[pandaman]

That's because of the fixed cost of making another model of a car. Look at what happened to Stellantis trying to bring Fiat 500: after three years of great sales it started to drop pretty quickly to the point where they sold only 16 in the 2023 [1]. Do they make enough profit from selling 16 (or even 1600) cheap cars to afford compliance with the US regulations (they need to crash several cars to get the NHTSA "stars", that's quite a cost even before the cost of the testing itself), stocking spare parts, training mechanics etc? And this is assuming they can sell just the euro model without any retooling, if they need to make a different model for the US market they also need to keep factories tooled for that, keep ordering parts etc.

1. https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/fiat-500-sales-figures/