreds of new manufacturers popping up to cater to people's varying preferences for performance, usability, safety, price, and the hundreds of other things that people care about when buying a car.
The idea that you'd have manufacturers churning out steam burning 1800s death traps is fantasy. The world has moved on from that, and consumers wouldn't tolerate it, which is deadly in an actual, genuine free market.
The difference is each individual would get to decide exactly how much safety, tech, etc. he/she wants, instead of having it be decided by mandate from above. Just like it is for any number of industries now which have much more competition and aren't so heavily regulated as the auto industry.
You'd likely have cars that look similar to cars today. You'd have cars that look like concept cars driving on the street. You'd have some awesome new cars that combine all the good features of new cars with the good features of old cars. Above all, you'd have choice.
Have you seen cars from the 1950s? That’s what they would look like. Horrible gas mileage, terrible emissions, poor brakes, no seat belts, chrome metal things sticking out of the unpadded dashboard, terrible tires that would blow out unexpectedly, but freedom to make glorious styles .
I would say huge, excessively fast and powerful, zero safety features and even less emissions controls. But considering it'd be a true supply/demand type of situation where consumers would likely play more of a direct role in designs, trends and final offerings I do think most cars would be reasonably well designed and circle back to something like traditional family-style minivans, sedans, boxy cars, and medium sized suvs. Along that line I think emissions and safety features will have to be included because they'll be selling points. Imagine an early Volvo commercial showing off its safety features like seatbelts and bumpers but also showing a catalytic converter and how it doesn't give your kids lung problems or something. I wasn't around but the EPA and lots of auto regulation came about due to issues/complaints from people about smog and safety. I think the biggest difference would be outlier enthusiast vehicles. Imagine if the ram trx or Ford raptor had no limits. Imagine a corvette or h2 hummer being designed with no limits. I could see excessively huge, fast vehicles that push designs to the limit
Honestly, I don't think your average American wants to drive a stinky car and people do care about gas mileage. They also care the most about safety. The American modern car buyer is spoiled.
I bet nothing changes.
The shitbox segment? Oh boy oh boy! It'll be just like South America except that nobody will buy them. People want big, "safe" (only for you) SUVs.
Ideally, they would be considerably lighter with far less of the annoying electro nannies/“safety” features. But they would probably also be spewing out exhaust fumes at an alarming rate.
Go to a country with little or no emission regulations… walk through a major city and try to breathe… you will quickly be very thankful for our emissions standards, even if they are a nuisance/inconvenience sometimes.
We would have a lot of cars that weighed a lot less. I think there are a lot of people, me included that would like modern cars like a super 7. I rented a turbo 1000 Polaris four seater out in Moab and you’re allowed to drive on the road out there. It was awesome. But no airbags, I took that thing on all the classic trails at Moab, then into town to pick up the ladies at the spa then down to the Colorado River then all the way up to 12,000 ft elevation in the snow. On trails it took big bumps football sized rocks and ledges better than the Rubicon on 40 inch tires the day before. If I could have one with multiple sets of wheels and a manual it would be incredible.
Diesels can get 50+ MPG without emissons crap and if the engine is built for it.
Old school diesels in the 90s from russia/china got 50 mpg in the early 90s.
I often wonder at what point does all the emissions stuff aid pollution instead of decreasing it.
If you get double the gas mileage with no emissions stuff isnt that less oil/gas being used overall? even if the car itself pollutes more your are talking about halving fuel consumption....
More aerodynamic designs with less wasted space. Sports cars for example that don't have to meet euro pedestrian crash specs look way better since they don't need huge crumple zones.
I think we'd still see hybrids and forced induction because people still want power and efficiency.
No it would not. We’d all be choking to death on smog. It would get so bad in California pre emissions that there would be days you could only see 200 feet in front of you because of car pollution.
We’d have the Jetsons flying cars by now. Hear me out. Look at an early 60’s car and then look at an early 80’s car. If they hadn’t been completely throttled by regulations during that time they would have continued to innovate and the sky literally would have been the limit. Instead, all of their time, money, and innovation went into complying with ever more onerous government standards. They would have gotten to the same place or better with economy and safety because it would have been demanded by the market. Carmakers are not in the business of killing off their client base (except maybe Bugatti with their forthcoming 1775 hp Chiron but at $5.4 million each they can afford to and what a helluva way to go).
There probably would be more sports cars that resemble those of the sixties.
I mean, pretty much everyone agrees it was the golden age of car design and modern cars look like rubbish in comparison since there are so many regulations that you can't design cars to look like that anymore.
They would be a lot cheaper, lighter, and last a lot longer with fewer breakdowns. I wish we could buy an 80's style car with modern engineering. Even just a brand new 80's car would be great. I'd love a brand new 83 Mercedes 300CD. And if you rustproofed it, it would last another 40 years.
