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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

#931

Post by panick21_ »

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…

> 2) all the other US manufacturers treated electric as a premium product

This is because the LITERALLY CAN'T make money of a non premium product.

And for Tesla is just because Musk is stupid and went ALL-IN on self driving. They literally believe that the market will drop by 80% because of self driving. That's why the only build robotaxi and no model 2. Against the advice of basically everybody in Tesla leadership.

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

#932

Post by EasyMark »

yellowapple wrote: post #903
testing22321 wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US automakers lost the plot a long time ago, and have just been sucking out money without innovation or improvement since. When California and the EPA tried to legislate lower emissions 9 years into the future, the US automakers sued to block saying it was impossible. Japanese automakers were already selling vehicles that met those standards. When they badly, badly screw up, they just get bailed out with public f…

> When they badly, badly screw up, they just get bailed out with public funds When this happens, I think it's only fair that the bailed-out company becomes publicly owned. If I'm forced to invest in a company with my tax dollars, then I damn well better be treated as an investor. Where are my shares? Where are my dividends?

If GMC had been “publically owned” it would have been gutted for profits (kickbacks) by its bureaucracy and politicians and been long dead by at least a decade. Bureaucrats are not good at running companies and private companies should not be providing public services (prisons, toll roads). I don't know why Americans have become so unpragmatic and either all in on “government doing everything” or “private corps doing everything” when life is never ever that simple.

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

#933

Post by josv »

gosub100 wrote: post #917
le-mark wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon has proven to truly be the dumbest smart guy ever. He alienated Tesla’s core customers; tree hugging liberals, and anyone who cares about sustainability. The GOP nor their voters care and never will. I called this Tesla stock crash months ago; did not act on it though.

The fact that so many "climate activists" and environmentalists turned on him confirms my suspicion that they didn't think so highly about the earth or climate change in the first place. They care about partisan politics and their tribe more than the planet.

Be wary of confirmation bias. I don’t find it unlikely at all that Tesla owners have sincere environmental goals that could be overshadowed by other concerns. Let’s afford each other the grace of being rational expected utility maximizers.

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

#935

Post by isoprophlex »

skellera wrote: post #905
le-mark wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon has proven to truly be the dumbest smart guy ever. He alienated Tesla’s core customers; tree hugging liberals, and anyone who cares about sustainability. The GOP nor their voters care and never will. I called this Tesla stock crash months ago; did not act on it though.

I think less people care about it politically than you think. Most people I know who have Teslas stand by the product even through Elon’s dumb shit. I think people care more about their own convenience. There’s nothing else in our market that’s even comparable. People talk a lot of shit and it wasn’t great to start but FSD is on a different level now, especially on newer cars like the new Model Y. Having a car that m…

[flagged]

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

#936

Post by hinkley »

morepedantic wrote: post #785
hinkley wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with bench seating is not side impact but accidental steering wheel input during hard cornering. In the typical 10 and 2 hand position having your butt move makes your shoulders move, the shoulders make the hands move, and now you’re understeering. Understeering on a mountain road likely means death, and on other roads a ditch or hitting a phone pole.

Skill issue. 100k miles on bench seats in full size sedans to full size pickups, including mountain roads, and nary a problem.

Literally survivor bias.

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

#937

Post by goosejuice »

torginus wrote: post #836
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…

BYD's allowed to sell in Europe. They're not crushing the market here. They're not substantially cheaper, or better for what they offer for the price compared to other manufacturers.

BYD could slash european prices by quite a bit. They price them competitively to take advantage of the margin. The increase in price compared to their domestic MSRP is pretty wild, 2x in some cases. In a race to the bottom, they will win.

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

#938

Post by gniv »

torginus wrote: post #832

I have said this and will reiterate - building an 'afforable' EV is impossible with the current level of technology - by which I mean a vehicle that competes on price with affordable ICE vehicles, and doesn't make compromises that would make it impractical to own as the only car. There are $20k cars with infotainment, bodypaint and probably a lot more creature comforts than this thing. Also this thing has a 150 mile…

Why is this? We've been told that the cost of batteries is in freefall for years now. Why aren't they competitive yet with ICE, even if they are heavier?

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

#939

Post by vessenes »

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…

I will add: power windows. We can hope that’s an upgrade. It’s been a long time since I hand rolled down a window.

That said, I preordered two. I love this.

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

#940

Post by vessenes »

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.

Source: own a small electric car company

My take: with financing this timeline (end of 2026 for first deliveries) is totally doable. The truck is extremely simple. Extremely. There is nothing exotic about the drivetrain or suspension; probably the hardest part was getting the plastic body panel stuff set up.

Second hardest part was designing for simplicity. At some point that part of the process will stop and they will ship.

Price: Probably too low. Manufacturing capacity: who knows? Deliverable: for sure. This is totally deliverable with today’s engineers and today’s parts.

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