North American car companies are doing the LAMF thing. They have spent the last 4 decades stifling innovation in EV or fuel efficient cars to appease the gas lobby and create monster sized vehicles that they can convince a gullible consumer are necessary. If they had spent even 25% of their R&D on what comes after fossil fuels, they would be able to compete with China now. Same as Africa skipped the whole phone lines thing and went strait to cellular, China is now skipping ahead to the next generation not wasting time on producing past generations stuff. Wind and solar power, batteries are the same. Do I feel sorry for industries that pegged themselves to gas when consumers asked for different? Not it the least. They reaped what they sowed, or failed to sow.
Fuck. Cars.
Including electric ones.
Including asphalt.
I am genuinely shocked reading this from a Japanese car CEO. A German or an American, well they suck in terms of quality (yes also German cars, read the tests, very bad performance in repairs/km driven). Japanese cars usually score high in quality and innovation.
Japanese companies cornered precision manufacturing which is really useful when producing reliable and efficient internal combustion engines. Electric cars are less dependent on precision manufacturing which is probably why Japanese companies failed to invest in them. They wouldn’t have any strategic advantages in the EV market. It was a total lack of foresight on their part. Chinese companies invested so much in battery and electric motor research and manufacturing that they now have a pretty sizable advantage over everyone else.
Once again, China is the new Japan in so many ways. /s
Make a dumb EV and you immediately get a lot of clients.
An EV doesn’t need internet access, doesn’t need mics and cameras inside, doesn’t need a touchpad or a big screen.
they’ll come eventually
The first wave where the tech bros were you can leverage $ off them. Car manufacturers themselves said they were initially going after the high margin paying customer. You cant sell a new car here in Aus without all sorts of passive monitoring stuff,so that’s an issue for a simple car.
now you’re at the family level, mid size SUVs are prevailing here in Australian the BYD Atto 2 and similar models from Geely and KIA etc. Telsas are still unfortunately popular and we only get the 3 and the Y
most people want connected cars, my gf loves preheating our BYD when she heads off on an early morning start before she hops in, seats and cabin have been prewarmed etc. she likes the 360 birdseye cameras and I must admit they are very good.
When it’s at a public charger you can monitor it while you’re away so you don’t get hit with idle fees etc albeit 90% of our changing is at home off solar panels. The biggest complaint from Cupra and VW EV owners in Australia is the lack of connected services though there is possibly a bunch of folks who bought them for that reason who aren’t complaining.
Just give me a damn conversion kit… I love my current car and like none of the modern ones, with useless features and annoying stuff like the mandatory lane assist, but I’d gladly stop polluting if I could.
Yeah If I could get a conversation kit for my 01 Tacoma I’d be right fucken happy, I’d even sacrifice a quarter of the bed for battery space if need be. Would still have 2x the bed space of a cyberclunk as well.
It doesn’t have to be a “dumb” car. Just don’t route everything through a stupid touchpad. I know it costs more to install buttons but I don’t want to have to hunt and peck through dropdown menus to turn on the radio or air conditioning. And I definitely don’t want a subscription service, that will be canceled eventually, to access remote start.
Its worse than that. The whole car usually runs through that computer, so when it goes out the whole car goes out and is expensive to replace.
This is what Slate Auto is doing with their truck.
I just Bezos wasn’t invested in the company. I’d hate to give that fucker any more money if I can help it.
Unfortunately with the US EV incentives gone the Slate is way overpriced for what it is. 150 mile range and manual crank windows and no radio or speakers at all on the base model for $28K. I can understand wanting a low tech vehicle but I think they might have gone a step too far.
I want them to survive so bad.
I don’t need my vehicle to be a third place. I don’t want a molded dash with an entertainment center that will be obsolete when it’s new and unable to be modified because they abandoned the DIN standard so you could only buy factory replacements. I just want a thing that can do ~50+ miles a day and recharge that overnight. Which Slate could do with just a regular 120v outlet.
Who knows if they’ll actually make it to market or if it’ll be $40k+ by the time it does, but even without the EV incentive $28k puts it among cheapest new cars in the US. I’m just severely unenthusiastic about any other newer cars on the market if my current one dies.
I don’t disagree. I think the issue Slate is facing is inflation and tariffs. I believe their president mentioned something about it. Even Mtsubishi pulled their Mirage off production, which I really liked.
I do wish it had a higher range for the base model. 150mi is fine commuting, but sucks for road trips. I love the barebones truck concept.
Don’t get me wrong, I really love the idea as well and really hope for Slate to succeed and make the v2 even better. All previous EV pickups were targeting the full-size truck crowd, but I think a compact EV truck makes wayyy more sense!
