In more recent news, China may allow foreign automakers to set up EV brands/manufacturing without having a local Joint Venture Partner.
Currently, all outside automakers (GM, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, etc, etc) must have a Chinese partner with at least a 50% stake.
It will be interesting to see if this comes to pass, and how the foreign firms play it: ie, will GM choose Buick or Cadillac to be the EV brand in China?
Disclaimer: I work for GM, but not on anything related to China.
> Currently, all outside automakers (GM, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, etc, etc) must have a Chinese partner with at least a 50% stake.
I think non-Chinese governments should start fighting back on this. It's kinda messed up that Chinese companies can do unlimited business in the U.S. and Europe but then when we have a business that might sell to China, they take more than half the profits.
See this HN thread about historical global imperialism, under the guise of business. It provides a counter perspective as poor countries were historically fleeced by the business (and military) interests of Western nations. Chinese "protectionism" seems reasonable, if not expected, through that lens.
The West telling poor countries that they should embrace free trade and WTO rules is like LeBron James telling me that from now on we should settle all disputes by shooting hoops.
China (and India) have all the right and incentives to protect their continents from bad economic influences.
> Trade isn't a zero sum competition like shooting hoops.
This is less true than naive abalysis suggests, because relative deprivation is a significant source of disutility and trade that is “mutually beneficial” before the effects of relative deprivation are considered is often so unequal inn benefit distribution that the total net utility on one side is negative.
Classical comparative advantage arguments for trade tend to ignore the disutility from relative deprivation.
Relative deprivation occurs when people learn about other cultures where people have access to greater wealth. In the information age I don't think this is avoidable even if we stop trading with each other.
> Relative deprivation occurs when people learn about other cultures where people have access to greater wealth
That's one of many places where it occurs, yes (it also happens locally.) Trade can exacerbate it, because even superficially mutually beneficial trade doesn't advance the wealth on both sides equally, and the degree of difference in material position, not merely it's binary existence or not, is a key factor in the magnitude of the resulting disutility.
I can see how this theoretically might be the case, but I am unpersuaded that lifting a billion people out of abject poverty in east asia was actually bad for them because a bunch of westerners got relatively richer in the transaction as well.
I suppose this is a matter of judgement though and not an objective fact so to each their own.
> but I am unpersuaded that lifting a billion people out of abject poverty in east asia was actually bad for them because a bunch of westerners got relatively richer in the transaction as well.
That's a nice strawman you've set up, but no one in the discussion actually claimed that.
The problem with China is that while 'protecting' themselves from 'evil West' they keep doing to other countries (in Africa and Asia) the same things they are protecting themselves from.
I mean, yeah, but China is now economically on par with the West. On a PPP, they're on par or even larger than the US. And they're export-driven with questionable policies themselves.
I think they can take care of themselves now and follow trade policies which are fair.
Although China is pretty much the only country that can pull this off. It's ironic that all those poor countries who implement investment-friendly policies receive so little investment, while China gets away with blatantly ripping foreign investors (and to echo your sentiment, I don't blame them).
Everyone wants a piece of the presumed cash cow of the huge moderately untapped market of China.
China can dictate the access to this market.
US cannot do the opposite, where would the US consumer find many made in china electronics and other items for cheap.. china is already entrenched in western markets
Also, the Chinese government's main goal is maintain 6-7% economic grow and by any mean possible.
It will do anything possible to expand manufacture base, use all necessary means to acquire, absolve, develop, own technology/market.
US government/society has diverse conflicting interested.
* Walmart wants import.
* Consumers wants cheaper goods.
* Defense industry wants war.
* Biz want less regulation.
* Environmentalists wants less/no pollution.
* Other groups want more/less spending/tax on their own pet issue/projects.
Protectionism is how every world power today got to that position. The US in the 19th century, and the UK in the 18th-19th were highly protectionist, putting up very high tariffs in order to nurture their fledgling industries.
> "The US in the 19th century, and the UK in the 18th-19th were highly protectionist"
This is not really true in the UK case. While protectionist policies certainly did exist on agricultural goods in the 18th century, the UK moved gradually towards free trade throughout most of the early 19th century - and then embraced it completely with the repeal of the corn laws in 1846.
In fact, the UK at that time had a policy of unilateral free trade - not imposing tariffs on imported goods even when they came from countries who imposed tariffs on British goods.
This did become a problem during wartime. By 1914, the UK was heavily dependent on imported food and a large part of the German strategy was to try to sink ships bringing food to Britain.
The one area where tariffs were still applied was on luxury goods, which were seen to have low price elasticity. (Compare to modern China, which also seeks tariff-free trade on commodities, resources, agricultural products, etc - but heavily taxes luxuries)
It wasn't until the 1930s that there was a serious swing back towards protectionism in the UK.
