Other mistake: When Lenny has the prison guards locked in the car and is putting the top up, the steering wheel is spinning but the front wheels aren't moving. The amount of revolutions of the steering wheel is mechanically impossible also.
Continuity mistake: After Superman ducks the moon rock, there's a close-up of Nuclear Man's black boot stepping on Superman's boot, yet in the next angle, it's Nuclear Man who's yelling in pain. It should be Superman instead.
Answer: It was made on a very low budget. Golen - Golbus productions bought the rights to Superman. They were mostly known for B-Movies with not so big name stars. It was there attempt to play with the big studios. Plus at least 45 minutes of scenes were cut out, with major subplots.
In addition to budget cuts, they kept shortening the runtime, meaning scenes needed to be cut. The comic book adaptation has the uncut scenes and makes much more sense.