public transit will never work for 100% of people

No renaults at all, and no kia ev2 here. Affordable cars are pretty much completely gone from our market.

Yeah Americans are shit at doing hsr

Oh damn, and with Chinese brands not allowed, its pretty much waiting for Japanese brands for you all

Go get a used Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf. Tesla ain't the only EV in the US.

I've wrote this before and I'll write it again. Conversion kits need to become mainstream. It's like my old Jeep can have pretty much any engine. Someone converted theirs with using parts from a junk yard Tesla.

Public transit is never going to work until people stop being allowed to make it not work.

as battery tech improves and electric motors become more powerful and ubiquitous it'll happen. there's a small market of people converting classic cars to ev. one day I'd like to convert my old honda element. I don't need 300 miles range, give me 80 and it'll be fine for grabbing lumber or taking junk to the dump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53ZV1GMrf50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqcHIQmWgIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d53aNHMMai0

and a host of companies trying to cater to the market -

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T4WWHvZODz4

dig around and there's a lot more. there's a lot of rolling stock that can be swapped eventually, it would be stupid to condemn all that metal to scrap.

No you do not have to buy a wrap. That is literally false.

Well like, literally everything degrades with time. The sun is a giant microwave after all.

Furthermore, are we under the same understanding that Automotive Paint is like some real expensive shit since the paint has to survival literally every kind of environment in the world?

There's a really cool "How It's Made" episode on it. Though now that I think of it maybe it was propaganda to normalize expensive paint costs... 🤔

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU DON'T LIKE SLATE EVs?! 😬

I am so excited for the Slate trucks. I wish I had the $300 for the preorder down payment oof. My uncle says that the Slate SUV would sell better because most people needing cars just go back and forth from work or the grocery story. 30-60 miles tops. The Slate says it has a 200 mile range so 160 miles should be a safe bet.

I wish Slate would pay me to advertise for Slate but here I am doing it for free like a chump. Free labor is the cornerstone of the american market though.

I am weary that a big investor for Slate is the gold hording dragon known has jeff bazos. But we'll see what happens.

P.S Yeah Europeans, we drive 50-100km one way to work, five days a week. But it's worth the FREEDOM. 🔫 🦅 🔫 Do ya'll even have a gun rack in y'ur truck? I feel bad for ya'll. What are y'uh gunna do when the Technomacers from Alpha Centuri V team up with the Underground Lizard People and invade us? How are ya'll gunna protect y'urselves? With a bright torch and a stern talking too? 🤨

Its an iron!

Looks like a Tesla model 3 and a Fiat 500 had a baby

But why pay all that money for a truck when you can

... Because of Modularity. If the rich don't fuck it up for us, big if, then small time after market companies will flourish selling their mods.

I can't remember the name of the principle. But my pal explained it to me. It's almost impossible for small business to compete with production of scale. So one way to survive is to work find a way to add an extra 20% of hand done work machines can't do to the product. Add a proverbial "cherry on the top" to your business. You let the mass producers do 80% of the work (Slate); Then you add your 20% custom made finish to make the final product.

I like the example of cheap drinking glasses and Podstakannik. But a more familiar example would be painting miniatures for money.

Imagine if Mazda made an mx-5 EV or Toyota made an 86 EV.

I'm pro-EV in general (pro-trains notwithstanding), but don't see the point in that. I'd rather they just got the people who designed the MX-5 and GT86 to design EV sports cars on their own terms. An MX-5 EV would just be there to remind you how much more fun the ICE version was to drive.

The US is basically walling up its market against affordable compact cars. That can't be the whole reason however. After all, Renault could sell the R5 or Twingo in the US if it wanted I assume. Are the regulations there so incredibly hostile towards compact cars, or do European companies resent producing compact cars as well and just do it in Europe because they absolutely have to, in order to survive?

Or being able to adjust the A/C or ventilation blind without being forced to take the eyes off the road and redirect them towards a complicated screen layout.

There is a whole chunk of people wanting the diesel electric conversion kits Deboss Garage is developing with Edison Motors.

https://debossgarage.com/builds/diesel-electric-edison-pickup

(yes it will be possible to have a big battery instead of an engine + smaller battery)

Totally agree. It sounds like you live in Vermont or the like. I think of how the star trek movie had a electric corvette.

Pretty cool if it's legit. The west side Germany 300 got me a giggle. Bookmarked it. Okay, I just finished. I can't believe this tech is out. I have read about how well it does with frying oil.

