Their core competency, beside ICE engines, it's furnishing out vehicles with all the expensive, heavy cruft customers have come to expect from big brands vehicl

Their core competency, beside ICE engines, it's furnishing out vehicles with all the expensive, heavy cruft customers have come to expect from big brands vehicle makers, even in supposedly utilitarian delivery vans. The streetscooter, on the other hand, is really just the most barebone thing you could build around a battery. This saves a lot of money for a startup, but at a big brand with all the processes for sophistication, deviating from the established path would eat much of the savings. But that's not the only problem: many of the same people who are enthusiastic about the pragmatic minimalism of the streetscooter due to the underdog image would punish the same car if it was made by VW or any other of the big ones. And that's not just interior finishing and amenities, the same applies to more serious things like safety and reliability. People will cut streetscooter a lot of slack where they would be unforgiving towards a big brand.