In unusual car news, Reuters reports that Nissan has closed order books on the Sakura, citing unprecedented demand. If you haven’t heard of the Sakura, don’t worry, it’s a delightful little electric kei car that we don’t get in North America. Packing a tiny little 20 kWh battery pack and a range of just 112 miles on the WLTC cycle, it carries a base price of ¥2,399,100, or around $16,310 in American dollars.
With styling this cute, pricing this low, and the low running costs of an EV, it shouldn’t be surprising at all that the Sakura is a smash hit. Sales started in May and by July, Nissan reportedly received more than 23,000 Sakura orders. That’s greater than the total number of EVs sold in Japan last year. Let that sink in for a second. Nissan has effectively dominated a segment in its home market by making a small EV that people can actually afford to buy, which is really the key to mass EV adoption across the globe. Yes, even in America.
A recent Pew Research Center study found that younger people are significantly more likely to consider buying an EV than their older cohorts. A full 55 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 who were surveyed would either strongly or somewhat consider an EV for their next car, compared with 34 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64, and 31 percent of those aged 65 or above.
While that’s great for EV sentiment, the trouble is that young people are the least economically-mobile age group. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in the third quarter of 2022, workers between the ages of 20 and 24 saw median weekly earnings of $706, and workers between the ages of 25 and 34 saw median weekly earnings of $1,003. In contrast, workers between the ages of 45 and 54 saw median weekly earnings of $1,224, while workers between the ages of 55 and 64 saw weekly median earnings of $1,172.
What’s more, according to the Fed, younger families have significantly lower median net worth compared to older families. In 2019, families where the head of the family was under 35 years old had a median net worth of $13,900, compared to a median net worth of $212,500 for families where the head of the family is between the ages of 55 and 64, and a media net worth of $266,400 for families where the head is between the ages of 65 and 74.
Now, let’s compare that against the cost of electric cars. According to Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price of a new electric car in July was $66,645, compared to the average hybrid car at $32,365, the average compact car at $26,285, and the average new vehicle overall at $48,182. It’s not an earth-shattering revelation that people with low net worths and comparatively lower income often can’t afford expensive cars. If we want EVs to be successful with the demographic that wants them the most, they need to be cheap.
A more local example of this is the Chevrolet Bolt. Earlier this year, Chevrolet dropped Bolt prices dramatically, to the point where a 2023 Bolt 1LT starts at $26,595 including freight. The result has been predictable, with 14,709 Bolt EVs and Bolt EUVs sold in America during the third quarter of 2022. That’s more than any single non-Tesla EV, an impressive feat considering how the Bolt’s architecture dates back to 2016.
Another great example is the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, packing just 27 horsepower in base trim and a price tag of less than $5,000. Top speed clocks in just north of 60 mph and there isn’t much in the way of safety kit, but that low price tag does get you a choice of funky colors and seating for four. Despite its low top speed and diminutive size, the Mini EV quickly became a hot commodity, breaking the million sales mark earlier this year.
I get it, making cars is hard and making cheap cars is doubly hard. With volatile material prices and razor-thin profit margins, it’s dicey getting into the affordable EV game as its one that’s won on volume rather than margins. It’s also a game that absolutely needs to be played to put people in the battery-powered cars that they want. Every young person who buys an EV will more than likely buy another EV as an eventual replacement, so it’s a great opportunity for car brands to pick up a new generation of customers as current customers won’t be around forever. The playing field’s being reset, who will take advantage of it?
[Editor’s Note: As far as I’m concerned, EVs like this represent the quickest way we can get the most people into EVs. Right now, we’re promoting 100 kWh electric vehicles that cost too much, are too dirty to build, weigh too much, and require too much energy to move down the road. A small EV uses less energy when driving a given drive cycle due to decreased drag and rolling resistance. As such, a small EV can do more with a little battery than a bigger EV could. A smaller battery is cleaner to manufacture, and it means more EVs can be built, which is especially important at a time when resources are limited. Why we all need to pay thousands of dollars extra and drag around 1,000 pounds of dirty battery everyday just because we travel to our inlaws every few months is beyond me. I want a world filled with interesting, nicely-styled $9,000 EVs (after federal incentive) that go 65 mph and drive 100 miles. I’d use that everyday, and many Americans would, too, I bet. Anyway, allow me to step off this soapbox -DT]
Lead photo credit: Nissan
I still think PHEVs are actually the right technology for this moment in time. EVs are great and all, and I do think they’re the future, but right at this moment there’s a big problem with mass EV adoption and that is the fact that raw materials for batteries are going to be a major bottleneck for at least another decade.
We simply aren’t mining enough Lithium to switch the entire industry to BEV. We won’t be for some time—new mines and refineries don’t just happen overnight—and arguably we shouldn’t be ramping up at a breakneck pace anyway, because the faster we go, the dirtier and less humane the process is going to be. It takes a lot longer to open a mine when you have to follow environmental and labor regulations, but there are very good reasons to have those regulations. Smaller-capacity batteries can also use safer, cheaper, less problematic chemistries than the Lithium-Cobalt based ones most common in BEVs today.
Meanwhile, take something like the 2nd gen Volt, or the RAV4 Prime. Both of those cars have batteries with about an 18 kWh capacity. Both of them have about 50 miles of all-electric range. Here in America, where we are notorious for living out in the suburbs and driving long distances to and from work every day, 50 miles gets the average person to work and back with nine miles to spare—that’s plenty for day-to-day. I once spoke to a customer about his Volt, and he said his main issue was making sure the gas didn’t go bad in the tank, since he had to fill it up so rarely.
Meanwhile, PHEVs are much less reliant on our weak charging infrastructure. Apartment dwellers can charge an 18 kWh battery overnight from just a plain 20A, 120V receptacle. Public charging can be quicker, and more cars can cycle through the limited number of chargers in less time. And of course, there’s always the gas motor as a backup—PHEVs can still easily break into the 40 mpg range when running as regular hybrids.
We can build so many more of these than we can equivalently-capable BEVs, and we can do it more cheaply, simply because battery materials are so limited and expensive. And even for someone like me, with a longer-than-average commute and frequent trips out of state to visit family and go hiking and such, I’ve calculated that a PHEV with a ~50 mile range would cut my gasoline consumption by about 90%. 80% of that is for the driving I could do in EV mode, with the remainder coming from the increased mpg such vehicles tend to have relative to my current fleet.
We can get 90% of the benefit while using 20% as much battery per car—meaning that at long as supply is constrained, we can save 4.5X as much total fuel for the same amount of overall resources, compared to BEVs. We can do it more cheaply, and in a way that is more accessible to the 60% of American households that don’t own their own single-family detached home. If you ask me, those are excellent numbers.
Full BEV is sexy and futuristic, but for most people it will remain in the future unless we all suddenly decide to radically alter our lifestyles simultaneously, which can’t happen quickly even if we want it to, and we don’t even want it to or else we wouldn’t be living like we do right now. BEVs that fit with our current lifestyle are going to be expensive and require huge batteries, and there are big, structural, macroeconomic reasons why that will remain the case for some time. PHEVs, meanwhile, could replace everyone’s ICE cars tomorrow with barely any shift in our overall habits, and provide nearly as much environmental benefit per driver at a lower cost, while serving far, far more drivers overall.
That’s where I think we should be going right now. BEVs do have their place and we shouldn’t drop them entirely, but the industry should be focusing mainly on making PHEV the default drivetrain across the board. It is a source of some frustration to me that the PHEV paradigm seems to be largely ignored.
I agree. I currently drive a Niro PHEV and don’t use the gas engine much outside of needing heat or like 1-2 trips per year. A RAV4 Prime would be even better, since it can have a heat pump.
And it would be pretty simple to add PHEV powertrains to so many hybrid vehicles.
I’ve been saying this for years. It’s all the benefits of an electric car with none of the drawbacks (or perceived drawbacks). PHEVs will go a long ways towards alleviating range anxiety. Once people realize that a significant majority of their routine driving can be done on the 30-50 mile electric range of a PHEV, they will be more likely to adopt a pure EV one day.
