Why can Europeans buy a Toyota Yaris with a 3 cylinder 1 litre engine(with 40% better Hwy fuel economy), but not North Americans? Why does the Chev Aveo get the same fuel economy as a Chev Cavalier? I simply cannot understand why Detroit and foriegn automakers are flooding the North American market with Gas guzzlers, when they sell the same models overseas but with much more fuel efficient engines? What is going on here? My 1997 Geo Metro was rated at 66MPG (cdn) and the best Hwy fuel economy of any current non-hybrid, small car is the Yaris at 51MPG (cdn). North Americans are getting taken to the cleaners by car makers and big oil.

The automakers might tell you that not many in the U.S. would buy a 3 cylinder car and they might be right. When they sell so many pickup trucks and SUVs in the U.S., it does not look like customer preference is for small fuel efficient cars.

The sales of big gas guzzlers are declining rapidly despite billions of $$ spent to convince consumers otherwise. An inexpensive car that gets 60MPG would be a big hit right now. Hydrids are selling really well, and many of them have small engines but the choice is always between overpriced hybrids or inexpensive cars that get terrible fuel economy compared with similar sized cars that were available in the 1990s.

Customers determine what cars are manufactured, if majority of americans want drive pick-up trucks, they will drive pick-up trucks, unless goverment puts 3 USD per gallon tax on petrol. It's free market economy, no communist run Soviet Union, ruled by mandates. Unless we want to be ruled by mandates and give-up our liberties.

They could easily put a fee on all pickups not used for work. People that buy pickups for work in California register them with commercial licenses. Those without commercial licenses would pay an increased fee. Since more than 1 million pickup trucks are sold each year and not many of them are used commerically, this would reduce that number. But this would not be politically popular.