The root cause is CAFE regulations and the penalty for small-footprint vehicles. You get more profit if you don't have to make higher efficiency cars rather tha

The root cause is CAFE regulations and the penalty for small-footprint vehicles. You get more profit if you don't have to make higher efficiency cars rather than cheaper trucks. You get more profit if you make larger trucks rather than smaller. The optimal solution is to make cars undesirable with poor quality or stop building them altogether by pretending they're trucks (PT Cruiser, all XUVs) and make smaller trucks unavailable.