Right! I think it’s a good entry level for first time buyers into the EV market
That’s why the Slate is the only EV I am even remotely interested in at this point. I hope it actually comes out and doesn’t suck.
It looks like it is. Slate has been doing lots of irl photo ops recently
so has Aptera… stans have been true believing since 2009, and now a bill is going to make them illegal.
Isn’t Bezos behind Slate though?
I know there were multiple kickstarter type funding schemes for Aptera, but it’s not like the influence a couple billionaires exert. The main problem with Aptera though is all the other vehicles on the road. We need legislation to start shrinking trucks and SUVs and stop killing us all so easily before smaller lighter cars can happen. Maybe someday.
The problem is tracking you provides them revenue since they can sell the data, so they make more money with a vehicle that tracks you vs one that doesn’t. A non-tracking vehicle is less competitive if it has to be sold for the same or less money than one that tracks you.
Selling vehicles gets you more money than not. Build a car that people can afford and want to drive will earn you money. Tracking you is worth nothing if you don’t buy it in the first place.
yep
I bought a 2012 because it was the most palatable vehicle to replace my 2008
there’s like nothing after that that remotely interests me, at least in a reasonable used price range. and there’s certainly nothing new that interests me due to all the overcomplicated shit, touchscreens, bright dashboards, and LED headlights
The problem is all the manufacturers have decided to track you, theres little to no alternative. I dont know if its proper collusion or convergent shittiness but thats whats happening
Someone on here turned me on to removing the sim from my electric. Gonna take 15 minutes when I remember to do it when I have time.
Now do it with the new ones that have eSim
Just find the antenna and clip it.
Don’t forget to swing it and make the swishy noise.
How well does clipping the antenna actually work?
If my FM radio antenna rusts and falls off, my FM radio still works. Reception will be shitty but it’s absolutely still usable for nearby or powerful stations.
When the GPS antenna inside my much-abused phone came loose, GPS got very unreliable but still often worked in a glitchy way.
If I clipped the external antenna on a car’s cell modem, would it not be the same way? Based on my experience with those other kinds of antennas I’d expect maybe the manufacturer would lose the ability to track me while driving in remote or mountainous areas, but generally in cities or highways it would still connect. Is it not so?
Nope, because your car’s cell modem has to transmit. Your radio just has to receive.
No car needs that shit, but how else can they justify $60000?
I need a golf cart that can go 80+mph and passes us safety standards.
Agreed. Where’s the modern equivalent to my 95 honda civic? Zero smart features and it was the cheapest AND best car I’ve ever owned.
the best I’ve found stopped being made over a decade ago
Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe
Hyundai Elantra Touring
Renault Twingo EV. <$20,000. Not with US tariffs.
But Americans don’t buy small cars.
Geez, that looks nice. And the green is really a pretty color.
I wish we got small cars again. I’m going to be really sad when I have to give up my MR2 spyder. Fortunately, with an average of 1 to 2 mile a day, I think it’ll hang on a while.
I wish we got small cars again.
US vehicle weight tracks with the US obesity rate last 20 years. Maybe Ozempic will turn people back to smaller cars.
I want a new metro hatchback. If a 3 cyclinder could make it go and get 55mpgh then an electric engine would zoomzoomzoom.
That era of Civic/Accord was so good. Drove one until it had like 270k miles on it before the insurance company decided to junk it after some body damage
i don’t think japan has the lithium
The sad truth is that 99.99% of customers (citation needed) don’t give a shit about getting tracked or having stupid “smart” features
The byd has its own robot vacuum cleaner that cleans up between drives…
I get where you’re coming from but, for most people, such a car would be worse since it would have comparatively fewer features than the competition.
the perfect car would be sodium battery, all tactile buttons and switches, one screen in the middle with carplay/android auto.
not at all, I’m holding on to my old car because I hate the idea of a car becoming hardware to sell me subscription services, a hard-to-repair mass of electronics that I (mostly) don’t need or actively find annoying, and a privacy nightmare, instead of just being a mean for me to move from point A to point B
what these car companies fail to understand is, at this point, many potential buyers want CHEAP cars that have features you find at luxury prices. unfortunately, all these car companies have split their business into two different brands: economical (Honda) and luxury (Acura).
I believe if this was not the case, it would be much easier to have r&d begin to compete with china, as they are able to put these high end features into affordable cars (as the xiaomi su7 has already proven).
these car manufacturers have coasted on their success with no true innovation for too long. I personally hope Honda can make it through, but I just don’t see it… I would have loved to own an Acura ZDX if it wasn’t for the insanely high price (which I believe they discontinued as of last year…?)
