[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electri...
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Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?
Just let me drive. I don't need fancy screens.
Author : julienreszka
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-06-13 11:46 UTC (11 hours ago)
| jiripospisil wrote:
| Right? I would be perfectly content with a feature set from 30
| years ago.
| ted_bunny wrote:
| I wonder if people know exactly how much they're psying for
| each little gizmo that rolls down their windows, adds a PIN to
| their door, etc. I bet you could cut about 25% of the price off
| by removing goofy crap you don't need.
| doix wrote:
| > I bet you could cut about 25% of the price off by removing
| goofy crap you don't need.
|
| Most of those things are low cost, high margin extras.
| Removing them wouldn't really decrease the cost of the car
| for the manufacturer. A lot of the time, if you don't pay for
| the extra's, they are included in the car anyway because it's
| not worth the effort of customizing the build. They are just
| disabled in software.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| This is something that people without a manufacturing
| background often don't appreciate. Modern production lines
| are so efficient that it's frequently more cost effective
| to build all units of a product with the same hardware but
| disable some features in software.
|
| I first came across this 20+ years ago working for an
| office equipment manufacturer. We had to add code for the
| service people to enable a feature in the machine that was
| already present (and pretty expensive to build), but not
| turned on until the customer paid for it. I remember at the
| time asking if it wouldn't piss customers off to know that
| they were paying for something that was already installed,
| but it didn't seem to faze the Marketing people in the
| least. Then again, the buyer was someone in a corporate
| office who would probably never actually see the machine
| anyway.
| bell-cot wrote:
| The really difficult and expensive part is manufacturing decent
| cars, at scale. The profit margins on that part generally suck -
| so Capitalism says "hahaha...NO".
|
| The pretty-easy-and-cheap part is adding glitzy screens to cars.
| Doing that gets most people all excited...and willing to shell
| out far more money.
|
| In an extremely well-run socialist country, there'd probably be
| good, low-tech electric cars.
| jerf wrote:
| The car industry has an unusual profit curve. They have huge,
| _huge_ fixed costs. It 's not just the factory, it's the
| testing, compliance, marketing, etc.
|
| However, the price you pay for a car is substantially more than
| the marginal cost of producing it.
|
| So that industry is a famine-or-feast industry. Either they are
| losing money in mind-boggling quantities, or they are _making_
| money in mind-boggling quantities. There is not a lot of in
| between.
|
| Unfortunately, the connection to the question the original
| poster asked is that they basically can't risk not selling a
| car because it doesn't have some hot feature that most of the
| market wants, so you won't see a screen-free car made today.
| Putting $100 of hardware in to seal the deal is a no-brainer in
| their profit model. (Though they will trim every penny on it,
| as they do everything else; it may seem like a contradiction
| but if you think about it enough it'll make sense. Consider the
| term "bullet-point feature" in our industry.) Until the market
| as a whole screams for it, it won't exist.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >So that industry is a famine-or-feast industry. Either they
| are losing money in mind-boggling quantities, or they are
| making money in mind-boggling quantities. There is not a lot
| of in between.
|
| Search profit margins for
| Toyota/Ford/Volkswagen/Mercedes/BMW/Honda/etc
|
| All are in the 5% to 10% range, which is objectively a middle
| of the road profit margin.
|
| Mind boggling is what tech/oil/pharma/finance does, at 20%,
| 30%, even 40%+ profit margins. Which is why they are at the
| top of market cap rankings.
|
| https://companiesmarketcap.com/
| muzani wrote:
| Ora, BYD, Neta. Maybe Chinese cars aren't popular there?
| 2rsf wrote:
| Are they low-tech? at least BYD presents all the known tech,
| bells and whistles for a lower price.
| twunde wrote:
| If the OP is in the US, Chinese cars are unavailable since they
| don't meet US standards. Additionally, there is a level of
| protectionism that will try to prevent them from being
| introduced in the US.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| There are also 100% tariffs on Chinese cars in the US. so
| doubling the price. Chinese EV manufacturers will likely set
| up final assembly plants in Mexico and ship them 90%
| finished, and then they will be able to circumvent that
| tariff. That's how Chinese steel manufacturers get into the
| US market.
| r0ckarong wrote:
| They're unavailable for the same reason they're expensive
| here in Germany. Government protecting the local automobile
| industries.
| glintik wrote:
| They are nor low tech, not a real budget cars.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| I also wonder this. Electric cars tend to be larger heavy luxury
| vehicles, the opposite of what we need more of. Where are the
| small efficient commuter vehicles?
