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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

#791

Post by plorg »

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...

The range figure is determined by a test regulated by the EPA and actually does account for a variety of driving conditions, specifically including highway driving. The graphic you linked to actually shows that the advertised range is very close to the range at all highway speeds.

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

#793

Post by parineum »

morepedantic wrote: post #766
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,…

TIL poor people can't pollute, so their market segment shouldn't be incentivized to cut pollution. TIL that US car companies won't make smaller cars in the face of different regulations, even though they made larger cars in response to current regulations. The only way to avoid perversions is to tax the problem directly. The market will adjust to all proxies in unintended and harmful ways.

A disincentive on a thing you don't want makes people choose another thing that you may or may not want.

The only way to avoid perversions is to incentivize the things you want.

Taxing cigarettes led to vaping. Maybe less bad but still a nuisance.

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

#794

Post by kubectl_h »

flustercan wrote: post #89

Its a cool car, but forgive me for not getting Lucy-Footballed again by an electric car startup claiming to be able to "change the game" while never actually getting any cars sold.

If they could produce 100,000 of these instantaneously and sell at a 20K price point they'd sell all of them before the end of tomorrow and they'd immediately go out of business because they would be about a billion dollars in the hole, at a minimum.

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

#795

Post by tzs »

cco wrote: post #731
resters wrote: post #632

This is extremely refreshing. I think that it would be possible to make something like this in the US for under $15K even. Cars and trucks are so over-engineered and come with tons of low value options intended to drive up the price. For a case in point, consider that headlights that turn on and off automatically in response to darkness (or rain) are not a standard feature on many cars, yet they include a manual swit…

I'll do you one better, car headlights should never be off while the motor is running. Just like motorcycles since the 70s (maybe 80s?). No switch at all, ignition on, headlights on, period.

Personally I feel like cars with headlights in the daytime on days with good visibility can be too noticeable. I find myself giving them too much attention because they stand out more in my visual field.

When the oncoming cars do not have headlights on I find it easier to give them just enough attention to see that they are behaving normally leaving more attention to devote to things other than oncoming cars.

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

#796

Post by DidYaWipe »

Animats wrote: post #771

The US is falling way behind in electric vehicles. If BYD could sell in the US, the US auto industry would be crushed.[1] What went wrong is that 1) Tesla never made a low-end vehicle, despite announcements, and 2) all the other US manufacturers treated electric as a premium product, resulting in the overpowered electric Hummer 2 and F-150 pickups with high price tags. The only US electric vehicle with comparable pri…

What went wrong is that the federal government didn't build or legislate a national charging infrastructure to match the scale of the interstate highway system.

They could have strong-armed the states into it with a combination of funding the construction and the way they mandated the 21 drinking age: by threatening to withhold highway funds.

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

#797

Post by DidYaWipe »

zx10rse wrote: post #622
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...

Automotive industry is one of the biggest scams on planet earth. One of my favorite cases recently is how Suzuki Jimny is banned in Europe and US because of emission standards allegedly, so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km oh and surprise surprise Mercedes are going to release a smaller more affordable G-Class [1]. [1] - https://www.motortr…

The Jimny is my favorite example of a cool little vehicle that would address a glaring hole in the U.S. market.

The situation here is pathetic. We can't have truly small trucks or sport-utes because of obviously incompetent or corrupt regulations.

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

#798

Post by tzs »

bluGill wrote: post #349
ty6853 wrote: post #35

I love it. However I wonder about the overlap between people that need a truck and this particular truck. I have only owned trucks when I needed to go out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with a payload, in places with poor access to electricity. If I need to go in bumfuck nowhere without payload then there is no need for the truck, and if I need a payload in the city it's just way way cheaper to have it delivered wh…

Rural areas tend to not have gas close. 10 miles or so. I know farmers who get gas delivery just because some cars never go to town, just field to field. Charge an ev at home and they avoid a lot of fuel headaches.

I remember in the '70s in central California many farmers did a similar thing, except with propane instead of electricity. They already had large propane tanks and regular propane delivery because they used propane for heating and cooking, so converting a truck to run on propane brought the same kind of convenience that an EV brings today.

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

#799

Post by nkoren »

Not a truck guy, but I like it. What I like the most is that it's not batshit fucking insane.

I recently visited America after a couple of years away, and spent a couple of weeks in California, driving from SF to LA. The thing which I found the most striking was the sheer insanity of the pickup trucks that were absolutely everywhere. These things were true Idiocracy-class monster trucks, which are clearly lethal to operate in any environment which includes pedestrians. In some cases, my five-year-old's head barely reached the bumper, and my wife's head didn't clear the hood. And these were highly-polished, un-dented behemoths that had clearly never seen a dirt road in their lives. The whole thing is clearly all about aesthetics and identity politics. Absolutely revolting.

(If you haven't visited the US recently, I think it's almost impossible to appreciate how obscene the phenomena is. 10 years ago, trucks were far more restrained, but could still do everything they needed to do. 30 years ago, trucks were fully half the size, but could still carry the same-size loads and do honest work. There's honestly no possible justification for their corpulent growth.)

Anyhow, this thing looks like it can do honest work without killing everyone who crosses its path. I really appreciate that. I hope it starts a trend.

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

#800

Post by DidYaWipe »

leephillips wrote: post #670
zx10rse wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automotive industry is one of the biggest scams on planet earth. One of my favorite cases recently is how Suzuki Jimny is banned in Europe and US because of emission standards allegedly, so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km oh and surprise surprise Mercedes are going to release a smaller more affordable G-Class [1]. [1] - https://www.motortr…

The Jimny or similar Suzuki models would not be offered for sale in the U.S. because it’s basically the latest iteration of the Samuri, which died there after Consumer Reports falsely claimed that it was dangerously prone to rollover.

I don't recognize it as being a Samurai descendent.

Related note: I just saw a Suzuki Sidekick on the road in L.A., in Geo Tracker trim... a rare sight nowadays. It sounded like shit, but with a robust platform a vehicle like that would be just what the U.S. market lacks: a burly SMALL sport-ute.

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