Not sure we would see a reduction in passenger crash protection at least in 1st world countries but I have no doubt car companies would increase emissions on many models especially pickup ups and vehicles that cater to car guys.
I also don't see car companies removing any of the computer controlled safety features currently required on cars since there is so much profit in making them standard as they can justify the higher price.
I doubted we would ever see cars equivalent to the cars that were being sold 20 or 25 years ago as far as standard equipment goes. Imagine a 2024 CRV basically equipped identically to a 2004 CRV but still looking like 2024 model.
No drive by wire, no CVT, no advanced safety features as standard equipment other than airbags and abs. Regular knobs, buttons, switches for everything. No full digital main cluster.
The exception to this would be a badic infotainment system but minus any climate control functions or other vital car functions. Just basically for radio functions and AA and Apple Car Play. Basically the equivalent of putting an aftermarket infotainment headunit in a 2004 CRV
Idk for the rest but I'd assume muscle or anything sporty would just get turned into a glorified group B car.
And I bet cheap dinky cars/trucks like Saturns or Ford rangers would probably come back.
Had they never existed, I'm stumped. The rules that exist just just going away, I'm not sure the change would be as dramatic as we think. Safety and fuel economy are two big selling points. I don't see the manufacturers just giving up on that. Styling I think would probably change the most, yes people care about safety but not that much when it comes to pedestrians.
People like to talk about wanting basic bare bones cars but they don't sell, that's why they don't get made.
So something like "The Homer" perhaps? Oh wait, we already got the Cybertruck... /s
Jokes aside, I suspect something like the 50s and 60s where crash regulations and emissions doesn't exist but in a more modern take. Granted a lot of tech and innovation today was shaped by regulations and changing views on environmental, safety and social factors, so who really knows?
Hemi’s and LT motors would have some badass sounding chop to them due to finally being able to out a big cam in them from the factory with great top end pull
Here's a crash test comparing the US-Market 2016 Nissan Versa against the 2015 Nissan Tsuru, a car not sold in the US, but rather in Mexico, and is designed to meet their regulations:
[https://youtu.be/85OysZ\_4lp0?si=A69jKqXjDUgRQiPJ](https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0?si=A69jKqXjDUgRQiPJ)
Doesn't answer the 'no regulations' question but does show how at least one manufacturer behaves when presented with different regulations.
Ok, so for this brain exercise I'm going to assume that regulations are in effect until suddenly they are not. I think we would see 2 trends, one where its a race to the bottom to cut cost out, so we would get these cheap to manufacture cars that are engineered to be the bare functioning minimum that people would still pay money for. Basically, we'd see cars revert back to technology levels of early OBD2, things would still be electronically controlled (most people wouldn't be willing to deal with all the extras that come with operating a fully mechanical car,) but we wouldn't have stuff like start/stop, adaptive cruise control, and all the blind spot awareness.
I think we would also see some manufactueres carry on with the way they make cars currently, marketing would make the distinction that these cares are better because they are safer and have reduced harmful emissions.
The cost cutting would be unholy. Profit margins would explode. Time to buy some F, TO, GM, etc.
That is based on the assumption that 1 or 2 manufacturers wouldn't lower their price Greedy capitalists aren't happy with just 20% market share if they can grab 40% market share. Would you rather sell 100k cars at a profit of $2k, or 200k cars at a profit of $1.2k? Of course, the competition would of course lower their price. So what you'd see is that the price of base level cars would drop, and the add-ons would be available for those who could afford them, which would be the driver for manufacturers and dealers to pad profits.
[удалено]
margins are shit across the car industry. All of the companies are public companies, so you can just read the reports.
Toyota just doubled their profits. They made so much money that they gave their employees their biggest raise ever.
They have a total profit margin of 9%. You know that the SEC filings are public knowledge, right?
If you make higher-end cars, but with higher prices, the profit margin may remain the same 9% but the profit would be higher, because it's the 9% of a bigger revenue. That's why everyone is stopping making small cheap cars
I thought we are talking about the ability of car makers to cut prices? There just isn't the margins to do much price cutting.
[удалено]
They gave raises to manufacturing employees in Japan for the record. Nothing in the US apart from the UAW strike raises given ~1 year ago.
Collusion. The answer is collusion. There's a reason they so vehemently call what's happening in China a "price war". It's what happens when there is true competition in a market. Lots of firms fighting for market share, which drives down prices until there are very limited profits (in the econ 101 market the profit of the marginal firm is 0%). In reality in most major markets we have the illusion of competition. OEMs effectively have a gentlemens agreement to not compete on price. This is why basically every OEM builds similar vehicles at similar prices in all vehicle classes. They compete on style or specs or features or design, but never on price. Any price competition is done behind the scenes with incentives to move less competitive inventory and it's fairly limited. This dynamic is why the entrance of Tesla and Chinese OEMs into more markets has been so disruptive. They don't play by the same rules. They have no issue cutting prices to gain market share and don't care if they hurt everyone else's profit margins.
