In the 1970s Detroit thought the Honda Civic was a joke as well. How could it ever compete against the Pontiac Astre or the Buick Skyhawk they thought...
They sold well because you could get a Civic or whatever with a nice radio and they had a bunch of them on the lot in automatic and all the other things buyers cared about beyond just A to B because for the Japanese automakers shit was serious business and so they built their shit with some give-a-fucks included whereas to the Americans shit was a sideshow and they phoned it in and it was like pulling teeth to get a well optioned domestic that wasn't hobbled by the lack of some key feature or ergonomics issue.
None of these were cars people wanted to be driving. The market for big nice fuel hogs shrunk and the market for compacts rose in it's place and the Japanese were very well positioned to put their ass in that seat when the music stopped.
People sell things based on their perception of future consumer sentiments, calculated margins, defensible moats, lots of things.
If someone wanted a compact sedan but the only thing for sale was SUVs, they aren't going to be like "I refuse! Bus pass for me" no. They will just bite the bullet and purchase the SUV.
Then the analysis will say "well people are buying the SUV! It looks very popular we should make more of them! I told you sedans were a bad idea!"
The supply and demand economics 101 ways of thinking are for fools and simpletons. It's why the iPhone wasn't a BlackBerry knockoff
I mean look at Hyundai's ev line up. I drive a kona because it's the cheapest. The next most expensive car is the 5 and then their most expensive (up until recently) was also their smallest! The 6.
It's like twice the price and at the end of the day I just wanted to drive electric so I got the cheaper one.
But if the ioniq 2 had a US release I'd be on top of that real quick