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| You have larger margins on larger luxury vehicles.
| Manufacturers are getting their R&D money back by selling these
| cars first before they trickle down to lower cost (and lower
| margin) econoboxes.
| some_random wrote:
| The tech is still immature and can't compete with similarly
| priced vehicles except at the top end of the market. Tesla is
| the only seems to be getting the scale required to push the
| price down.
| twoquestions wrote:
| I wonder the same, there's a bunch of budget electric bikes out
| there, I'd love something small that I can get around in the
| winter with!
| bluGill wrote:
| > I'd love something small that I can get around in the winter
| with!
|
| Try a coat.
|
| If you look around you discover that cycling cities tend to be
| places with harsh winters. While cycling dies off in winter,
| there are some die-hards go year round and they will report
| what you need if you ask them.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Yeah, I live in Toronto and cycle year round. Simply wear
| winter clothes, like you would do if you went out for a walk.
| glintik wrote:
| That's a good catch. I also wondered because there are vast
| amount of people want just personal vehicle to move from A to B.
| calrain wrote:
| Wouldn't electric car conversions count as low tech? Like those
| VW or 2CV conversions.
| jitl wrote:
| The big reason screens matter for electric cars is planning long
| range trips with stops at a battery charge location. Without the
| map/screen in-car you can't integrate battery level with routing.
| Maybe you're fine doing this manually, but range anxiety is the
| big reason consumers who can afford electric don't buy electric,
| so it seems self defeating to remove features that help with
| that. The screens and stuff aren't that much extra, often it
| helps save more on tooling/logistics for plastic buttons and
| dials.
|
| Additionally, CarPlay/Android Auto is a hard requirement for me
| and many other consumers these days. I wouldn't consider a car -
| gas or electric - without it. I opted for a Mercedes gas car in
| part because there was no overall good electric car with wireless
| CarPlay in my price range.
| jacknews wrote:
| That's what your phone or tablet is for.
|
| No need for all that custom UI tech in the car, just provide a
| documented API and open-source app you can run on your phone or
| even dedicate a tablet for it.
|
| Proprietary screens and their supporting computers will be
| obsolete quickly, will break easily and be exorbitantly
| expensive to fix/replace, and of course there's a good chance
| they will also surveil everything you do, mostly for the
| benefit of the manufacturer.
|
| Just say no to smart appliances, especially something as
| central as your personal transport.
| bluGill wrote:
| I have no confidence that auto/carplay of today will work
| with whatever phone I have in 12 years. Car makers want to
| ship their cars and forget about them. They hate warranty
| work. Tesla does software updates but the others don't want
| to (they do but only when they must or if they can charge for
| them - the maps on my 12 year old car are way out of date
| because like most car buyers I won't pay to update them). I'm
| not even sure that phones in 12 years will have
| communications (usb, bluetooth, wifi) compatible with the
| infotainment system in today's new cars. I am sure I will not
| be using today's phone as 5g towers will be shutting down.
| jacknews wrote:
| But if it's a documented API with open-source 'reference'
| app, everyone can make new versions, enhancements, etc.
|
| And for sure, assuming a popular standard physical/radio
| interface is used now, it will still be supported, either
| through backwards-compatibility in the standard, or with
| gateway dongles etc, far into the future.
|
| I have no confidence you'll be able to get a replacement
| screen or computer mainboard etc for any car you buy today,
| in 12 years, and almost certainly not in 20,30, etc.
| bluGill wrote:
| Where is carplay documented. Before you answer check the
| license to be sure you can use it.
|
| i agree screens won't exist at any price in 10 years.
| Hope youre lasts.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > The big reason screens matter for electric cars is planning
| long range trips with stops at a battery charge location.
