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

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1336 points kwindla | 3 comments | 25 Apr 25 15:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.604s | source
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taylodl ◴[25 Apr 25 15:27 UTC] No.43794600[source]▶
I LOVE it! THIS is the kind of truck I'd be looking at to replace my 1998 Ford Ranger.

Here is what could be potential deal-breakers:

- Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues.

- Lack of good charge management and battery conditioning. Either that, or a cheap and easy to replace battery pack. I'd really like both!

- Comparable hauling and towing capacity to the 1998 Ford Ranger. Those numbers aren't exactly impressive, but I do use the truck as a truck, and I occasionally need the hauling capacity (weight).

- Bucket seats. I need a bench seat so I can take my wife and dog. Think weekend glamping trips. Picture 8 shows a bucket seat. It doesn't look like that would work.

If anyone from Slate is reading this, this is how I'm looking at this truck. FYI, I'll be comparing this to the Ford Maverick.

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ryandrake ◴[25 Apr 25 15:42 UTC] No.43794811[source]▶
> - Lack of a mobile app. Minimalist design is great, but I still want an app to manage charging and be alerted to any vehicle issues.

Noooooooooo! No apps, please! Finally a car not tethered to and dependent on your phone, and we already have our first request to app-ify it!

EDIT: Ughhh, according to the video that another user posted, it looks like there's an app, and yes, "updates" go through it :(

> - Lack of good charge management and battery conditioning. Either that, or a cheap and easy to replace battery pack. I'd really like both!

Yes to a simple battery system!

> - Comparable hauling and towing capacity to the 1998 Ford Ranger. Those numbers aren't exactly impressive, but I do use the truck as a truck, and I occasionally need the hauling capacity (weight).

Yes!

> - Bucket seats. I need a bench seat so I can take my wife and dog. Think weekend glamping trips. Picture 8 shows a bucket seat. It doesn't look like that would work.

Yes, definitely. It being a 2 seater is kind of a deal breaker for families. You really want a bench seat to at least stick a small child between the driver and passenger. Back in the day, we'd stuff 3 kids between two adults, but these days the Safety People would have a heart attack just thinking about that.

The article mentions an SUV upgrade kit that will bolt onto the back of the truck. Ugh, OK I guess. Sad that that's the way it will probably have to go.

1: https://youtu.be/cq1qEjwSYkw

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EvanAnderson ◴[25 Apr 25 18:33 UTC] No.43797069[source]▶
> Noooooooooo! No apps, please!

I wish devices could have web servers and web-based UI rather than thick "apps" that end up rotting when device manufacturers arbitrarily decide that old software won't work anymore (cough, cough-- Apple-- cough, cough).

I know we can't because "security", no end-to-end over the Internet anymore, etc. >sigh<

It seems like we've engineered the networking and software ecosystem to promote disposable "smart" devices. It's almost like somebody profits from it. Hmm...

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1. nine_k ◴[25 Apr 25 18:54 UTC] No.43797313[source]▶
Why, we of course could if we cared. Let the car offer a wifi access point. WPA3 is secure enough, but you can of course have an extra layer of TLS inside it.

For the extra paranoid, a car could have a USB socket that pretends to be a wired network interface, offering DHCP.

Run a web server for car diagnostics and maintenance when connected to this interface. Do it from the comfort of your laptop, or anywhere anytime using your phone. Zero chance of remote exploits, if you set the things correctly on the car side. An ESP32-based system with $5 BOM would suffice to provide this.

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2. andrewla ◴[25 Apr 25 19:53 UTC] No.43797903[source]▶
Not with off the shelf protocols. Yes WPA3 is plenty secure, but any AP advertising the same SSID with the same key would allow the device to connect. So how do you know that you're connected to your car, and not to the black hat AP next to it?

From there, you can have as much TLS as you want, but that still won't give you server identity unless the server certificate is signed by someone you already trust. So a generic web browser would be screwed, because you either add SlateTruckCertificateAuthority to the globally trusted list, and then you still have to deal with revocations and certificate expiry, or you use some other CA that is willing to delegate. There's no good support for self-signed certificates or pinned certificates, and even if there were, the initial connection would be tough.

Unfortunately this really isn't a well-solved problem. Bluetooth can get you part of the way there, but it only offers really good security in theory (in practice it is constantly having issues) and it is intrinsically limited.

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3. nine_k ◴[25 Apr 25 20:51 UTC] No.43798392[source]▶
First of all, the SSID and password should be unique. Then, you can have a QR code printed in the owner's manual, and inside the glove compartment, or something. There's a standard for QR codes for connecting to wifi, so you don't have to type in the long and cryptic password.

But I don't see much incentive to produce a fake wifi AP for me to connect to with my car diagnostics. I'm not going to punch my bank account and password into it anyway. If I'm misled to alter the battery charging settings for someone else's car, or for a pretend mockup of the car controller, I don't see what the perpetrator could gain from it.

Then there must be a button on the car dashboard, or near, which I should press to activate the AC (it does not need to be up all the time), and press again to switch it off. This can serve as an easy way to check if there's doubt. The interface may have a function like headlights on / off as a simple way to check that the connection works.