You know, if one of the US automakers came up with a CHEAP car, they'd sell a bundle...
Make it any color you like, as long as it is white. Two doors. Four seats. Cheap seats - they don't have to be fancy.
Crank windows, no AC. No radio. No sculpted dashboard. Off the shelf gauges.
Manual steering (hey, it's a small car).
No carpet - textured floor.
Small engine. Plenty of oil capacity.
Make everything possible from plastic or sheet metal/combo. Modular is better. Make engine/transaxle so that all you have to do is unplug, unbolt a few, and drop it out the bottom.
Do the same with a work truck - about the size of a Chevy S10 type, but with heavy axles/drive train. Make it a small diesel.
Hell, they could go one better. Get rid of the powertrain, put DC motors in two or four wheels, and go with a KISS direct-drive single-stage hybrid. None of that expensive "synergy drive" crap with all it's attendant parasitic losses and inefficiencies that eat up the current hybrid's performance to make them no better, if not worse than the best all-gass econo-boxes. Not to mention the net energy dump of the NiMh batteries during the production.
Even one better, since the engine is really just a self-contained generator, only connected by two wiring harnesses, one for DC power to the DC motors, and another for status monitoring by the fuel computer and idiot lights in the dash etc. Make it so the owner can easily remove the gas generator and it's fuel tank and replace it with a battery box for sub-100 mile commutes or light passenger load trips for use as a pure plug-in.
I seriously wonder what the fuel economy would be if someone took a small portable generator, got rid of it's inverter, then mounted it on a golf-cart with it's battery bank replaced with just one small deep-discharge cell as a proof of concept.