Indeed they moved towards a free market principle, after they became the world’s most important military power and trading empire. So then it suited them for countries to open up their markets to them.
The UK also, as you mentioned prevented their colonies and countries in their sphere of influence from instituting similar protectionist laws to develop their own industry. Instead there was a role designed for them, namely to provide cheap raw materials.
The US did the same after attaining a similar position as the world superpower later.
short answer: no, China was not a partner to the TPP. long answer: getting a multilateral trade agreement with nearly all of China's trade partners in Asia-Pacific will influence trade standards in China, but not to the extent that China will do anything about this JV requirement.
China’s exclusion was in fact a point of TPP. The other members would have had a better shot at being able to enforce rules that China ignores (state aid, intellectual property, etc).
Those regulations prop up Chinese businesses at the expense of economic efficiency (higher costs for consumer goods).
To your point, it's not necessary or beneficial (in general) for US or Europe to act similarly. Western industries are highly developed and specialized, such regulations hurt consumers in order to prop up industry. So sure, if you want your manufacturing and textile jobs to stay in your country then you can have such regulations, but the cost of that is everyone in your country pays +X% more (in value, e.g. higher price or lower quality) for textiles and manufactured goods, which is what the Chinese consumer is doing right now for cars and every other highly regulated import good.
"By the end of 2020, the company will be selling 10 new electric vehicles. Barra commented:"
“By 2025, nearly all models from GM’s global brands in China – Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet – will offer electrification technology. To support GM’s growing NEV fleet planned for China; its SAIC-GM joint venture is opening a new battery assembly plant in Shanghai this year.”
100 miles would be enough to get me to work and back the whole week, I could charge at the company and buying groceries would be fine with this size of car, too.
Totally reminds me of my smart, which was basically the same size and also this cheap. Buying an electric smart sets you back 21k € and you have to rent the battery on top (65 € per month), so it´s no real option...
I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg). In my mind, there's absolutely nothing "smart" about a gas powered two-seater with no frills that costs several thousand more than a four-seater with all the options from Nissan (Versa, $12k, 36mpg) or GM (Spark, $13k, 39mpg), especially given comparable gas mileage and more power in the latter vehicles. The only advantage the Smart ForTwo ever had in this country was easier parking.
That said, this new EV in the same form factor as the Smart, at that insanely low price, is a no-brainer for city commutes and perhaps even for suburban/semi-rural. I know I could easily get a week's worth of daily driving out of it, and like you, my company would allow me to charge at work. While we would definitely take the traditional sedan on any long trips or vacations, local trips would be fun and practical in a little EV.
Unfortunately, just like the Smart, it would be horribly overpriced if it ever came Stateside.
I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg).
I'd toyed with the idea of buying one when they first became available. But the fuel efficiency wasn't as good as some other contemporary vehicle models. And I'd be giving up a whole back seat. And performance was certainly anemic, even by sub-compact car standards.
I'll probably just get a Prius next year. 50 mpg, as actually measured by outside firms like Consumer Reports. That's so impressive. I'd love to get an electric, but they're just too expensive still.
You know what's really impressive? Back in the early 2000s I bought a 1991 Honda CRX HF from a friend, and it got about 48 mpg even with 150k miles on the odometer. That wasn't a hybrid car, just a hyper-efficient gasoline engine in a lightweight body, and it still had enough pep to safely merge on the highway.
One would think a modern plug-in hybrid would get well over 70 mpg.
At steady highway speeds you gain nothing and need to haul extra weight.
The weight penalty isn't as bad as you might imagine. On the Toyotas, the hybrid design replaces the regular transmission, flywheel, and torque converter (if automatic) or clutch (if manual).
So the big weight penalty is mostly the battery pack.
Cars from the 80s and early 90s are not really comparable to modern vehicles. Modern safety regulations add a lot of weight.
A good example of this is the Mazda MX-5. The original model from 1989 weighed 940 kg (2,070 lb). In 2009 Mazda made a special lightweight MX-5 to celebrate the 20th anniversary. It was made of special materials and even removed the windshield to save weight. The resulting car weighed 130 lbs more than the 1989 model.
> That wasn't a hybrid car, just a hyper-efficient gasoline engine in a lightweight body. One would think a modern plug-in hybrid would get well over 70 mpg.
Including the electricity usage, or without it? Because my old 2013 Volt gets a real-world 150 mpg, if you don't count the electricity.
But if you run it on gas alone, it only gets ~40mpg. Largely because, adding 1,000+ pounds of battery means the car will always be way heavier than a "lightweight body" 1991 subcompact.
The fuel efficiency is inexcusable for a car that light and making that little power. The ford fiesta gets the same combined mileage while weighing nearly a thousand pounds more.
