GM, Honda scrap plans to co-develop 'affordable' sub-$30k EVs | Hacker News Reader

GM, Honda scrap plans to co-develop 'affordable' sub-$30k EVs

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24 pointsPodgajski44 comments

I hope someone will build a super simplified EV that's affordable and lacks all the digital stuff - no touchscreen, no lcd displays, no included navigation software, no automated assistance systems, physical knobs all the way.

Add some way to pair my phone via bluetooth to send audio to the speakers and a place to put it for using google maps / openstreetmap or any other software on my phone.

And spend all the energy in optimizing the drag coefficient and reduce weight and make it not ugly or avant-garde or whatever is on the designers mind that reduces functionality.

Everyone is talking about how EVs are far simpler to build, require less maintance but it's still more expensive than an ICE car? Is this all the price of the battery?

Hear, hear! Just make a Kia Rio with an EV drivetrain and sell it for under $25k.

buttons are more expensive than touchscreens

Touchscreen systems are expensive than a bank of buttons.

That’s probably up for debate. Buttons break, buttons need backer boards, buttons need complex trim, buttons need lights, buttons need surfaces, buttons wear, etc, etc.

Federal regulations require a backup camera, so you already need the screen. Screens are reliable, static, and easy to install.

my comment was not meant to be absolutist - what I'm looking for is just a very reduced and usable simple car - I don't mind a non-offensive screen if it's required and where it's useful and well made a touch interface might also be useful - but I don't need 99% of the digital things that are packed in a car - I'm not familiar with the building or cost setup of modern EVs but I could imagine that reducting in sensors and cabling might have an effect. Then give me that backup camera, some minimal android auto interface or whatever there is - I can't imagine there isn't a market for that.

The screen has to be there anyway for regulatory reasons.

The touch sensor itself is far cheaper than a bank of buttons.

Also, buttons don't allow for more "engagement" with the user than their function require, meaning less surveillance money.

Also you can't add a McDonalds button on the fly, in an over the air update, unless you use a touchscreen. This is obviously bad for some stakeholder.

Chinese brands sell very nice EVs for $30k-$35k. They are entering the European market right now and that is scaring the local manufacturers.

The market doesn't want this though.

How many Toyota Yaris's sell per year? What you are describing sounds mostly worse than that. The market says F150 with all kinds of fancy tech is great.

Not everything is the US, though. In The Netherlands in 2022 the most sold car was the Peugot 208, followed by the Kia Picanto.

I’m sure a simplified electric car would do great here.

The Netherlands is not a huge market for cars though. Everyone cycles there.

Toyota killed off the Yaris and Prius C (I think simultaneously so I assume they shared the chassis or something?).

> The market doesn't want this though.

I'm not so sure - I guess at least in Germany most people drive their 10 year old car as far as possible and don't even have the money to buy a new SUV.

I'm in my 30ies and most of my friends don't have a car, we drive a 2004 Mazda that we inherited and that is shared with the wider family.

A simple, well-designed usable EV for 20k€ or less might be something me and my friends buy.

Big SUVs and luxery cars might sell well because most people are just priced out of the market.

Used cars have insane prices - same as new after a few years.

There is nothing like the Golf II, even a Polo is more expensive then the Golf at the time.

I don't get it we have huge weight that requires huge batteries and tons of software and sensors and systems - substract everything that's not mandatory or required for security and optimize for weight and range - I can't imagine it's impossible. Max speed 140km/h would also be more than enough. There must be some tradeoffs without compromising security that get the most out of the idea of an EV. 20 years ago we had the Audi A2 that had a usage of just 3-4L/100km will all the improvement in simulation and material science there must be a way. Now everyone is moving two tons around in these big SUVs...

volt, leaf?

BYD already has great affordable and plain-looking EVs. If we were less fixated on a high-3-digit range, geopolitics and/or profits, we would've had them too.

My only requirement for a car is that it works with Openpilot. Everything else? Don’t care, don’t need it. I’d prefer that my car didn’t have any additional displays or any connectivity options at all.

The auto manufacturers don't want to sell 'affordable' EVs, when they can use their limited supply of batteries for higher-margin luxury vehicles instead. The affordable EV is an e-bike, as shown by sales numbers many times higher than that of electric automobiles.

Why would the batteries be going into E-Bikes if they are in limited supply and it is more profitable to put them into high margin cars? Are batteries really in limited supply?

