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A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

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Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#381

Post by hansvm »

orbital-decay wrote: post #368
hansvm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely worry about the ability of this thing to drive through a couple feet of water safely.

Due to it being electric or due to the specific design? EVs are generally much easier to design for water crossings. I actually drove an electric motorcycle across a river fully submerged, which it wasn't even designed for (had to do a thorough check afterwards but it was completely fine). This is not even remotely possible with the bike I normally ride (Africa Twin).

Due to it being electric. That's really interesting. What prevents shorts?

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#382

Post by masklinn »

kyledrake wrote: post #210
rozap wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also love this design and I'm happy that someone is doing it. I think it's unlike anything else on the market. But, they won't necessarily be competing against other new things on the market. My wife also rides horses and we got a $5000 20 year old F250 which is very basic but has been bulletproof, and it can tow. I imagine old, basic trucks, either cheap domestic ones or kei trucks will be what this thing competes…

All micro cargo van providers have stopped building them. The Transit Connect, Metris, Promaster City and NV200 are all now discontinued. The VW Caddy isn't sent to the states. There are rumors that they will make a cargo van based on the Maverick but they make them in Mexico, and with the tariff situation I'm not sure if they will be going through with that anymore. All of the perfect compacts and hatchbacks are slo…

> All micro cargo van providers have stopped building them. The Transit Connect, Metris, Promaster City and NV200 are all now discontinued.

This is an entirely american problem, because the small van is largely dead in the US. They're doing fine elsewhere.

The Metris is still manufactured (as the Vito, or V260 in China), and is not the smallest model which is the Citan (based on the Kangoo, with its second gen based on kangoo III in 2021).

The Promaster City (Fiat Doblo) still exists, as a rebadged Berlingo since 2022.

The NV 200 was replaced by the NV 250 (a rebadged Kangoo II) in 2019, which was then replaced by the Townstar (a rebadged Kangoo III) in late 2021. There's also the Docker / Express below that (which descends from the Logan MCV / Van).

And the Transit Connect was replaced by the Caddy (rebadged), but Ford dropped its original plans of a US release.

> There is an enormous category of consumers that just want an auto that's simple, affordable, safe, fuel efficient and reasonably sized.

Apparently not sufficiently so (or with a consistent enough need) that they can be catered to. Or at least not so that you couldn't make more money selling them pavement princesses.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#383

Post by neogodless »

subpixel wrote: post #82

With a 1000lb towing capacity and 150m range (let’s call that 120 when you don’t charge 100%) this eliminates too many use cases. It’s the anti-cybertruck but aimed at people who actually could get by with a nice trailer.

Just about anyone who doesn't mind the slight inconvenience and has space for a trailer... would be better off with a trailer than a truck.

But this could easily handle a mild commute and nearby errand running. Most "truck" stuff is like buying 5 bags of mulch from the Home Depot that's 10 minutes away. This will handle that perfectly well.

But yes, 20-80% battery usage makes the base model daily range 90 miles, unladen.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#384

Post by mgaunard »

Suppafly wrote: post #162
mgaunard wrote: post #103

With all those missing of basic features why is it still 20k and not 10k?

>With all those missing of basic features why is it still 20k and not 10k? Because you can't sell a car for 10k in the US without losing money.

I never bought a car for more than 10k. Seems like a huge waste of money.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#386

Post by Rebelgecko »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #341

150 mile range makes it close to useless. As soon as you take it on a highway, the range will likely drop by half. Which means you can only do a round trip of 37 miles before you have to charge. Even a very aerodynamic Model 3 loses half of range at highway speeds. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/vkz0SOnR45Gved9B-q9n...

If I'm reading the chart properly it looks like the M3LR gets a smidge better than the advertised range at 65mph?

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#387

Post by Thrymr »

MostlyStable wrote: post #338
aidenn0 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's overly reductive. 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive. 2. You can work around #1 by applying incentives for manufacturers to make more efficient cars should lead any carbon tax 3. If you just reward companies based on fleet-average fuel economy without regard to vehicle size,…

All carbon tax is inherently regressive but that's also trivially fixable. Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive , since on average richer people will spend more on fuel (and therefore the tax) even though it is likely a much smaller percentage of their spending. Every single one of your ideas has problems that are solved by a carbon t…

It's hard to see any of this as "trivially fixable." Taxes are inherently political, politics are complicated, changing incentives on this scale are pretty much impossible in our political system.

"Taxes are simple... and they don't have loopholes" is not at all how taxes work in the US. Perhaps your imagined perfect carbon tax is simple, but a simple tax with no loopholes is not likely to happen. Everyone wants a break or exception, and many of the interested parties are powerful.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#388

Post by neogodless »

FeistySkink wrote: post #9

Looks interesting. Are there any real-life non-marketing photos of it? Reminds me of Bollinger prototypes. Whatever happened to those?

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/amazon-backed-startup-w...

Scroll down. The launch event photos look like real prototypes. A bit closer than the marketing photos.

Re: A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

#389

Post by EvanAnderson »

ryandrake wrote: post #96
taylodl wrote: post #43

I LOVE it! THIS is the kind of truck I'd be looking at to replace my 1998 Ford Ranger. Here is what could be potential deal-breakers: - Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues. - Lack of good charge management and battery conditioning. Either that, or a cheap and easy to replace battery pack. I'd really like both! - Comparable h…

> - Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues. Noooooooooo! No apps, please ! Finally a car not tethered to and dependent on your phone, and we already have our first request to app-ify it! EDIT: Ughhh, according to the video that another user posted, it looks like there's an app, and yes, "updates" go through it :( > - Lack of go…

> Noooooooooo! No apps, please!

I wish devices could have web servers and web-based UI rather than thick "apps" that end up rotting when device manufacturers arbitrarily decide that old software won't work anymore (cough, cough-- Apple-- cough, cough).

I know we can't because "security", no end-to-end over the Internet anymore, etc. >sighIt seems like we've engineered the networking and software ecosystem to promote disposable "smart" devices. It's almost like somebody profits from it. Hmm...

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