There are all kinds of tradeoffs you can make with regards to power output, size, weight, time to market, and cost for an engine for a given vehicle. Also, what sells in one market (in the case of the Smart, Europe) may not work so well in another market (USA). IIRC, a lot of the Smarts back then (this was 10 years ago approximately) were diesel, which wasn't going to work in the North American market either.
As far as I understood the article the low price seems to be due to Chinese government subsidies which may not be applicable if sold to another market.
> I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg).
I was surprised that their mileage was so low. Some sources point at values close to 60mpg but somehow US-based estimates nearly halve those values.
It's very weird, or even unbelievable, how a 2-seat 730kg car with a 0.6l engine is shown has having worse mileage than a 5-seat 1100kg car with a 1.5l engine. Things don't add up.
The interesting part about the smart for me was insurance and taxes. I don´t know where you are from, but in Germany there are some twists to that.
As a young driver you have to pay premium charges to the insurance companies, like five to six times of the normal price if you are an unexperienced driver. Cars which are "unpopular" (especially with young people) are also cheaper...
Due to the small engine, taxes are also very low for smarts.
All in all this made up for the rather high gas use...
It starts from EUR 15900 (or EUR 11900 if you discount the federal "E-Prämie") and production will start next year. (Disclaimer: I'm indirectly affiliated with e.Go)
Ah yeah, I know those ones. I find them quite interesting, but they are also not very cheap at all.
I mean, you can buy used Renault Zoe models for around 10k Euro. Even if you have to rent the battery, you can probably pay 100 months of battery rent with the price difference...
From my expectation, electric cars should just be cheaper as the whole engine system is so much cheaper.
But yeah, batteries are not yet cheap at all and there are lots of development costs and so on...
I´m really looking forward to cheap electric vehicles, those will be such great times. :-D
I crashed with my smart once (hit a massive pole) and nothing at all happened. Those small cars are built around some kind of monocoque which keeps you safe.
The plastic obviously crashes but also absorbs energy just like some shock elements which every smart has...
Well, this can happen to you in Germany, too. Normally a trip of up to one hour is "acceptable" for administrative bodies etc. so lots of people also have to commute quite long every day.
If that's correct, then it starts at 93,900CNY which is currently a bit over $14,000.
Still quite cheap (the Smart ED, which I believe is the cheapest EV you can buy in the US at the moment, is $26,000) but not nearly as cheap as the title implies.
Excellent question, I have no idea. If anyone can provide better pricing info (track down the official Chinese web site for this car?) I'd love to see all the details.
If there's a system that can be exploited, it will be exploited...
How much does it cost to personally transport a car across the pacific ocean to the westcoast of the US/Canada? I've heard of people doing that for nice Japanese import cars.
Otherwise I could see plenty of these cars showing up in South East Asia or Russia. But then again, it will still have to find a market with a few thousand markup (to make flipping them worth it) which will likely have plenty of competition from gas cars...
Why wouldn't something like this be released in America? What would the cost of this car be if it was sold in America including the changes it would need to comply with American standards? If it cost $10k, I would buy a couple of them immediately. Its perfect for city driving.
Several manufacturers have very cheap cars available in other markets. Renault immediately comes to mind with the model year 2016 Kwid that is sold in emerging markets.
One of the things you may find unpalatable is how they hold up in crash tests. That is, they don't or they don't do it very well. At those price points, safety is truly optional.
Let's compare the Renault Kwid that was tested in March 2016, and a newer Renault Kwid III with a driver-side airbag that was tested a month later.
The newer Kwid certainly didn't have _complete structural cabin failure_, but forces experienced and expected injuries still resulted in 0-stars for front occupants. You get what you pay for.
Here's an Indian news story (cheap car safety was a hot button issue in 2016) that included an interim revision of the Kwid (the Kwid II, amongst other current cars failing crash tests) which fared better structurally, but had the driver basically eat the steering wheel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qqbQZBmxyE Renault isn't some scrappy upstart either -- they know how to engineer very safe cars, but they (as does sister company Nissan, as well as Hyundai and VW) sometimes make some pretty sketchy stuff for emerging markets.
China-NCAP is now broadly comparable with Euro-NCAP when it comes to crash safety. So new vehicle models coming to market in China should have similar levels of structural safety to US and European-market models.
There is no comparison with markets like India and Brazil, which have far weaker crash safety standards.
This is because of highly publicized failures in past years, and it similarly being brought to the forefront by the Chinese media earlier this decade.
I suspect by 2020 cars like the Renault Kwid will mostly be a thing of the past in India as well, and poor vehicle safety is also becoming an increasingly contentious issue in Brazil.
> If it cost $10k, I would buy a couple of them immediately.