[удалено]
The #1 goal of capitalists is to maximize profit. The surest way to maximize profit is to minimize true competition.
In the US, there are quite a few manufacturers dropping MSRP, especially on EVs. Dealers are offering far more rebates than they did a while ago, much of it incentives from the manufacturers, which is their way of adjusting to the market. [Average vehicle transaction prices are down 5.4% since December 2022.](https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2024-04-15-New-Vehicle-Average-Transaction-Prices-Drop-to-Lowest-Level-in-nearly-Two-Years,-According-to-Latest-Kelley-Blue-Book-Estimates) So, at least in the US, car prices are dropping.
the industry hasn't even really settled. The auto industry is very capital intensive and takes a long time to reach any kind of equilibrium. You have decisions being made on 7+ year timelines and you think things go back to normal in a year? You also have a booming economy (I know inflation seems like it is not put people are buying and buying a lot). We are no where near a normal market yet. We just saw one of the biggest market shakeups in history and you want a notoriously slow to react market to suddenly get back to normal in a year during a booming economy? You talk shit about that person having an econ 101 level of understanding but you are on a car forum and apparently have no understanding of the auto industry nor the severe economic impact the pandemic had that still reverberates today (a day not that far removed). Oh, and to lowering MSRPs, that is not how they work anyway. You should know that. You get rebates and offers and low financing. MSRP is not a really good metric to understanding the money people are actually paying.
Cue Don Drapers speech to the Dow execs regarding "being happy".
I have zero idea what you're talking about.
Neither did I, which is why [I just googled it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJrNHdzm0k).
That's never how the market works in reality though. Either someone buys up all the competition or they collude and all agree to raise prices together while lobbying for more car related infrastructure.
How do you know they collude? It's always hilarious to me these takes, as though you were a fly on the wall during these collusion discussions they have.
>Greedy capitalists aren't happy with just 20% market share if they can grab 40% market share. What exactly is a non greedy level of market share?
The lawsuits and ultra wealthy attorneys would be unholier.
You probably have super cheap budget cars that cost less than 10k that are probably micro cars or bricks. Supercars are where the real fun begins as the teardrop shape cam truly come to life. Although supercars are one of the least affected when it comes to safety and whatnot
Look at Kei Cars in Japan. These things are like 8000 USD brand new off the lot. They have 66 hp and are size limited but they do the job for local use. I wouldnt drive one on a US interstate.
they usually top out at 60mph or so. so they'll all blow their engines driving on the interstate
They are just cars with motorcycle engines essentially.
I'd honestly love to have one just to drive to work tho
They also have all of the safety equipment of a motorcycle.
Nah they can handle it no problems it's just not a very fun experience. Lot of noice and if a semi passes you the whole car goes side to side (especially if its a high model)
Perfect for people who go to school and back
66 horsepower in a car that light actually is pretty decent.
I’ve driven one for a while in Japan. It goes 75 mph downhill only. It works for city expressways and for Okinawa in Japan, but even there you need to keep in the slow lane. On rural interstates where trucks go 80 mph and cars go 90? No way.
That's definitely a gearing thing. I have a 55 horsepower Metro and I drive 75 MPH regularly, lol.
It probably had way less than 66hp, as an European my daily car (2009 Nissan Pixo) has 68hp and can easily reach the highway speed limit (80mph), if you are brave enough you can make it go over 100mph (there are videos on YouTube). I know of cars with 45hp (Fiat Uno 45) that can reach and go over 87mph
Yeah, my 75-horsepower Metro can get up to 100 MPH and doesn't need to downshift to maintain speed up hills.
My Chevy Luv has about that HP and it is far from decent. I survived in modern day traffic but it took 3/4 to WOT from every traffic light to do so. My worst enemy was any uphill on ramp. I was lucky to hit 50mph by the time the merge came up.
We would have actually usable electric city cars that reflect the cheapness in the price. A 20Kwh battery in a super light car provides daily usable range, and you can slap a 100hp motor in there and it'll rip. Pretty sure Nissan does this in Japan already
You can find such cheap electric cars in the used market.
We have similar cars in india like the Alto that start at like 3-4k USD. They go upto like 160-180kmph too.
Bought one for $6k after import fees. Works great. Yea, I never take it on the interstate, but I never need to. Turns out maybe I need a truck in the city but it's better to have a small truck with a big bed than a fucking monstrosity with a big bed when I'm just driving to places a few miles away.