I want a car that doesnt guzzle gas, blows hot and cold and is relatively easy to maintain.
Every other “luxury” feature like touch screens, heated seats, backup cams, I don’t necessarily need. I do like having a backup camera though. My 2015 Toyota Camry does everything I need it to, aside from the stupid touchscreen and the obnoxious way it plays whatever was last playing when my phone connects. Thankfully it still has physical buttons and dials for things.
Heated seats are pretty nice for long distance driving. But fuck adding it to the infotainment system.
And back up cameras are mandatory now, so it’s no longer a luxury feature.
I’ll go one farther, and say I actively do not want those luxury features. I like maintaining my cars, and the addition of all these systems makes it that much more complicated.
All I am looking for is reliability! The only fancy feature I’d add would be a beeping backup sensor. But no camera. Heck, I’m fine with manual door locks and no AC.
I would have purchased an electric vehicle long before now if I could get one without a touchscreen. But alas, I am stuck in thee land of mega trucks known as the US.
I do get that. Less things in the car means less things that can break which yea, I’m all for to a point. I just can’t take heat, I need the ac man.
And I would love to have an electric car if I drove less than 100 miles a day, if chargers were more common, if all chargers used the same common charger port and connector, and if I had a house go charge if at. Also if swaping batteries wasnt a nightmare. That should be the easiest thing to do on an electric car aside from maintaining motors or swapping other common components.
I swear to god this and the Ford CEO saying basically the exact same thing have some benefit for them that isn’t obvious. CEOs won’t even admit anything bad even when it’s their own company doing something wrong that has everyone pissed at them. There’s no chance in hell a CEO is going to publicly announce that “we have no chance” against a competitors product.
There’s probably some backroom deal with China where these guys “play the fool” for a day and then get access to something, whether domestic manufacturing in China, access to tech, access to rare earths, or some other thing.
They’re probably angling for more restrictions on Chinese cars in the US/Japan. Then they can enjoy their monopoly over the domestic market without having to actually invest anything to actually compete with Chinese auto companies
They’re saying they need more taxpayer money.
Then fire him and hire someone with a plan to match.
The problem is Japan doesnt refine any materials while China refines all the materials, and electric vehicles are relatively simple relative to combustion engines so theres less barrier to entry. The largest barrier is the battery, which is also manufactured in China.
This article seems to be focused on manufacturing for the Chinese domestic market, not the export of cars. They are worried about being shut out of the Chinese market.
And they are 100% right about their assumption. China isn‘t letting anyone in anymore. They use their entire state capitalist machine to reject foreign companies completely. Global companies should forget about China and decouple.
China isn‘t letting anyone in anymore.
You’re literally making this up, though. As an example, China recently passed a fiscal reform to develop Hainan province making it easier for foreign companies to establish themselves there and, if they give a given percentage of added value, be able to export their product to the rest of provinces without import taxes.
Also employees that work very long days for minimal pay. I say we should not compete with that.
Japan has that.
Wages are small in China because cost of life is small. You can find a bowl of noodles for $2 or less in most of China, 90+% of people own their housing so don’t have to pay rent, and utilities are heavily subsidized. I spent 2 weeks visiting China a bit over a year ago and I saw fewer homeless people in the whole trip than I saw between the airport and the hotel in my only US visit (work related)
They were warned. It is the classic disruption model that played out repeatedly over the last century, with Kodak as the often cited example. But innovation gets in the way of short term profit and The Way We Do Things.
See also: Sears pioneering the concept of ordering things through the mail from a catalogue, and then getting demolished by Amazon’s online ordering system. Way to go guys, you got destroyed by some upstart punk doing what you got started doing, but doing it better and cheaper than you could.
Not with that attitude you don’t.
The other guy who went to China and was shocked was the CEO of Ford. He is driving a Xiaomi SU7 that he’s refusing to give up. Read the interview he gave after he visited China. https://insideevs.com/news/764318/ford-ceo-china-evs-humbled/
I’m really not surprised. Detroit hires engineers but they suck the creativity out of them and just make the same tired shit decade after decade.
Ugh… He’s not impressed with the gasoline free, infinitely superior propulsion technology - he’s impressed by how much the in vehicle systems are like smartphones.
I threw up a little. We’re never escaping this bullshit.
I hate this chasing of overly complicated and excessive software in cars. The only touchscreen I want in my car is the one that let’s me run Android Auto for GPS and music. Everything else should be tactile analog switches and dials. Whichever person thought touchscreens are a safe UI choice in a fast moving death machine is insane.