Totally off topic, but I keep being surprised by how ridiculously rich the average HN'er appears to be. You talk about buying cars like they're Mars bars. :-)
If you have a six-digit income like most US HNers, it would be foolish not to have a liquidity reserve of $10-$20k.
(Even just for car downpayments or unexpected house repairs - let alone for medical or family emergencies.)
Easier said than done! I can't imagine trying to find three of the same old car and expect each one to have the same critical parts that aren't already rusted out/failed. Where I am in the NE, road-salt destroys everything.
To add to that, $5K might work in southern states, but I haven't had much luck finding something relatively new for $5K that didn't have serious rust issues as well.
Eventually you'll figure out that trying to inform a group of mostly (or at least they're the largest minority if they're not the majority) Californians about things like corrosion, winter, potholes, etc is a very lost cause...
You've hit it, buy in the south/southwest where there's no salt used.
I don't buy into the parts car idea, myself. Although any e.g. Honda from the same model year will share a large number of parts with any other Honda, they will still be old and worn out. New parts are readily available for most older cars if you stick with mainstream models that were sold in large numbers.
If you need something significant like a transmission, you can always get one from a salvage company.
yup! I have 3 1987-1991 Saab 900 turbo convertibles. (extremely fun cars to drive, almost no lag) Total spent: $4.2k.
You nailed the problem, the same parts fail on all of them. But I've also gained my money's worth of car knowledge, which is more valuable to me than a banker collecting interest :)
Yeah, nothing wrong with those cars. Toyotas are stupid easy to find & find parts for, and have great reliability: hence my specific suggestion for "what ~$1k non-rustbucket cars could I buy?"
Or you could buy 2-3 20 year old Civics/Camrys, use one as the primary and cannibalise parts from the others to keep it going
That probably works better if you don't put a value on your own time and have the tools and facilities to do heavy repair, I think most people would be better off buying a better car than trying to transfer parts from the donor car(s) to their commute car. Assuming they even have a place to park the donor car.
It'd be a fairly major expense, but not one large enough to take out credit on. It's not unreasonable to have week or two's pay in cash reserves in case something unexpected happens.
It is already $14k, the lower price is with incentives. It is 10” smaller than a Smart car, top speed is 62mph, and it has a 90 mile range. That’s rough sell in America even before you try to make it safe enough to pass a crash test. (It might be, but I’m guessing with all the compromises they cut back on safety too.)
Maybe in China they could effectively modify a city with these and level 4 self driving. It seems like it could be a place where people would want to live.
I have a feeling china will be the first to adopt self driving cars for mainly for environmental and congestion concerns; they are also authoritarian enough to actually do it. So ya, this could very well happen in 10 years or so.
Hmmm something about a tiny automotive vehicle with a top speed of 62 mph and maybe a 80ft braking distance makes me feel more comfortable with getting into one.
Certainly a higher error tolerance and lower risk of fatality as compared to a 5000 lb Tesla that goes to 0-60 in 2.4 seconds and takes a football field and a half to slow down.
Maybe they should just make all self-driving cars weigh 1500 lbs and top out at 45 mph. Not a big deal when they run into each other, like bumper cars.
I don't know what the bumper cars were like where you grew up, but a crash at 45mph, or even 20mph, is not quite the same thing and considerably less enjoyable. :-)
I get rear ended about twice a year in LA traffic by 4500 lb SUVs going 40-50 mph. I've learned to adjust the headrest on my seat properly so my head only jerks back an inch or two and I don't get whiplash anymore.
I think collisions below 40 mph are quite survivable if they're not two-way head on/overlap and the cars are below a certain weight and designed to bounce against each other.
They just need to make every autonomous car on the road 1500-2000lb and install rubber bumpers. The neural net will figure it out itself after a few million real world collisions and daily commutes will gradually become less jarring and eventful.
Braking distance in a Tesla is shorter in practice than what they're claiming here. Sports cars, even the luxury sports-lite that Tesla ends up in, are easier to stop than the average car.
Most Americans have to drive 90 miles just to go to the grocery store and back[0]. That's why there'd be no market here. Our cities were laid out with abundant gas forever in mind.
Safety standards, or lack thereof. Which raises the question; is it OK to manufacture and sell a vehicle that you know doesn't meet critical safety standards that you would expect in the vehicle you drive, just because the country you're selling in doesn't care?
Mostly yes? Safety systems aren't a binary thing. One of my vehicles is a 20 year old car that I'd be pretty sure doesn't have all the safety systems required in a new car being sold today. That doesn't mean it's unsafe.
But you're not mass producing that car and selling it to people knowing full well that statistically, a portion of your customers will be involved an a traffic incident that the vehicle is not capeable of withstanding, because you cheated out on the safety features.
This depends on what the alternative is. For people who can't afford an American sticker price for a car, the choice is between a less safe (but cheaper) car and the near-suicidal experience of riding a motorbike.
