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

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?

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

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

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.

> 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.