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Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#151

Post by shiroiushi »

defrost wrote: post #144
dpeckett wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this whole discussion hinges on the idea that modern vehicle interfaces are somehow "fancy". Touchscreens, ARM boards running Linux, CMOS camera sensors, and drive-by-wire (heck Tesla is even adopting Ethernet) are totally commoditized. They were fancy 30 years ago, but today they are the boring cheap option. It's pure nostalgia.

The nostalgia is understandably for fully user transparent, user controlled, "home" repairable cars .. which is understandable and a goal I'd like to see in EV's. Open source code, no phone home or hidden backdoors, optionally no wireless or external connectivity other than by on board physical port, etc. Cars of yore have car manuals, manifolds and heads can be replaced with official parts or scrap yard parts or thi…

>Cars of yore have car manuals

No, most cars of yore only had manuals available to dealership technicians, and no one else. Genuine manufacturer-made manuals were difficult or impossible to find.

Everyone else bought Haynes or Chilton "manuals" which were really done by reverse-engineering.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#152

Post by davidhbolton »

bitwize wrote: post #112
ofrzeta wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's a good start, but a grander vision would be to reduce or eliminate the need for cars altogether. You can build and sustain a mighty civilization without automobiles at all . Per Poi Dog Pondering: Well the ancient Egyptians and the other Africans The Mayans, the Incas, and all the Polynesians All around the world, a long long time ago People would walk wherever they had to go

Here in the UK, almost 17% (about nine million people) live outside towns and villages. A trip to the local shop can be several miles on roads that don't have pavements and public transport is of the "one bus a day" type if you are lucky. There are a few people who cycle but they're dedicated and for most it is not an option. Cars are an essential.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#153

Post by fragmede »

shiroiushi wrote: post #151
defrost wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nostalgia is understandably for fully user transparent, user controlled, "home" repairable cars .. which is understandable and a goal I'd like to see in EV's. Open source code, no phone home or hidden backdoors, optionally no wireless or external connectivity other than by on board physical port, etc. Cars of yore have car manuals, manifolds and heads can be replaced with official parts or scrap yard parts or thi…

>Cars of yore have car manuals No, most cars of yore only had manuals available to dealership technicians, and no one else. Genuine manufacturer-made manuals were difficult or impossible to find. Everyone else bought Haynes or Chilton "manuals" which were really done by reverse-engineering.

If you go back to before 2001 with Google and BitTorrent, sure. Things did get easier with those. Full manufacturer service manuals getting leaked to the pirate bay for popular cars, not just the Haynes/Chilton manuals, though those were certainly there too.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#154

Post by beretguy »

edent wrote: post #19

Citroën 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 con…

https://electrek.co/2021/05/04/citroen-ami-small-electric-ca...

> Citroën’s Ami, a small $6,000 electric “car,” is apparently coming to the US as part of new electric car subscription service.

No thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#155

Post by beretguy »

danybittel wrote: post #35
edent wrote: post #19

Citroën 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 con…

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.

> same way as PC's. Plug and play the parts you want

That’s no longer true for the most consumer laptops.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#156

Post by defrost »

shiroiushi wrote: post #151
defrost wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nostalgia is understandably for fully user transparent, user controlled, "home" repairable cars .. which is understandable and a goal I'd like to see in EV's. Open source code, no phone home or hidden backdoors, optionally no wireless or external connectivity other than by on board physical port, etc. Cars of yore have car manuals, manifolds and heads can be replaced with official parts or scrap yard parts or thi…

>Cars of yore have car manuals No, most cars of yore only had manuals available to dealership technicians, and no one else. Genuine manufacturer-made manuals were difficult or impossible to find. Everyone else bought Haynes or Chilton "manuals" which were really done by reverse-engineering.

> No, most cars of yore only had manuals available to dealership technicians, and no one else. Genuine manufacturer-made manuals were difficult or impossible to find.

> Everyone else bought Haynes or Chilton "manuals" which were really done by reverse-engineering.

They did the job and it was hardly difficult to access dealership manuals .. which were more often than not close to the Haynes manuals.

There's a healthy trade in manuals and photocopies of such. The nearest city had an entire shop soley devoted to car manuals back in the 1980s .. it might still be there or not (given the torrents of manual PDFs kicking about today).

I currently live in a town with a large motor museum (rocket cars and steamers and all sorts) and a wealth of machines from 100+ years of agriculture .. plenty of sheds with shops; old tractors, the last holden V8's, even one iteration of the sheep shearing robot we built (in the 1980s).

It's not that difficult to maintain old cars, the parts can be hard to scrounge at times, failing that it can be a wait on a machinist to fab a replacement, but overall there's less mystery than with more recent vehicles.

Re: Ask HN: Why is nobody manufacturing low tech electric cars in 2024?

#159

Post by ZeroGravitas »

EV conversions of older models probably fills this tiny niche quite well.

I had assumed the overly loud voices complaining about this "issue" were just the latest iteration of intelligent people inventing convoluted reasons to go along with their political tribe's insane policy preferences.

Like if you're a Republican on HN you can't just openly deny climate change exists any more (though a few still try), you want plausible deniability that your intense love for nuclear power isn't just an excuse to spread outdated lies about renewables.

Similarly you can loudly announce that you'll never buy an EV, and then when people put you in the "coal rolling idiot" bucket you can surprise them by revealing that it's actually a ridiculously niche concern about too much tech that you've invented to go along with your political peers in their hatred of EVs. And people reading then move you into a subtly different subsection of the anti-EV crank bucket in their mind.

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