Show me someone that has refused to buy a car because it was California compliant and instead buys a competitors' vehicle that is NOT California compliant (in the past 10 years). That is the difference. Customers might buy a JGC because it has a nice riding air suspension and the 4Runner doesn't. They might choose an Xterra because it is cheaper than a 4Runner. They might buy a JGC for the diesel powerplant. Those are all things that it could make sense for Toyota to spend money developing assuming the market does exist. You can extrapolate this line of thinking to the Canada, Mexico, Western Hemisphere (in general) markets. That is we have a 4Runner, afterall, instead of a Land Cruiser Prado. There is some payback in developing trims specifically for markets. Buyers don't open the hood of a 4Runner, see the air injection system, and decide that this isn't the vehicle for them. Thus, developing a California truck and an "everything else" truck makes no financial sense.

It is complete BS, that in America, you don't have the "Freedom" to buy the car you want. In almost every other country, there are so many other awesome car options, and models, that we will never see. People are making a big stink about the GOV trying to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs for home use, because of our loss of rights. That is nothing compared to how the GOV restricts what cars we can drive.

Just imagine being able to go buy a new car, and once you found the model you want, you get to choose several options of different petrol and diesel engines, and transmissions, and not having to settle for anything. YOU CAN ACTUALLY BUY A NEW CAR WITH A MANUAL TRANSMISSION IN OTHER COUNTRIES!!! (okay, there are still a couple of manufactures that still offer a manual, but good luck finding one on the lot, with any of the options you want) You can also buy a reasonably sized diesel in just about every make and model (something smaller then a 6.0L V8 *real diesels are inline* and gets good mileage and has plenty of torque)

Also, changing a cartridge filter every 10k miles isn't that big of a deal. I remember having to change my oil every 3000 miles, now that is something to complain about!

If Americans weren't so caught up about buying on price, those options could be available. We gotta have it now and we want to pay Walmart prices for it. That is why we have trims instead of a la carte. If you want a la carte, you pay dearly for it (like my MINI). Other countries pay a ton more for the same vehicle compared to the US.

That's odd. My Canadian 2001 Maxima has U.S. 50 states emissions and US motor safety approvals in addition to the Canadian ones. Clearly you haven't looked at the door jam labels in a country other than than the U.S.

The pick-up truck is a North-American phenomenon. Seriously, you barely see them elsewhere on this planet, outside of banana republic militaries.

You know even less about how industrial production works than I thought.
Newfangled aerodynamics, eh? Gosh-darn it, them darn technologisticals are at it again. And this thing called "market dynamics." Hint: It's like people, voting with dollars.

CARB is not what's killing big V8 sedans, body-on-frame blah blah stuff. Gas prices, and the resulting consumer demand is. Plus crashworthiness - average-vehicle-on-average-vehicle, or barrier, unibody does better. Plus you can actually make a car that handles and rides well.

Go buy a 1971 Ford F150 or Bronco. Be happy. Don't complain to us about it.

You're making the carburetor and bias ply argument again. Makes sense - you use a Colt. I run a Glock. It's a free country, bro, and if you're a market big enough, people will make things to please you. In Colts, clearly there are enough of you. For cars, not so much.

I don't agree with everything you said there, but much of the vehicle choices stateside are crony capitalism at it's finest. Everything sold in Europe today can meet emissions requirements for all 50 states. It's the rabbit warren of other legislation and their resulting certification processes that makes it completely unprofitable for Toyota to bring their D4D diesels here.

Manual transmissions, however, are market pressures. Americans race from red light to red light, and tail-gate in traffic jams, and do a boat-load of other things (texting, surfing, just talking with a phone on your head even though you have Bluetooth) while careening down the road. Only with an automatic can you do that without wanting to kill yourself (or actually doing so) after an hour.