^this. why are we trying to run before we walk? we aren’t going to be able to do it, a phev is so much more livable to the entire world outside a few larger well supported cities with charging infrastructure. if there was an option to add that on i would absolutely check the box on the 2018 gsw we bought. but considering the entire wagon body style (much less awd and manual trans) was swiftly abandoned by vw chasing fat id.4 profits there is not a car company out there selling a car i want to buy at a price i can afford. so instead i will probably never buy another new car again. its gonna be a long next 40 years assuming we all survive the next 10.
I am pretty much a best use case for a small, cheap EV. We live in a small town of 300,000. Houses are relatively cheap so home ownership is high (place to charge). Commutes are short and low speed. A cheap EV would make great sense. Last year we bought a new Subaru, I would have considered an EV, but equivalent EV is $10k or more extra money. I don’t need huge range, but wouldn’t mind something not too expensive that doesn’t look and feel like a little penalty box.
did you mean a small town of 30,000 by chance? Pittsburgh has 300,000 people and is the 68th biggest city in the US of A.
I have a 62 mile round trip commute that’s all 30 mph or faster roads with few stops. Or a typical rural commute. A vehicle with 100 miles of range would be barely cutting it once winter cold hits. Add some snow to plow through and that adds half an hour sitting at the L2 charger 2 miles from work soaking up enough electrons to get home. Make that 150 miles and it turns into a viable option.
That’s a pretty long commute. The median US commute distance is about 41 miles round trip, and the average commute time is about 27 minutes each way.
So for a person with an average or less than average commute, these vehicles are totally viable. Especially if you can charge at work, which is increasingly becoming an valid option.
Bought a Bolt EUV for basically this purpose, 2nd car, mostly local driving. It’s great, and probably overkill, as it can pretty easily get 300 miles in non-highway range.
It’s big flaw is fast charging, only 50kW, but it’s level 2 charger is actually quite good at 11kW (pretty easy to add 25-40 miles/hour) – which is perfect for home charging / running around town.
Nissan Leaf can get down to ~$20k with the tax incentives and that is a full-fledged car that can go on the highway and has safety features. The fact that they can slightly beat that price with an enclosed golf cart isn’t too surprising.
I completely agree with DT. We need cheaper cars. PERIOD. At this point I thing a large percentage of people would not care about status if the car was cheap, reliable and useful. It would also free up cash for a weekend ICE toy.
I agree on principle with the idea that we need cheap EVs, but I think cheap EV conversions for ICEs is a more pressing matter. Large scale conversion of ICEs would cost way less and cause less demand of raw materials/energy consumption in manufacturing, and it would also be a way to ease lots of people into the seemingly all-electric future, by starting with cars they’re already familiar with. It would also be a way to disperse the profits, which would also go to shops doing the labour, instead of the automakers taking the whole cake. Not to mention it’s extremely necessary from a social standpoint: I’m pretty worried that the electric transition will bring a new future in which personal transportation is reserved for the upper classes, and the rest of us were told to either get a bike/scooter or take public transportation (never mind that in most places public transportation is a nightmare as is, and biking isn’t ideal for most parts of the world, and is a pretty miserable option for the winter; scooters are just objectively more dangerous than cars, and also a pretty shitty option in bad weather). The automobile was instrumental in the social shifts we saw during the 20th century, and taking it away from the people will be a step back.
I also don’t think an all-electric future is the best idea, and I’m certainly worried that we’re implementing the transition without taking intermediate steps – like the migration to LPG that should’ve happened in trucks and commercial vehicles like 4 decades ago, in my opinion. That would’ve considerably lowered both the emissions and the demand for refined oil products, while at the same time making use of a byproduct that would’ve been burned off otherwise. But here we are, looking at a blanket ban on fossil fuels and happy about it, without realising at how nuanced this whole issue is.
The easiest EV conversions are of old vehicles. The older it is, the easier it is to make a plug and play conversion with off the shelf parts. Converting the relatively unaerodynmic road hippos of the last 20 years into something with acceptable range(at least 150 miles) could easily cost as much as a lightly used 200 mile range OEM EV with plenty of life left in it. Except now you have an older car that wasn’t designed to be an EV in the first place. Unibodies are also very difficult to modify for a purpose for which they were not originally intended, and each make, model, year, and trim of car would present its own unique requirements on the design of parts like battery boxes, wiring, couplers/adapter plates, ect.
That said, your future prediction of automobile ownership being only something the upper classes can afford is mostly already there in the present. Debt is used for people to pretend otherwise. EVs as they are currently being sold and offered by the OEMs do nothing to reverse this trendline. However, EV technology is god enough that it does offer the potential to reverse this trendline, we’re just not likely to get it out of the mainstream auto manufacturers. They’re overly conservative and are seeking the fastest money they can get, rather than trying to actually innovate and find a solution.
My prediction is that most of the modern OEM EVs will be e-waste in 30 years. And such a massive waste of valuable and highly useful resources, at that.
That makes a lot of sense, newer cars are much heavier and designs are cramped, so I can totally see your point. My view is always affected by the fact that I drive older cars. And the number of older cars is ever-shrinking, but a lot of 90s entry level cars still on the road would fit the bill nicely as for the most part they’re not too heavy or overly engineered (I drive a 91 Renault 4 and a 98 VW Polo, both seem like excellent choices for conversion if the structure is ok). We still have a shit-ton of 90s sub-compacts on the road here in Southern Europe. It’s those cars, and the people who drive them that I have in mind for large-scale conversion. I’m not hoping for the third owner of an E65 7 Series, or a mid-2000s SUV will go with a conversion. But all the people driving around in 2nd gen Opel Corsas, Fiat Puntos, that kind of cars, that’s still a decent chunk of road-going cars in many places (and it goes without saying, it would be a great way to keep everyday classics on the road). And then you have developing countries, which are also part of the world and it would make sense to come up with solutions that can be adopted there in a few years (as bad as fossil fuel pollution is, I don’t think it’s fair to force developing countries to adopt environmental policies at the same rate, and certainly not before we get our own shit together in richer countries.
I agree that we’re already seeing that divide along class lines; I sometimes joke that we’re looking at a future with two main classes; the ones who order uber eats and the ones who deliver. Cars for the former, scooters for the latter. Sadly, a lot of the times it feels less like a joke and more like a comment on how things already are.
“workers between the ages of 25 and 34 saw median weekly earnings of $1,003”
*sad British noises*
I’m a public sector worker which means we get hit with the wage cut stick whenever the government crashes the economy. I can afford a relatively nice small ICE car (Mazda 3 sedan) on my salary. It helped I got the finance rate locked in before the central bank rates rose. I can’t afford to drop £40k for an EV. I could afford an extra £100 a month for a cheap EV that got me to work and back though. I still need something for longer trips but I don’t need a Merc EQE or even an Ioniq 5 for my short commute and my town driving.
Just out of curiosity, how would you feel about a relatively cheap electric conversion for your Mazda 3 in a few years, once it gets older and things start to break down? I’m asking because I feel like this is the intermediate step no one’s interested in discussing, because it won’t generate as much profit, but the fact is that it would help curb emissions much quicker, since a lot more people would be able to afford it, and environmentally speaking it would mean less demand for raw materials/energy (I feel like creating new excessive demand for anything is very much antithetical to any environmental protection efforts).
I would 100% convert my cars before actually buying an EV, new or used, if it was a budget friendly alternative. It’s really scary that we start discussing the bottom of the new car market starting at €20K+, because that leaves out the ever-shrinking lower-middle class that used o buy cheap new cars, causing used cars to go up in price (it’s been crazy here in Portugal how much the used car market went up in just a few years) and causing a domino effect that will likely price the working class out of car ownership. Seems like a recipe for disaster, but every time I bring this up in any discussion it seems like people don’t even remember that a working class exists, and don’t understand why their ability to get to work is fundamental to keep society going. Or even worse, they’ll play the “let them eat cake” card, like “why don’t they just take an Uber to work”. Sorry for the rant, I’m just getting increasingly worried that social and environmental issues aren’t the main focus in the electric transition, but rather how to maintain/increase profits with the transition.
