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I yearn for a simple electric car which is not connected, and does not have a lot of touch screens or features. Can you imagine? A cheap electric car with a rad
by everdrive 5y ago
I yearn for a simple electric car which is not connected, and does not have a lot of touch screens or features. Can you imagine? A cheap electric car with a radio and crank windows, and basically nothing else? It would be a dream.
- rsynnott 5y agoMost of the stuff in this list (electric cars in the 20k range) probably fits your bill: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars/99735/the-cheapest-electric-cars-on-sale https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars/99735/the-cheapest-e... Though they probably do mostly have electric windows; that's more or less a standard feature these days.
- bratcomplex 5y agoI’m with you on this. The ev convention scene provides just that!
- nyxtom 5y agoJust buy an old Ford Electric. The range is pretty decent and you can sometimes find them for around $13k or less if you're lucky. (Perhaps rarer these days with used car prices going up) The alternative route that I've looking into is to just do the mod myself on an old classic car. There are a few great ev conversion companies like evWest (https://evwest.com/catalog/ https://evwest.com/catalog/) and Electric GT (https://electricgt.com/ https://electricgt.com/) that offer drop in crates and motors that you can mount. It's not "easy" by any stretch of the imagination but it's a great option to have if you have the time and skills to do so.
- biztos 5y ago> if you have the time and skills to do so. Or the cash? Are there companies that will convert your favorite car to electric, or is that just too much of a liability minefield in the USA?
- nyxtom 5y agoCertainly you can contact some of these companies to get quotes but it's so costly to convert classic vehicles that you might as well just go buy a recent electric car like a Bolt or Focus. It's mostly a cost thing. Also you need to consider the cost of the motor / type and especially (and this is the most important bit) the battery pack. If you're looking to install something like a Tesla battery pack you're probably looking at $10k at least for the pack alone. Could be wrong, but worth looking into local shops - there aren't many that have the expertise that I'm aware of outside evwest and electricgt. I'd be happy to hear of more
- everdrive 5y agoMy last car cost less than $10,000. I think this may be beyond my means.
- Aeolun 5y agoKind of makes sense though? Teslas start at 30k, and you’re not paying them for the fancy bodywork.
- biztos 5y agoI'm sure it costs a fortune, but having a classic car that can still get around once all the gas pumps are gone would be a pretty cool thing even if it's only a rich-people thing: https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a33155/kreisel-evex-910e/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a3...
- nyxtom 5y agoI will say that I've gotten a quote for an entire conversion kit that includes a Tesla Model S battery pack, motor, controllers, custom couplers for about $20k for my Jeep Wrangler. It's obviously not going to get good range since the Jeep is a giant box but all things considered I paid about 7500 for my old jeep to restore so $20k on top of that is basically a brand new Jeep (and quite a bit cheaper than brand new high end electric vehicles and hybrids). So, not completely out of the question
- decasteve 5y agoOr slide windows like the old Land Rovers.
- rjzzleep 5y agoProbably not what your looking for but this cheap Chinese thing springs to mind: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56178802 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56178802
- falcolas 5y agoI am long past over crank windows. Like decades over having to crank down a window. That said, you could probably build this pretty easily - folks have been converting old vehicles into electric cars for, well, decades as well.
- datalus 5y agoBut what if your window cranking was charging your battery? :D
- jhvkjhk 5y agoWhat if we skip the battery part, use crank as the power unit? Boom, bicycle! :D
- rorykoehler 5y agoThey have these in Berlin now. Hermes et al are using them as last mile delivery vans. I see them every day and I love it. https://hermesworld.com/int/about-us/responsibility/service-clients/low-emission-transport-technologies/ https://hermesworld.com/int/about-us/responsibility/service-... and newer: https://onomotion.com/en/ https://onomotion.com/en/
- everdrive 5y agoCrank windows are good because they're cheaper and lighter than electric windows. There's no heavy electric motor in each door. It's not that they're necessary, so much that saving money on frivolous features is nice!
- falcolas 5y agoThey are not always frivolous. For example, I have a car which rolls down the windows about an inch when the door is opened, because the door does not have a frame that fully encases the window. So it's a glass preservation feature in that case, and the loss of the steel to fully encase the window probably saved weight over the window motors. And TBH, electric motors aren't that heavy. You still need all the gearing and such with a hand crank.
- msh 5y agoWith the horror of radio it would be more of a nightmare.
- everdrive 5y agoSome radio's not too bad. Ok, how about a radio with an aux jack?
- ewmiller 5y agoAgreed. Why do all electric cars also need software updates and tons of bells and whistles? Just because I want electric doesn't mean I also want a touchscreen console etc.
- wlesieutre 5y agoFor the Chevy Bolt they've had a similar software update to reduce the risk of burning your house down, which seems better than the alternative of not having that update. But they've also been agreeing to buy people's cars back if it's an issue, since selling someone a car with a particular range capacity and then reducing it afterward is obviously problematic. The Bolt's battery reduction is supposed to be temporary while the final recall fix was worked out. I don't have one so I haven't been following the current news on whether that's been sorted. In Tesla's case here it sounds worse, because this might be a permanent change where they just said "lol your car is permanently worse now, have fun."
- jsight 5y ago> In Tesla's case here it sounds even worse, because this was a permanent change and they just said "lol your car is permanently worse now, deal with it." Although in Tesla's case they have been updating the software to restore capacity and charging speeds in many of these cases. The complete lack of communication is a real problem, though.
