What buyers want to buy and what can be sold profitably are two different things.   I could sell a billion hot dogs per year if I sold them for a quarter but I’d be broke.

American Buyers only buy small cars like fiesta because they’re cheap.  And so you’re competing on price with things like Nissan Versa.  There just isn’t much if any profit to be had so when companies need to divert resources to develop BEVs that’s the first thing to go.

CAFE certainly hasn't helped small car sales.  But it's not the only reason small car sales dwindled.

Ok, so use Focus then.  My point is, automakers would find a way if buyers demanded it.   Instead, buyers have moved up in size as automakers have made vehicles larger.  While CAFE may make it easier for automakers to sell larger vehicles, if buyers were adamant about sticking with smaller vehicles, sales of the growing models would shrink as they upsized, which didn't happen.

Some prefer cars over SUVs, yes.  But if they want a car and you showed them a focus and fusion for the same price 90% would choose the fusion.  Vast majority of buyers who choose a compact or subcompact vehicle over a larger vehicle do so because of price.  Sporty cars being the exception.

Depends on what demographic you're referring to, there seems to be distain for whatever the previous generation drove. The people who grew up with wagons saw them as old people cars and bought vans because it was this hip new product, people who grew up with mom vans generally gravitated towards more stylish and macho SUVs and crossovers. Now, most of the young people I know who grew up with SUVs and crossovers seem to be gravitating back towards smaller, lower vehicles because they're tired of suvs.    I almost never see a young person driving an SUV, it's almost always sedans, hatchbacks, and coupes, as well as the occasional truck. Before you say it, while price is a factor, there is a sizable portion of young buyers who just prefer the form factor of a car and view SUVs as the bulky and undesirable models their parents drove. A lot of these people as they start to make more money don't go from a hatchback to an SUV, but instead from an entry level hatchback, to a nicer hatchback.   

Great distinction.  An example in EV segment is that Chevy was not too successful with tiny electric Spark but did quite well by comparison with Bolt, given it was an EV anyway.  Granted, there were other functional differences beyond size.   IMO too many Americans won’t even consider cars the size of Chevy Spark or Fiat 500e which are only around 144” long, but don’t necessarily need or want cars well over 180” long like Civic or Tesla Model 3.  Vehicles in the middle of these sizes may work just fine for a lot of buyers, especially if price is significantly lower, which may explain why so many people have been calling for a smaller Tesla below the Model 3.

250K is kind of the magic number now for efficient assembly line utilization unless the vehicle is exceptionally profitable. e.g. fullsize truck plant can probably be below that mark and still swimming in positive cash flow.   Oakville (before it went dark), Chicago, Michigan, and Hermosillo are/were operating in that range.

Was referring to newer vehicles like Toyota Crown and BMW X4 that are much taller than traditional sedans yet not quite normal/common crossovers either.  It’s a middle ground that blurs vehicle classes IMO.

I said small cars, not tiny cars.   Early 2000s Civic or Focus size cars are not longer possible under CAFE. But still possible to sell HR-V and Bronco Sport because trucks CAFE is more forgiving.