Further more, I think that the issue about not affording food, comes down to wages and not gas prices

This is a great point, it kind of ends up being both in the USA right now, especially the price of gas keeps increasing while many peoples' wages have remained pretty stagnant.

USA min wage, 2000: $7.25/hour. Average gas cost for the year was around: $1.40/gallon

USA min wage, 2026: $7.25/hour. Average gas cost today: $4.36

Sure, lots of people make more than minimum wage, but lots of people make less, too (if they get tipped).

My confusion though is, why cars over there use so much more gas when, as you say, people need them. I’d assume that smaller more economical cars would be more popular in a country where distances are long

I am also confused about this one 😂 despite living here my whole life. I have a subcompact hatchback of a type that's pretty common in Europe/Asia and kinda rare in the USA. People are often shocked by how small it is. My ex-gf's mom (from a rural area/"big truck country") was like straight up offended by how small my car was. Every time I travel in Europe I'm like "omg, everyone here has cars like mine, this is so nice" People don't even understand the fringe benefits beyond fuel efficiency. My car is easy for others to see around, so traffic flows better around me. I can park it anywhere, because there's almost always a place that the huge American cars gave up on trying to fit into. I even get discounts on ferries because my car is so small!

I think most Americans just don't understand how much fun small cars can be, they want more room to haul more stuff and people (even though most of us already have too much stuff & not enough friends, boom roasted)

Nobody can afford economic cars, vehicle arms race, and light truck legislation.

The vehicle arms race is the increasingly large vehicles. SUVs are considered light trucks and light trucks have legislation which allows for them to be less fuel efficient. This encourages less efficient vehicles to roam the street and makes riding bikes and motorcycles much less safe which further encourages the arms race.

Additionally many of our roads have a speed limit at something like 35-40mph which makes it so things like microcars can't feasibly be street legal, even ignoring the glaring issue of being in a microcar next to an SUV.

My advice is make sure that your own country never laxes laws to allow for larger vehicles, you give auto manufacturers and inch they'll take a mile and put you into this self perpetuating cycle.