Mahindra did this in India more than a decade ago. Obviously back then the market was not ready, but it was a surprisingly advanced attempt at a small electric car.
Shortly before the pandemic I looked at picking up a 2014-16 Chevy Spark EV as a commuter for the spouse. I was seeing them as low as $5k with but 63k on the clock. Tempting!
Even so I couldn’t justify it on costs alone. We don’t drive that much, especially post SAH. Just the sales tax offset a big chunk of savings, as well as probable higher insurance costs and registration (ICE specific maintenance costs are negligible). Free workplace charging might have tipped the scale but while it has been proposed it is still not a thing.
I was sorely tempted just for the ability to pre cool/warm the car on a hot or cold day but my oh so frugal nature just wouldn’t let me pull the trigger. Then the market dried up. Oh well. The EV math may be more favorable after a few years of full production but for now I’m keeping what I got.
This – 100%. I was not convinced about EV’s at all. I had planned to get a hybrid for my next vehicle, because I thought that would be more practical. On a lark, mostly because it was so damn cute, I bought a 2017 Fiat 500e for $14K. After owning it for one week I sold my beloved Volvo C30 and I will never buy another non-EV again. I kept my Tundra for now, and either it or an EV rental with longer range gets used for infrequent road trips, but the Fiat takes care of 95% of our driving needs. In the 6 months I’ve owned it, I’ve averaged 5 miles per kWh, which equates to an equivalent of more than 150 mpg, and I’ve driven it a total of about around 3000 miles. I typically spend about $15 per month in electric costs charging it at home. So yeah we need more cars like this.
I specifically logged on to say…
How fucked up it is.. to dump a beautiful C30 for some gutless Cinquecento. The C30 is amazing in so many ways… but I can also see how it failed in design and iteration. They had a turbo, in different colors and maybe a stick shift.
Shit,
I cant imagine the fun I have in my 05 Honda Element.. and trading that in.. for some laptop battery on 4 wheels.
Says the man who obviously hasn’t driven one. The Cinquecento handles almost as well as the C30, has WAY more get up and go from 0 to 40 mph (which honestly is where most of the fun is to be had when taking curves, etc.), has a higher seating position so it’s much more comfortable to get in and out of, and costs 5 times less for energy cost (3 cents per mile vs 13 cents per mile at current electricity and gas prices). It’s a win, win, win for me. Granted I have no commute, since I work from home, but we regularly take 60 – 80 mile trips in the 500e, charge up while we go hiking or something and drive back home for mere pennies.
Sure, I will admit that.
I will also admit that the C30 is one of Volvo’s Last “Volvo’s” Good looking, with a hatch and a turbo.. a POLESTAR version in a light blue. Id go for the Vo’ anytime.. as the FIAT isnt exactly stellar or will be remembered.
New Mexico was in charge of the wheels I take it? They did alright!
Zia > Kia
My new commute is 40 miles round trip. I would love a cheap little EV. Honda should just bring that stupid little Honda-E and somehow sell it for $16k.
100 miles at 75mph please. Need to keep up with everyone else.
“100 miles at 75mph please. Need to keep up with everyone else.”
That’s what the right lanes are for.
What is nice about an emphasis on aerodynamic streamlining, is that the range penalty of travelling at higher speeds is greatly reduced. A “full-retard” streamlining of a car could mean the difference in range per charge between a steady 75 mph and a steady 90 mph is only about 30%, assuming a parasitic load for accessories of around 1.5 kW. So if the car can get 200 miles range at 75 mph, it might still get 150 miles range at 90 mph. If it is winter and your range drops by 1/3, that 150 mile range becomes 100 miles range, IF doing 90 mph on the highway in the winter is your thing… I see people do it all the time, although it’s not very smart IMO. 🙂
ICE cars have an advantage because as their loading increases, so too does the thermal efficiency of their engine. Thus gasoline-fueled ICE cars are penalized less in range and MPG for travelling higher speeds, than EVs, because electric motors tend to have a very broad efficiency curve that doesn’t vary as dramatically versus its operating points. Look up an efficiency map for an electric motor/inverter combo, then look at a BSFC curve for an ICE, and you’ll be able to quickly see why this is.
Absolutely. My little 500e has a top speed of 88 mph (at which point it becomes a time machine). But I tend to stay in the right lane at 55 to 60 mph and if I need to pass someone, or if I just feel like it, I can run it at 75 to 80 with no problem, but the energy drain is significant at those speeds. The torque curve has flattened out considerably at that point, but it’s still plenty to keep up with traffic. So while it might seem like a severe limitation on paper (my C30, which I loved very much, topped out at 130 mph), it’s not much of a limitation in real life. I mean, the last time I regularly drove at speeds exceeding 88 mph was, let’s see, when I was in high school bombing Alabama farm roads in my 1976 Buick Century Special at 100 mph+.
I think I’m looking at a Chang-Li with a bigger motor and a modern battery.
~100 mile range is fine with me, but without a 7000lb tow rating, I’ll never be able to use this to even go to the drive through.
Lol get their ass
I’d love to know how many Bolts GM would be selling at that price if they could make as many as they can sell. I know there’s a waiting list.
If someone built a small but elongated sedan with a drag coefficient of 0.15, a frontal area of 20 sq ft, used a modern switched reluctance motor system, and kept the vehicle mass under 2,800 lbs, it is very possible that it could get by on around 0.12-0.15 kWh/mile. I say elongated, because it could be designed to seat 4, instead of having a seat in the middle for a fifth person, and allow ample leg room, so that sitting in it isn’t cramped.
This 0.12-0.15 kWh/mile means you don’t need a large battery pack. A 25-30 kWh pack is really all you need to get a real world 200 mile range on the highway while disobeying the speed limit and driving without concern for efficiency(although range in the city will be significantly lower, but usually long range is only a concern when driving outside of cities), and that’s a small enough pack to keep costs and also vehicle mass down. With today’s prices, this would be a battery pack with a manufacturing cost of under $3k. This battery pack plus a modern EV drive system would have comparable weight to a 4-cylinder gasoline engine and its ancillaries.
Give the base model just the basics. A radio, heater, AC, rollup windows, inexpensive digital gauges that can be manufactured for double-digit dollar amounts not integrated into some cluster, and no power anything, no heated seats/steering wheel, no touch screens, none of that crap. This will keep costs down.
Since the consumer is giving up a lot relative to the bloated feature-laden cars of today, give them something in return for that. The difference in cost between manufacturing a 50 horsepower EV drive system and a 500 horsepower EV drive system is about $1,500. I propose making the cheap, stripper base model of this car, have power comparable to a Dodge Charger with a scat pack. Make it rear wheel drive. Give it front and rear double wishbone independent suspension, like a Miata. Yes, we’re talking about a cheap penalty box, with a targeted price point of under $25k.
But this will be a cheap penalty box where someone can do 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds, and is also light and tossable on curvy roads and competent at a race track. THAT will more than make up for the roll-up windows and barebones interior, I promise you. People will want that car. It will sell itself, even if it looks ugly, because it will out-accelerate and out-corner cars that cost 10x as much.
This vehicle also needs to be simple. There is no need for electronics any more complicated than OBD-II. All the electronics should be mass-produced, non-proprietary components that can be easily and cheaply sourced. We don’t need no integrated wiring harnesses that require proprietary computers to service, instead everything should be repairable with a soldering iron and all parts able to be sourced from an electronics supply store. The car itself should have mechanicals that can be worked on without having to mess with the computers as well. Keep it simple, so that your local garage mechanic with nothing but hand tools, a basic code reader, and a soldering iron can fix everything on the car. This keeps running costs down. The mechanicals should be designed stout enough that the car can be abused constantly at full throttle without something breaking, which will impact materials costs greatly more than it will engineering costs, and even then, only a small amount.
