We're comparing the Kia K4 which launched this year to the Ford Focus which was discontinued close to a decade ago

The Focus was absolutely competitive with the Asian cars and in fact a much better package overall (I had a non-enthusiast Hyundai before and the Focus was much preferred)

Everyone talks about the cars not selling but they *were* selling. They just weren't making Number Go Up for shareholders enough, and Ford decided they could please the stockholders more by selling less cars at a higher price. They abandoned the entire customer segment, the customers didn't abandon them. GM did the same thing, they just did it quietly and slowly rather than all at once like Ford did. They publicly said it was just hard for them to compete with Asian brands on small affordable cars so they'd rather go make Truck and SUV money instead because they could more easily make higher profits.

It's absolutely wild to me how much people refuse to believe reality and all just want to say "Nobody wanted these cars actually and they were forced to get rid of them"