Having been in many a Chinese Didi, the touch screens aren’t just bad for UI, they also have things like video backgrounds and advertising built in. Distracted driving waiting to happen.
Amen.
Stop providing distractions to the assholes around me, they are dangerous enough as it is.
There’s still hope for the rest of the world
They did that just to fuck over Tesla in China.
Rest of the world if you live in Europe or China where they have enough bargaining power from their size I suppose. Doubt this will work in smaller countries and regions. Only hope is that the manufacturers feel that it’s not worth it to make 2 different models of the same car.
Touchscreens are cheaper to install than tactile buttons. That’s the draw for carmakers.
I don’t even need that. We all literally carry a gps device with a touch screen in our pockets at all times
It’s nice to have it on a fixed screen of decent size rather than on a floppy mount and a 6.x" screen. The car screen doesn’t need to be a touchscreen though. My Mercedes had Carplay with a rotary dial, no touchscreen. That was when they were still being conservative with their tech, then they went the hyperscreen route.
Most Chinese cars now have one long screen along the dashboard. It’s generally split in 3 sections, one for the driver, one for controls and one for the passenger with controls but also to play media. Plus most Chinese cars have voice commands.
Unfortunately yes. I still think the rotary knob is the ultimate infotainment control interface since it’s much easier to use while driving. Still, I’ll take the large screen for navigation over my tiny one even if I have to use the touch screen. Voice control rarely works for me, I have a very thick accent.
That would be everyone’s favourite Elon Musk
That’s Elon “Why would we need lidar? Humans don’t use lidar, they just use their eyes and there’s no reason technology could possibly improve on human vision” Musk?
Humans don’t… Sheesh. Humans crash cars, asshole! Use the bloody lidar!
LIDAR is shit in rain and fog.
The problem here is poor driver training, not lack of gadgets.
The problem is cars themselves. Bad technology overall, imo
Human drivers, if they could get LIDAR with their car, would probably also use it.
Why not aim for better than what humans can do?
A few, like Tesla, have successfully made cars that act and feel like consumer devices—vehicles with lots of tech features, **** and a steady stream of meaningful software updates. Most are playing catch-up.
“smooth digital interfaces”
Nobody actually fucking wants this!
I do. Why does everyone in this thread like twiddling with HVAC controls? I like setting my temperature to 68 and Auto, and that’s it. Do you all also constantly mess with your home thermostats?
Okay here’s a situation. You’re on a road and it’s gotten foggy and the roads are a bit slick because of the fog. All of a sudden the comfortable 68° temperature you have the cabin set to is causing your windshield to fog up. On a car with buttons and knobs you can just reach over grab it twist a knob or press a button and change the setting. However, with touch screen menus you have to actually turn to look at the screen, taking your eyes off the road in unsafe weather, to find the setting to switch it to defog. That’s just one scenario there are at least a dozen others. Not to mention what would happen when it’s snowing out and you have to take your eyes off the road to search a touch screen for the right setting on anything. Radio, brights, 4 wheel drive, etc etc etc…
Automated defogging is already a thing in some cars.
Yes but also why can’t you just turn a knob to make it 68 (I don’t know how much this is) and press a button for auto?
Yes they do. The internet is a loud minority on both ends. The majority is silent because they don’t give a shit about the politics of the CEO or privacy or reasonable expectations about their mobility appliance. It’s just an appliance. The more cool things it claims to do, the more it sells because the people buying NEW want it to look new.
This thread is full of “I don’t buy new, but here’s what new cars should do”. No, I don’t buy new either.
The alternative at this point is laggy digital interfaces unfortunately.
Nobody actually fucking wants this!
Ah, but they do. You have to be in this industry to realize just how stupid people can be. They will impulse buy a $60,000 car based on steering wheel shape and bullshit gadgetry. A friend boasted he could sell a car for $5K more just by hanging reflective cat toys around the interior. Tesla sales were driven by the big iPad more than the electric drive.
Tesla sales were driven by an $8,000 tax credit that doesn’t exist anymore. That company is sinking faster than the Titanic now that the tax credit has disappeared.
I want this car sooooo bad, the price pre-american tarrifs is absolutely amazing.
all car manufacturers have been phoning it in for years, it was only a matter of time before a decent threat decided to join in on the fun. I thought it would be tesla to be the major disrupter over ten years ago, but we all know how this is panning out lol
Have you seen their SUV, Xiaomi YU7? I’m not a SUV kinda guy but that is my favorite car right now.
yes! very nice car as well
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