We already had real world precedent for a similar vehicle nearly 3 decades ago: the 1996 Solectria Sunrise. It had a real-world 150-200 mile range on a 26 kWh NiMH battery pack and set a world record of 373 miles on a single charge in a Tour De Sol rally. Drag coefficient was 0.17. Weight was 2,900 lbs, lugging around 1,000 lbs of batteries. The designer, James Worden, claims it would have been a $20,000 price point if mass produced. Of course, that was in the 1990s, so the $20k price would actually be a lot more adjusted for inflation. But EV manufacturing costs have also gotten cheaper since then too. The only things the Sunrise was missing was performance and passenger room. It was slow, where 0-60 mph took 17 seconds, and the rear passenger area was cramped.
I know all about doing more with less. Shit you not, I built an electric vehicle with a tiny 1.5 kWh battery that can do 150-200 miles range at 30-35 mph. That is not a typo. It’s in my profile. It’s a prototype that will lead to faster and better things. I have plans to make this thing top out at triple digit speeds and accelerate faster than most cars, while getting double the range it currently gets, and it will only cost about $0.25 to charge from empty.
The reason modern EVs are so expensive is the reason modern ICE cars are so expensive. They’re bloated, feature-laden things designed to support a paradigm of planned obsolescence and are deliberately expensive to fix. This is wasteful, and needs to be done away with. Cars should be built to last a lifetime, be inexpensive to operate, and repairable by your Joe Sixpack mechanic. Someone who buys this car in college, should be able to pass it down to their grand kids in serviceable condition, provided they took care of it.
If we don’t do this, cars are not going to be sustainable in the future. The landfills are being filled with non-recyclable materials as I type this, and future generations are going to curse big business for squandering the planet’s non-renewable resources.
I’ma need you to email me: david@autopian.com
Done.
Take toecutter’s idea and add it to mine which involves smart tech for EVs to link together on major routes into “trains” and then separate sections as needed for destinations. Like a game of Centipede with EVs. So many possibilities. I drew up a whole host of options and features once.
“Take toecutter’s idea and add it to mine which involves smart tech for EVs to link together on major routes into “trains” and then separate sections as needed for destinations. Like a game of Centipede with EVs. So many possibilities”
The issue with that is they’d block anyone not part of the train from crossing. That would be a problem for folks stuck in slower than speed limit traffic or trying to enter/exit the roadway.
There’s an awful lot of talk here about what people want, and not much talk about what makes money for manufacturers. Those are different strategic choices, and I think it will take an early Kia-type company, VinFast, or a Chinese one to make it. I don’t think US or German corporations will.
https://beesystrategy.com/premiumization/
You could do what Dacia does for the base model Sandero and omit the ICE screen and electronics in favour of a smartphone and wired CarPlay link. Why include a £1000 radio, nav system and screen when people carry them around with them? Dacia have an app that lets you control car function from the phone as well as from the matrix display in the dash.
As someone who doesn’t own a smart phone, I was thinking of going more old school: actual buttons and switches for everything.
The computerization of the car and its features necessary to make everything controllable with a smartphone is a complicated and overall expensive nightmare, and extremely difficult to repair. A car shouldn’t ever need a CANBUS system. Your average Joe mechanic does not know how to troubleshoot them, and depending upon how the car is designed, doing so can get very time consuming and the tools can get very expensive.
Cars need to go in the opposite direction. We need simple machines where almost everything is repairable with hand tools, a soldering iron, and a simple code reader, and where parts are modular and easy to replace by being as close to plug and play as possible. The car should never be dealership dependent to remain operable.
Electric cars have so few mechanical things to fail relative to an ICE car, that they should also be built as electronically simple as possible to take advantage of this fact. The original reason ICE cars started to become more complicated than they already were via computerization was emissions controls, and EVs don’t require that. EVs are the path toward a car that could last a lifetime with minimal maintenance, and by such a thing not being available, we are being robbed and the technology misapplied and misallocated.
Your math does not work. Your assumptions are about you not a significant population. The millions needed to get this thing to pass US safety standards would add to your basic costs. And the lack of current level electrics would make finding a short impossible.
A lot of drivers want a car. A car that gets them to work and back, from A to B, and that is the car’s primary purpose for almost everyone who owns a car, no matter how luxurious that car is. And many of them, they’re sick of paying for gasoline, oil changes, tune-ups, consumable mechanicals, constant upkeep. And they can’t afford more than the car is worth to fix some otherwise minor component that is mission-critical to the use of this vehicle to get you to work and back. And they don’t want it to look like a POS and perform like a POS. If the focus were on the cheapest model and how to keep it cheap and still make it as good of a vehicle as possible, rather than focusing on making the higher-tier high-margin models the best they can be, this might be doable at a net profit.
I hear a common complaint bandied about by both enthusiasts and mechanics is that modern cars are too complicated and expensive. There is a significant population, even if it is still a minority, to which a car built to the specs I described would have a massive appeal, if and only if it can be produced in volume to reach the price point described. It would be extremely practical in the most basic sense, moreso than most other vehicles, with regard to why most people have a car to begin with: to get around from A to B. It would be practical, because it would be roomy, versatile, family-appropriate(at least for most families, not all), inexpensive to operate, and built to stay out of a landfill when it is decades old. There are no shortage of classic, basic, otherwise undesirable shitbox cars because they have these traits. Those who prize them are unable and/or unwilling to pay $40,000 for a new car that gets them from A to B, and they needs something that can do that with as little recurring cost as possible. Used Toyota, Nissan, and Honda sedans retain their value extremely well, because they are among the least expensive to keep operable of the cars on the road.
A common complaint of those types of cars is that they’re bland. So why not build a performance car that isn’t at all bland, that is also super practical for getting from A to B, inexpensive to operate/fix, and will remain so 20 years later?
If there was a billion dollar budget to design such a car, the safety standards become passable. That’s the same budget that most car models receive by the OEMs from the time it shows up in someone’s imagination to a physical product having been purchased by its customers and is now driven on the roads in whatever quantity it was produced and/or sold. About $1 billion. Making it pass the most barebones modern safety standards mandated by the world’s governments to be legal to sell to the mass public would be neither inexpensive nor easy, and would eat up hundreds of millions of dollars of that budget by itself. Guaranteed.
That’s the main hurdle. How many people have those kind of resources? No one with such amount of resources has a vision similar to this, or it would have been attempted. It’s low-hanging fruit to exploit, because there is a not-insignificant niche in the market that would gladly have something like this available at a price they can afford. Almost all of the bits and pieces of this pipedream have been proven already in the real world by others much smarter than me scattered across multiple vehicle builds whether they are prototypes or production cars. But it’s never really been tried to a level serious enough that your average person is even aware such a vehicle is possible, otherwise, there would be even more demand for such a thing, however small or large, than the niche it would currently have would be as I type this, were such a thing to materialize on the market today.
As for the electronics, if you avoid the integrated CANBUS systems on as many of the car’s functions as possible(CANBUS systems which do have an advantage of being lighter and having less parts and being machine diagnosable, but…), and build the car into a bunch of separate fully-isolated-from-each other subsystems as the manufacturers used to do 20 years ago, you make finding an electrical fault with basic tools actually possible. Computers should be seen as things to eliminate where possible, not seen as mandatory addition to “improve” every function the car does. Wherever processors are needed, they should be mass produced, plug-and-play, pop in or out devices with minimal tools and programming. Finding the electrical short now means finding the device inside the car that is malfunctioning, and going through its circuitry alone, instead of even needing to plug some code reading device in to get the most basic idea of what is wrong with the car and why it won’t get you from A to B. One could intuitively know where to look if they simply know the basics about working on and maintaining a car from the 1960s. Computers and electronics should be used as seldomly as possible, so that the wiring schematic can be simple to read.
My experience working on cars is that the code-readers can’t always give you good information, because sensors, connections, grounds, wires, insulation, can all fail at various and multiple places simultaneously. With a CANBUS system, multiple systems widely distributed about the car can go wrong all at the same time, so good luck finding out what’s wrong if the code reader is not giving you the information you need. It’s wonderful when it works, but easily can turn your car into landfill fodder when it doesn’t. There is a reason modern cars are so expensive to fix, and the goal should be designing a vehicle to negate that expense, that is still meeting regulations, even if only at the bare minimum.
