I think Ford still hasn't solved its Dealer Problem that it currently would not have dealers willing to sell a $30k EV truck in the US.
Many of the biggest shareholders of both GM and Ford are their respective dealers. Shamefully this conflict of interest and reversal of some key controls is deeply entrenched in the US all the way back to the original lawsuit Dodge Brothers v Ford, which is also the dark origin of phrases like "fiduciary duty to shareholders", where then dealer network and automotive supply chain moguls the Dodge Brothers sued Ford for wanting to take record profits and reinvest them in R&D and asked that Ford give a record dividend instead (as its "fiduciary duty to shareholders"). They used that dividend to help finance their rival Dodge car manufacturer. In hindsight it is such a bizarre sequence of conflicts of interest that we're still dealing with the consequences of today (in how it created such quarterly earnings-focused myopia in US corporations), including specifically in the various ways that GM and Ford can't easily create a "startup" with no dealer network to stay competitive in EVs, why both are generally starved of R&D money compared to "startup" competitors, and also it all relates to why they are "too big to fail" given how much of the US economy is built on top of conflicts of interest and overlaps between them, their dealers, their supply chain, and their shareholders.
It’s protectionism all the way down I guess.
Though I see tons of US pickup trucks in the Netherlands, and have seen even lifted ones in Germany too for that matter.
Away from US bases, pickup trucks are very rare in Germany. The closest thing you will see are 3-ton flatbed trucks as work vehicles, or something like a VW Transporter. But generally tradespeople prefer vans, and commuters prefer hatchbacks or SUVs (which are bad enough)
https://etsc.eu/concerns-over-loopholes-allowing-american-pi...
Anyway, my point was that you can buy American trucks in Europe right now, so op may be able to get this $30k Ford.
For what it's worth, I have a big soft spot for trucks with long beds and normal-height hoods! Something like a Chevy S10 or 90's Tacoma is really useful! I just don't like biking with my kids by drivers who can't seem them.
Is there a good international metric for how much a given country’s car buyers pay extra due to tariffs, duties, protectionist regulation, et cetera?
Protectionism when I don't like it, public safety when I do I guess.
In any case, they're pretty easy to register if you don't lick the boot. Whatever state you're in typically isn't gonna come after you for tax evasion for an object they aren't in the business of taxing if you catch my drift.
Not OP but I don't. What do you mean? How do you make the kei truck an object they aren't in the business of taxing when they are, in fact, in that very business? Or maybe I have some deeper confusion about the issue here.
I think they mean it’s easier than many of us suspect to register an imported car as something close enough and get away with it. The most challenging bit would probably be maintenance.
Even if some Karen narcs on you to the tax man unless it's an especially slow day the tax man will say something along the lines of "It's a what? We don't register those"
The registration/tax people aren't in the business of giving a shit about the nuances of the vehicle code. They're in the business of collecting money. It's not like you're dodging meaningful fees on an entire truck fleet. You're dodging what would be a zero to them since they'd never let you register it. What are they gonna do send you one of those "we believe you owe us X, pay up or we'll use the full force of the state to fucking stomp you and ruin your life" letters with X= $0. I'm sure they'll get right on that.
If it's cheap enough or fun enough, it might be worth the risk; but I don't know that I would risk it.
I know someone who got pulled over, and then a ticket for driving in California with washington plates and changing 3 lanes at once. "Anybody who drives like that must live here"
Not sure what a kei car would be doing on a freeway 3 lanes over though.
> American buyers who want Japanese kei trucks.
Eh, if you aren’t doing a lot of highway driving, I think this could be fine? Especially in a city where collisions should be low speed.
Put another way—and this is a genuine question—is the person who wants a Kei truck better off spending tens of thousands of dollars more for safety rather than investing that in their health, happiness or education?
More safety, always, is usually a feel-good measure. If people aren’t trading in their old cars for the newer, safer ones, because the latter are too expensive, it’s not actually helping people. Same if the cheapest car someone can get for their commute is bankrupting them.
> Kei Vehicles are not compliant with U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Therefore, they are not “street legal.” Kei Vehicles are barred from titling and registration.
Thus, we can conclude that FMVSS prevents a race-to-the-bottom in vehicular safety for cars in the US. Honestly, I expect all highly developed nations to have similar rules. Why? For the safety of children, more than anything. Even if a parent wants to drive an unsafe car, most societies will prioritise the safety of child passengers over the "liberty" of the parent/owner/driver.
