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

(www.theverge.com)
1336 points kwindla | 18 comments | 25 Apr 25 15:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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dogline ◴[25 Apr 25 15:14 UTC] No.43794427[source]▶
It's a $20k, street-legal, EV modding platform. Sounds like you can mount your own infotainment system. Just an electric motor, battery, and chassis, and the rest is up to you. Isn't this what we've been asking for?
replies(5): >>43794572 #>>43794693 #>>43796428 #>>43798341 #>>43798913 #
ryandrake ◴[25 Apr 25 15:25 UTC] No.43794572[source]▶
Yea, it's pretty exciting. I'd like to see how much more they could strip out to reduce the price and still have a viable commercial product. I guess I'm living firmly in the past, but $20K still seems to be a high price for a car. Then again, I haven't bought a car new since the 90s, so I'm probably just an old fart who hasn't grokked what things cost today. I still remember the day when the base-model Corolla started costing more than $9999 and I thought the world was coming to an end.

EDIT: Yep, I'm just old. Another commenter linked to a "10 cheapest new cars" list and there seems to be a price floor of around $20K. No major manufacturer seems capable of making one cheaper!

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43794523

replies(7): >>43794613 #>>43794677 #>>43794705 #>>43794867 #>>43795308 #>>43796210 #>>43797193 #
1. connicpu ◴[25 Apr 25 15:33 UTC] No.43794677[source]▶
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics[1], $9999 in 1995 is equivalent to $21,275.25 today, so it's a pretty spot on price for a barebones car.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

replies(1): >>43794751 #
2. patagonia ◴[25 Apr 25 15:38 UTC] No.43794751[source]▶
Except, with advances in computational design and engineering, manufacturing automation, and moving to plastic for the body I would expect a reduction in price, in real terms. Not impressed.
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3. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 15:47 UTC] No.43794880[source]▶
> moving to plastic for the body

Some of those $10k cars in the 90s had more plastic in the bodies than cars today, e.g. Saturn S-series, where all body panels below the belt-line were plastic.

It isn't necessarily the cost savings one might expect though, because steel panels can also be load bearing and part of the crash structure, which is not really practical with plastic panels.

replies(3): >>43795168 #>>43795204 #>>43797222 #
4. Suppafly ◴[25 Apr 25 15:49 UTC] No.43794908[source]▶
>Except, with advances in computational design and engineering, manufacturing automation, and moving to plastic for the body I would expect a reduction in price, in real terms.

Except with all the safety equipment, crumple zones, airbags, sensors, etc. I would expect an increase in price.

replies(1): >>43801318 #
5. ◴[25 Apr 25 15:51 UTC] No.43794942[source]▶
6. kasey_junk ◴[25 Apr 25 15:54 UTC] No.43794973[source]▶
Modern cars are almost universally safer and more fuel efficient than the older models. And in many cases faster.
replies(1): >>43795304 #
7. all2 ◴[25 Apr 25 16:06 UTC] No.43795168{3}[source]▶
The Pontiac Fiero has notoriously bad plastic panels.
replies(1): >>43795612 #
8. dogline ◴[25 Apr 25 16:08 UTC] No.43795204{3}[source]▶
With plastic panels, that means they're replaceable. Possibly even swappable (custom 3D printing?). This just adds to the "modding platform" they could be marketing to.
replies(1): >>43795321 #
9. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 16:14 UTC] No.43795304{3}[source]▶
In nearly all cases they're faster. 10+ second 0-60 times used to be pretty normal for "regular" cars. Now days, people will complain that a car is slow if they can't put down 7 second 0-60 times. And "quick" boring cars of today are as fast as sports cars of the past.

The 1996 Ferrari F355 Spider and the 2025 Hyundai Elantra N both have a 0-60 time of 4.8 seconds.

10. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 16:15 UTC] No.43795321{4}[source]▶
Steel panels can also be made to be replaceable. Plastic has to be because it can't be welded to the frame.
replies(1): >>43795958 #
11. ◴[25 Apr 25 16:33 UTC] No.43795612{4}[source]▶
12. riehwvfbk ◴[25 Apr 25 16:57 UTC] No.43795958{5}[source]▶
In fact, on modern cars many times these panels are replaced.

If you get a big enough dent in a door, a good body shop will offer to replace the outer skin instead of filling with bondo. They cut the weld on the inside of the door all the way around, take off the shell, and epoxy a new one on. The body shop owner told me that the epoxy is actually stronger than the factory weld.

replies(1): >>43796090 #
13. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 17:07 UTC] No.43796090{6}[source]▶
Yes, bodywork is quite a mature discipline. I was presuming the parent commenter meant user-replaceable, i.e. bolted on.

> The body shop owner told me that the epoxy is actually stronger than the factory weld.

Often this is because the special high strength steels used in vehicles today depend on proper heat treating to attain their strength, and welding can compromise this. Many OEMs even specify panel bonding for repairing particular crash-critical parts of vehicles now because of this.

replies(1): >>43796407 #
14. potato3732842 ◴[25 Apr 25 17:34 UTC] No.43796407{7}[source]▶
It's mostly because the factory welds are the result of someone running numbers until they find the bare minimum whereas the autobody guy would rather not risk it.
replies(1): >>43797271 #
15. KerrAvon ◴[25 Apr 25 18:47 UTC] No.43797222{3}[source]▶
Cost savings wasn't the reason for the Saturn plastic panels, IIRC -- they were intended to make the car more durable; they were hard to dent. Some Saturn salespeople would kick the side of the car, hard, to demonstrate their resilience.
replies(1): >>43797353 #
16. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 18:50 UTC] No.43797271{8}[source]▶
The OEMs have proper repair procedures that are the correct way to fix the vehicle, and if the autobody shop is reputable, they follow them. And the stated reason OEMs specify panel bonding instead of welding is:

1. because UHSS is sensitive to heat, and robots are much more accurate in how they heat than Jimmy with a tig torch, and they were programmed by a process engineer, where as Jimmy welds until 'it looks good'.

2. welding may compromise anti-corrosive treatments on the inside of inaccessible cavities, which can lead to corrosion issues

e.g. https://rts.i-car.com/crn-24.html

A crappy shop will certainly just weld panels in without any regard for materials engineering, but it results in a crappy repair.

17. kube-system ◴[25 Apr 25 18:58 UTC] No.43797353{4}[source]▶
Those cars always looked great on the used car lot because they never had any door dings.
18. Spivak ◴[26 Apr 25 06:05 UTC] No.43801318{3}[source]▶
And this back-and-forth here is why the folks at the BLS have a hard job. Both options— a car in 1990 is a car in 2025 and real value/utility is unchanged and price should be compared 1-1 ignores that cars are actually better now. But at the same time you literally can't buy a new car at 1990's quality so the additional value/utility might not actually be wanted by some and so this in effect makes real price go up.