I don't believe the parent comment meant that those e-bikes are the luxury products. Rather that e-cars tend towards the luxury segment. This seems objectively true when you look at the “first effort” electric vehicles from various manufacturers tending to be technological marvels with all the latest bells and whistles, rather than focusing on affordability out of the gates.

I think you missed the rhetorical point of the comment. The OP said that batteries weren't used in cheap cars because there were incentives to direct the scarce resource towards luxury cars where margins are higher. Then went on to say that battery-powered bikes sell like hot-cakes. The reply was questioning this logic - why would the scarce resource be directed towards even lower-end devices if the resource is that scarce. Then explicitly questions the assumption about whether the resource is really limited.

Of course, one answer could be that e-bikes don't use the same types of batteries that cars do, or that one could make 50 e-bikes for less than the battery array required for a low-end car. Another answer could be that the margins on luxury doo-dads are extraordinarily high, and it's the quickest way to recoup the R&D expenses invested in first version EV's - it's nothing to do with batteries being a limited resource.

Also, there's the idea that if a customer invests in a futuristic vehicle (EV), it should reflect that in all aspects of the vehicle (touchscreen, cameras, all the electronic things). This may or may not be valid, as personally I find myself inclined in the opposite direction, but I'm also not someone who rushes to buy latest tech anymore (so I may be an entirely invalid datapoint insofar as car buying market is concerned).

they're different batteries, and also a car manufacturer can't stop a bike manufacturer from making e-bikes with their own batteries, but they can decide for themselves that their batteries go to higher margin products

Doesn't Chevy already have an 'affordable' sub-$30k EV? It's called the Chevy Bolt: https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-ev

that's what I bought, but it's canceled because it doesn't use their current battery technology called "Ultium." Unfortunately they went all in on big expensive EVs with their first Ultium vehicles so I don't think they will sell that well as hybrid or gas would be my choice for those larger cars.

They already changed course on this, and have stated they will reintroduce the Bolt and it will actually use the Ultium platform:

https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/home.detai...

yeah but it's not even close to available yet. they've got 6 or 7 cars ahead of it to produce. the equinox, blazer, silverado, a cadillac, the acura/honda, others?

I'm guessing the Honda was supposed to be based on the equinox and as the Honda that is coming was based on the blazer. the promised 30k equinox will probably never show (at that price) so Honda said lets cancel it.

Hope they call it Zolt - they killed the Bolt brand forever.

Jolt?

The Bolt falls victim to the same problem as many other cheap EVs, it is ugly as sin. I don't understand why manufacturers won't make EVs that look like normal cars. Yes, some exist, but this ugly beast style seems much more common.

It looks like a normal car in any part of the world that is not the US. The focus for big, gas gusller cars is a very American thing thanks to the cheap gas

Ok, what about the Merceds EQE/Ss? They're $74K+ Honda Civics. Why not put them in the standard E/S class bodies? Why do they have to look like a piece of shit car even though they come from what, in America, is a luxury auto?

What is the drag coef between the two? A lot of cars that we think look nice burn a lot of extra gas because of their shape.

Are the interiors of the EQS the same of a Honda civic? Where do you get this gourmet civics from?

I'm not referring to the need for large SUVs or Trucks, or other large gas gusllers. We need normal looking sedans, sports cars, and other cars that don't look like these cheap EV compact hatchbacks.

That's your personal preference and the Bolt looks like a normal car. The BMW i3 or the Cybertruck are outliers.

You think the Bolt is ugly? Looks like any other compact hatchback to me.

Other than the lack of a grill up front, I don't think it looks different from any other car on the road.

Yes. I do not like compact hatchbacks and would never drive one by choice. I'm not alone in this opinion.

Additionally, I don't mean we need EV monstrous SUVs, but just give me a normal looking sedan.

That's fair...but in your original comment, you singled out the Bolt, which implied that you didn't have a problem with compact hatchbacks in general, just the Bolt specifically.

Everything in your original comment implies that you hate the Bolt because you think it doesn't look like a normal car, when the reality is that it DOES look like a normal car, you just hate compact hatchbacks.

For those that don't drive long distances and don't need a >150 mile range, very lightly used Nissan Leafs are available in the low $20k range.

Leafs are cheap, but have awful battery degradation because of the poor design decision not to actively cool the battery pack.

With the price being under 25k used I think it qualifies for tax rebates too.

In the end, they and the consumer(subconsciously) probably see it as just another feature and not as a new form of car type. If you want this feature then its part of an upgrade pakage and its not available at that price point.

Are they going ahead with the plan to sell the Prologue, or is the Honda Equinox just too much to bear already?

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