1. Seat belts - pretty sound investment. 2. Air Bags - excellent investment. 3. Crumple zones - outstanding investment. 4. ABS - outstanding investment. 5. Backup cameras - not worth the money if you don't value the lives of small kids. 6. Lane sensors - pretty handy, especially as your reflexes start to slow with age.
Why aren't performance improvements scrutinized the same way? How often are huge trucks given a pass despite never having anything in their truckbeds?
Stop getting your technical info from ideologues in the reddit comments. Each of those investments is an order of magnitude less valuable than the first.
Wear your seatbelt. That's 90% of the battle.
Crumple zones in particular punch below their weight class and are grossly misunderstood on the internet. Their primary purpose is to let the front of the car hit something before the cabin starts decelerating to buy time for airbag deployment. Force absorption is a secondary nice to have. They only make a meaningful difference to the forces in the cabin at a narrow range of speed.
Side curtain airbags punch above their weight class though because there's not much else to help you in that direction of movement.
ABS is pretty meh. It only really beats the operator by enough to matter in specific situations.
If your reflexes are so bad that the lane keeping is what's keeping you in the lane there's other problems.
I'm not gonna pick apart every one of these improvements and they do add value. But they do not add the amount of value you are acting like they do.
>Why aren't performance improvements scrutinized the same way? How often are huge trucks given a pass
Because you're simping vehicular safety theater. So where the dollars and cents actually matter, commercial trucks bought by commercial interests who can push back, what gets adopted is actually based on what's real vs emotion driven screeching. Like for example semi trailers got ABS real early. It's extra valuable in applications where weight changes a lot.
>despite never having anything in their truckbeds?
Because the 2nd row of your car gets so much ass?
That has nothing to do with actual consumer preference and everything to do with regulatory capture.
Its less than 10x
Sure, technically some would call the vehicle you linked a pickup, and technically German law still identifies the consumer pickup truck as a nutzfahrzeug instead of a PKW, but it doesn’t feel like you’re making a best effort to meet GP in the middle.
For what it’s worth, that horsepower is billed for towing.
the horsepower is for phallic compensation reasons
Does this relate with your experience? It sounds like your perspective is broader than mine and more informed.
Edit: oof two downvotes for trying to have a conversation and expand my understanding of a culture. Vielen dank.
0: definition for the English speakers: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eierlegende_Wollmilchsau
But the variation in horsepower is still there. It's not like cars with 300 HP are forbidden in Germany. It's just that they need to fit in the continuum. The 300HP BMW is the CEO's car, and its existence is justified by the fact that the other top managers drive the 200HP version which is otherwise almost the exact same car, which are in turn justified by the fact that the middle managers drive the 120HP version, and if you're a new-hire individual contributor then anything more than 90HP would cause a scandal if word got out. (I'm painting a mental picture here; obviously not making a universal claim).
I think that culture is part of the reason why a $30k electric pickup truck would ruffle feathers so much, and it's a particularly stupid reason, but I think it's real.
The "Kastenwagen" example from above escapes that calculus by clearly being something that stands completely outside of any established continuum of this kind. The rare Ford Mustang or imported Dodge RAM that you sometimes see in Germany is similarly socially/politically acceptable on the grounds that it would either be expensive as hell, or a car buff's hobby. Both of those cases mean the owner has duly paid for their ticket to the high-horsepower social club (either financially, or by having a respectable hobby and putting in the work), whereas a $30k electric pickup that you can just buy would come across as "cheating the system".
Video: https://youtu.be/1OgN_qctcGs
I don't know that that's true. Van popularity comes and goes. So does van manufacturing. When van sales are high, we get more makes, when sales slump, some of the exit. People who buy vans don't like to buy new ones unless the old one is totalled or falls apart...
I don't think you can buy a Ford or Chevy minivan right now, but Honda, Toyota and Chrysler usually have one. VW has one now, too. I just missed the window to a get Ford Transit Connect when my 2017 Pacific died, so I ended up with an 81 VW Vanagon... But I also have a pickup with a 6 foot bed. Sometimes you want your load enclosed; sometimes outside is better.
The other key lesson from the Skunkworks book, which is applicable, is that to the greatest degree possible, one should not reinvent the wheel. Reuse parts from other high production vehicles, which have proven their reliability. Focus the innovation tactically.
Pepperidge Farm remembers the $19,995 MSRP Ford Maverick with its standard hybrid drivetrain. Missed my chance to buy one, watched the price bloat out and nope.
