I have hand written letters to Ford, GM, Mopar & Toyota 3 times each, over a 20 yr period. Not one of them wrote back. I also gave them my name & address & phone #. Not one of them called.......until the last time. We were eating dinner, phone rang, wife answered, said it was Sue, from Toyota Motor Company. We chatted for a good while. She asked me how I know about their continued production (at that time-around 1990) of solid axle trucks in some countries. I told I saw them with my own eyes while in the US Army. I also told her they should try it for a 5 year period---sell a bare bones, solid front & solid rear axle, manual shift diesel pickup here. No carpet, no radio. She said that those trucks would not meet US crash test standards, window glass standards, emission standards, headlight standards & it would be cost prohibitive for them to make them meet those standards. I told them they would sell every single one in record time. She politely said that I was in such a minority of people that would want a vehicle like that in the USA, it simply would not be worth their time & expense to do so. That was the end of my letter writing to the Big 3 & Toyota. Sad really.
It's like they (The US Government & EPA & Emissions) throw every single roadblock in the way of anything with a diesel engine here. Like they just don't want them to catch on. The EPA should be doing back flips of joy when people convert used vegetable oil to bio diesel & burn that instead of diesel. But they just bury them in regulations, laws, permits, disposal fee's etc.., etc... .
http://biodiesel.org/docs/ffs-production/epa-guidance-for-biodiesel-producers.pdf?sfvrsn=4 It's like they don't want a 7000 lb 4x4 pickup to get good mpg. Just like the whole recycling circle. Many are super strict about the pick up. Some recycle companies will not pick up if there are still lables on the cans or glass jars. So, you have to use gallons & gallons & gallons of hot water, wasted, down the drain, to get the lables off, so they will accept them. How green is that ?
The almighty dollar is all that big companies care about these days it seems. Sad. All that being said, we have 3 Toyota's. A 2004 Corolla w/194k that we just sold, a 2010 Corolla w/152k & a 2017 TRD 4Runner w/2100 miles on it. We needed the 4wd in the winter here around Buffalo. Our employer would NOT accept weather as an excuse to not make it to work. Not a misprint. And we have my 2008 Dodge PWagon. That has never, ever failed to get me to or from work in the winter, regardless of the amount of snow. 1x I had to use the lockers on the way to work (for a couple miles) and again on the way home. The 4, 4x4 trucks behind me on the way home, turned around when i got to the spot where I had to use the lockers. lol