Normally, I'm of the libertarian bent. You can do any damn fool thing you want to as long as it doesn't affect me.
Nobody needs a license to drive. No vehicle needs a registration to run. As long as you're running on your property, you should be able to do whatever you want.
The big problem with cars is that they run on a road system shared by many users, and there is a contractual obligation amongst all road users to follow those rules. Those contractual obligations are set by the government, which serves as oversight for those roads.
Don't want to meet those obligations, then don't use the roads.
It's really that simple, and nothing to do with control.
Every action you take that goes against those obligations increases the cost for everyone else using communal property... whether it be in terms of road repair, insurance costs or the cost of enforcement (police and emergency response to accidents, etcetera).
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Now, if you want exemption from some of those rules, on the basis that your exemption will be for the good of all, then you can put a proposal to a vote.
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Or, contrawise, vote with your wallet. If you can get a hundred thousand people a year to buy the "tiny", "underpowered" Mirage... then perhaps manufacturers will be more keen to send more of the same your way.
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It's actually kind of sad that you can't get Kei cars in the US. And eventually, you might not be able to get them anywhere.
Keis are simply too small to sell outside of Japan. They sell like gangbusters inside because the taxes on anything non-Kei are ridiculous. But absent of any market-distorting taxes, they're not competitive against the global A-Class. We get variants of Japanese Keis here from Toyota and Suzuki, but they rebuild them with bigger bodies and engines to meet market demand.
And it's hurting the Japanese. There are complaints that money spent engineering Kei cars is money wasted, since they can't sell them anywhere outside of Japan.
Japan is now trying to close that gap. They're raising taxes on Kei cars. Methinks they could simply better the situation by making taxes a flat value tax and let the market decide what it wants.
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It would be nice if we could buy Kei cars officially outside Japan... but I doubt it'll ever happen. Shame. I rather like the new Honda N-One. And at $9.7k in Japan, it's not all that expensive.