You’d be hard pressed to find any new vehicle that hasn’t seen a significant price increase since that time.
It’s still a truck you can get for $26k-28k and is only about $3k more than the cheapest cars sold in America.
I think your sentiment is an understandable bit of cynicism around EVs, and one that US consumers have felt for a while. It seems like the whole concept of the EV is dead. Nobody wants it, carmakers are pulling back.
Meanwhile, EVs are exploding in popularity and value basically all the other markets outside of the United States.
In my opinion, the idea that a good and affordable EV product will not become mainstream is sticking around because American car buyers have been starved of new EV models due to a market of weak demand and revoked incentives. This is going to change soon, and this change will hit the consumer market relatively suddenly. A lot of the cost challenges with EVs have evaporated.
In other words, yeah, Ford is easily going to make a $30,000 EV pickup. I totally believe it.
Remember when Toyota said they’re done bothering with EVs? Then all of a sudden the 2026 bz refresh is a legit EV, and now the new Lexus ES is launching with the EV model being the highest performance and cheapest model.
The Rivian R2 is yet another huge deal about to launch on the premium side of the market. I’d have a hard time figuring out why what I would choose something like a gasoline BMW X3 over the R2 - they’re pretty much in the same price range.
In other words, the era of EVs costing $10-20k more than an equivalent gasoline car is abruptly ending.
That said, when they tried this in the past they did it by changing the sticker price to $65k+. So, color me skeptical.
You see the cybertruck, because you can't help it.
Meanwhile the F-150 lightning outsold the cybertruck.
Makes sense with so many ex-Tesla people there.
Looks like ford will only be ~5 years behind if they can pull it off
https://www.core77.com/posts/139132/Toyotas-Brilliant-Plan-t...
Their state has a serious incentive to ship out cheap cars to destroy the automotive industry in the US and the EU for example. When that happens they can double the price on all their vehicles and you can't restart your car factories to compete with them again until years down the line.
With Huawei its about telecom equipment which is essential in today's age, with TikTok it's about controlling the narrative, also essential.
Yes, US and EU manufacturers need to innovate and be less greedy but the cost to make things will always be higher than in China so even though protectionism sounds bad, you'll always have some of that around to even the playing field.
In the middle of this was Jack Welch's "destroy your business dot com", which is still highly controversial. But he did at least recognize that running a big ossified business in a time of change was going to need a massive kick to get everyone out of their complacency (and if not, out of their jobs!). Cannibalize your own legacy business, or some competitor will.
I think this is a serious problem in existing car companies. They attach too much prestige and career to being "petrolheads", or simply working in the engine division; after all, that's the most expensive to develop and least easy to substitute part of the car. The EV transition threatens to sweep that all away. Probably most of the EU manufacturers won't really get on board until those people retire.
There's probably a whole other essay that could be written about labour relations and the decline of mass car manufacture in the UK while we retain a lot of high-end boutique expertise (Formula 1 etc).
Anyway, I have an EV on order from FCA Poland, so we'll see how that turns out.
You speak as-if they didn't create EVs. It's just that most of the European EV platforms were resounding failures, be it CLAR, CLAR II (BMW), MEA1 & MEA2, (Mercedes), J1 (Porsche), e-tron (Audi), MEB (VW), of these MEB is pretty much the only one that turned around to generate some kind of volume, but that took many years. Sales numbers for all of these are way below predictions, we're not talking about a 50% miss here. I don't know how much a car architecture costs to develop, but I'd wager it is not a cheap endeavor. Between that and the comparatively large number of battery-related EV recalls these projects probably represent double-digit billions of losses for the European car industry. This seems realistic given the widely publicized $20bn Ford EV write-down. So given these enormous sunk costs and yet they're still somewhat investing in EVs doesn't read to me like they're not trying to compete on EVs. If that were the case, they'd just cut their losses, or done so years ago.
That's where all those European battery factories that were announced a couple years ago went: Consumers do not buy EVs anywhere near the expected volume and therefore there is no demand to finance such factories. The handful of batteries needed for the low volumes of EV production are easily sourced from existing factories and the rest is imported from China.
Stellantis/PSA doesn't appear in this story because they never went beyond compliance car EVs (i.e. their "let's stuff a 50 kWh gross battery and the cheapest electric drive we can buy from a supplier into an ICE chassis" approach).
OK so the billion Euro question is: why not? Tesla seem to be making adequate sales in Europe. China has passed 50% EVs as new sales. Norway (in Europe, but not the EU) is approaching 100%.