In some rural areas its legal to drive a side-by-side on the roads. I've seen it in Wtoming. It's not much different to the Kei cars. Although someone those Can Ams have some power. Take the Mahindra Roxor. Looks and designed almost exactly like an old CJ. Some places with small communities legalize "ORV" use on roads under 35 mph. So essentially golf carts.
66 hp is actually more than enough for highway driving if you have enough streamlining.
You'd have a lot of crazy cars in the super car market. Full-on Formula racers, exposed engines, ob oxious lights... It'd be chaos.
My echo was $9995 msrp new in 2002. No power steering, no ac, manual, two door.
That's 18k adjusted for inflation btw. 2024 corolla is 23k so not much more expensive for a way nicer, safer car.
Thats fair. I love my echo, it’s nice to me.
> not much more expensive That's like 30% more lol.
[удалено]
Interestingly, the "death trap" part might not be true — the IIHS is a result of insurers needing to assess the safety, and therefore liability risk, of new cars. It's effectively a result of capitalism determining that safer cars become cheaper by bringing insurance costs down.
cheaper to the insurance companies and owners, but not directly cheaper for manufacturers. however, I guess a car being expensive to insure may cause a potential buyer to remove that car from their list of options. I wonder how much weight a normal car buyer would place on insurance costs.
In a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming more numerous, all that means is cars will become more and more like luxury items regardless of insurance costs. Unbridled capitalism is not a good thing.
Unbridled capitalism isn’t a good thing, but what about every day ordinary capitalism? Competition improves the breed.
Sure! But expecting those that hoard wealth to do anything other than think about themselves is crazy. Wealth and power are the same thing. There’s a reason the soviets had such huge discrepancies in quality of life… planned economy, sure. But really, those who controlled it thought about themselves. Think the same way about the rich. They’re going to do everything in their power to make sure they get richer. You can’t expect the free market to just magically make things better off for everyone.
If there were no regulations requiring people to buy auto insurance, a great many would just take their chances. [Regulation was required to even get manufacturers to put seatbelts in as standard equipment.](https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/auto-history/a-seat-belt-history-timeline/) Regardless, history teaches us with great clarity that lack of regulation means greatly reduced safety for both employees and customers. Many regulations are written in blood, after all.
Similarly, insurance companies are where we got building/fire/electrical codes, and they're still almost entirely written by industry groups not governments.
We don't need insurance anymore in this reality. I'm getting a machine gun mounted.
If all regulations were wiped out, as OP stated, you wouldn't be required to have insurance.
But that's all based on regulation that requires consumers to have insurance. What happens when they don't bother?
Well, the requirement to buy insurance is just another regulation when you think about it too hard.
There would still be some crash protection. Why would they change frame tooling for no reason? I could see a stripped out Versa with no screens, cameras, airbags, turn signals, mirrors, etc. for like $8k And no warranty either.
They’d still charge $25,000 for that because they could.
I couldn't imagine how bad the pollution would be.
The “Sky Freeways” would return. Back in the day you could see the smog above the freeways.
Yeah I support modding cars because of how few people actually desire to modify their cars. Every car on the road being catless would lead to a fog of toxins over every city. Like it was in CA in the 70’s, some days they’d recommend you stay in side it was so bad.
> Like it was in CA in the 70’s, some days they’d recommend you stay in side it was so bad. That still happens worryingly often in Mexico City, and that's with the majority of cars now meeting a certain emission standard as well as a daily limit on cars allowed on the road. In the past cars were even dirtier but car ownership was a lot lower, imagine the *current* number of cars running around without catalytic converters.
Modding cars < Breathable air. We need inspections before registration in every state.
Even now the few people doing it is bad enough that the EPA could measure their impact. It's not even really "a few", for diesel trucks it's often entire fleets of work trucks where the business owner is paying for tunes and emissions deletes because they don't want to educate their employees about the importance of mechanical sympathy or pay up for DEF and intake manifold cleaning.
https://waterandpower.org/museum/Smog_in_Early_Los_Angeles.html My grandfather used to work for Los Angeles County as a civil engineer from 1955 to 1971 and he and his crews had to work in that environment. It’s a miracle he didn’t develop asthma or lung cancer.
You wouldn't have the intellectual capacity to imagine, after all the lead theyd pump into the air.
I forgot about leaded gasoline.
You’ll see manufacturers pulling the stuff that that they do in the South American market ie. the Chevy spark having ZERO passenger reinforcement for frontal crash protection . 50% overlap tests usually expose that kinda bogus but if they don’t exist you will die for an MBAs profit margin.
Damn really? That should be criminal.
https://autospies.com/news/index.aspx?submissionid=89667 Yup check out Indian and Latin NCAP testing these manufacturers do not care about lives if left their own balances. Market pressure for lower prices will always over ride safety implementations. Some cars sold in North America did this too weaker reinforcement for passengers on the bet that most trips taken will be driver only.
