Whatever Happened To The Affordable Car?

April 16, 2026

By

Steve Hanley

Most of us have forgotten how the Big Three snookered the Obama administration into creating two classes of fuel economy standards — one for passenger cars and another for light trucks. In theory, the light truck provision was to benefit farmers who needed them to get their goods to market, but the automakers used that exception to create a whole new class of vehicles that were never intended to work for a living, The SUV originally was little more than a pickup truck with a passenger car body on top. The companies promised the Obamans they would use the bailouts offered them to build new fuel efficient small cars, but as soon as the ink was dry, they forgot all about those promises and went full tilt boogie into cranking out high end pickups and SUVs.