this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
93 points (97.0% liked)

Electric Vehicles

3126 readers
286 users here now

A community for the sharing of links, news, and discussion related to Electric Vehicles.

Rules

  1. No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
  2. Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
  3. No self-promotion
  4. No irrelevant content. All posts must be relevant and related to plug-in electric vehicles โ€” BEVs or PHEVs.
  5. No trolling
  6. Policy, not politics. Submissions and comments about effective policymaking are allowed and encouraged in the community, however conversations and submissions about parties, politicians, and those devolving into general tribalism will be removed.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Safety legislation makes this impossible. A 1968 beetle was a metal shell with few seats in it. Now, EuroNCAP mandates automatic breaking and lane-keep assist to get a 5 out of 5 rating. No manufacturer wants 4 stars or ๐Ÿ˜ฑ below, because no mother would allow little bobby to be strapped into a car that "wasn't safe".

It's not the touch screen that makes it expensive. It the structural engineering, the airbags, the driving sensors, the software, the crash testing... The screen is the gloss on top that makes you feel ok about it all costing so much.

Industry regulation is often used as a way to ring-fence an industry from new entrants. Nobody but the existing players have a hope in meeting the regulations, except in this case they been hoisted with their own petard. Companies can't make anything but "luxury" level cars as safety requirements are too high to be able to make "consumer" level cars which comply and also make profit.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We don't need 5 star ratings in a small grocery getter car... not everything needs to be built to atmospheric re-entry standards.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

You're right, but that's not how the public think.