You're confusing tenses I think, can't not couldn't.
Chinese cars today CAN'T pass safety standards today. That doesn't preclude them form passing in the future. It just means if you bought a Chinese car today and tested it against US safety standards today, it would fail.
Possibly true. Then again, when the Mini was imported to the US as the Mini Cooper, it had to be bulked up so that the American version is much less-mini than the UK, removing some of its appeal.
I'm sure Chinese companies can produce EV sedans that pass US crash tests, obviously, but can they do so while they remain cheap? We won't know unless and until they try.
those are different things now. there is a joke that a car model will always get bigger. and a different model will show up to re-fill the market that wanted the small car.
Sure, I'm not saying they can't catch up, but meeting US crash test requirements will probably cause prices to go up. Plus labor is significantly cheaper in China. There are certainly things China can do much more efficiently in the US, but many of those efficencies shrink when you have to pay US labor costs and comply with US regulations. Of course, you could deregulate and allow more immigration to the US to compensate, but both of these are hard sells politically.