|
| But that doesn't explain why automakers are moving the regular
| controls from physical buttons to the touchscreen. That's the
| part that I consider a serious problem.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Buttons are surprisingly expensive; not just the button
| itself but the wiring and the labor. Let's WAG at $20 per
| button. $20 * a few dozen buttons is real money.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes, I understand that it's a cost-savings measure by the
| automakers, but that's not relevant to me as a car owner.
|
| If the added expense is so onerous to the automaker, then
| they can raise the price of the car to make up for it. I'd
| buy that, where I won't buy a car that has inferior
| controls. Why would I, when there is still a plethora of
| older cars available that better meet my needs?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Not many would be willing to pay $1000 more for more
| buttons.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Compared to how much auto makers inflated car prices the
| past few years?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The story for 2024 is the falling prices of EV's.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. If you posed it to customers in that
| way, many would object. If you didn't, then a $1000 price
| increase wouldn't really be noticed.
|
| But it doesn't matter how many are willing. All I'm
| saying is that this is a thing that matters a great deal
| to me. It's pretty close to a dealbreaker. Even if I'm
| the only one that feels that way, it's still how I feel.
|
| The auto industry appears to not want to make cars that
| I'd actually want to buy. Fair enough.
|
| But I do find it interesting that one of the things that
| I was always taught was a strength of our economic system
| is that it will produce a wide enough variety of goods
| that pretty much everyone will find a version of a
| product that they'd actually want. That it appears that
| it can't looks like a kind of failure to me.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I totally agree, I really want a Caterham 7 with 4 electric hub
| motors and the battery where the engine used to go. It seems like
| it should be actually pretty cheap to build.
|
| I do think the reason we havn't seen this class yet is that EV's
| are yuppie cars. They are sold at a premium for people who think
| this is the thing that will solve CC. When really taking busses,
| even petrol ones would probably do more.
| brabel wrote:
| The Nissan Leaf has been available for many years now , and it is
| a very basic car (not sure you would qualify it as low tech):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf
|
| Still much more expensive than the equivalent cars with a
| combustion engine though.
| edent wrote:
| Citroen Ami is about as low tech as you can get.
|
| If you want something more car-shaped, the Renault Zoe has very
| few tech feature.
|
| Similarly, Kia Soul has a reversing camera... and that's about
| it! No radar, lane assist, carplay or anything like that.
|
| Cstomers only want 3 things. A comfortable ride, a safe journey,
| and $thing. The problem is, everyone's one more thing is
| different. I want DAB radio, you want cruise control, she wants
| lane assist, he wants automatic parking.
|
| Creating a dozen different SKUs for all those things is
| complicated. Getting regulatory approval for every variation is
| expensive.
|
| So most manufacturers sell only a few variations of their models.
| eloisant wrote:
| Do you mean Citroen Ami?
| edent wrote:
| Thanks. Corrected.
| glintik wrote:
| The downside of Zoe is Renault. For its tech price should be
| much less.
| danybittel wrote:
| Wouldn't it be fun if electric cars were the same way as PC's.
| Plug and play the parts you want, switch motor / battery..
| choose a new chassis as you wish. And LED lights of course.
| tnel77 wrote:
| Man I can dream! That sounds incredible.
| nottorp wrote:
| They kind of are. But at manufacturer level. Everyone now has
| like 3-4 chassis options and they build cars on top of that.
| kube-system wrote:
| The only reason that exists for PCs is the same reason we
| even use the word "PC": they're all just legacy holdovers
| from manufacturers copying IBM.
|
| And really, the subset of the market that still follows these
| standards is small, and shrinking. The vast majority of PCs
| today are laptops with few, if any, swappable parts.
|
| Pretty much the only segment where this still exists is the
| enthusiast subset of the gaming PC market.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Traditional, expandable towers certainly still exist. I
| just bought three of them.
| kube-system wrote:
| I didn't say they didn't exist, I said the market is
| shrinking. They used to be an ubiquitous form factor,
| they're now uncommon outside of the enthusiast market.
| Only 20% of PCs are desktops of any kind, and a good
| portion of those are now SFF or other designs.