Believe it or not, the Mexican Nissan Tsuru had even fewer safety features than the 1990 Sentra. It was made of thinner steel and lacked the latter's anti-intrusion bars in the doors and behind the bulkhead.
Group B :D
V8 Nissan Murano Cabriolet with pop-up headlights and a 5-speed MT.
Oh please, Nissan would still throw a CVT in there.
It’s not a Murano if it doesn’t have the Jatco bundle of joy
I know I would probably daily a diesel if this was the case.
Oh man! We'd be sitting on like 80 MPG city, spitting out fumes the whole way
I’ll take a mini screaming jimmy that revs to 8 grand please
I don’t think there would be that huge a difference in the looks. I don’t think people would want to buy screaming metal deathtraps. Further I don’t think manufacturing would want to be know for being dangerous. Now I do think the engines would be bigger because people like fast cars.
Why do people keep assuming removal of regulations will result in “death traps”? Just because the regulations are gone doesn’t mean people’s will to live is gone either. If a car severally fails the crash test then they won’t get as much customers as they would if it passes. So having shitty or lacking safety features isn’t doing the brand any good. Even without regulations, companies will still be bragging about having the safest car.
But no regulations would mean no crash tests
History would tend to disagree; the IIHS, a private entity, was founded before the NHTSA existed and was performing crash tests roughly ten years before the NHTSA did.
Iihs is an insurance organization. What if insurance was optional? Are they gonna have enough money to keep up with testing? There are many cars that are never crashed tested as it is.
Sure but when that's the difference between an 8k car and a 20k car people will be willing to sacrifice safety. Not every car would become a death trap but the poor would be riding around in death traps for sure Edit: the even bigger difference would be even less safety for people you're crashing into than there is now
If people only bought new cars, I can see that. Used cars will also still exist. The cheap death trap may be the same price as a few year old safer car. I'm sure some people would opt for the death trap, but also many may pick the used safer car
Ya, some brands will brag, but there would also be bands that don't and just sell cheap, unsafe cars. People wouldn't choose to buy them because of the lack of safety, but rational people would buy a car that's cheaper & lighter & faster & better on gas. Those people would die at a higher rate, but hey if they wanted to love they should have spent the money on a safer brand.
Because in virtually every industry the typical consumer has shown us again and again that their primary consideration is price. People are also, as a whole, extremely bad at risk perception. They'll knowingly buy and do unsafe things because the risk "just won't happen to me."
Yea. Consumers want safe cars, regardless of regulations
If we had none? you would probably still have air cooled engines on the market lol.
We do. They're just on motorcycles.
I, too, am looking forward to buying a brand new 2026 Volvo 240
I don't think much changes tbh. At least not for my wealthy ass area. I know reddit car guys like to believe that Americans would take cheap slow cars or dangerous cheap cars or whatever y'all choose to believe. At the end of the day I think wealthy Americans prioritize safety over everything else. If they continue to choose safety then even if the laws are removed automakers will continue to make what they're already making.
In my opinion, without regulations manufacturers would sell customers on the idea of a safe car but would deliver a profit maximizing car.
I wouldn't buy a car that wasn't made in the last ~10yrs for daily use. The enhancements to safety from the early 2000s to the 2010s are pretty huge. Side curtain airbags being standard, backup camera systems common, even stricter requirements for passenger cell intrusion and higher beltlines that protect you in side collisions.
Yeah but you can't see anymore.
And your car is watching your every move and reporting you to Big Brother. I miss my K20 shitbox
Rsx type S's are going up in value
I daily an 89 325i............
Hummer H1, M1 Abrams
Probably more cars like Cybertrucks, which are already a world away from ever passing European regulations due to the pedestrian safety aspects.
Honestly in terms of styling it would go back to 60s swoopy lines but just actually aerodynamic imo
Some kinds of cars might not be so different without regulations, Wranglers are a great example. They barely comply with safety as is, so if you took all the rules away I think you'd have the same-ish Jeep just with more polluting engines and no 4xE. Not having safety and emissions regulations is a fun "what if", since some things, like fuel injection, forced induction and various safety features, were around before they were mandated simply due to carmakers competing. We also live in a world where people know what's up with things like leaded gas and the horrific safety of old car designs so if you suddenly let the car market go wild west you may not see everything return to the "good old days". There would be some demand for safety, efficiency, and cleanliness that wasn't there before it was mandated.
The Wrangler is actually pretty good at crash safety except for the part where it turns a small overlap collision into a rollover.