Designing it this way, means that you absolutely want to minimize the amount of electronic systems in the car, period. This is why I’m against power locks and windows. If people want these features in the car, they should be optional, not standard, and the car should be designed with the possibility of this addition in mind. And it will have to cost accordingly, since the car would primarily have been designed with the base-trim being kept as inexpensive and as reliable as possible in mind. Let the buyer decide what they absolutely can’t live without, in the interest of keeping the car affordable.
A lot of luxury features come standard in modern poverty-spec cars that are shared with their top-end models because the high production volume of those features make them less expensive on a per-unit basis. And now, the automakers are planning to build poverty-spec cars with these features built in, but make access to them subscription-based. I can guarantee you that added thousands of dollars to the per-unit cost of the poverty-spec car of its model. And each and every one of those features is a set of failure points inside of the car, that can interfere with mission-critical systems with regard to getting one to work and back, from A to B, none of which can be repaired by bubba mechanic while he guzzles beer and must be taken into a dealership to fix, costing $X,XXX-XX,XXX.
I think the late 1990s and early 2000s cars are a sweet spot regarding electronic complexity versus reliability and serviceability of components in mass market automobiles, especially the Japanese cars of that time period, and the same can be said for the mechanical robustness that the vehicles were designed to have. Trying to replicate that sort of reliability and servicability for the vehicle’s electrical systems, within the framework of modern regulations, should be a design parameter that is uncompromised. With design by committee, such a thing is most likely never even a consideration to begin with.
COUGH ( Tata Nano was marketed as the “cheapest car in the world”. Unfortunately, this strategy didn’t work in favour of the Nano as it immediately gained a reputation of a “cheap car” amongst the consumers who don’t want to get associated with a low-end car especially in the urban sector. To avoid being associated with a ‘cheap car’, the Indian consumers were witnessed going for a used car from a segment above than buying a Nano. COUGH
Did the Tata Nano do anything desireable, other than being as cheap as possible? Did it have any quality that had broad appeal? Was it reliable?
In the U.S., straight-line power and speed has always been a desirable quality, across all income levels. This is why musclecars made a resurgence. An affordable EV equivalent to that, would set it apart from something like a Tata Nano.
So too has reliability and reparability. Ford F-series pickups from the 1990s and GMT800 Silverados are highly prized because of this trait. The newer ones aren’t proving themselves as worthy of the task. Many people have so little money saved up that if their vehicle breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they’ve basically lost the vehicle or go thousands of dollars into debt if they have good enough credit. Most Americans don’t have $500 cash saved for an emergency, and in the middle of nowhere, that could be dwarfed by a towing bill alone, nevermind repairs.
Can a Tata Nano do what a beige bubble-era Toyota Corolla was able to do regarding reliability? Will it make a cross country trip on a whim?(Yes, I get it’s an EV dependent on quick charge infrastructure, but I’m asking the question from a pure reliability standpoint).
If it can do both those things, ridiculous straight-line acceleration with decently competent cornering prowess to fulfill a performance niche well, while also focusing on what it needs to make this an A to B appliance as inexpensively as possible by being simple/inexpensive to maintain and repair, it will stand out among more expensive cars that can do the same things or less. The demographics to those cars would be compelled to consider what is being offered, assuming they know it exists.
Some of them might decide less is more, especially once they drive something so deliciously light and tossable with pants-crapping levels of straight-line grunt.
Also it couldnt pass any safety requurements outside india and thats because they dont care if people die
Yes but auto manufacturers wont build these because they lose money the longer a car lasts and tge cheaper it is to repair.
“But this will be a cheap penalty box where someone can do 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds, and is also light and tossable on curvy roads and competent at a race track. THAT will more than make up for the roll-up windows and barebones interior, I promise you”.
I dunno. For me rolling up windows and having to manually un/lock doors on a 4/5 door is a PITA, especially when I’m juggling handfuls of stuff. Given their ubiquity on even the cheapest economy cars I don’t think those add THAT much weight or cost. Backup cameras are now required by law in the US so you may as well have a dashcam too. Parking cameras might be a nice cheap, lightweight perk too.
Race track performance isn’t much use in heavy traffic nor so I hear in what some folks call “winter”.
You’ll also want cheapish, range extending all weather fuel saver tires, not the expensive tires a 500 HP rocket ship should have. 150 HP with the famous EV torque curve should be fine for a *lightweight* commuter. Ideally both axles would be driven to maximize winter traction and regenerative braking.
Then there’s crash safety. Even a cheap 2015 Altima can be folded over and flattened by a semi truck and still protect its driver from all but minor injury. I think that is where a lot of the weight and cost of modern cars comes from. How many airbags will your car have? ABS? All the crumple zones? Which modern safety standards would your car be able to meet? US? EU? Third world market? Or would it offer the safety of a 1970s Subaru?
What you are describing sounds like a bit like a hopped up Mitsubishi MiEV. That could be a good platform to start with. There’s no downside; everyone will be amazed if you pull it off and nobody will mind if it’s ruined.
People are spoiled these days. Many are too young to know that power locks/windows used to be a luxury feature, and people lived without them just fine. This sort of system by itself easily adds hundreds of dollars to the cost to build the car, and many more failure points. I’ve had window motors and door locks go out on cars I’ve owned, and it was always a PITA to fix and very annoying to deal with. With modern cars, that also means messing with a CANBUS system to fix one small component. By comparison, while poorly built, the rollup windows on my primitive Triumph GT6 are very easy to work with, and building a rollup window system that is stout enough to take abuse and not fail shouldn’t be too difficult. Sure, you’ll have a little bit of inconvenience, but the tradeoff is that you’ll never have to worry about the car locking you out of it if the battery and/or 12V system fails, you’ll never have to deal with a complicated nightmare that requires a dealership to fix one little part that fails, and you or some bubba mechanic can actually fix the thing in a few hours over a couple of beers and $XX in parts.
My thought process on this is that the car should be able to be repaired easily, when it is 30 years old and things start breaking on it. This is the type of car that will stay on the road and not end up as landfill fodder.
Backup cameras can be extremely simple and inexpensive. You can buy one at an auto parts store for a double-digit dollar amount. What we don’t need is a $X,XXX backup camera intregrated into a CANBUS system that costs $X,XXX to fix and proprietary dealership programming when something goes wrong. It should be plug and play on the car’s 12V system, and easy to install/remove. No need for it to be fancy or integrated. It can be its own inexpensive system, and if the owner of the car doesn’t like the backup camera it came with or if it stops working, they should be able to swap it out with one from an auto parts store purchased for $XX without having to mess with any computers.
There are(or used to be) all-weather AND low rolling resistance tires meant for high performance cars that are relatively inexpensive. But you had to go to 14″ wheels to use them, which IMO is a good wheel size to use anyway. Keeps inertia losses, rotating drag, and mass down. Implementing traction control with minimal computers/sensors is relatively easy as well, if appropriate “performance” tires can’t be found to meet practical requirements such as winter driving. I’m not against a very basic wheelslip detection system that costs $XXX, and it would go a long way towards civilizing even the most savage of beasts. What I’m against is an integrated wiring mess with thousands of sensors weighing hundreds of pounds scattered all over the car.
Driving both axles will add significantly to the cost. At minimum, you will need a second electric motor and drive ratio, and if you want to use dirt-simple components available to hobyists, that will likely require a second control system as well, more cost. I think that would be a more appropriate decision for a “premium” model. To keep it affordable, I think it would be best to stick with one motor and one control system.
