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

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91–100 of 207 posts

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

#91
post #90

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 1B€ 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.

What is illegal?

A car without a complex internal electronic system.

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many would be willing to pay $1000 more for more buttons.

Compared to how much auto makers inflated car prices the past few years?

The story for 2024 is the falling prices of EV's.

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

#93
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…

> 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 be…

They get paid to put it in. Another revenue stream.

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

#95
post #55

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…

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.

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

#96
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.

Xiaomi's new SU7 is supposed to support a number of accessories like that:

https://www.tiktok.com/@hu_changwen/video/736154455749586460...

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

#97
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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.

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

#98

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 - e…

> Car is still a wealth marker.

Definitely not in the US.

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

#100
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

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.

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.
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