Business idea: Very cheap electric city car with low range, but standardised commodity batteries you can rent for long journeys.

Most cheap EVs have a battery you need to rent, and they are "standard" to the company (proprietary)

Making batteries exchangeable adds a lot of costs and overhead. The battery changing infrastructure is even a greater nightmare. Nio tried it and failed. With batteries getting better and better, this concept also is getting less and less feasible. It is really easier and cheaper to expand infrastructure of long range EV renting.
That said, in Europe taking the train and renting an EV at the destination (range is not much of an issue then either) is probably the more relaxed option anyway, if a car is needed at all.

We are talking about that car not being cheap.

Americans don't like cars any smaller than a house because they make you gay

Well yeah I don't mean literally make the same car but an EV. Of course there are special considerations that need to be made when designing a different type of car. The main reason most EVs aren't very fun is because most of them haven't been designed to be.

"hyperloop" lol

What do gay Americans drive?

Outbacks or Foresters

It will be like flying an ultralight over your own land. And it won't even be legal on public road.

No dude, level 3 charging does not degrade the battery in any significant way

Home charging is easily better for city car. Only two use cases for changeable batteries are commercial two wheelers and trailer trucks. And for trucks you'll need to change out the driver too. There are ones being trialed which use a forklift to change it out.

Isn't the mark down on used EVs (not ICE) a lot more?

Yes but let's say, in the interim, we make cars that are more efficient and better for the environment, and make them affordable enough that everyone can use one.

Maybe, but you cannot expect an entire societal mindset to change overnight, and for many, it's never going to change. Society in many places can't even agree that women are equal to men, which is like, step one for any other equality mindset going down the line, for example. Because it's been engrained into culture.

Even places with better mass transit than the US like Europe or Japan still have cars. Mas transit works great in some areas and terrible in others. Which is also why its going to be impossible to make it work 100% of the time for 100% of situations.

Even before cars, we had "individual transport" with things like carts and horses etc. mass Transit isn't even an old concept.

Why not a city car EV and just rent another car when you need to make long journeys?

Or for me in the UK, why would I want a car, you can't even drink in it. Trains have staff to sell me a drink.

Tesla doesn't want to produce cheap cars. Tesla wants to be a premium brand.

They could spin off a value brand, like the opposite of what Hyundai did with Genesis. And they don't want to do that, because that means less money. Much more effective to lobby to keep cheap Chinese cars out of the country.

But I wouldn't buy one if they did...fuck Elon.

I don't believe them that it was compromised air, it was probably actually a monopropellant given its space x tech.

Small fast cars

They are releasing the cheapest EV on the American market.

Lmao Bollywood type shit for the plebs

You do know the difference between "cheapest" and "cheap", do you?
What is its price point?

A premium brand that cuts costs at any corner and even proudly proclaims though? Their main selling cars (model 3 and Y) are not premium cars, they are mid range cars and certainly not known for having a premium feel, rather to deliver a very good range for the price and the software stuff.

Having sat on a rail replacement bus inching its way towards Stansted down the M11 while the takeoff time loomed closer and closer, I think I'll pass on that for important journeys.

Quite happy to take it to work, the worst that happens there is a shorter working day.

And it'll be extra nice because those kits could also deshitify the car in the process. Oh, you stuck a dependency on a functional phone home system in the fuel injection loop? Who cares after I've removed the fuel injectors?

The US buyer is obsessed with size, power and automatic transmission. Almost half of Americans believe “Made in USA” equates to a superior product. There are tariffs and a vast distribution network is required. Cars would have to be significantly adapted to follow US regulations.

Hyundai Ioniq 5 is the best small EV in the USA. I highly recommend it.

citation needed

Selling at cost allows you to undercut other companies and take over the market, then charge a premium. It's a pretty basic business strategy.

Mazda confirmed the next generation of MX-5 will include EV and petrol powertrain options.

I'm still a little salty about my experience trying to test drive a used Ioniq 6. It was on the site for like $23k I think. I reserved it and then got an email saying that they'd already sold it, but they have a new one available to see for like $55k. I like my Bolt EUV a lot, but Ioniq 6 was my first choice, and I've since only discovered more reasons to be envious lol. My 50kW level 3 charging is incredibly sluggish compared to the 300ish that they can do, even if it's rare for me to have to use it at all.

I have a lot of buttons and switches, but I have to tap the screen to select and deselect HVAC vents. That's annoying while driving. There's a button for max defog, but I don't want to keep cycling that on and off. Just give me a damn knob.