Really??? Wow, I thought about one when Nissan first hit the market with them but the price for a limited range car? No thanks but if they are that cheap I would grab one for a commuter! Are these certified nissan resales? Or just on the open market?
You can get used Nissan Leafs in the Bay Area with 30-40k miles on them for under $9k, from private party sellers.
Japanese cars don't depreciate as much as other cars, in general, but the Nissan Leaf has terrible resale value. So do some of the other all-electric cars, like the Fiat 500e. I suspect the prospective buyers are worried about the battery going bad or losing capacity over time. That would be very expensive to fix without a warranty.
Third party sales have to compete with insane incentives for new cars. If a new Leaf can be had for $12K after incentives, why would I pay more for a used one?
A 5K repair on petrol vehicles is huge. Like engine replacement level bad. The average petrol vehicle never needs a repair that expense (or the car ends up junked when it does).
I don't know if they're certified, but also not sure if that even matters for EVs (which have a few dozen parts that might need maintenance, as opposed to hundreds in a gas engine). These would also have years and miles left on the warranty.
The primary maintenance cost for the EV is the battery, and battery warranties are pretty generous to decrease people's anxiety about them.
I suspect OP was factoring in tax incentives - for example, in Colorado the EV tax credit can be taken the first time vehicles are registered in the state, so there's a cottage market in importing lightly used Leafs from other states which easily come in around the 10k mark to the buyer.
You can get decent Nissan Leafs with under 40k miles for less than $10k cash in California right now on sites like Carfax and AutoTrader -- no tax incentives are required to get them down to that price. The depreciation is that bad. If you bought one and took it to Colorado, you'd save even more money.
I read the headline and in my mind said "probably somewhere outside North America". Looks like I was right.
It's interesting how there seems to be no demand, or at least no supply, for vehicles like this in US/Canada. This would be the perfect commuter vehicle for our family.
Probably built to unacceptably low safety standards for the US market, at lower labor prices and/or import tariffs than a car built for the US market. I'm not saying they couldn't build a similar car for far less than $35k, but it would probably cost more than $5k.
Either way: nothing about this is a model 3 competitor. They're in entirely different segments.
I'd blame the demand on Europe's higher population density and better public transit - there's not nearly as much "need" (demand?) for vehicles that can make long, sustained trips.
I would blame primarily the higher gasoline price. When gas costs two times more than in US, people suddenly start thinking more whether they really need full size truck to take their groceries.
They're about status. Plenty of people want something small and cheap, and in London EVs don't pay congestion charge, so the incentive is even higher. But that said, if you're an obnoxious commodities trader who just spent £10m on that new place just off the King's Road, you're probably going to buy your wife an X5 to keep the kids safe...
Based on personal observation, most of the big cars you see in much of Europe are also expensive cars, meaning that they're used as a sign of wealth and thus driven by people who don't care so much about gas prices. You see relatively few big, cheap cars, especially compared to the US.
Based on my personal experience, there are a lot of Germans who buy used luxury cars that cannot even afford to fully insure them. They buy either big SUV or sporty Mercedes/ BMW with a big engine that burn gas like crazy just to show off. They also drive it very little and do the bare minimum of service because they cannot afford either. They are also some people who live in very small and cheap apartments just to afford them.
They just have them as a status symbol because they want to feel important/powerful/rich.
That's also one of the richest parts of Germany. Maybe people don't care so much about gas prices when they're driving a company car and make six figures.
Of course there will always be people that can afford/want to have big cars. But it won't change the fact that doubling the gas price will change the behaviour of many people. (Even the tank driving people may have a small second car in the family instead of two tanks)
Public transit replaces short routine trips, which is exactly what those small cars are tailored for.
One big difference is car infrastructure, mostly parking: in many European settlements, from most capitals to the smallest village, an unnecessarily big car is a serious inconvenience. Whereas in the US, even on Manhattan a smaller car won't improve the driving (and parking) experience a lot as everything is built to accommodate big cars, just not in unlimited quantity.
This does not keep most Europeans from theoretically desiring a big car, but it makes not spending on one so much more bearable. The narrow streets use-case makes small cars common enough to make them non-exotic, non-stigmatizing also where streets are wide and parking is one size fits all.
I'd concur, this and more a leaning towards smaller cars, again due to population densities and proximity to resources (shops etc). Which may also explain less pickup trucks, which would be more useful in a more spread out resource/population as would allow large load transportation. Which given distance and time, would make sense. Which equally allows any bulk material resource supplier more able to provide delivery as cost effective for them, again due to population density. After all, if you have a spread out customer base of equal numbers then it may make more sense to not offer delivery, leave that to the customer and offset that with offering cheaper product price. Then any delivery option on offer will be custom and more expensive as would be farmed out, but still an option. So the tendency to go for a pickup truck, increases for the populus in more spread out area's.