| creesch wrote:
| Also, server hardware. It isn't as it is only kept around
| for those stubborn gamer enthusiast. The enthusiast market
| more or less is an extra revenue stream for a lot of
| hardware that is developed for the server market first.
|
| It is a bit more complex than that of course and generally
| speaking you are right.
| kube-system wrote:
| Server hardware has abandoned a good bit of
| interchangeability too. While you can still usually count
| on socketed CPUs, socketed memory, and interchangeable
| storage, there's a lot of proprietary components used on
| servers beyond that. Motherboard and power supply form
| factors are often proprietary, and it is not uncommon for
| expansion cards to be proprietary or non-standard
| implementations.
|
| Things like ATX power supplies, ATX/mATX motherboards,
| tower cases, are pretty squarely for the PC gaming
| segment now. It's difficult to even find a "business"
| motherboard these days, where as 20 years ago, they were
| nearly all designed with this use-case first. There's
| ASRock Rack type stuff that targets some custom server-
| type use cases, but the big server manufacturers make
| their own proprietary stuff.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Also workstations. Why would i want an RTX 4090 for music
| production for example. Or a laptop which will be
| permanently attached to a bigger display a keyboard a
| mouse and a USB hub.
| cruano wrote:
| Xiaomi's new SU7 is supposed to support a number of
| accessories like that:
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@hu_changwen/video/736154455749586460.
| ..
| badpun wrote:
| And then get bluescreens while driving. Modularity will
| always come with some degree of flakiness, which is
| acceptable in PCs, but not in cars.
| orwin wrote:
| Yes, if you want to go low-tech, Renault (and Dacia) is a good
| option.
|
| Before recent legislative troubles (lol), France was also
| working on a law that would give consumer unions (think iFixit
| but with publicly available finance) the right to give
| "repairability indexes" on multiple products, including cars,
| that would have to be presented to the buyer, even second-hand
| buyers.
| nottorp wrote:
| Dacia Spring is made in China though so it will get hit hard
| by the recent taxes.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Cstomers only want 3 things. A comfortable ride, a safe
| journey, and $thing. The problem is, everyone's one more thing
| is different. I want DAB radio, you want cruise control, she
| wants lane assist, he wants automatic parking.
|
| This is the correct answer. And on top of this, new cars also
| compete with used cars. The very few people who don't want any
| $thing are often not picky buyers and are more likely to just
| buy a cheaper used car. They wouldn't be a buyer even if
| automakers did build a car for them.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Dacia Spring is also a good choice.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Similarly, Kia Soul has a reversing camera... and that's
| about it!
|
| And the reversing camera is necessary because modern cars have
| tiny submarine like windows.
| meowster wrote:
| And it's required by U.S. law.
| tjansen wrote:
| The Citroen Ami is technically not a passenger car, but a
| 'quadricycle'. That's why it gets away with less tech.
|
| The Renault Zoe has been discontinued, replaced by the Renault
| 5 e, which has ADAS and lots of other electric features.
|
| Starting with model year 2023, the Kia Soul also has all the
| tech required by law: https://thebrakereport.com/kia-enhances-
| adas-for-2023-soul It also has Car Play now.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Similarly, Kia Soul has a reversing camera... and that's
| about it! No radar, lane assist, carplay or anything like that.
|
| According to Kia's website, the cheapest Soul you can buy has
| CarPlay/Android Auto. Standard feature on the "LX", 8in
| touchscreen.
|
| Does it even cost anything for an automaker to allow phones to
| use the screen for CarPlay/Android Auto? The cost savings must
| be so miniscule, and the convenience of being able to use your
| phone to navigate/listen to music and other audio is immense.
| ipaddr wrote:
| They get paid to put it in. Another revenue stream.
| erellsworth wrote:
| Because marketing departments like to have lots of features to
| advertise. There's a lot of money in selling people things they
| don't need or even want.
| baali wrote:
| MG Motors in India introduced Comet:
| https://www.mgmotor.co.in/vehicles/comet-ev-electric-car-in-...
|
| It still has a big screen though.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I hate touch screens too. And I hate when my car yells at me. My
| view is, until they release a car where self-driving actually
| works, there's no basis for my car telling me--30 years of
| driving in the city, zero accidents--how to drive.
