>I don’t think that EV implies software overkill. I hope that some brands will carve out a niche for simple EVs with real buttons and low “smartness”.

Look to the TV sector, you can't buy a non 'smart' TV any more. I highly doubt it will be profitable for a non 'smart' electric car.

I guess the closest we have right now is the Citroen Ami?

I hope so but i'm not optimistic. I can't think of any electric car that doesn't have a horrific UI full of "smart" features i don't want and would pay to not have. Even a car that doesn't require subscriptions to turn on basic features seems like a very optimistic ask.

It will be difficult as big manufacturers will lobby to relabel smart features as safety features which will make it hard to sell a car with a low safety rating. (This is already happening, squeezing out the makers of cheaper cars.)

> I don’t think that EV implies software overkill. I hope that some brands will carve out a niche for simple EVs with real buttons and low “smartness”.

As of now EVs are synonymous with software overkill. Hence your hope that some brands WILL carve out a niche.

The WV e-up! was stupid simple; with the non-touch screen only being used for the parking camera and radio.

Sadly this is not the trend at all

For some definition of "simpler", sure. You could also look at it that an EV requires a functioning, efficient global system of engineering design, mineral extraction, and manufacture. There are very few countries that could claim they can make an EV 100% domestically, and the only one that comes to mind has been working very hard to put themselves in that position.

Someone already mentioned the, VW e-up! and it has a sibling called Skoda Citigo iV. They do belong to the "very tiny car" segment, but you can get them without any screen at all! Google some interior pictures. (Both not sold anymore, but you can find them used).

I think for a brand that does as simple and cheap cars as possible there's Dacia. They have the electric Dacia Spring which is also a small car. It does have a touch screen though. Only available in some select European countries.

Edit: Actually, the touch screen in the Spring is only the "Plus" version, so you can be touch-screen free! :) But the Plus version also has DC fast charging, so you probably want that anyway.

Yeah, the “smartness” is what I don’t like.

> An electrical engine is a lot simpler than an internal combustion engine.

Sure, but there is no electic car on the market that isn't massively complex with unnecessary electronics (that will fail over time).

Even pre-1970, it's hard to think of any combustion engine being "really simple" tbh. They may be more repairable if you have access to spare parts or a machine shop, but constructing a new engine from scratch (or even a mid-level rebuild) is decidedly non-trivial even if you don't have any electronics at all.

> You'd be talking 1970s or before, then? Anything from the 80s onwards has had plenty of electronics present.

No, it's completely different in the last ~decade.

Certainly cars back into the 80s (some brands into the 70s) have electronics but they are completely independent and simple systems. You had individual wiring to every device and for the most part (usually 100%) independent circuits for every component.

This makes things very easy to diagnose with just a volt meter, easy to replace and even easy to completely rip out some subcomponent if you didn't care for it (or it became too expensive to repair). All the rest of the car was independent of that one component so everything keeps working.

This simple contruction is true into the 00s for most brands/models.

Current cars have integrated everything into a common bus and everything is controlled and monitored by opaque software that can't be diagnosed or fixed outside of factory tools.

For example even something as trivial as replacing the starting battery on newer BMWs (possibly other brands) requires special electronic tooling to reprogram the computer. That's just the tip of the iceberg, nearly nothing can be done in newer cars without access to factory electronic tools since everything is interconnected and hidden behind proprietary software control.

I have cars from the 80s, 90s and mid-00s and all of them require nothing more than a voltmeter to diagnose electrical problems. That's no longer true with new cars.

> modern ones are much more reliable and need less servicing

That's mostly true. But once they do require servicing, it's becoming nearly impossible to DIY so you are at the mercy of how long the factory cares to support your model.

I used to own a mid-00s (so not even that complex by current comparison) BMW and electrical glitches from the interconnected fragile electrical system were common. Even though I normally do everything in all my cars, there was nothing I could do without access to factory diagnostic tools so had to take it to the shop. Eventually the technicians there basically gave up, diagnosing things was so difficult that even with all the factory tooling they estimated tens of thousands in labor just to figure out the problems. I had to sell the car for scrap value since it was unfixable.

Give me simple cars from the 80s and 90s, I can keep those running forever myself.

Theoretically no, but practically the big manufacturers lobby to label smart electronics as safety features, so if you want to sell a simple car, you face the uphill battle of explaining why it scores low on safety ratings (which are mostly a checkbox-list of smart features).

Once you've used the necessary amounts of up-to-date electronic design techniques and components to build the battery management, motor controller and charging systems in your "barebones" EV, adding some multicolour lighting and a touchscreen is a tiny step.

A milkfloat is nearest thing to a "barebones" EV.

No. ICE engines vehicles used to be much simpler but they have gotten increasingly more complicated to meat emissions standards.

miata