But equally can't overlook the government incentives offered in many European countries and those have been IMHO pretty aggressive, making EV's a very tempting option for consumers.
Though, gas/petrol/diesel is more expensive in Europe and does not have the governmental subsidies many other countries offer and is equally very taxed. Again making EV's, very much cost effective for so many. Some places even offer free charging, if not subsidised charging.
So factoring is the demand for smaller vehicles needing to go shorter distances and those incentives/subsidies, then you can see why EV's in Europe garnering much traction.
I almost forgot congestion charges, EV's avoid those and they can add up in some cities/area's (thinking London for example).
American-style pickups in general are unpopular here (in either meaning). For transporting stuff transporter/sprinter-class vehicles are far far more common as well as 3.5 ton transporters, which can have an open cargo area (or an enclosed cargo area) but look totally different from the American style pickup:
Safer than a motorbike and we allow those, and many commutes are entirely slow traffic - could be an opportunity to write a special law to allow these, within reason - what do you think?
The slower the speed, the cheaper the vehicle can be and the more widespread innovation you can have. This makes e-bikes, scooters, kei-trucks a very interesting area… and means Americans are doomed to be car-poor if they always have to spend $20k + $x00 a month to get something new.
I know a few Americans who would buy a car like this, but let's not kid ourselves -- it would not sell very well here. Most Americans prefer larger cars.
I drive a pretty small car, but I don't think I would get one of these, either. If I got t-boned by a Chevy Tahoe, there would be no chance of survival.
A car like this should probably be compared (and favorably so) to a scooter/motorbike for commuting. It's better when it rains and it's certainly better in the Tahoe incident. You can drop off a kid at school in it, and so on.
The problem now being that "$5k" isn't very disruptive in the moped segment of commuter vehicles.
Elio Motors is trying to avoid the car regulations by releasing an enclosed trike which is legally a motorcycle in most (all?) states.
Unfortunately, they have had major delays and funding issues. Their vehicle is an 84MPG diesel not an EV, but I wonder if an EV producer would consider a similar strategy.
Looks like they're just building a Reliant Robin [1] with the wheels reversed (so 2 in front 1 rear). Unless you're desperate to save on tax (3 wheelers are taxed as motorcycle rates) I don't see the appeal.
I would be interested in a car like this for commuting. Unfortunately the rule in US is to restrict transportation options toward traditional automobiles.
> I would be interested in a car like this for commuting. Unfortunately the rule in US is to restrict transportation options toward traditional automobiles.
What about this is not a traditional automobile? It's kinda small, but what "rule" "restricts" you from treating it as an automobile? It's basically an electric smart car.
US vehicle import laws are incredibly arcane. Ask any tuner who has considered importing a Japanese car. There is a huge amount of money involved in making a car safe for the US and having the appropriate tests administered.
Yes, exactly. As a matter of fact they aren't just arcane, but often outright bad. For all the grand standing and virtue signaling our gov does around the world on the issue of free trade, we sometimes turn around and impose some unusually bad or even draconian laws against it, which doesn't make the situation any better.
Just one example, because of the Chicken Tax there is a 25% tariff on light trucks.
These laws extend not just to autos and auto parts, but to things like cheese, shoes, etc.
Because of that + IIHS safety requirements, you see the 4-star Aus. ANCAP rated Hiace's commonly all over the world, except in the USA.
Honestly, I would be pretty interested in if someone has estimated lives saved over cost Of safety features in vehicles. One example might be b/w the likes of a Hiace and an NV cargo van, or a Tacoma vs a Hilux. Divide that by cost across industry adoption of higher safety standards and see what it is per life or limb saved. I would imagine it is a relatively high, expensive fruit on the tree of saving lives.
Right, but coliveira didn't mention import. I for one would love to own a Hilux instead of a Tacoma, but if Toyota made a Hilux in NA then there would be no rule that restricts you from it. I agree that the legal standards for occupant safety are far too stringent, I feel like occupant safety should be an optional feature (especially for people who drive in conditions where you're either guaranteed to die no matter what, or guaranteed not to collide).
An electric car seemingly better than this has been in the Indian market (and some surrounding countries) for more than a decade now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahindra_e2o
There's a market niche in China for cars in that size range.
It's getting harder and harder to get a car registration for an internal-combustion engine car in Beijing. Electrics, though, can be registered much more easily.
This one has better specs than most of the ones from Chinese companies.[1]
I feel like these types of cars will get a huge market share once we get to full autonomy and decreased ownership. Many people (like me) mostly use their cars to commute, but get larger cars so they can use tem for vacations and other times when a large car is convenient. Once you get used to be able to easily and affordably get a large car pull up where you need it, I think people will be fine with using tiny cars for their commutes. Especially if it means a lower price.
