Volkswagen seeks to counter rivals with budget EV model

Says you. Poorer people in the United Stares would LOVE to have the option for a 10K car. It would really help their standard of living.

I’m happy for you that you can afford to plop $25K down for a car.

I am very doubtful that one could manufacture a $10k (USD) car, have some tiny amount of profit margin on it, and still meet federal dual airbag, crash test safety standards. The extremely affordable cars sold in India for example would never meet US/Canadian road standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Motor_Vehicle_Safety_S...

That’s a different conversation. The OP was arguing 2.5X the price solely to support union wages.

You don't think people deserve a livable wage?

$36K/yr is a livable wage in China.

There are ICE cars in India for around 10k that scores 5 stars on global ncap, idk how that compares to US road safety standards tho.

We've decided we'd prefer to mandate tons of "lifesaving" technology in new cars. Nevermind that it pushes poorer people into old rust buckets, and due to risk homeostasis and the false sense of security that comes with driving a safe/quiet/competent car, people who _can_ afford new cars manage to find worse and worse ways to crash... that's without getting into the awful consequences of cars you can't see out of, "safety features" that numb people to the driving experience, and so on...

Define "livable". A suburban detached home is far more expensive than a single-room-occupancy hotel room. And yet people lived in the latter for a large portion of US history, often with roommates. Some still do.

It would be great if everyone could be wealthy enough to buy all their necessities and never worry about money, but that's a pipe dream.

They buy used.

> It would be great if everyone could be wealthy enough to buy all their necessities and never worry about money, but that's a pipe dream.

Easily possible if we fix zoning laws, encourage building more homes, and reduce regulatory capture that prevents competition in industry.

It's a vicious circle.

Farming mfg out, puts those people out of a job, those out of a job can get lower pay or go on the dole -that comes out of all those "poorer people's" taxes. And, while we're at it, why not outsource poor people's labor overseas or even import cheap unskilled labor to undermine them?

No, you want to maintain a diversified, robust and self-sustaining economy that perpetuates wealth rather then siphon it overseas.

I thought the stats have shown driving becoming safer and safer?

Driving has become _a lot_ safer in the recent decades. But the problem is not the technology that we require new cars to have, but the city planning that makes owning a car pretty much mandatory in large parts of the country.

I’ve hypothesized that more expensive cars resulting from safety and environmental mandates might make it harder for poor people to have reliable transportation to and from work. This leads to lower incomes, which are strongly correlated with worse health outcomes.

Someone would need to do a study to test if this were true. My guess is many of the safety feature are a net positive. It would be interesting to see the tradeoffs though.

Well, you are certainly living up to your handle here… do feel free to explain your plan for how nobody ever needs to worry about money ever again. And how everyone gets a studio apartment at least.

It has! More impressively, it's done so while Vehicle Miles Travelled has gone up as well.

But it feels like we're reaching a point where we're trying to catch a falling knife, where every safety improvement is _obviously_ worth it, even as the easy gains have gone away. We've also (almost) completely ignored the safety of everyone outside of the vehicle in our arms race to protect occupants.