|
| But, there's a bound to how low tech a car can be, especially for
| companies who are looking ahead to increasingly prescriptive
| safety regulations in the future. Cars sold in the U.S. need a
| lot of sensors, computers, and mechanisms to take control of the
| vehicle away from you when it thinks it's necessary. It's just
| the law. The idea of a simple box with four wheels and some
| number of motors is pretty much not a viable option, legally
| speaking.
| pen2l wrote:
| Fancy screens are essentially low-tech now though, they've been
| commodified, Apple and Google will hook up car companies with
| that and it's not gonna cost them much. Bespoke buttons with soft
| touch is what is exotic.
| r0ckarong wrote:
| Because everybody wants to be Apple.
| Simulacra wrote:
| The Arcimoto seems like what you're looking for.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| Looks like Arcimoto is gone, Wikipedia says their web site
| disappeared in March 2024 and they defaulted on several
| obligations:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcimoto
|
| Maybe it will live on if someone buys the IP.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Because "low tech" doesn't mean cheap.
|
| The tech components of cars makes up a small fraction of the
| cost, but represents significant value.
| mushufasa wrote:
| So the unit economics of electric cars are quite different from
| gas cars (ICE = internal combustion). Electric car companies
| don't make money on low cost cars -- and neither can ICE cars!
|
| Basic ICE cars are essentially sold at cost, sometimes as loss
| leaders, because the manufacturers make a long-tail of money
| supplying parts and maintenance for the cars over their lifetime;
| for 10-20 years they now have a (variable) recurring revenue
| stream. So a lot of automakers' incentives are to get as large of
| a fleet as possible.
|
| Electric cars inherently have much less of a maintenance burden
| because there are way fewer moving parts in a motor versus an
| engine. For example, there's no oil changes ever 3k miles or
| timing belts to replace ever 30k miles.
|
| That means, for electric car companies, business model options
| are
|
| a) introduce SaaS subscriptions for electronic features (a - la
| Tesla Autopilot premium, supercharger network subscriptions)
|
| b) introduce unnecessary complexity to increase maintenance
| revenue (gullwing doors)
|
| c) sell at a profit margin off the factory. Can have higher
| margins and higher total profit for luxury cars versus basic cars
|
| And Tesla's recent push towards robotaxis of their existing fleet
| would be a totally killer disruption of the unit economics by
| generating recurring revenue off their fleet.
|
| So all the incentives for electric cars point towards high tech
| luxury, not basic eco-cars. There may be an exception to the rule
| in some countries, and those may be related to government
| subsidies.
| janice1999 wrote:
| > a) introduce SaaS subscriptions for electronic feature
|
| All the manufacturing are talking about is the need for the
| 'vehicle as a platform' to sell subscriptions, services and
| driver data. I've seen so many PowerPoints about this, it's
| nauseating.
| bluGill wrote:
| > Electric cars inherently have much less of a maintenance
| burden because there are way fewer moving parts in a motor
| versus an engine.
|
| A modern ICE outlasts the rest of the car. You might replace
| the alternator or water pump, but those are made by third
| parties not the OEM. You will replace the oil, but again, the
| OEM doesn't make that.
|
| The dealers make a lot of money on after sales, but (except
| Tesla) those are independent third parties. The manufacture
| doesn't get much after sales.
|
| OEM parts do sell for more than third party. And so there is
| money in OEM parts, but after 5 years most people are buying
| replacement parts from the third party (the OEM doesn't make
| those parts - they are buying from a third party and putting a
| markup on them). Sometimes people will buy OEM parts instead of
| a third party as OEM tends to give much higher quality vs
| random third party.
| tjansen wrote:
| Not sure about other regions, but in the EU, low tech cars are
| not allowed.
|
| Required safety systems include emergency breaking, emergency
| lane-keeping, intelligent speed assistance (car must use cameras
| or GPS to determine current speed limit), driver attention
| warning systems and many more.
|
| That fancy screen is really not a cost factor. These days you can
| buy after-market screens with Car Play and Android auto support
| for 100 EURs or less. But all the safety systems needs lots of
| sensors, and also the ability to auto-brake and auto-steer in
| emergency situations.
