Meanwhile, the only thing people really want from Rivian is CarPlay / Android Auto support, lol.
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But it wasn't pushing-six-figures smitten, which is where you're at when you get a new one with customizations.
This 1000%.
Electric cars are supposed to be simple. Give me something in a shape of a Civic, with the engine replaced with a motor and a battery good for 150 miles, and sell it for $10-12k new. Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker.
Instead, we are getting these boutique, expensive vehicles packed full of tech, but in the end, they still fundamentally suck as cars compared to gas alternatives, especially hybrid. I got a Prius Prime for my wife last year, the car is way better than any EV on the market in terms of usability. Driving to work and back can all be done in EV mode easily, and then when you wanna go somewhere, you can keep the car above 80 mph easily and get there faster without worrying about where to charge.
I think this is more or less the pitch behind Slate (https://www.slate.auto/en), though it's more of a truck/SUV form factor.
Illegal - backup camera is required. Speakers probably too for alerts. Also you are super naive if you think that's where actual cost is.
This is why the rest of the car has to be an already proven platform that is cheap to make.
The only part an EV doesn't have is the engine and gearbox. Admittedly, these are pretty major components, but it's a technology mature enough to be extremely reliable if the manufacturer cares to make it so.
But what an EV has instead is a massive battery, charging electronics, a DC-DC converter keeping the 12V battery charged, and various electric motors and actuators for the air conditioning and coolant loops. These are significant more reliable than oily engines in lab environments, but the automotive environment tests the mettle of seemingly resilient components.