- jcims 5y agoAll we know is that it's a change to numbers on the screen. Did anyone actually demonstrate reduced range?
- throwawayboise 5y ago> Why do all electric cars also need software updates Because charging and managing modern EV batteries for optimal range and lifetime is complicated? That's my understanding anyway. If this was easy to do without all the software, why would the manufacturers spend money on it?
- tyingq 5y agoThere's the Wuling HongGuang Mini EV. I think it has electric windows, but not much else. https://media.gm.com/media/cn/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/cn/en/2020/May/0522-Wuling.html https://media.gm.com/media/cn/en/gm/news.detail.html/content...
- everdrive 5y agoThat's interesting -- is it not connected? I frankly saw that it was a Chinese car, and simply assumed that it would be fully connected like a Chinese Android phone.
- geoduck14 5y agoWell, do I have the thing for YOU! https://www.solarcarchallenge.org/challenge/photos.shtml https://www.solarcarchallenge.org/challenge/photos.shtml
- asmos7 5y agowhy bother w/ electric in that case?
- simonebrunozzi 5y agoI feel you. But this way, the entire car industry would be bankrupt in a couple of years. There's a reason why nobody is offering a cheap, $10,000 dollar, battery-swappable, raw and simple, half-a-ton-light electric car.
- throwaway894345 5y ago> There's a reason why nobody is offering a cheap, $10,000 dollar, battery-swappable, raw and simple, half-a-ton-light electric car. What is the reason? Don't automotive manufacturers offer cheap ICE cars? Why would a cheap EV bankrupt them but not cheap ICE cars?
- throwawayzRUU6f 5y agoBattery supply is the bottleneck currently. Even if they wanted to, the automakers cannot switch to even 20% production being electric. If they offer an attractive, affordable EV, they immediately render the rest of their fleet obsolete and 90% of their factories go idle. Price is used to modulate the demand.
- Raed667 5y agoI literally just want a Peugeot 206 with an electric motor. Every inch of the car is well understood. Cheap and reliable parts are available all over the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_206 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_206
- rthomas6 5y agoI have something close to this with my 2015 Nissan Leaf S. No internet connectivity at all. It's also extremely cheap. I paid ~$13k for it in 2018 with ~25k miles. The range is kind of bad compared to most other electric cars though.
- cblconfederate 5y agoThere are people on youtube that fit used tesla engine/batteries to vintage cars
- KirillPanov 5y agoTesla Roadster? But not cheap. Maybe an older Nissan Leaf. Seriously, me too. I will keep furiously burning fossil fuels until said car is available, and reject all guilt. Any and all emissions produced in the meantime are the fault of the spyware-car industry.
- Zenst 5y agoYou near on describe the first cars, which were electric and was the combustion engine that took over thru it's ease of fuel delivery and mileage. Nice read here that history https://mg.co.uk/behind-the-wheel/electric/the-history-of-electric-vehicles-a-timeline/ https://mg.co.uk/behind-the-wheel/electric/the-history-of-el...
- Faaak 5y agoRenault Zoe, hyundai ioniq, there are plenty of.. And even cheaper if you live in the city: Renault Twizy, Citroën ami, ...
- red_hare 5y agoI think the Citroen Ami might get close to what you want. It’s amazingly small, underpowered, and cost efficient (for example, they don’t manufacture separate left and right doors for it, the passenger-side door just opens backwards). https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100t-electric-mobility-accessible-to-all https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100t-electric-m... I really hope that _these_ are the kinds of cars that will get us to mass adoption and not Teslas.
- jaywalk 5y agoThe number of people who will drive a clown car like that is pretty small.
- maeln 5y agoWell no. This is a "no permit" car. It is a type of car that you can drive without a driving license in France (you just need to pass the written exam). These are always very small (due to their nature), and are actually quite popular, mostly in city. Either because they are used by people who lost their driving license but still need a car in the meantime, or they are used by people who live in the city and don't want to bother getting their driving license (which is much more expensive and time-consuming in France than in the U.S).
- ex_amazon_sde 5y agoIt's a quadricycle, not a "clown car", and with an excellent price / quality ratio. 45 kph, range of 70 km, at 6000 euros. https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/citroen-says-ami-ev-will-offer-affordable-urban-mobility https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/citroen-says-ami-ev-w...
- dorkwood 5y agoIn the US, perhaps. In Europe you see quite a few cars that size.
- everdrive 5y agoIt'd be a great commuter car. Cheap to buy, cheap to "gas" up, cheap to maintain. You're usually only commuting with yourself anyhow. If I still had a commute (and they sold these in the US) I'd definitely buy one.
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- ryandrake 5y agoIt is getting harder and harder to find consumer electronic products that don't regularly phone home to their manufacturers for marching orders. When I buy X, I expect X to function as it does for the life of the product. I don't want the manufacturer to suddenly decide to change the UI because one of their designers wants to put something in their portfolio. I don't want the manufacturer to suddenly decide to take away a feature because they just made a business agreement with some other company to do so. I don't want the manufacturer to collect usage analytics and use me in their A/B test experiments. I don't want to have to have an account on the manufacturer's cloud service. In fact, I don't want to have any kind of "relationship" with that company beyond the fact that I walked into a store and purchased a product with their name on it. I just want a product--I don't want the manufacturer to be an ongoing part of my life!
- underscore_ku 5y agoDacia Spring electric at 8000Euros https://www.dacia.ro/gama-dacia/spring.html https://www.dacia.ro/gama-dacia/spring.html