There are a lot of really good examples that illustrate this. Sometimes there's little tweeks that need to be made, other times it's drastic changes, like the Honda Fit. Take the new Ford Mustang for example. Different countries have different laws. If you go to the UK, the Mustang's tail lights will be different than here in the States, a reflection of those laws. I remember when the Tata Nano became internet famous for being so inexpensive that people were all "when are we gonna get the Tata Nano in the States! That thing would sell like hot cakes." Only, it took car people to point out that one, the car was a piece of shit brand new, and two, to bring it to the States and bring it up to our safety standards would inflate the price to about $11,000. No one is gonna pay $11,000 for a brand new car that sucks balls right out of the gate. Similarly, GM, Nissan, and an ass ton of other countries sell cars in South East Asia and South America without what we think are standard safety features, such as airbags. Just like the Nano, those safety features add a lot to the price that would suddenly make the cars unaffordable to their target markets. A lot of those same countries don't pay the same mind to safety as we do either, especially when it comes to cars and work place safety. I know entering the American Market isn't easy, every now and again I check up to see how Mahindra is doing in their attempts because it's like one big joke of high expectations and embarrassing broken promises.

Here's where I can't understand how it's so hard. Let's take California for example. I might be wrong on the exact specifics, but I think I remember the gist well enough. I'm pretty certain CARB is the organization I'm thinking about. At various times in America's history, California has had stricter emissions standards than the rest of the country (which makes sense, seeing as how they argue that your office chair will give you cancer). Car manufacturers here in the States saw they had two options. Either they build a set of engines that'll work for California and a set of engines that'll work for everyone else or they build a set of engines that work for both, knowing California is stricter. So, if America has stricter safety standards, especially for frontal impact, pedestrian safety, and roll over, wouldn't it be easier to just design platforms with those standards in mind, period, and then scale back when possible for less strict markets? Same concept applies for emissions, though I know Europe and the States tend to trade back and forth every few years as to who has more stringent emissions laws. I honestly can't imagine that designing platforms with America in mind first would make things that much more expensive, especially if you can use those same platforms and tweak them a little bit to make vehichles that'll work for other markets, such as the Chevrolet Montana/Tornado. Granted, the Montana is based off the Opel Corsa, but I don't think it would be that hard to turn the Chevrolet Cruze into a pickup for Mexico and Latin America.

The whole stocks thing for Tesla is crazy when you actually write out those numbers and put them in front of me. Even with bioemerl's explanation, which seems very plausible, Tesla stock sounds like a stupid gamble, especially when companies like Ford and Toyota have proven to be able to whether financial difficulties throughout the decades. All it takes is the price of Lithium to jump through the roof or one of Tesla's parts suppliers royally screwing up to put the company in real jeopardy. I thought we learned from the Dot Com crash that it's a dumb idea to invest in a company that isn't returning money.