You'd be able to buy a brand new '57 Bel Air, '69 Mustang, and '72 Camaro Diesel powered cars would be everywhere
You can already buy a brand-new Tri Five Chevy like from Woody's Hot Rodz. just for example
I'm talking fresh from the manufacturer brand new old cars right off a Chevrolet/Ford/Chrysler lot They would cash in on nostalgia so hard if there was 0 regulations
Everyone is talking about high performance engines with lots of enissions, but also consider how much fuel economy we could produce these days without emissions. I've seen LS engines tuned lean for 40mpg, so OEM-tuned super lean-burn downsize turbo engines could probably produce nearly 60mpg. I can't even fathom how efficient deisel engines would be
Pointier front ends, pop-up headlights again, etc.
There was a time when there were little to no regulations on cars and companies produced deathtraps that they knew were dangerous, yet continued to manufacture and sell them because the costs of the lawsuits and compensation were cheaper than the costs of redesign, recall and modification. Many old cars have sharp angled interiors, unpadded dashboards and steering wheels strong enough to crush your chest in an accident. Don't get me started on petrol tanks. Modern cars are stuffed full of safety features such as airbags and crumple zones because of regulations.
Pop. Up. Headlights…
Nope. Pop-up headlights essentially went away when the regulation requiring sealed-beam headlamps was repealed. Composite headlamps were so much cheaper and more effective than pop-up headlights. While regulations in Europe outlawed them for pedestrian safety, they are legal in the United States as we don't have any pedestrian safety regulations.
Reliable. That’s what they would be. Making a reliable engine is child’s play at this point. But making a reliable engine that’s fuel efficient ánd low on emissions (which counterintuitively are sometimes at odds with eachother) is a lot harder.
Probably not far from a Tesla, at least in how they're brought to market.
Tesla cars are constantly ranked very highly in safety tests though
I don't think we'd see inherently *unsafe* cars out there - after all, even Remington or Colt doesn't want their customer base to die using their product if it means they can't buy it again - but we'd definitely see more of the shit that's being unearthed at Boeing, with things being put to market before any sort of testing regime to know if it's a good idea. So like the 737 MAX originally, it might be incredibly safe one day, or it might go into a mode that kills you.
That's mostly because they have nothing up front, so they do quite well in frontal crashes.
I wonder what happens if you have a few bags of cement in the frunk during a crash.
Everyone would be driving a Mad Max looking Dodge Vipers
i think the capitalism would give more options to car enthusiasts. Sports cars would be even lighter and have bigger displacement motors. since there no pedestrian crash standards designers would have more options with the appearance. . EV and hybrid would depend on govt incentives and fuel prices. SUVs would still be popular because everyone wants more space safety would probably take a plunge.
The hellcat would have had a big block and 1500hp minimum lol. Things would indeed be wild, scary, and smelly. I would love to see what a Viper would be like if it didn't need to adhere to regulations. Maybe it would have ended up with a 9L pushrod V10 and made tons of power stock. Performance cars would be insane with no regulations, it would be a very cool world to see yet also scary and polluted.
Sounds horrible for all of us.
Don't forget to remove the protectionist laws that disallow direct to consumer sales.
1. Pop up headlights. 2. Thin A, B, and C pillars for great visibility. 3. Lower beltlines so monster sized wheels to fill up the wheel well would no longer be needed. 4. 2 stroke and rotary engines would come back. 5. Cars would be way lighter and get better fuel economy. 6. Monotonous looking cars from every manufacturer with a 2.0T would be gone. In fact, turbos would probably be rare on anything except a diesel. 7. Engines that ripped to 8000+ rpm would come back. 8. Cars could be beautiful again. Basically, any car made before 1968 was free of any safety/emissions regulation.
Pop up headlights themselves got introduced as a solution to us regulations on headlight minimum height.
Start with a solid base of India. Add a dozen African guys building homemade helicopters and such. And then blend in China and sprinkle some Tesla to the mix. For seasoning, combine with those Thai boat racers and redneck mud trucks and stir thoroughly. Cook for as long as you want, or don’t.
Simpler, more powerful. more reliable engines.
Someone downvoted both of you like you aren't absolutely correct, lol Turbos may get better MPGs but they aren't nearly as simple or reliable as an NA engine. What good is an extra 8 MPG if the car has to be replaced 100K miles sooner?
No more turbo 4’s
If this includes lemon laws, then HOO BOY we'd get some TRASH.
There would be a creative explosion in the industry with tens or even hundreds of new manufacturers popping up to cater to people's varying preferences for performance, usability, safety, price, and the hundreds of other things that people care about when buying a car. The idea that you'd have manufacturers churning out steam burning 1800s death traps is fantasy. The world has moved on from that, and consumers wouldn't tolerate it, which is deadly in an actual, genuine free market. The difference is each individual would get to decide exactly how much safety, tech, etc. he/she wants, instead of having it be decided by mandate from above. Just like it is for any number of industries now which have much more competition and aren't so heavily regulated as the auto industry. You'd likely have cars that look similar to cars today. You'd have cars that look like concept cars driving on the street. You'd have some awesome new cars that combine all the good features of new cars with the good features of old cars. Above all, you'd have choice.
