Safety is a state that implies to be protected from any risk, danger, damage or cause of injury. Following the Second World War , the Canadian automotive industry rebounded spectacularly, as pent-up consumer demand, population growth and postwar prosperity fuelled sales, while government policies encouraged consumer spending and car-oriented suburbanization.
I would not be surprised if whatever they come up with is targeted to developing markets (e.g. China) rather than the U.S. The U.S. market seems strangled by regulation which is something Horace has pointed out restricts the ability of disruptions to compete asymmetrically.
The most extreme version of these styling trends were found in the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado and Chrysler Corporation’s 1957 Imperial The Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird , introduced in 1953 and 1955 respectively, were designed to capture the sports car market.
In response to this, the domestic auto makers introduced new compact and sub-compact cars, such as the Ford Pinto and Maverick , the Chevrolet Vega , and the AMC Gremlin , Hornet and Pacer (Chrysler had to make do with importing cars from Mitsubishi Motors and their affiliated Rootes Group) However, design and manufacturing problems infected a number of these cars and led to unfavorable perceptions of the cars.
So maybe the production process changes to something along the lines of iStream, the risk equation changes by making use of currently underutilized capacity in Chinese factories, and the market enlarges by selling a smaller, lighter, more nimble, cheaper vehicle to city dwelling Chinese.