Is it simply price? Of the car, and/or electricity?
The EU was originally proposing to phase out ICE in 2035, which is now less than 10 years away!
> compliance car EVs (i.e. their "let's stuff a 50 kWh gross battery
I had noticed that all the Stellantis EVs have desperately bad range. I guess that's why they're showing up for cheap leasing offers to meet compliance.
But that's what I mean. It's an intentionally half-assed product. Only the recent Renault 5 and VW ID series cars feel like serious market entrants rather than "will this do?"
BYD and Tesla are popular in the UK, but not EU manufacturers. Why? Product? Price?
“Those damn pesky artists still painting by hand. We need to wait for them to die out to let the stable diffusion guys take over and then we will be number one!”
I know what I said. Engines are an art.
Long ago hand painters used cadmium yellow. It may be art, but it's also poisonous. Same for Napoleon and his arsenic wallpaper. In the end, same for CO2-emitting engines.
Some engines maybe. Your average 1.5 TFSI is the equivalent of drawing corporate memphis clipart for a paycheck, no one is pouring their passion into that. Maybe not so bad if it gets replaced by an EV/AI.
What is this?
Interesting takeaway is everything on there (smart homes, integrated financial media and trading, etc.) eventually happened, not by GE, except the GE Capital stuff, which wound up a disaster. So the signal to look for in AI is folks deploying levered balance sheets directly to consumers. Which I don’t think we’re directly seeing, outside OpenAI.
Complete protectionism doesn't work because it makes your own manufacturers non-competitive on the global stage.
The problem is this is really hard to objectively measure.
> Complete protectionism doesn't work because it makes your own manufacturers non-competitive on the global stage.
Yes - and this is a problem Detroit has been struggling with since Japan got decent at cars. The recent wave of protectionism is backing them into the dead end.
It actually began a few months ago regarding solar panels and batteries [1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/china-...
Frankly, what are they if not power delivery/generation - which is always defined as such.
Chinese imports and local manufacture should be able to compete in the "free market". It's just that that term has been heavily debased by idiots misusing it, like everything else.
Now the government has ordered massive development of electric cars, to push down prices to loss making levels. In a few years, a lot of chinese elctric car manufacturers will close down, just like what happened with solar.
The trick here for the west, is to copy china, and once the internal bubble bursts, launch its own companies in solar and e-cars based on copied chinese technology.
The hunter has truly become the hunted!
Actually I know why it's different, I was just doing an online knee jerk response the difference is that western capitalism has a hands-off (but regulated) approach, letting the companies do their own thing. China and their companies are much more involved. I'm sure the US was a lot more directly involved in setting the directions of its industry in decades past, but since then the industry and stock market took over the reins.
Another factor may be that in the west, workers have more rights, unionized, and set their own boundaries. But they were also constrained - what would've happened if someone at Ford 10, 15 years ago said "I want to develop an EV?". In the US, it took a new company (Tesla with a heap of investor money) to make strides in that area. But because Tesla didn't have any actual experience in making cars, they reinvented the wheel and are (from what I gathered) still building sub-standard cars.
If an experienced company like Ford or VAG set aside money and resources to reinvent the car every once in a while they would've been able to keep up. As it stands, all the existing car companies bolted a battery and engine to their existing models, turning their cars into some weird frankenstein of 20+ year old car electronics, electric drives, and entertainment systems because they didn't have what it takes to design a car from scratch.
They also tried to min/max and moved a lot of production to China; short-term that was a benefit, especially VAG was the biggest car manufacturer / seller over there, until they caught up and overtook them in very short order.
> Tesla ... are (from what I gathered) still building sub-standard cars.
this is called: sensible state industrial policy
Just read their five year plans. Not the 'yellow peril' fearmongering, just go to source and make your own mind up. The Chinaman is not out to get you. In fact, until recently, he looked up to you and had the open hand of friendship. He made you many beautiful things and you didn't say thank you, you wittered on about 'stolen IP' (from your stolen land, and it wasn't even your IP, not personally).
China is in no urgency to supply their fine electric cars to the 5% that consider themselves to be American. Why would you? The most litigious place going, with the cheap gas, sinophobia, tariffs and special dealership rules. There is no 'rug pull' either, you are on the 'rug pull' now, with US/EU vehicles costing a fortune. Chinese cars offer savvy consumers a way off, to the sensible land of great value cars.