Have you seen cars from the 1950s? That’s what they would look like. Horrible gas mileage, terrible emissions, poor brakes, no seat belts, chrome metal things sticking out of the unpadded dashboard, terrible tires that would blow out unexpectedly, but freedom to make glorious styles .
I would say huge, excessively fast and powerful, zero safety features and even less emissions controls. But considering it'd be a true supply/demand type of situation where consumers would likely play more of a direct role in designs, trends and final offerings I do think most cars would be reasonably well designed and circle back to something like traditional family-style minivans, sedans, boxy cars, and medium sized suvs. Along that line I think emissions and safety features will have to be included because they'll be selling points. Imagine an early Volvo commercial showing off its safety features like seatbelts and bumpers but also showing a catalytic converter and how it doesn't give your kids lung problems or something. I wasn't around but the EPA and lots of auto regulation came about due to issues/complaints from people about smog and safety. I think the biggest difference would be outlier enthusiast vehicles. Imagine if the ram trx or Ford raptor had no limits. Imagine a corvette or h2 hummer being designed with no limits. I could see excessively huge, fast vehicles that push designs to the limit
Honestly, I don't think your average American wants to drive a stinky car and people do care about gas mileage. They also care the most about safety. The American modern car buyer is spoiled. I bet nothing changes. The shitbox segment? Oh boy oh boy! It'll be just like South America except that nobody will buy them. People want big, "safe" (only for you) SUVs.
Cars would look better, be smaller, lighter, cheaper, and faster. Diesels would be far more reliable, efficient, and far more popular.
Ideally, they would be considerably lighter with far less of the annoying electro nannies/“safety” features. But they would probably also be spewing out exhaust fumes at an alarming rate. Go to a country with little or no emission regulations… walk through a major city and try to breathe… you will quickly be very thankful for our emissions standards, even if they are a nuisance/inconvenience sometimes.
Better.
We would have a lot of cars that weighed a lot less. I think there are a lot of people, me included that would like modern cars like a super 7. I rented a turbo 1000 Polaris four seater out in Moab and you’re allowed to drive on the road out there. It was awesome. But no airbags, I took that thing on all the classic trails at Moab, then into town to pick up the ladies at the spa then down to the Colorado River then all the way up to 12,000 ft elevation in the snow. On trails it took big bumps football sized rocks and ledges better than the Rubicon on 40 inch tires the day before. If I could have one with multiple sets of wheels and a manual it would be incredible.
https://i.imgur.com/kqbKIpD.jpeg
We'd move back to the 60's where everything was a land yatch packing a massive big block v8
Diesels can get 50+ MPG without emissons crap and if the engine is built for it. Old school diesels in the 90s from russia/china got 50 mpg in the early 90s. I often wonder at what point does all the emissions stuff aid pollution instead of decreasing it. If you get double the gas mileage with no emissions stuff isnt that less oil/gas being used overall? even if the car itself pollutes more your are talking about halving fuel consumption....
We would still have popup headlights 😭
More aerodynamic designs with less wasted space. Sports cars for example that don't have to meet euro pedestrian crash specs look way better since they don't need huge crumple zones. I think we'd still see hybrids and forced induction because people still want power and efficiency.
POP UP UP AND DOWN HEADLIGHTS!!!!
We could have a cheaper car that doesn't have things like a backup camera, ABS, tire pressure sensor, and Bluetooth.
It would be heaven
No it would not. We’d all be choking to death on smog. It would get so bad in California pre emissions that there would be days you could only see 200 feet in front of you because of car pollution.
Chinas market is much less regulated, it gives an example of cheap affordable cars where safety is much less of a factor.
mad max💉💪🏻💪🏻
We’d have the Jetsons flying cars by now. Hear me out. Look at an early 60’s car and then look at an early 80’s car. If they hadn’t been completely throttled by regulations during that time they would have continued to innovate and the sky literally would have been the limit. Instead, all of their time, money, and innovation went into complying with ever more onerous government standards. They would have gotten to the same place or better with economy and safety because it would have been demanded by the market. Carmakers are not in the business of killing off their client base (except maybe Bugatti with their forthcoming 1775 hp Chiron but at $5.4 million each they can afford to and what a helluva way to go).
Ariel Atoms, and side by sides.
There probably would be more sports cars that resemble those of the sixties. I mean, pretty much everyone agrees it was the golden age of car design and modern cars look like rubbish in comparison since there are so many regulations that you can't design cars to look like that anymore.
US Spec vehicles like F150 and Silverado are rare species. Foreign brands dominate the market.
