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This is more important than one might think. At the end of the day, the mass market does not really care whether a car is gas or electric. The average Joe/Jan

This is more important than one might think. At the end of the day, the mass market does not really care whether a car is gas or electric. The average Joe/Jane just has X dollars budgeted for a car and a mental model of what kind of amenities they ought to be able to get for X dollars. Most of the "mass-market" electric cars I've seen in the $35,000 range (i3, Leaf, Bolt) look like $18,000 subcompacts. They just have electric motors inside. You fundamentally cannot take an $18,000 car, slap an electric motor inside, and call it a $35,000 car. If the car is going to cost $35,000, make it a $35,000 car.

grmarcil 9y ago
Not that anyone believes that this car is really going to production anytime soon, but as an additional datapoint: the car in the first image is sporting $40,000 worth of lidar on the roof (5 x Velodyne VLP-16). I'm sure GM is getting a healthy discount off retail from Velodyne, but production-ready lidar is still eye-wateringly expensive by OEM standards. Some solid-state lidar units (Quanergy) out there in the hundreds of dollars (and one from Velodyne in the works for 2018 release), but the fact that Cruise is still using spinning Velodyne units suggests to me that solid-state lidar needs a few more generations to come up to par.
bobsil1 9y ago
>the mass market does not really care whether a car is gas or electric Which is why gov'ts need to ban ICE sooner rather than later, to save summers and stave off species suicide.