What you are failing to understand is that, internally, China is hyper competitive, with no rent-seeking class and no settled in mono-duo-trio-polies to stifle all innovation, as per the West. What emerges from the brutal competition of the free market in China (free from rent seeking monopolists) is super-good when it makes it to the wider world.
Huawei kit was just too good, plus the backdoors for five eyes weren't in it, so it had to go. Do you honestly think they had 'communist' backdoors to key infrastructure they were selling into the West, to be scrutinised by armies of security engineers? They are not stupid.
As for the costs being higher in the West, that is just rent seeking, not workers getting paid more, just having more rent/mortgage to pay due to the class of rent seekers the West upholds as 'smart' when they are just parasites, in a financialised economy that is broken.
The UK used to have a special BT+Huawei+MI6 joint office where the kit was subject to inspection. I never heard of anything confirmed coming out of there, and the thing seems to have vanished from the internet. So I suspect the order to phase out Huawei was similarly politically motivated.
The party elites and their families are all billionaires!
> One must admit that Jiaqi Liang, senior director of electrical hardware at Ford's Advanced EV team went to Tsinghua University.
I found his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiaqi-liang-6a653b1b/
It looks like after Tsinghua Uni, he moved to the United States and attended Georgia Tech to get a Master's and PhD. Further, he has worked his entire professional career in the United States and has never worked for a Chinese company.
If someone tries to tell you that these are somehow morally different, and one of them is the good guy and the other is the bad guy, they are pushing propaganda, knowingly or unknowingly.
A lot of these vehicles rely on OTA updates or are controlled through apps. This essentially means the manufacturer controls them. Imagine the consequences if half the vehicles in your country stopped working, or became unsafe? Do you really want to hand this power to a foreign country?
The thing is, this problem exists regardless of who the manufacturer is, and using nationalism to make it about China disguises the real problem. Tiktok didn't magically become safe or unsafe when it was divested.
But it's all capitalist forces, because while in theory new companies could start that make basic / offline / affordable / maintainable / reliable cars (and tractors, and everything else), there is simply not enough demand making them non-starters.
It's like people (on here) asking for open phone platforms or phones with smaller screens; they're a minority. Most people do not care.
> It's like people (on here) asking for open phone platforms or phones with smaller screens; they're a minority. Most people do not care.
That is partly because most people do not understand the benefits of open phone platforms. This is a lot easier to understand and similar issues have gained traction: e.g. sovereign cloud is much discussed now.
China has no legs to stand on in a mortality debate. I’m not exactly of fan of things in the US recently either for the record
Edit: forgot to mention Taiwan as well as the Hong Kong protests. Recently individuals and an Artist were arrested in China for trying to remember those passed.
Their cars are probably better than US ones, but they are not free of the taint of genocide.
Edit: and that's not counting their aggressive territorial expansion in the South China Sea and their threats against Taiwan.
- Keep the war going in Myanmar with terrible results for the population of one of the biggest and most populous countries in the world. You just don't hear about it because no journalist goes there. - Keeping North Korea in the saddle whereas they could have gently pushed for improvements. - Keeping the war in Ukraine going. If Chinese leadership has any moral ambition, they could stop the war quickly. But they don't. Their own agenda comes first, as is the case with any superpower.
But yes man I would buy a BYD immediatey and it pisses me off to no end that hey are 5x more expensive in Europe than in China. I guess the whole morality of free trade was only 'good' as long as it benefited us.
One things for sure: somehow Japanese cars aren't in the mix at all (the experience of trying to even see the bz4x at a Toyota dealer felt like the dealer was unhappy I was even there to see it).
The issue is that Slate has completely underestimated customer preference for four door vehicles.
Two door vehicle variants have absolutely died off in the market and I’d say with good reason.
Find a two door Jeep Wrangler. You’ll find 20-30 four door jeeps before you find a two door.
Can you even imagine in 2026 the idea of an Accord Coupe, a Camry Solara, Volkswagen Eos/Cabriolet, Ford Explorer/Bronco 2-door, Civic Coupe, Ford ZX2, Chevy Cavalier 2-door, the list just goes on and on.
Back in the day chopping off two doors was a semi-legitimate way to get a barebones base model or I guess look cooler or something. Honestly, I don’t understand how the practicality trade-off ever made sense.
Maybe in the days before heavily automated assembly lines, two door vehicles were legitimately cheaper to make?