|
| https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/EN/Articles/StV/Roadtraffic/...
| Kuinox wrote:
| It's wrong, we have the Twizy, the Ami and the Zoe in France.
| The most technological advanced thing in the Zoe is the
| Bluetooth to play music.
| tjansen wrote:
| I guess that's why the Zoe has been discontinued:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe
|
| Twizy and Ami are not regular passenger vehicles. I am sure
| there are less requirements for them.
| Kuinox wrote:
| Zoe is very popular in France and is being discontinued
| because it's replaced by the new Alpine A290, that was
| announced 2 hours ago.
|
| Edit: Correction, it's the most popular electric car un
| Europe.
|
| > by the end of 2020, the Zoe ranked as the all-time best
| selling plug-in car in Europe
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Zoe#Sales_and_markets
| tjansen wrote:
| I believe the Zoe's successor is the Renault 5 e (the
| A290 seems to be a performance version of the 5e). The
| Renault 5 has advanced ADAS, since it's required for all
| new cars, and is, according to Renault, "packed with
| electrical and digital technology":
| https://media.renault.com/renault-5-e-tech-electric-the-
| elec...
| ofrzeta wrote:
| The Twizy was at least available as a model that made 80
| km/h. The Ami can only go 50 or 45 which makes it usable as a
| city car only.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| > Not sure about other regions, but in the EU, low tech cars
| are not allowed.
|
| Which is a rather recent development and certainly a
| protectionist move and will hinder adaptation massively.
|
| You need the full suite for lane controls, attention
| monitoring, emergency brake systems, etc...
|
| It is simply impossible to now release low tech cars and it is
| a political decision by the EU that is highly questionable.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Yeah, so called "Vision Zero": "The EU's long-term goal is to
| move as close as possible to zero fatalities in road
| transport by 2050"
|
| https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/publications/eu-road-safety-
| towar...
| yazantapuz wrote:
| In Argentina we have a local manufacturer producing an electricar
| car named Tito: https://movilidad.coradir.com.ar/tito/
| isawczuk wrote:
| This is exact same topic I was wondering. Frame + electric motor
| + battery + gamepad + cpu.
|
| From my research, it's boils down to:
|
| 1. Car is still a wealth marker. Not enough people think about it
| just as a means of transpiration. If they do they mostly use
| public transport or uber/escooters.
|
| 2. Car frame - you need to meet security standards, it cost a lot
|
| 3. Battery - current technology is expensive
|
| 4. Car lobby - especially in Europe, there are large tariffs to
| bring EV cars from Asia.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > Car is still a wealth marker.
|
| Definitely not in the US.
| mobilio wrote:
| Dacia Spring is low tech electric car:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Kwid#Dacia_Spring_Elec...
| diwank wrote:
| The Pagani Utopia is fairly new (launched September 2022) and is
| completely bereft of screens and gizmos. A complete work of art
| costing a mere $2.5 million
| willcipriano wrote:
| Regulatory capture made it illegal to not add "safety features"
| that Detroit has the patents on/other types of manufacturing
| exclusivity (for example certified glass). Then the tariffs that
| prevent any meaningful foreign competition.
|
| The rest is all the automakers run by the same consultanting firm
| and they don't really compete all that hard with eachother
| anymore.
| nottorp wrote:
| Because there are some early adopters left with more money than
| sense.
|
| And the subsidies are fading but aren't gone for good.
|
| And because everyone's copying Tesla's unusable interface for
| some unknown reason. I doubt Musk would recognize a rotating
| physical a/c control if it fell off a Falcon and hit him on the
| head.
| bluGill wrote:
| Which would you prefer - a brand new basic car with the minimum
| legal features (so you get a backup camera, tire pressure
| monitoring, airbags ...). Or a 5 year old car with features like
| air conditioning, radio, infotainment, heated seats and so on?
| The reality is people who are cheap buy used cars anyway as for
| the same price as a bare bones new car they can get all the
| luxury features as well. People who care about their image demand
| all the luxury features and will not be seen in a car more than 3
| years old.
