The same thing happened 30 years ago with the Ford GT Phase 3 and Monaro Oz muscle cars, the press kicked up a stink about these rolling "killing machines" and government pressure was applied to stop the manufacture of these cars and the Australian Automobile industry was put back 15 years behind the European, Japanese and American car industries.
Not because of not having fast cars, but because the research and development into getting more power from less energy was not allowed to water down to the family car, meaning we had these gas guzzling cars with no power to drive the kids around.
meh 2 cents