People looking for a four door will walk away from a two door, and people looking for a two door will grudgingly accept it? Because either you get a small four door truck, or you pay for a f-150 cause you can still get that with two doors... but not if you want any of the neat features... no electric single cable f-150, no single cab f-150 with the generator output. (at least when I last looked)
But if part of the pitch for the Slate is it shouldn't be very long, you can't put four doors and have any bed left. Unless you go cabover, but I don't know how many people would consider a cabover these days... VW and Toyota vans were cabover through the 80s, but I don't know how you pass safety tests when the drivers knees are the crumple zone.
The other thing is that a four door truck has both interior and exterior cargo space. If you have a two door truck you don’t have a place to put significant cargo in a place with locking doors. If you have a four door Ford Maverick you can lift the rear seats and stick a lot of luggage back there in the locked area rather than in the bed.
Essentially, you buy a Maverick and you get all the benefits of two types of vehicles.
I can buy a Slate with 2 doors and the price is under $30k which is awesome. But if I buy an F-150 for $40-45k it has 6 seats (front bench option) and it can be my primary family vehicle that replaces a minivan. It can also tow a trailer with significant weight or hold 1,000 pounds of gravel in the bed since it’s a body on frame half ton truck.
The reason the Ford Maverick doesn’t offer a two door is exactly the same: the primary buyer is using it for all the things you’d use a 4 door SUV or sedan for.
I don’t think the buyer of the Slate exists in significant quantities. Even work trucks seem to be purchased in 4 door variants often so you can fit a crew of workers inside. That’s what they’re called a “crew cab.”
In most places if I need a long bed I can just get a longer vehicle. I have a family member with an F-250 that has the extended cab and the 8 foot bed. Yeah, it’s a huge truck. But they don’t live in New York City or Chicago, and the length of their vehicle is never a problem. But what is a problem is if they can’t fit drywall in the bed, they can’t lock up their gear in the back seat, and they can’t carry four people in the vehicle.
If the market for the Slate existed there would be 2-door variants of the Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, and Ford Maverick already on the market.
I did over 100k kilometers in two/three door vehicles. Back seat never had any passengers in them. Meanwhile it was easier to get into my car, visibility was better and the car overall looked better. Less things to break. Less weight. In my specific vehicle the three door variant had pillarless windows.
No downsides for me.
For ease of getting into the car, consumers clearly prefer the crossover SUV as the king of in/out ease.
For having less things to break and having a lighter car, I’m not sure those things are very common buyer sentiments as they relate to a four doors. I’ve never had anything related to my door break. The weight of my vehicle has never impacted me. I don’t even know how much my vehicle weighs.
As far as visibility, that’s just something where older cars always win out because of differences in crash and rollover safety standards.
Vehicle weight in many countries is important for tax, registration, insurance, fuel economy.
obviously 5 doors cars will suit bigger number of users, but many people just don't care
I mean my mother has some small Yaris which has 5 doors, but the back seat (height/head space) is so small I can't sit there anyway, so what's the point...
Btw. I am pretty sure cabriolets are still being produced, so are coupes, and obviously these are always 2 doors cars, those are not very good examples supporting your statement.
Also the new Suzuki Jimny was at release sold out for months/years in preorders.
However, if you are bringing up about the Jimny I assume you are not thinking in the context of the US or European market (the Jimny was largely pulled from Europe since it couldn’t meet emissions standards, and Suzuki does not sell cars in the US/Canadian market).
In the US there basically aren’t any 2 door vehicles outside of specialty or performance cars. Similar to the station wagon situation, they’re almost all imported from Europe and from brands like BMW and Audi.
There’s a long list of discontinued vehicles in the rear view mirror.
The only new 2-door vehicle released that I can think of is the Ford Bronco and the new Honda Prelude that is just coming out, which Honda has already made a statement saying it’s a low volume vehicle (it’s a very unappealing vehicle, basically a very expensive non-performance coupe).
Brands that no longer sell any convertible in the US that once did:
Acura, Audi, Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Lincoln, Mitsubishi, Nissan, RAM/Dodge, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo
Brands that no longer sell a 2/3 door that once did:
Acura, Audi, Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Genesis, Hyundai, Infiniti, Jaguar, Kia, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mitsubishi, Ram, Volkswagen, Volvo
So far their manufacturing and progress videos are quite impressive. The fact there's 25-50+ basically production-ready prototypes if not more now driving around their factory and doing testing compared to most of the other vaporware companies out there has me holding out strong.
(How many Elios are out there doing testing? How many TELOs? Oof.)
edit: just for the record I am their fan and wishing them well, but I am too old for fairy tales unless the product is in market