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

From the related Ars article[1]:

> Rather than relying on a built-in infotainment system, you'll use your phone plugged into a USB outlet or a dedicated tablet inside the cabin for your entertainment and navigation needs.

How is a "dedicated tablet" different than an infotainment system, other than not having vehicle telematics and controls? Also, a regular tablet UX would be dangerous while driving, and typically they don't have their own mobile data connections.

1. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/amazon-backed-startup-w...

It's exactly what I think a lot of techies want.

Highly technical people tend to come in two varieties when it comes to electronics in their personal life:

1. Absolutely nothing smart that's not under their direct (or highly configurable) control.

2. Sure just take all my data I don't care. I'll pay subscriptions fees too.

Modern cars mostly do #2... to the point we potentially faced a subscription being required to enable seat warmers [0]. There's basically no cars on the market that do #1 anymore.

And with #2, you're bound by what the vehicle manufacturer decides. They are ending up like forced cable boxes - minimum viable product quality. They can be slow to change pages/views and finicky in touch responses... which I think are actually more dangerous... but this is our only option if this is the car we pick... and almost no one decides on a car for it's infotainment, so it's not a feature that gets much love or attention.

Additionally, technology moves too fast. My first car had a tape deck. The next one had a CD Player.. then I had to get an mp3-player-to-radio dongle, then I replaced my infotainment system with a bluetooth supporting one... and so on.. Even Android Auto (early versions) integrated directly into the infotainment system and needed potentially proprietary cables (USB-to-proprietary connector), and the systems did not look designed to be upgraded/replaced.

This model here allows you to upgrade your infotainment system every time you upgrade your phone (or dedicated tablet)... or simply by changing apps.

Also, Android Auto has mostly solved that UX issue (It's the same UX on a tablet as on an equivalent built-in infotainment system).. Though iPads probably (?) don't have a similar feature.

So I think the 'bring your own infotainment' idea is awesome.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23718101

It's not clear what they mean by "dedicated tablet". If it's an integrated add-on provided by the company that just does Android-Auto/CarPlay, then that seems OK. If it's just a holster for a tablet, not so much.

> It's exactly what I think a lot of techies want.

> Highly technical people tend to come in two varieties when it comes to electronics in their personal life:

I get it, I'm one of them. But using a tablet while driving is fundamentally dangerous to other people on the road, drivers or pedestrians. Android Auto and CarPlay are barely constrained enough to allow for distraction free driving.

I've lost hope that we're going back to days of people actually paying attention to the task of driving (even I take phone calls and play media while driving), but normalizing distraction by encouraging use of a tablet or phone seems like a public safety mistake, even if it appeals to the techie crowd.