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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

#571

Post by thekevan »

>The rather extreme omission of any kind of media system in the car is jarring, but it, too, has secondary benefits.

>“Seventy percent of repeat warranty claims are based on infotainment currently because there’s so much tech in the car that it’s created a very unstable environment in the vehicle,” Snyder says.

I'm totally cool with them not having an infotainment screen or even a stereo itself. But speaker management might be a pain.

I really hope they decide to either include speakers to which you connect to your own infotainment system or at the very least, have the space or brackets where you can bring your own speakers and install them without cutting.

Having a bluetooth speaker take care of all the sound is just too bulky and cumbersome for those of us who need to live with constant music in the car. Plus, I don't want to leave a $150 bluetooth speaker in my car all the time and encourage break-ins.

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

#572

Post by aksss »

ceejayoz wrote: post #541
guywithahat wrote: post #525

The issue with this is they claim the cost savings came from not having a screen and other silly features, but that’s not where money is spent. The real cost savings came a tiny, 150 mile battery. It could easily be <100 miles loaded up after a few years of use, which means there are very few use cases for this truck, and it certainly doesn’t make sense without the tax credit. Cool idea, but there’s no getting around…

There are plenty of use cases for a ~100 mile truck.

There are plenty of use cases in the narrow band that it can operate, but it is a pretty narrow band. Around town commuter in climate that doesn't need AWD/4WD, like great for shopping, commuting, or for small contractors doing jobs. Two people in the vehicle plus luggage, it will be interesting to see what happens to range. Love the concept.

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

#573

Post by cma »

thekevan wrote: post #571

>The rather extreme omission of any kind of media system in the car is jarring, but it, too, has secondary benefits. >“Seventy percent of repeat warranty claims are based on infotainment currently because there’s so much tech in the car that it’s created a very unstable environment in the vehicle,” Snyder says. I'm totally cool with them not having an infotainment screen or even a stereo itself. But speaker managemen…

I'd rather have my Bluetooth speaker stolen than an installed stereo stolen where they just gut parts of the car and rip things up. But it will be a bigger target since it's easier to resell.

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

#574

Post by crazygringo »

Brybry wrote: post #459
mtillman wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine print: The truck in the link is only $20K after government subsidies/rebates. So if the government gives my tax dollars to buyers of this truck, then it will cost $20K.

Electric vehicle tax credits are non-refundable tax credits meaning you can't get a credit for more than you owe. [1][2] Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles (though there may be some infrastructure or manufacturing grants for companies). [1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12600 [2] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-wha...

That's not really true.

If the taxes someone would otherwise pay are going to their electric vehicle instead, somebody else has to make up the difference.

So yes, other people are getting my tax dollars to buy electric vehicles. It just takes two steps rather than one, if you want to look at it that way.

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

#575

Post by api »

aidenn0 wrote: post #253

For anyone curious, if you made a similarly sized gas-powered pickup with an i4 engine, it would be penalized more than a full-sized pickup for being too fuel inefficient, despite likely getting much better mileage than an F-150 because, since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

> since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

... and this is why American cars got so huge, if anyone was curious.

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

#576

Post by tlb »

rcpt wrote: post #411
MostlyStable wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example #5621 that a simple carbon tax would be miles better than the complex morass of regulations we currently have.

The purpose of the CAFE regulations is very explicitly to favor American automakers who make big trucks.

It wasn't the intended purpose. It turned out that way because the Detroit lobbyists were smarter and more motivated than the government policy people, and they bamboozled them.

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

#577

Post by eightys3v3n »

ceejayoz wrote: post #541
guywithahat wrote: post #525

The issue with this is they claim the cost savings came from not having a screen and other silly features, but that’s not where money is spent. The real cost savings came a tiny, 150 mile battery. It could easily be <100 miles loaded up after a few years of use, which means there are very few use cases for this truck, and it certainly doesn’t make sense without the tax credit. Cool idea, but there’s no getting around…

There are plenty of use cases for a ~100 mile truck.

I would buy a 160km truck to drive to and from work.

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

#578

Post by eightys3v3n »

moffkalast wrote: post #543
dogline wrote: post #11

It's a $20k, street-legal, EV modding platform. Sounds like you can mount your own infotainment system. Just an electric motor, battery, and chassis, and the rest is up to you. Isn't this what we've been asking for?

> a comprehensive active safety system that includes everything from automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection to automatic high beams No stereo, but luckily they still found space for a few DNN accelerators that will slam on the brakes randomly when getting false detections. Likely still has a 4G uplink and all the modern car cancer to make sure they can datamine their clients as much as possible and off…

Another comment said there is no cellular modem; updates come through the app using a phone.

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

#579

Post by crazygringo »

RandomBacon wrote: post #261
hylaride wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, definitely. It being a 2 seater is kind of a deal breaker for families. What you need is not a pickup truck. Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc. > Back in the day, we'd stuff 3 kids between two adults, but these days the Safety People would have a heart attack just thinking about that. Rightfully so. Back in the day we did so many things we shouldn't have,…

> Catering to families means expensive bells and whistles, like entertainment systems, etc. It absolutely does NOT mean those things. Cars didn't have entertainment systems for nearly a century and families did just fine. My entertainment system was the window. Observe the world, not just whatever AI-generated garbage some algorithm pushes to a small screen 8-10 inches away from your eyes.

> My entertainment system was the window. Observe the world...

The world is pretty freaking boring when it's just pavement and the 5,000th time you've passed the same strip mall, gas station, and McDonald's. The same dirty snowbanks on either side of the same gray asphalt under the interminably gray winter sky.

Maybe you lived in a place of wonderful natural beauty, or a vibrant urban street culture. A lot of people don't.

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

#580

Post by aksss »

I like the idea of this as a Framework-style vehicle. If they really leaned into the mod community and were making deliberate decisions to support this, it could offer a lot of traction. Shame there's no AWD version of this. That, the larger battery option, in truck mode with a rack and tonneau cover would be great for contractors as an around-town job vehicle.
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