Crash safety is the biggie. It is basically a massive non-recurring engineering cost, and the price is most determined by the vehicle’s production volume. Compliance with modern safety regulations by itself will cost hundreds of millions of dollars on any car regardless of how many you sell, and the amount of regulations is pure insanity. The US government even mandates GPS tracking in all cars made 2015 and later. I propose meeting the bare minimum. The bare minimum safety in modern day is still eons ahead of what cars of the 1980s and 1990s had, and I consider the level of safety of 80s/90s to be “good enough”. It used to be assumed that if you got plowed by an 18-wheeler, you were a goner, and many people still wisely assume the same today, even if that may not be the case. A basic bitch stripper Nissan Versa level of safety would go above and beyond what cars of the 1990s had, and would be the target. As far as crashing into things, an integrated roll cage would go a very long way towards actual safety, rather than the “safety” mandated by government, and wouldn’t add greatly to the cost to build the car. There are cars you can buy cheaply in Europe that are survivable at 120 mph crashes on the Autobahn, where the occupants are likely to walk away unscathed, which don’t meet US “safety” regulations and aren’t allowed here.
A Mitsubishi iMIEV is a much smaller and more complicated car than what I’m proposing. It also has more drag, due to its shape. What I would like to build would have the iMIEV’s frontal area, but it would be a little lower, slightly wider, and significantly longer, and it would be a sedan designed to be as aerodynamically slippery as possible. Think GM Precept, Ford Probe V, GAC ENO .146, ect. 4 passengers should be able to fit without being cramped and be able to fully stretch their legs and have ample headroom, like riding in a Mercedes 300 SDL. That amunt of physical space being available is a basic comfort parameter that no amount of gadgetry or luxury features can ever make up for, which most modern cars and crossovers lack outright, and it will go a very long way on its own, even if the car doesn’t have heated/AC’d seats and smartphone docks and TV screens. With EVs, a lot more possibilities for the packaging open up that would make this sort of passenger space possible in a small-ish sedan. The battery pack can go where a transmission tunnel and drive shaft in a front-engined rear-drive ICE car would normally be, and the electric motor can be coupled to a rear axle, all of which keeps the center of gravity nice and low. This would also allow for a frunk and a trunk. There could be a battery box that is accessible without needing to take the whole car or massive sections of the car apart, which is why I’m against building the batteries into the floor as Tesla does, even though building them into the floor does offer safety and performance advantages. What if you need to replace the batteries at some point? Everything needs to be accessible to the novice mechanic with only basic hand tools, like working on an old little British car, but everything also needs to be built to be reliable to at least the standards of an early 2000s Honda to minimize the necessity of working on it.
“People are spoiled these days. Many are too young to know that power locks/windows used to be a luxury feature, and people lived without them just fine.”
I know that better than you think. I had a TR-3! Not only did it not have power windows it didn’ t HAVE windows! The door locks were silly nonsense! No heater either, freezing was all part of the fun. The very non-powered mirrors were way out on the fenders – you had to get out of the car to adjust them! And you did that often as every @#$^ passerby knocked them out of alignment. Hell, I was lucky to have seat belts, not that they would have been much use against my non collapsible steering column or in a rollover.
(Nope, I don’t miss any of that).
“My thought process on this is that the car should be able to be repaired easily, when it is 30 years old and things start breaking on it. This is the type of car that will stay on the road and not end up as landfill fodder.”
I’m totally with you there which is a part of why I’m still rocking my 12+ yo fleet. In my experience anyone with a few basic hand tools can replace a window regulator or door lock on a modernish car but there is not often a reason to do so. In 30 or so years of having cars with powered accessories I’ve replaced only one $40 regulator and one $15 driver’s door lock. Both were done in under an hour. Having lived with several non power anything cars in the previous years I can assure you its also a lot easier to live without power windows/locks/mirrors in a narrow, 2D car like a GT6 than in a larger 4/5D car. Not impossible, just more hassle overall than the very rare once-in-a-blue-moon need to fix them.
Body work is my Achilles heel and that will be the same for any EV. I think the the way around that is cheap, easily replaceable body panels and trim (preferably plastic) that won’t rust, dent, chip, fade, peel or show scratches. Any metal on the frame and underside needs a quality trucoat to prevent rust and all threaded fasteners need a bit of blue locktite.
In addition your company’s website needs downloadable highly detailed service manuals and FFS NEVER design any part to require a proprietary tool for servicing when a standard tool will do. I warn you, failure is a sure ticket to that very special place in Hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at theaters.
I agree there’s no need for a lot of electronics but please, FFS, put in at least a double DIN in the dash. A $200 aftermarket 7″android Satnav will fill that hole nicely. Also footwell (not door!) mounted component low range front speakers.
“I’m not against a very basic wheelslip detection system that costs $XXX, and it would go a long way towards civilizing even the most savage of beasts.”
I’d think that would be a part of the ABS system, no?
“A Mitsubishi iMIEV is a much smaller and more complicated car than what I’m proposing.”
Oh I was only suggesting it as a super cheap mid engine, RWD EV proof of concept platform. Add a few more batteries, a bigger motor and as much simplicity as you can get away with and see what happens.
“People are spoiled these days. Many are too young to know that power locks/windows used to be a luxury feature, and people lived without them just fine.”
Opening your thesis with this statement is an absolute sign that you’re missing your audience.
I can’t think of a single time where people, and Americans especially, willingly accepted a reduction in living standards for a so-called greater good. The fact that you are willing to put up with the safety and equipment levels of an old Triumph in a daily driver is fine for you and a few others (who are disproportionately represented on enthusiast blog comment sections) but is deeply unserious for the broader market. I’ve told the story here before, but my wife’s serious accident in a modern vehicle, and relatively minor injuries due to that fact, has made the “the 90s were good enough” attitude toward safety a complete non starter for me. Many others with children feel the same way.
Your average consumer has also never thought twice about the cost or hassle to replace power window motors, because it’s simply not a major concern with modern vehicles. I’ve owned a lot of cars and trucks and never had to do it. The idea of a customer caring about a 30+ year lifespan also seems unlikely. The people who buy new cars generally buy them for a few years at most, and the automaker doesn’t even care about resale beyond the 36 month lease period. Hell, the average new car buyer is in their 50s and may not even have 30 years more to live. It’s a hard sell getting someone to buy anything for life, let alone something that defines our image to the world as much as a car does.
I’m not saying your ideas are without merit, but I am saying that the story of improving efficiency in most things is generally more capability for the same cost, or maybe the same capability for less cost, not less capability for much less cost. That simply doesn’t sell, and hasn’t for a long time. There’s a reason the car market is what it is, and that even companies that started with low cost, simple vehicles (Ford, VW, Honda, Hyundai and others) have reduced their offerings or abandoned that niche.
I don’t fully disagree with anything you have said here.
But Americans have also always endured a lower level of living standards when they had no choice. Not everyone today has money to buy cars with, and new cars are becoming so expensive they are becoming entirely out of reach for the majority of the U.S. workforce even at the least expensive price points. Without debt/financing, the auto industry would collapse. There was a time when GM made more money selling cars than from financing them. The finance industry has for a number of years relied upon consumers making imprudent, fiscally-irresponsible purchases on a mass scale that for many are mathematically impossible to repay, especially if they lose their employment, cars being one of the most commonly purchased items with debt. I’m not sure how much longer the days of relatively easy credit, regardless of interest rates, will last.
One of the reasons the car market is what it is today is that real wages have been declining relative to living expenses. 96-month car loans are now a thing. Used car prices being what they are, and the vast majority of the U.S. workforce requiring car ownership in order to get from A to B in reasonable time, the existing model of doing things is not sustainable. $45,000 Teslas are not a solution for Joe Sixpack, as he’s completely priced out of it, even with a 96 month loan, especially if his beater Honda Accord still works fine. The days of the $500 used car are over and today is the day of the $5,000 used car, but wages have not increased proportionally in that time frame between then and now. A lot of people to whom an EV would appeal on an operating cost basis, are priced out of EV ownership. Hence the article on this blog.
If you’re going to be getting less capability for much less cost, it needs to have some parameter where this is not the case. Whatever this parameter is, it should compare favorably to a competitor that is at a higher price point. I think ridiculous straight-line acceleration would do that well, if it was chosen as the aforementioned parameter. So too would decent suspension and excellent cornering dynamics. This allows the buyer something they’d not have been able to get if any of the higher price points were beyond their means, that this new vehicle offers as a standard spec.
