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Comment by gzalo | Hacker News Reader

As an Argentinean, we can get it for around USD 9.5k, but it lacks many basic features. It can't even go faster than 40 miles per hour / 65 km/h, so it can't really drive on freeways. It doesn't even have a trunk, so not really useful for groceries either (see https://youtu.be/B5_A2F_cDNI?t=139) No airbags either, but at those speeds it's probably not as useful (at least that's what they imply in its FAQs).

Remember that the minimum wage here is around USD 200, so it's quite expensive as well. I'd rather get an ebike/scooter/used car and use it for longer trips.

It's like an enclosed golf kart that could be usefuly for residents of gated communities or small cities (not sure how it would handle in cities with hills like SF though :P)

No one seems to mention that it appears to be a copy of a chinese "Today Sunshine M1", but at 2.5x the cost :(

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>copy of a chinese "Today Sunshine M1"

copy as in someone in Argentina Reverse engineered Chinese EV and is manufacturing it? or rebadge of Chinese made car while claiming to be "100% Argentine car" like that scam https://www.thelocal.se/20220129/hyped-swedish-car-start-up-...

It looks almost exactly like the Sunshine M1 but with a slightly different body kit.

this reminds me of the companies that have claimed to be the "manufacturer" of an electric motorcycle but are in fact importing a knocked down kit of electric motorcycle parts from an alibaba vendor in china.

I mean, if they make the frame themselves, I don't see the issue. It's like saying that the the first Buells weren't made by Buell because they had a Harley engine and Ohlins suspension.

most of them import the frame too, the difference is on the decals and maybe some plastic body pieces only

Knowing Argentina's history with currency control, parallels economies and punitive import duties, it's probably the later where some insiders are pocketing the difference by claiming the car is "made in Argentina" (but is illegally imported from China).

If you can't compete, slap duties!

That's not how it works here. You import things legally from China—not only without the punitive import duties applied to finished products but actually at the currency-control-subsidized exchange rate, so you get a 40% discount courtesy of the central bank—assemble them in Argentina, slap an eagle sticker on them that says "Industria Argentina", and sell them domestically while enjoying the punitive-import-duty protection from foreign companies, all 100% legally.

The only tricky part is that if the ruling party decides they don't like you, they'll 100% legally deny you the authorization to buy the dollars you need to import your parts. Then you're sunk: there's no legal way to import your parts, and as an aboveboard business you can't use parts you import illegally. So, better make sure you stay on their good side.

This is a big reason why our GDP is smaller now than it was ten years ago. We were already in a crisis before covid.

Does Argentina have much of a Navy? There is quite a generous coast line. One that I would think would make customs control very tricky unless you have first world tier surveillance of the coasts.

Heh then you’re not aboveboard anymore. But I’m sure there’s a thriving market. One of the countries down there even has a name for that type of vehicle - it was on HN last year or so.

You're thinking of "chutos" in Bolivia, probably, but those aren't smuggled into America as a whole, just across the borders between different American countries. Contrary to our friend's ridiculous assertions above, ships are easier to detect than trucks, and a container port is not an easy thing for smugglers to keep hidden. Argentina was founded on smuggling but it doesn't work like that :)

>and a container port is not an easy thing for smugglers to keep hidden.

This is one of those things that sounds obvious at first, but the intuitive answer turns out to be false. They (the containers, not the port) are very easy to hide in plain sight. There are simply massive quantities of them and it would grind trade to a halt to be inspected en masse. Therefore in US at least shipping containers are laughable easy for smugglers to "hide."

In US whole shipping container full of illegal immigrant arrive. It's my understanding only a tiny fraction of container are meaningfully searched, and whole containers of imported material can enter the country illegally. Perhaps Argentina has much more sophisticated and honest customs and border protection than US. But also take into account profit on illegal imports can be very high in Argentina due to arbitrage against crippling taxation/duties. Example below.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3339957

You can certainly hide a container, but you can't hide a container port, much less a non-submarine ship in the open ocean, which is what your earlier comment suggested.

Argentina definitely does not have customs officials as honest as those in the US, though perhaps they are more sophisticated.

Traveling via container is a thing I've contemplated doing myself, if only I had the budget.

Via container? That is indeed an unusual desire for someone with options.

I'm an unusual guy.

This kind of reminds me of the people who go down Niagara falls in a capsule.

> It doesn't even have a trunk, so not really useful for groceries either

Is this usually a limiting factor for people? I've always put my groceries on the back seats or back floor, even if I have a trunk.

It depends on how large a family you are shopping for, and if you need to bring little kids with you when you go. A family trip without a trunk means no room at all for groceries.

Sure it's a limiting factor if you're bringing the whole family grocery shopping, but that's probably less than 5% of all car users.

This car looks small enough that it doesn’t have a backseat, so it’s just the passenger seat available.

It says it fits 4 people, though some of those words should probably be in quotation marks. Probably has a tiny back seat.

> I've always put my groceries on the back seats or back floor, even if I have a trunk.

Why? Isn't it easier to a access the trunk?

The distance between the driver door and the passenger door (on the same side of the car) is shorter than the walk from the driver door to the trunk. If I've got just one or two bags of groceries, I'll toss 'em on the backseat. An entire cart-full of groceries is a whole 'nother story...

It's just what my parents did, so it's what I do. It's no harder to access than a trunk on a four-door car.

They fall over in the trunk. In the backseat I can buckle them in or put them in the crevasse between the seats and the floor.

Not necessarily for groceries, but otherwise yeah.