I would buy this immediately to commute to work downtown for those rainy days when biking isn't as pleasant or convenient.
But of course, it is not available in NA and if it were somehow I doubt the price would remain $5k (which is roughly the same as a good carbon fiber road bike).
I never said I am commuting on $5k road bike. I just compared the price of the electric car to price of high end carbon fiber road bike (which I have, but don't use for commuting to work).
I commute on cheap mountain bike. Too many potholes and obstacles, etc for any road bike with 23mm tires. It would get destroyed on first ride to the city core.
They do still sell them ($8000 now), not sure if they're still sold in Russia but they sell very well in Uruguay. The BYD F3 is ridiculously cheap! (and good looking, I'm actually considering it when I manage to sell my 15 year old Renault)
Good aesthetic design conflicts with other design goals (aerodynamics, range, safety). It looks to me like they designed it for optimal functionality rather than aesthetics.
Sorry for the sidetrack, but this comment struck me as odd. perhaps it was just a poor choice of words. FWIW, the last thing I thought I'd ever do was defend the Daily Mail. While I fundamentally disagree with the Daily Mail's politics and abhor their celebrity obsession, it is a 121 year-old newspaper with the second highest circulation in the UK. I haven't heard their reputation questioned before. No more than any other news source, that is.
As others have said - many people (quite rightly) have concerns about supporting the Daily Mail by giving it clicks, eyeball time, and advertising revenue. Partly because of their reputation of being rather unpleasantly right-wing when it comes to immigration, the economy, women's rights, etc; but also partly because their reputation as a truthful source of news is resoundingly poor (as evidenced by the DM being disallowed as a source on Wikipedia, their reputation for publishing embellished or downright untrue stories, etc).
[edit]: After doing a bit more digging, it also turns out that CNN Money often publishes companies' press releases almost verbatim. Oops.
Their reputation as a source of news is absurdly poor in the United Kingdom, please do not conflate circulation and age with being factual or reputable.
Insidious companies can continue existing for a long time.
My opinion is that this sort of comment is unhelpful. Even Buzzfeed does some quality honest to God journalism once in a while. I feel like a comment like this should perhaps only happen if you can find something inherently wrong with the article in question, not just displeasure for a source site in general.
Daily Mail may not be the Wall Street Journal, but in many cases I have found it serviceable, and in HN's case it is often just necessary for it to catalyze discussion on the topic.
Perhaps go and find a better source for us, link it, and flag it for a mod to consider swapping the article in the parent.
Perhaps the HN community could avoid sending pageviews to ostensibly homophobic [0], racist [1] and generally vile establishments in the future? I realise this article is none of these things, but it seems unlikely that there would not be a viable alternative source.
Not sure what your comment is specifically in response to, the article makes the comparison slightly in terms of affordability, not functionality nor luxury.
Most people care about the price they pay, not some other number somewhat related to the price in a world with no government. The Model 3's national subsidies are going to fade out before most people get them, so $35k vs $5k is a fair number.
I have driven a Smart car through Car2Go (https://www.car2go.com/US/en/), and it is an extremely unpleasant experience. The car handles terribly, and to reach the low price point, the entire interior is made out of cheap, Happy Meal toy plastic. I have also heard that maintenance is a pain and parts are expensive because of the low market share.
I really don't understand who the hyper-cheap vehicle market in America is aimed towards. If you have less than $8k to spend on a mode of transportation, there are plenty of used beaters available. Repurposing an existing car will also make it more environmentally friendly than a brand new device.
I owned a Smart car for two years. It's not unpleasant at all. It was my daily driver. I drove from San Jose to Los Angeles in it and up in the Sierras over 9000 feet. The interior is plastic. What were you expecting, Corinthian leather with wood accents? I didn't notice any handling problems. It does handle differently than a larger car, but it's not a large car. There was a problem with the automatic transmission not always being very good about changing gears, but my model came with shift paddles, so I didn't tend to use the fully automatic mode too much. The biggest issue with maintenance was that there aren't a lot of dealerships to take it to, so depending on where you live, it can be a hassle. There certainly were problems. For example, the clear plastic roof developed crazing. The lack of a spare was annoying. The biggest issue for me is that drivers in other cars didn't tend to see me, especially on the highway. I actually was both rear-ended and side-swiped in it. Eventually I traded it in and bought a 4wd truck that was helpful for my work but only gets 19mpg and is a lot harder to park.
I am a heavy car2go user, and have been for several years.
The previous generation fortwo was certainly a very unpleasant ride. Shifting would take literally seconds, uncomfortable suspension, and a not good entertainment system which would freeze up regularly.
car2go however has been replacing their legacy fleet with the new generation fortwo which is an amazing change. I find that the new cars are quite good to drive - all of my gripes from the last model are solved. I cringe on the days that I have to drive the old model, but the current one is great.