Performance can stand out and demand attention all by itself. Performance has always sold in the U.S. This sort of performance could be relatively accessible, and with four seats, a car with this performance would have a broader appeal than a Miata or a BRZ because you can still fit a child seat in the back seat without having to bend at odd angles. But if it is cheaper than a new V6 Dodge Charger, moves in a straight line with a rapidity somewhere between a Scat Pack and a Hellcat, tops out at whatever it can be minimally stable it(110 mph would be enough, but the more the merrier), corners like a Miata, plus it’s the next “new” thing as an EV, it may potentially take sales away from all of those vehicles.
Accessible, effortless performance is a very fun thing to have, and holds broad appeal. That’s why horsepower numbers are so high in vehicles today, moreso than their bloat. Large numbers of people like to have fun, even in the operation of mundane vehicles. Those bloated modern road hippos could still get around just fine with Jason Torchinsky’s 50 horsepower limit and at street legal speeds get there every bit as fast as something with an order of magnitude more power. People did just fine with similar power to weight ratios in the 1920s and 1930s, and if they had modern road infrastructure. No, people LIKE hauling ass, and the cars we have available do reflect that.
Do that well, and it will get attention on its merits, regardless of its flaws. At the very least, it will be a curiosity. Going full retard on aero, it’s going to stand out from everything else, for better and/or worse.
A big issue, IMO, would be designing the battery pack to be flood-resistant. THAT would be a chore. I have ideas on how that might be possible. But if the vehicle gets flooded, you don’t want to total it. You want as much of the car to be salvageable as possible.
For a few hundred pounds of weight penalty, a LiFePO4 pack could also be considered. It isn’t nearly as much of a fire hazard as high-powered Li Ion pack and typically vents heat and poisonous smoke instead of going into thermal runaway and catching fire and taking the whole car with it. Depending upon how light the glider chassis ultimately was, the comparatively heavier and more reliable LiFePO4 chemistry may be able to be used and still keep the car under 2,800 lbs. After all, you wouldn’t want your infant’s car seat sitting over the containment area of a flammable battery.
I’m not entirely certain if performance has always sold in the US. Performance has always been noticed and lusted after, along with performant styling cues, but actual sales of performance vehicles have always been *significantly* lower than sales of utilitarian vehicles. Americans love the idea of performance, but when push comes to shove, they’d rather buy a Camry or a CR-V.
Yeah, I remember crank windows and manual locks and no power steering and manual mirrors. No. You are disconnected from reality and your car would be a flop – and it would also be expensive to manufacture. Physical switchgear are more expensive to build than a pair of tablets, which is why most cars have gone that way. Is it ideal? Hell no, it’s unsafe as all get out. I have some thoughts on how to solve this problem whilst still remaining cost effective, but I really don’t want to share any of it with you because you’re an obstinate old person who thinks they know best.
Obstinate, maybe, but old I am not.
I’m all about looking at other’s ideas. The whole point is to share them.
If you feel that modern people are spoiled by *checks notes* power windows and power locks, then you’re old. So am I, at this point. That, or you’re looking at the past with some of the rosiest tinted glasses ever devised.
Power windows and doors are a safety feature. Trying to lean across the car to roll up windows on a highway because of a sudden cloudburst is not safe. Not being able to lock your car all at once because someone sketchy is approaching is not safe.
The problem is that your building an enthusiast car but packaging it as a cheap ride, and you believe that people will want to buy it. Sales figures seem to belie that, though. There is of course bias in sales figures, but cars like sedans and coupés have been declining solidly for a decade now, and I’ve not seen any quality representative research that indicates your idea would be preferred over the prevailing theories.
As for my ideas? Can’t share without a patent first – otherwise some other company will patent it and close it off from fair use.
Erm, you’re*
I’m younger than the vast majority of new car buyers. I’m a millennial. My working class parents drove cars from the 1970s when I was a small kid in the 1990s. I know exactly what mechanical locks/windows entails, and the inconvenience isn’t THAT bad. It means you need to make sure your passengers lock the doors when they exit the vehicle. It means that you should leave your windows up when you exit the car, or at the very least visually check the locks/windows each time you exit. If the car has AC, rolling down the windows would be a relatively rare occurrence anyway, unless there are cigarette smokers inside the car.
Mechanical windows/locks are a minor annoyance, that doesn’t impact the primary purpose of the car: transportation.
Sales of sedans and coupes have been declining largely because perceived value for the money doesn’t match that of larger, heavier, more-subsidized/less-penalized vehicles. A lot of this is the result of government intervention in the market, especially regarding safety standards. The most bare-bones of cars have gotten more expensive to produce as a result. If buyers can be given some aspect that matches cars much more expensive than it(such as ridiculous performance), it can improve the perceived value of the car.
Where I live, A/C isn’t as commonly used unless it’s really warm, and the idea that there are always (or even often) passengers in a car is flawed. You have no idea how many times I’ve been alone on a highway and had to roll up my windows because of a sudden rainstorm. It’s a safety issue.
Moreover, you’re making statement about why these cars aren’t popular – do you have any actual evidence to back that assertion?
As they in the south Bless your heart.
I havent locked my doors in 20 years. Being in a train of cars makes me think of pulling over whenever anyone needs to pee. Track day car? Why waste of money. Expensive support system, tires, qearing out of car not a good idea for a cheap car.
Minor quibble / question. Improving wheel HP in an EV isn’t as simple as throwing a more powerful motor at it without changing anything else. It strikes me that the 20kWh battery would bottleneck the performance of the 500hp motor so in the real world you very definitely wouldn’t get the as-described acceleration out of it.
Then again, I do seem to recall some wild homebrew dragsters circa the early 2010’s that used Tesla motors and 15kWh Volt batteries so maybe there’s a way.
Possible, depending on the maximum pulse current of the battery and how long it was pulled for.
Some math to support this conclusion:
Maximum lifespan of a battery is achieved with maximum current draw of 1C, however, batteries can readily go beyond this level of draw for short periods.
A single Tesla motor maxes at ~307kW, and runs at 375V.
307kW / 375V = 819A.
20kWh / 375v = 53Ah.
819A / 53Ah = 15.45C.
15.45C is considered a high discharge rate, and will likely reduce the lifespan of the batteries, though some lithium cells can handle upwards of 20C. For comparison, a Tesla Model S has a burst current draw of about 5C.
Also, at this rate of draw, your batteries would empty quickly, lasting a maximum of 4.5 minutes. Even short spurts of acceleration would have a significant impact on range.
The car would have terrible range in racing conditions. But that wouldn’t be the main point of the car. It would be a car whose most considered task is getting from A to B with a minimum level of basic physical comfort and expense.
To have that sort of performance on tap though in a car as described, would be a ridiculously inexpensive upgrade compared to what it would take to make a fully featured car out of a platform. Ass-hauling capability would be a nice little feature that would have a broad appeal by itself. The Tesla Model S has proven this well in a much higher price category than what is being proposed.
There are a large variety of LiIon cells that are comparable in mass production cost to what Tesla is offering in its Model 3, of similar specific capacity, but a lot more peak power capability. On the order of 15-20C for an uninterrupted cycle without overheating, or a few minutes.
With a single speed ratio, you would gear it to whatever top speed the car had basic dynamic stability at. Whether it’s 110 mph, or 170 mph, or more. A lot is going to depend upon the body design, and getting a 0.15 drag coefficient is going to require giving up chasing downforce. So, whatever stability the designer can get with the body design, even after tweaking, never exceeding that 0.15 Cd, and keeping frontal area 20 sq ft or below, to whatever top speed, it will be what it will be. The more the merrier, of course.
