{"id":8602,"date":"2025-12-25T12:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T12:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/25\/trump-wants-to-bring-japans-cute-tiny-cars-to-america-but-it-may-not-be-easy-nbcnews-com\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T12:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T12:19:13","slug":"trump-wants-to-bring-japans-cute-tiny-cars-to-america-but-it-may-not-be-easy-nbcnews-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/25\/trump-wants-to-bring-japans-cute-tiny-cars-to-america-but-it-may-not-be-easy-nbcnews-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump wants to bring Japan’s ‘cute’ tiny cars to America \u2014 but it may not be easy – nbcnews.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s all the truck he needs \u2014 one that picks up a new mattress from the furniture store, takes him to work and has ample space for groceries.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people have way more truck than they will ever use,\u201d said David McChristian, 37, a firefighter from Houston. \u201cI don\u2019t need a Ford F-150 that can tow 5,000 pounds.\u201d <\/p>\n

Called \u201ckei\u201d cars, they\u2019re tiny, lightweight, low-powered and low-noise. But as low-key as they are, they\u2019re as ubiquitous on rural Japanese streets, fitting in small garages or on the side of a street. <\/p>\n

McChristian is not their only fan. President Donald Trump has praised the trucks \u2014 and wants to replicate their success as U.S. cars soar in price and swell in size.<\/p>\n

A Daihatsu kei truck typically costs around $10,000 in Japan, a quarter of what an F-150 costs. It\u2019s also half the size and comes with an engine of around 60 horsepower, compared with the over 300 horsepower engines that power most F-150s. <\/p>\n

Trump saw the trucks firsthand while visiting Japan in October <\/strong>and has since talked about bringing the phenomenon to the U.S. \u201cThey\u2019re very small. They\u2019re really cute. And I said, how would that do in this country?\u201d he told reporters in the Oval Office on Dec. 3. <\/p>\n

Two days later, he said he had \u201cjust approved TINY CARS to be built in America.\u201d He wrote on Truth Social<\/a>: \u201cThese cars of the very near future are inexpensive, safe, fuel efficient and, quite simply, AMAZING!!!\u201d <\/p>\n

But getting kei cars on American roads in bigger numbers is an enormous challenge, experts have said, in part because they lack safety features, and because Americans lean toward larger vehicles that prioritize comfort on long-distance journeys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Small vehicles in Ichinomiya, Japan, in 2024.<\/span>CFOTO via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s easy to want to drive one of these cute kei cars. It\u2019s another thing to put your family in them and travel down the highway at 70 mph between a Suburban and an F-150,\u201d said Tifani Sadek, director of the University of Michigan Law School\u2019s Law and Mobility Program.<\/p>\n

Taking their name from the Japanese word \u201ckei-jid\u014dsha,\u201d which means a light truck, kei cars were developed after World War II to stimulate Japan’s automotive industry and encourage car ownership, with the vehicles qualifying for lower road taxes and insurance premiums. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re not a brand by themselves, but rather a vehicle class \u2014 restrained by size and power \u2014 manufactured by several Japanese companies, including Honda, Suzuki and Daihatsu. Both gas and electric variants are available. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Japanese government has actively promoted kei cars as part of its national policy,\u201d said Shigeru Matsumoto, an economics professor at the Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. \u201cAlthough kei cars are not well-suited for long-distance driving, they are frequently used for daily errands.\u201d<\/p>\n

In rural Japan where roads are narrow, these compact cars are often purchased as a second vehicle and are particularly popular among women, Matsumoto said.<\/p>\n

They remain a rare sight in the U.S., but demand for imports has steadily increased, Japanese export data shows, partly due to cheaper maintenance and lower running costs. <\/p>\n

McChristian said he bought his for $900 at an auction in Japan nearly three years ago. Even after paying another $2,500 in shipping fees, he said, \u201cyou\u2019re not going to find anything in the new or used U.S. market that has so much utility and reliability for such a low price.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are bigger hurdles than just consumer behavior for hopes of kei cars breaking into the U.S. market. The cars fall short of federal vehicle safety standards, with many lacking even air bags. That means getting a hand on one is difficult, with imports only allowed under an exemption for cars more than 25 years old. <\/p>\n

Even then, a patchwork of state laws take differing approaches to their use, with some states barring them from public roads or restricting them to low-speed neighborhood streets. Lone Star Kei, an advocacy group of which McChristian is president, has fought for legal changes in Texas and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s interest in kei cars appears to be about manufacturing similar small-sized cars in the U.S. <\/strong>rather than easing the process of importing them from Japan. <\/p>\n

Among the major kei car manufacturers, few have existing large-scale car manufacturing operations in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Mike Smitka, emeritus professor of economics at Washington and Lee University, pointed out the decline in sales of existing small cars across the U.S., adding that there was a \u201creal barrier on the cost side of manufacturers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would have to make a car from scratch at the assembly plant level that would meet U.S. specifications, because retrofitting is brutally expensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A U.S.-manufactured kei-style car would easily soar past the typical $10,000 price tag in Japan, Smitka and others say. <\/p>\n

Legal hurdles to a kei-style revolution could theoretically be swept away if Congress amends the Safety Act or passes new legislation encouraging their use.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not holding my breath on this one,\u201d Sadek said.<\/p>\n

Another pathway would be for the federal government to update safety standards, but Sadek said that \u201cchanging a federal rule simply takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if those changes are made, hopes of U.S. cities filled with kei cars seem distant. <\/strong>\u201cThe reality is that this type of car would be in almost every case of the second or third car the American family would own,\u201d Thomas Prusa, an economics professor at Rutgers University, said.<\/p>\n

There could be a case to be made for dense cities like New York or Chicago or retirement communities in Florida, which have already adopted golf carts, to use such cars, Prusa said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou could imagine how much easier New York City transportation would be if all New Yorkers were driving substantially smaller vehicles,\u201d he said. \u201cI just don’t see in the United States that this fits right currently with the American culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mithil Aggarwal is a Hong Kong-based reporter\/producer for NBC News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dec. 25, 2025, 5:00 AM EST It’s all the truck he needs \u2014 one that picks up a new mattress from the furniture store, takes him to work and has ample space for groceries. \u201cMost people have way more truck than they will ever use,\u201d said David McChristian, 37, a firefighter from Houston. \u201cI don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}