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

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1329 points kwindla | 2 comments | 25 Apr 25 15:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.409s | source
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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?
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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

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1. dublinben ◴[25 Apr 25 16:14 UTC] No.43795308[source]▶
The average price of new cars sold in the US last year was nearly $50k. The manufacturers make more money from expensive cars than cheap cars, and people keep buying them, so that's what they sell. Before they canceled the Fit, Honda was selling almost 10 times as many of the larger CR-V each year.

You can find numerous new cars for sale in Mexico for under $15k USD.[0] Even Europe has several new cars under €20k.[1] These are the same manufacturers we have here, but lower cost models that are only sold in lower-income countries.

[0] https://compra.autofact.com.mx/blog/comprar-carro/mercado/au...

[1] https://techzle.com/the-cheapest-new-cars-of-2024

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2. dwood_dev ◴[26 Apr 25 17:29 UTC] No.43805496[source]▶
Most of those models are not real. They exist, but they don't make many of the base model and if you attempt to purchase one, it is a 4-18 month lead time.

I was in the market in Mexico last year, just looking for a cheap city car with a warranty for when I am there. I test drove half the cars on that list, the other half I immediately eliminated after sitting in the driver's seat for under a minute.

You can think of those base models like MSRP GPUs right now. They exist on paper, but good luck actually getting one for MSRP.

In the end, I didn't purchase any of those and got a two year old certified preowned vehicle with the top trim and comfortable seats from a dealer with a warranty for about $3000USD more than the cheapest actually available model of those linked in your post.