The car would be at top speed in perhaps in just a few seconds, depending upon what the gear ratio is and what the top end ultimately is. 110 mph would be a bare minimum top end to target(and if geared for that, the car might have too much power to get sufficient traction making tire choice more difficult, but that’s another issue). Once at top speed, it will take very little power to maintain it, relative to what the car is capable of, leaving the batteries current draw well below their continuous rating giving them a chance to shed any excess unwanted heat with whatever means is employer to enable that(a fan system might be sufficient depending on battery make/model). Even cruising at top speed, the batteries would be cooling down, unless you were on some kind of extreme uphill incline greater than what is typical of Interstate highways
It could be designed to be a little terror at the drag strip, where races are short. This is among the most affordable types of automobile racing one can get involved with legally, and a cheap penalty box but extremely practical otherwise bland car(aero drag reduction will be most heavily considered at the expense of styling and brand identity), would have ass-hauling capabilities appropriate for holding its own with hotrods and supercars. If it was only geared to top 110 mph, it’s 1/4 mile time could still be low 11s or less, and it would get faster as the gear ratio got taller due to hitting its trap speed way before the end of the run. In the twisties, it could still play like a Miata to a disciplined driver(a dangerous Miata on crack due to the acceleration capability, but you know, Miata-like cornering dynamics, competent but forgivable to error).
Sadly, touch screens are probably the cheapest way to make a dashboard these days. Ok for disposable cars if the inherently unsafe nature of an interface that you have to look at to use (how are they even legal?) doesn’t bother you.
Likewise, electric motors are probably cheaper than crank windows if you don’t have a warehouse with a 20 year supply of regulators.
Controlling everything with software over canbus is probably the cheapest way to go until you get into really high production quantities where saving a penny per washer is an issue and you can design proprietary hardware.
I despise touchscreens if you can’t tell, but they are cheap cheap cheap.
This too is my stance, but I know they wouldn’t sell very many. I myself bought a 2016 Chevy Spark EV used for $8k in 2018. It gets 84 miles of range (65 usable now with a worn battery) and I love the thing. Most people, this is all they would ever need. I can’t even charge at home either! Charging at home is a bigger obstacle than cheap electric cars unfortunately. I live in Sacramento CA which has the most electric car chargers per capita and I have a fast charger less than a mile away. Without those, I would not be able to run an electric car while living in a 100+ year old apartment.
We bought a 2016 Spark EV as an urban assault vehicle. Driving a gas car in thick L.A. traffic makes me uptight and kinda impatient. Suffering four stoplight cycles to make a left turn makes me livid. The wife and I are far calmer and more cheerful in the Spark. Abundant torque makes the car, dare I say, fun to drive. Her 6-cylinder Accord doesn’t get out much anymore.
Honestly mini city BEVs make the most sense. They use the least amount of energy to do what they are designed to do which means smaller battery packs are needed which means the cars are fairly cheap.
At speeds above 35 MPH wind resistance increases exponentially requiring more horsepower and more power powering said horsepower in order to get up to speed and to sustain those speeds. Even though ICE engines are ~<30% efficient because of how energy dense gasoline and diesel are, how cheap they are, how easy they are to store a decent amount of (in a car), and how quick it is to fill up ICE cars don't really have much of an issue driving at 80+ MPH on the highway and doing so for relatively cheap.
BEVs on the other hand are stuck with a (relatively) low energy density energy source for propulsion with current battery tech and in order to get ICE car ranges and fill up times that are 4X longer than an ICE car they have to use very large very expensive battery packs that hook up to very expensive chargers ($60K+)
With the chicken tax and BS mandatory testing standards set up by the EPA it is highly unlikely we'll see any new small BEVs being sold in the US.
Personally I really want a e-NV200 but Nissan won't sell it in the US. I don't care if I could only get it in RHD, I'd gladly get one. They got plenty of money to blow on a custom one off BEV conversion of an out of production pickup but they let Ford corner the market for electric Vans in the US with the e-Transit while the e-NV200 has been in production for years. Just do what Ford has been doing with the Transits, ship them as passenger vans, and convert the ones ordered as cargo vans to cargo vans, or set up production in the US and export the ones you don't sell here for other LHD markets.
Agreed. This is the correct use case for EVs.
I don’t live in a big city but I watch Seinfeld. Seems to me all these new EVs are going to need a place to park. I saw a parking spot in NYC sell for $100,000. Also even cheap parking is $10 a day. That’s an extra $3,650 a year. How safe are these little things? What is insurance going to be? How much for increased fire coverage? Who pays for when an entire block burns?
If you live in Manhattan you don’t need a car. Having one, and a spot to park it, is a wealth flex.
NYC actually has reasonably usable public transit. Shocking for a city in the US, I know.
Fire insurance rates should be lower, not higher. It’s kind of like the Pinto: blown hellishly out of proportion.
(Fire rates for EVs are sixty times lower than for internal combustion cars. Hybrids are much higher than either, though. See https://www.autoweek.com/news/a38225037/how-much-you-should-worry-about-ev-fires/ for example.)
Insurance on an EV tends to be higher than for a gas car for two reasons. One, if the battery does get damaged in a crash, it’s a write-off. And two, the bodywork tends to be aluminum, which is also expensive. (And in my state they charge more to register one, which infuriates me.)
I would happily buy a small EV like the Sakura if it could be had for less than AU$25,000… especially if it’s got a 20 kWh battery (or even a bit bigger) and vehicle to load capability because a battery that size would allow me to run my house with free electricity thanks to our solar panels and still do a regular run into town. Basically a house battery with a free car!
I recently installed a 10kWh storage battery on my house and 2 of them currently past almost exactly AU$25,000. The car would literally be free if they could do it for that price at this point in time.
What? I am not sure what point you are trying to make here?
Basically my point is that at this point in time, batteries for a small “economy” electric car are easily more expensive than your average ICE economy car.
DT is 100 % . Who is gonna make an affordable mass market EV for North America ? People need stuff they can afford and the current crop of them ain’t that .
A company like VinFast, maybe. It seems all of the US and German manufacturers have decided that “premiumization” is the word of the day. They increasing sell products only in the categories that provide the most margin, and have abandoned the idea of making money on the most volume. VW has very explicitly done it, at one point they planned to move the most cars in the world. The move was not driven by supply chain shortages, but that didn’t hurt it – why put scarce parts into cheap vehicles when you can put them into expensive ones? T
The strategy seems to be adopted in many other consumer product categories, and I wonder how much it has to do with inflation. It simply isn’t possible to buy less expensive products any more.
“Premiumization is the science of motivating consumers to pay more for brands, products, and services. Brands in mature, competitive markets need to premiumize to achieve growth.”
https://beesystrategy.com/premiumization/
Couldn’t agree more. Price has been the limiting factor to EV acceptance. Just because it has an electric motor doesn’t mean all manner of expensive sci-fi tech needs to be tacked on.
The whole problem is a cheap EV isn’t cheap. You need to add charging. Whether in house or a national network. And taxpayers should not be forced to pay for it. Cut the options is smart except young people who buy a thousand dollar phone every year don’t do buy what you can afford. Older people have more buying power? Duh and young people will have more later if they work for it. But they won’t. They want it now for free without having to earn it.
“The whole problem is a cheap EV isn’t cheap. You need to add charging. Whether in house or a national network. And taxpayers should not be forced to pay for it.”
I’ve got no problem with taxpayers being forced to pay for something they will directly benefit from. Have a national network be paid for by the taxpayers and let taxpayers profit from its use.
Besides its not like a government run network can be any worse than the shit show most private charging networks are today.
The DMV would like a chance to prove you wrong.
Younger people have been working more jobs for more hours than the boomers for about 15 years now.
Don’t forget that boomer bosses are the ones that decided that the employee should be contactable at all hours, necessitating the purchase of a cell phone and cell phone plan.
I gotta say I’m just not convinced on EVs yet. It seems like they solve one problem (no gas) while bringing a host of new ones (battery mineral sourcing among other things).
The Bolt is the only one I could have in my driveway without wretching every time I looked out the window. But yeah, we need EV’s that are affordable. My opinion, is that manufacturers want to move everyone to a suscription model anyway, so they can jack people around every month with upcharges and updates. So they are quite happy to price actual ownership out of the market.