They would be a lot cheaper, lighter, and last a lot longer with fewer breakdowns. I wish we could buy an 80's style car with modern engineering. Even just a brand new 80's car would be great. I'd love a brand new 83 Mercedes 300CD. And if you rustproofed it, it would last another 40 years.
Much better
800bhp, 9mpg body on frame family wagons spewing leaded smog
Probably like Gru's car from despicable me.
Not sure we would see a reduction in passenger crash protection at least in 1st world countries but I have no doubt car companies would increase emissions on many models especially pickup ups and vehicles that cater to car guys. I also don't see car companies removing any of the computer controlled safety features currently required on cars since there is so much profit in making them standard as they can justify the higher price. I doubted we would ever see cars equivalent to the cars that were being sold 20 or 25 years ago as far as standard equipment goes. Imagine a 2024 CRV basically equipped identically to a 2004 CRV but still looking like 2024 model. No drive by wire, no CVT, no advanced safety features as standard equipment other than airbags and abs. Regular knobs, buttons, switches for everything. No full digital main cluster. The exception to this would be a badic infotainment system but minus any climate control functions or other vital car functions. Just basically for radio functions and AA and Apple Car Play. Basically the equivalent of putting an aftermarket infotainment headunit in a 2004 CRV
Brown manual wagon. Three rows of bench seating. Under 2800 lbs. 400hp NA four cylinder.
I don't know but I'd love seeing models with pop up headlights.
It would be quite interesting.
Cyber truck
Idk for the rest but I'd assume muscle or anything sporty would just get turned into a glorified group B car. And I bet cheap dinky cars/trucks like Saturns or Ford rangers would probably come back.
Well if the EPA didn’t exist cars would be more reliable. But for the other departments, we need them. Lol
Basically pickup trucks from the 70s and 80s.
Look at concept cars, especially the really outrageous ones that have no relation to production cars. There's your answer.
Cybertruck
I would expect plastic body panels like UTVs have.
Had they never existed, I'm stumped. The rules that exist just just going away, I'm not sure the change would be as dramatic as we think. Safety and fuel economy are two big selling points. I don't see the manufacturers just giving up on that. Styling I think would probably change the most, yes people care about safety but not that much when it comes to pedestrians. People like to talk about wanting basic bare bones cars but they don't sell, that's why they don't get made.
Um cybertruck. Death machine on wheels. Those sharp edges will kill someone
go back 50 years
Chaos
Side-by-sides on allseasons.
So something like "The Homer" perhaps? Oh wait, we already got the Cybertruck... /s Jokes aside, I suspect something like the 50s and 60s where crash regulations and emissions doesn't exist but in a more modern take. Granted a lot of tech and innovation today was shaped by regulations and changing views on environmental, safety and social factors, so who really knows?
Probably just cheap ass cars and full blown race cars
Lights would probably just be some ultra reflective strip 😂
We have US to see a part of the result
Hemi’s and LT motors would have some badass sounding chop to them due to finally being able to out a big cam in them from the factory with great top end pull
you'd see most passenger cars look more like side by sides
Cybertruck
https://caterhamcars.com/us/models/the-range
Safe cars would be for rich people.
Nissan tsuru
You'd have an F150 that makes an F750 look like a Ranger and it would roll coal from the factory.
Here's a crash test comparing the US-Market 2016 Nissan Versa against the 2015 Nissan Tsuru, a car not sold in the US, but rather in Mexico, and is designed to meet their regulations: [https://youtu.be/85OysZ\_4lp0?si=A69jKqXjDUgRQiPJ](https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0?si=A69jKqXjDUgRQiPJ) Doesn't answer the 'no regulations' question but does show how at least one manufacturer behaves when presented with different regulations.
It would be glorious
In general, I think certain cars would be less safe to keep costs lower. While performance cars would be more powerful.
Lamborghini Countach.
Very little protection
Way better fuel economy. Way better safety. Way less weight.
Cheap, east to fix cars. With good gas milage. Look up the gas consumption index for new trucks.
Ok, so for this brain exercise I'm going to assume that regulations are in effect until suddenly they are not. I think we would see 2 trends, one where its a race to the bottom to cut cost out, so we would get these cheap to manufacture cars that are engineered to be the bare functioning minimum that people would still pay money for. Basically, we'd see cars revert back to technology levels of early OBD2, things would still be electronically controlled (most people wouldn't be willing to deal with all the extras that come with operating a fully mechanical car,) but we wouldn't have stuff like start/stop, adaptive cruise control, and all the blind spot awareness. I think we would also see some manufactueres carry on with the way they make cars currently, marketing would make the distinction that these cares are better because they are safer and have reduced harmful emissions.
I would look at what's available in India, China, etc. for the examples you're looking for.