Even better are the Mercedes CLA and GLA that car2go now offers but sometimes the nimbleness and size of the fortwo is hard to pass up :)
Overall though I can say that the current fortwo model is an order of magnitude better than the last and it's certainly worth trying out if you were put off by the last.
Interesting, I have an opposing viewpoint. I'm living in Vancouver, and don't have a car. The car2go system is very useful here, as great as transit is, it's hard to head home late at night or making grocery trips, which is where the smart cars come in. They may not be the most luxurious car, but they are still amazing for driving in the city. You don't need to go super fast (as you usually don't have the chance), and the "cheap" plastic they use for the interiors isn't as bad as you make it out to be. It's certainly not the choice I would make for a car, but they work really well in the city.
Does anyone remember the Geo Metro? It did ok enough back in the 90s, I remember my mom getting one when the family wasn't doing too hot.
Used cars in the USA are tricky: you have a severe chance of getting a lemon with no decent warranty. Also, financing is much guarded on used than new. In Japan, they make cars over 5 years old prohibitively expensive to maintain. In China....well....you really can't trust anything used, they have ways of dressing up a total to look completely undamaged and even new.
> I really don't understand who the hyper-cheap vehicle market in America is aimed towards.
The car in the article is being released in China, which is a somewhat different country than America.
And the Smart that you open with complaints about is neither germane to the article nor a hypercheap, sub-$8K car in America (it's actually more expensive than a number of larger, heavily-selling subcompacts); it's small even for a subcompact, which can be a selling point for some buyers (if you are garaging it in an urban environment where space is at a premium, the value of the square footage freed for other purposes can be quite high compared to other cars.)
So, it’s an electric version of the Smart car, that doesn’t have any of the safety features of the smart, and because it’s designed and built in China, they don’t have to factor in things like paying their workforce a decent paycheck, or insurance, or anything else?
How do you define a decent paycheck? Looks like low skill Chinese factory workers typically earn about 2x the living costs [1]. GM and its suppliers will certainly pay more than some random local factory.
That factor of 2 is the same as a programmer in Silicon Valley. [2]
I signed up several minutes ago, specifically to respond to this baseless and offensive comment, which appears explicitly written to attack China.
How do you know that it doesn't have comparable safety features to a smart car? Or that the manufacturer's workforce doesn't have comparably good pay and benefits? None of these claims about the company and the car is in the article or publicly available to anyone - I looked.
Well, when I was in a Tier 88 city in China a few weeks ago, I saw a bunch of similar tiny electric cars. I asked my friend what was up with them, because I didn't see them in Shenzhen or Beijing. She laughed and said they were known for tipping over rather easily while turning.
Also, it's not uncommon to see people driving jury-rigged tricycles in the boonies.
China is not a place I associate with high safety standards.
This anecdote doesn’t have anything to do with his specific and unfounded claims.
Good work defending implicit nationalism with nonsense.
Have you ever been to the city limits of Mobile, Alabama? The place stinks of ammonia. Based on this experience, America is not a place I associate with any safety standards.
How does one go about proving a falsehood with absolutely no basis in truth? How do I prove the absence of allegedly subpar safety measures and private payroll information of GM? This is not a scientific approach. I substantiated my claim with reference to the article, and extensive information about GM’s vehicle is not present on their website beyond this, which lists a number of comparable safety features to the smart car: http://media.gm.com/media/cn/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/...
Let's stay on track here - this isn't about your irrelevant experiences traveling in China. Trolls use exactly this tactic to waste the time of dubious readers, in an apparent attempt to shift the burden of proof to anybody that’d bother. I'm not going to disprove every vague, unrelated anecdote you're willing to share.
I don’t know where you hail from, but as an anglo-American citizen, let me be clear: this jingoistic willingness to support bullshit about American manufacturing in China makes the USA look pathetic and fearful about the rise of competitors. It is feckless to encourage English readers on HN with nonsense - the net effect is to stir readers into underestimating the vast safety engineering talent in China.
Ya, China isn't India, safety standards are a bit higher and similar to the west. This especially applies to foreign brand cars made in JVs (we aren't talking about something like a Land Wind X7, where you get what you pay for).
In more recent news, China may allow foreign automakers to set up EV brands/manufacturing without having a local Joint Venture Partner.
Currently, all outside automakers (GM, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, etc, etc) must have a Chinese partner with at least a 50% stake.
It will be interesting to see if this comes to pass, and how the foreign firms play it: ie, will GM choose Buick or Cadillac to be the EV brand in China?
Disclaimer: I work for GM, but not on anything related to China.