msage comments on The US auto industry is in big trouble. China now makes 75 percent of all electric vehicles sold anywhere on earth. US automakers make around 5 percent.

[–] msage@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

Who wants 60k car full of surveillance and badly designed tech?

Slate had the right idea, but Bezos is involved, so we will see.

But every major brand has lost the plot a decade ago, they all took massive amounts of money from government and did fuck all with it and gobbled each other up. Now they act shocked that people prefer anything other than the 6 brands that remained.

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[–] PartiallyApplied@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I agree that Slate has an interesting idea but they have an uphill battle with the marketing. Unfortunately, the US, to a great extent, particularly the rural US, sees electric cars as being “more tech”, which they equate with more frustration. Naturally EVs actually could likely have simpler computer systems than ICE cars, but, for instance Tesla chose to slap a huge iPad in their cars when consumers want dials.

For all the technical superiority of EVs, it’s hard to convince the average person that they should drive a novel looking “high-tech” vehicle, when a Toyota Camry is an easily available, affordable option. Most people with F150s don’t need them, they want them. Slate isn’t competing for those people, it’s competing for the people who buy Impreza’s, Corollas, and Camrys. I’m not sure it’ll work out.

For an industrial on-site work truck for running errands, I’d bet they sell like hot cakes, but that’s a much smaller market.

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