|
| If we changed something (either legal, planned obsolesce, ???) so
| that cars only last 3 years, there would be a large market for
| bare bones cars as people who are cheap would buy them. (and many
| people who today buy new cars would be forced to buy a much
| cheaper car since their car no longer as more than scrap value).
| However the economics of cars mean anyone who would buy a bare
| bones car buys used.
| ipaddr wrote:
| In time the used market will be filled with these cars that
| bare bones fans don't want. That will push down the price of
| recent used cars which means trade-in value lowers and new car
| fans can afford less which increases the barebones demand in
| new cars.
| juancn wrote:
| There are some, but they're really crappy:
| https://movilidad.coradir.com.ar/tito/
| 1ark wrote:
| Honda N-VAN e[1] or Honda e, maybe?
|
| 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/japans...
| kkfx wrote:
| Because OEMs want you to be their puppet. So they need to remain
| in control on the "cars" the sell, to resell driving data to
| insurances, video to various third party (including porn ones)
| just to cite recent "scandals", and they need to justify the
| absurd price of new macro-bugs on wheels.
|
| Unfortunately most citizens do not even understand the tech so
| they do not even know that the crappy car-app is actually
| connected to the OEM servers like the car, they do not even know
| the car collect gazillion of data and so on. So the OEM can do
| pretty whatever they want, the percentage of people who
| understand is so little that nobody hear them.
| jarbus wrote:
| I'd love a car like a Framework laptop but for EVs. I'd love to
| strip out the junk I don't need and fix/change things myself for
| much cheaper than a mechanic.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Intension: low cost car repairs, longer service life
|
| Reality: Fast N Furious guys realize the ECU is tunable, break
| all the parameters, remove the muffler, and make their engine
| explode within 20,000 miles in the noisiest way possible.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Because data collection is a very profitable market for car
| manufacturers to enter. Most cars these days can make it to
| 200,000 miles and people buy them less often.
|
| I wish there was a website that had a guide for how to disable
| the 4g chip for every car model.
| iamleppert wrote:
| I'm determined to never buy a new car again. My 2016 Honda Civic
| will be the last car I ever drive, if I can help it. I own it, no
| car payment, its reliable, it works, it's not electric,
| efficient, no self driving features, no phone home, no Elon Musk,
| just an unsexy regular car and I couldn't be happier. Pure bliss.
| alexk307 wrote:
| They are...just in China, and with 40% tariffs if you want one.
| constantcrying wrote:
| They are illegal and people don't want them.
|
| Yes, it really is as simple as that. Legality aside, making such
| a car a reality is at the very least 1BEUR in development cost
| (you have to do a new electronics architecture and probably a new
| platform variant). You will never make a profit on such a car.
| The customer base is tiny and expects low prices, but low prices
| can only be achieved with high volumes.
| meowster wrote:
| What's illegal about a low-tech (aka "dumb") electric car? Is
| there a law that requires connectivity, or for manufacturers to
| abuse that connectivity?
| constantcrying wrote:
| >What's illegal about a low-tech (aka "dumb") electric car?
|
| That it can't meet regulatory safety standards. E.g.
| drowsiness detection or crash detection to call emergency
| services mean that any car can not be "low tech" in any
| meaningful sense. So the best thing you can possibly get is a
| high tech car, where user facing technologies have been
| removed. Needlessly to say, the market for that is miniscule.
| speg wrote:
| What is illegal?
| constantcrying wrote:
| A car without a complex internal electronic system.
| leobg wrote:
| Why not buy a used 2014 Model S? It has a screen, sure. But it's
| basically just battery and muscle.
| m463 wrote:
| I hope someday there will be a backlash.
|
| - dumb TVs, or open-source TVs.
|
| - dumb phones, or completely open-source smart phones.
|
| - dumb EVs, or completely open-source EVs.
|
| I think the profit for open source stuff is not guaranteed, so
| funding a company is hard. People who fund companies want lock-
| in, patents, product monopoly. They don't want something that can
| be copied and productized by another company that had no R&D
| costs and then undercut in price.
|
| that said, it is definitely something society wants.
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