There are some things that I need to permanently store in the car, and using backseats for that essentially makes them unusable for their primary purpose (hosting humans). I am not even talking about the bewilderingly very common in the US "I use my car trunk as a small storage unit" scenario. I am talking about storing things like backup tire, first-aid kit, electric tire pump+sealant combo (in case i get a small puncture in my tire, so that I can patch it up and get to the nearest parking lot/service center or home), a charging cable+adapters (in case you drive an EV), a change of clothes, a roll of paper towels, and maybe a change of clothing. Mind you, even with those things in mind, they won't take up a lot of space at all, and trunk is still very usable for groceries and other stuff.

The main issue is that without trunk at all, even a very small subset of bare essential things from that list (first-aid kit and a tire pump) essentially create a problem where they are always occupying the backseat area of the car, which makes it problematic for humans to use.

> Remember that the minimum wage here is around USD 200

Q: 200 USD over what time period?

Probably monthly

Maybe meant $2.00 USD per hour?

No, Argentine wages are given per month, not per hour.

Are they paid per month as well? I've always thought that is an ideal way to receive wages.

Pay all bills due for the month and live off the rest.

They are, but typically wages are paid after working, rather than beforehand. So paying wages monthly rather than, for example, twice a month, amounts to an interest-free loan of two weeks' worth of wages by the employee to their employer, which to me seems unjust. (Thus the Biblical injunction to pay your workers before their sweat has dried.) This interest-free loan is particularly galling when we're experiencing 6% inflation per month, so your wages are worth 3% less when you get them.

Who gets paid before working? I haven't seen that at least here in the states I've worked in the US. Usually you work to the pay period and receive the prorated amount of days you worked. Sometimes you even have to work for two pay periods which can equate to misery if you haven't saved up. lol.

Edit: I reread your comment and understand now! Sorry about that.

Attorneys...

(I kid, I kid... Obviously attorneys on payroll do not get paid up front, just indy attorneys on retainer).

"Who gets paid before working?"

We are often expected to pay companies either ahead of time or on-demand when purchasing goods and services.

When we sell our labor, we generally are forced to accept a payment scheme designed by our employer that results in us getting paid much later, with the employer holding our money in the meantime.

Companies that force "net payment terms" on their vendors are also an interesting setup. Some of them force crazy terms like "Net 90"...90 days after an invoice that can only be submitted once a month. So they are taking labor and paying out sometimes 120 days later.

Employees in good bargaining positions frequently receive signing bonuses, so they do get paid before working. Those aren't the people taking minimum-wage jobs.

You make some really good points. In fact, in any system that valued people over companies, you'd expect people to be paid for their services on demand, if not ahead of time.

Employers have more power than employees in the employer-employee relationship, so they can extract concessions like this.

It's monthly for sure

They meant monthly, though it's not quite that low. According to Reuters[0], the national minimum wage as of this month is 45,540 (around 368 USD), and it will be increased again in August.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-accelerates...

That's because the article uses the "oficial" usd exchange rate (~130 argentine pesos per dollar) that don't includes taxes. With taxes its ~200 per dollar. So, the minimun wage Is ~220

Reuters is using the fraudulent official exchange rate, not the real exchange rate, which is currently $216-$220 per US$. So if you take your monthly minimum-wage salary and convert it into dollars you will get about US$200, not US$368. You need government authorization to buy (a small amount of) dollars at the official rate, and there's a government policy to reserve dollars for rich people, so if you're working a minimum-wage job you won't get that authorization.

If you're changing a larger amount of money at the free-market rate you can get as much as US$207 for each $45540.

I live in Argentina and this is correct. The (fake) official exchange rate is used by the government and media to paint a better picture of the terrible situation that we're in, it should not be used nor trusted anywhere to make any calculations on the cost of living, inflation, salaries nor anything else.

I wonder why Reuters made this error—pure ignorance, or are they trying to curry favor with Fernández?

The price quoted on https://movilidad.coradir.com.ar/tito/ is $2 120 250 or US$16 500, and indeed at the AR$220 dólar blue the peso price works out to about US$9600 today. I wonder why this price discrepancy wasn't mentioned in the "Argentinareports" article? Maybe they're just reprinting a company press release, complete with obviously photoshopped photos of the truck?

As for groceries, usually if those aren't local I carry them home on the bus or in an Uber, so a passenger seat to stack them on would be a nice upgrade.

> No one seems to mention that it appears to be a copy of a chinese "Today Sunshine M1"

Ah, and here I was thinking "not only the Chinese can rip off the design of better-known brands". That explains why the TITO looks like the result of a liaison between a Smart and a Mini. Also, the TITA truck has a "radiator grill" that just screams "BMW"...

It has a second seat. No reason you need two people to go shopping.

I'm just glad someone, somewhere is considering a sane vehicle rather than this ridiculous size/speed arms race. The many, many costs of doing 80-120km/h are nowhere near worth halving the travel time (at best).

> No airbags either, but at those speeds it's probably not as useful

Unless someone crashes into one of these mini fridges.

Most of my trips are going to work, going to the gym, taking the kids to school.

This car would be perfect for these trips.

This is like the Venezuelan Vergatario. A Communist government selling a Chinese rebranded product as a national product.

In Argentine Spanish "verga" means "dick" (commonly in the metaphorical meaning "useless" or "annoying"), and "-tario" is a suffix meaning "recipient of" (an action), like English "-ee"—for example when leasing a house, the lessor is the "locator" and the lessee is the "locatario". This gives the amusing reading "recipient of dicking" to "Vergatario". So I don't think the Venezuelan cellphone would sell well here under that name.

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