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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

> both companies produced these as regulatory compliance vehicles.

At one point I was completely fascinated with the Fiat 500e. Here was an electric car that was stylish, quirky, and could be had on the used market at a great price. But as I got further into it I realized that FCA hated producing this car. Its only reason to exist is to allow them to produce more pollutant vehicles as a regulatory balance. And if it did have a future there would be the barest minimum invested into it. So I'm back to looking at Teslas, even though I haven't liked the styling since the Lotus designed Roadster.

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Funny enough, FCA is paying Tesla billions of dollars in ZEV credits so FCA can still sell cars in Europe.

EDIT: Please buy that Tesla and support a company who actually cares about selling EVs.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300393/tesla-fiat-chrysl...

>FCA is paying Tesla billions of dollars in ZEV credits

That's an interesting interpretation. FCA is buying ZEV credits in the market, of which Tesla has a large supply. Would you describe Facebook buying servers as "Facebook paying Intel billions so they can keep selling advertisements online"?

>Please buy that Tesla

Every time Tesla comes up and there's negativity, there are accusations of "paid short-sellers", which I am not. What about your disclosure? You own a Tesla, are you a shareholder? Do you have a financial interest in people buying the cars? Is it fair to be constantly flooding these forums with Tesla rumours, often from vapid fan sites, when you stand to benefit?

Why is acceptable from one side, and not the other?

Either FCA is paying Tesla billions of dollars for ZEV credits or they aren’t. It’s a demonstrable fact, not an interpretation. Actually I didn’t realize it was that much, but here’s a source. [1]

They need these ZEV credits in order to sell their ICE fleet. This is also indisputable.

And absolutely, yes, Facebook pays Intel billions of dollars to power the servers they use to serve ads on the internet. Now hopefully more AMD though.

[1] - https://electrek.co/2019/05/07/tesla-tsla-2-billion-fiat-chr...

>but here’s a source. [1]

Elektrek is not a source, it's a Tesla PR mouthpiece. Here's a better one:

https://interestingengineering.com/gm-and-fiat-chrysler-unve...

Fred has an article up based on an Elon Musk tweet within half an hour, and has repeatedly printed baseless rumours.

Sure, happy to oblige. I usually add the disclaimer to my posts, but forgot to add it here. Added to my HN profile as well. Thanks for keeping me honest! If you refer to my comment history, I don't believe I've ever mentioned "paid short sellers".

Disclaimer: TSLA investor, Model S/X owner. If I ask you to buy a Tesla, it is not to help my stock, but to help move the world to electric transportation faster. If you find a better EV product, I encourage you to buy it regardless of manufacturer. I will hold my Tesla stock all the way to zero, and climate change keeps me up at night (seriously, it's terrifying; Rome is burning and the band plays on). Any sources I cite regarding Tesla have been and will continue to be from reputable online publications.

>Any sources I cite regarding Tesla have been and will continue to be from reputable online publications.

If you consider Teslarati, Eletrek and Cleantechnica "reputable", not sure what to tell you.

That said, I appreciate the disclosure. You may have not whined about "short-sellers", but I've got it often here. It's ridiculous, and says more about the person making the accusation than anything. Even sama and pg got on-board on Twitter. We can disagree about the prospects of Tesla without resorting to conspiracy theories.

> That's an interesting interpretation. FCA is buying ZEV credits in the market, of which Tesla has a large supply. Would you describe Facebook buying servers as "Facebook paying Intel billions so they can keep selling advertisements online"?

That's a specious comparison. ZEV credits are a punitive measure designed to make automakers want to convert their fleet to electric where the market itself can't force it. Facebook buying components for their datacenter from said manufacturers of components has nothing to do with it. A more apt comparison would be Facebook being forced to pay doubleclick for each ad served on facebook.

The 500e I had, I think 2014 version, had a serious reliability issue. Its electric system failed me multiple times. One time the car just suddenly stalled in the middle of the San Mateo bridge. I love the look of the car, but maybe the fact that they don't want to make it (but have to) leads to them putting less resource on QA?

> Lotus designed Roadster

One of these passed me on the highway the other day. I've only seen a handful of Lotus in my life and never a Tesla Roadster.. it really is a beautiful little car. Pretty small (and impractical for cargo/passengers I'd imagine) though.

“Simplify, then add lightness” Chapman, Colin.

The Lotus philosophy is to create small lightweighted sport cars, after all.

They also innovated, one example was the side skirts used on their black and gold JPS F1 car in the late 70's or 80's. The side skirts gave greater down force when going around corners, its also a discreet way to improve handling on todays road cars as the FIA regs no longer permit the side skirts. BBC TopGear covered this in their last episode.

What's old is new again - ground effects will be back in F1 in 2021: https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/new-f1-car-design-rules-20...

> "At one point I was completely fascinated with the Fiat 500e ... I realized that FCA hated producing this car."

There is an all-new electric Fiat 500, based on a new electric-only platform, in development for a 2020 release. This will be built in much higher volumes than the old 500e, on a dedicated production line in Italy.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-geneva-motor-...

Volkswagen has had a similar attitude to its electric range. They are forever unavailable for this or that reason, and dealers just ignore them. Considering their typical timescales, even if this cut of hybrids actually results in better work in fully-electric, we won’t get to see it before 2020/2021 anyway.

Sergio Marchionne, FCA's CEO until he passed away a few months ago, used to say that the company would lose approx. $6,000 for every Fiat 500e sold, but that they had to sell some of these anyway.

Better than paying Tesla for each gas or diesel-powered Fiat sold.

Why does it matter to you, as the consumer, that FCA hated producing the car? It's still cheap to buy and operate.

Things made as a result of cynical box-ticking are never good. It's better to fill your life with things designed by people trying to make something great. Even if they didn't fully succeed, you can appreciate the effort. Whereas something made grudgingly will depress you with every detail.

> What counts as a trick? Roughly, it's something done with contempt for the audience. For example, the guys designing Ferraris in the 1950s were probably designing cars that they themselves admired. Whereas I suspect over at General Motors the marketing people are telling the designers, "Most people who buy SUVs do it to seem manly, not to drive off-road. So don't worry about the suspension; just make that sucker as big and tough-looking as you can." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/goodart.html

> Things made as a result of cynical box-ticking are never good.

The original versions of the Fiat 500 itself, the Morris Mini, the Beetle, and the 2CV would disagree. Ok, you might have a point on the 2CV, but it's owners loved it.

How was the original 500 “box-ticking”? It changed the company.

Or the Beetle?

Because, in dev speak, the parts of the code base that get the most love are the ones the devs enjoy working with. The car that was produced begrudgingly as a means to get back to the cars the engineers wanted to make doesn't exactly inspire confidence that parts will be available and cheap, mechanics will be able to service it in a decade, people will make 3rd party parts, etc..

In cars there is a lot of hidden value in buying popular models.

These are some good points about longevity, but the people I know who own 500es love them and say they drive well. For now :)

Because I want them to do better.

As an environmentalist this vehicle goes against my ethics. It exists to allow them to sell more pollutant vehicles in California. It's all sizzle and no steak. There are better EVs out there. Most car manufacturers will take customer feedback to incorporate into newer models. FCA is having none of that with the 500e. They aren't interested in customer feedback just government CAFE regs.

You should probably be angry at the CAFE regs too. It's what (supposedly) had prevented all the manufacturers from selling a small pickup, which is why Ford stopped selling the Ranger. They basically switched to making the F150, then making it larger (actually, I have suspected without proof that what they did was move models downline - sometime post 1990s, the F150 became really larger - the size of that era's F250, and the F250 became the size of the F350 - Ford's re-introduction of the Ranger? About the size of the 1990s F150...again, I have no proof of this).

Lots of people want a small pickup like the Ranger (Toyota also followed along - compare sizes of the Tacoma of the 90s vs today - I suspect they all changed in size), but they can't buy one. It has something to do with CAFE rules, plus some weird calculation of area - so the larger the vehicles footprint, the more it'll pass or offset or something; I'm not sure how it works.

But something changed in the 1990s - and now we have this.

Yeah I remember something vague about CAFE and EPA rules from that era. It created a lot of perverse incentives do to poor planning. Like Hummer H2s were classified as work utility trucks and didn't have to adhere to the tight emissions rules of smaller vehicles. So you had soccer moms and realtors slap a magnetic sign on the back and, TADA!, commercial vehicle. And your "work truck" with heated leather seats was now eligible for all kinds of tax deductions.

The 500e is an underwhelming compliance vehicle but they seem to have already changed their mind considering that next year the Fiat 500 won't even be available as a gas model, it'll be electric only.

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