Comment by dogline
1 day ago
It's a $20k, street-legal, EV modding platform. Sounds like you can mount your own infotainment system. Just an electric motor, battery, and chassis, and the rest is up to you. Isn't this what we've been asking for?
1 day ago
It's a $20k, street-legal, EV modding platform. Sounds like you can mount your own infotainment system. Just an electric motor, battery, and chassis, and the rest is up to you. Isn't this what we've been asking for?
Yea, it's pretty exciting. I'd like to see how much more they could strip out to reduce the price and still have a viable commercial product. I guess I'm living firmly in the past, but $20K still seems to be a high price for a car. Then again, I haven't bought a car new since the 90s, so I'm probably just an old fart who hasn't grokked what things cost today. I still remember the day when the base-model Corolla started costing more than $9999 and I thought the world was coming to an end.
EDIT: Yep, I'm just old. Another commenter linked to a "10 cheapest new cars" list and there seems to be a price floor of around $20K. No major manufacturer seems capable of making one cheaper!
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43794523
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics[1], $9999 in 1995 is equivalent to $21,275.25 today, so it's a pretty spot on price for a barebones car.
[1]: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Except, with advances in computational design and engineering, manufacturing automation, and moving to plastic for the body I would expect a reduction in price, in real terms. Not impressed.
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The average price of new cars sold in the US last year was nearly $50k. The manufacturers make more money from expensive cars than cheap cars, and people keep buying them, so that's what they sell. Before they canceled the Fit, Honda was selling almost 10 times as many of the larger CR-V each year.
You can find numerous new cars for sale in Mexico for under $15k USD.[0] Even Europe has several new cars under €20k.[1] These are the same manufacturers we have here, but lower cost models that are only sold in lower-income countries.
[0] https://compra.autofact.com.mx/blog/comprar-carro/mercado/au...
[1] https://techzle.com/the-cheapest-new-cars-of-2024
Most of those models are not real. They exist, but they don't make many of the base model and if you attempt to purchase one, it is a 4-18 month lead time.
I was in the market in Mexico last year, just looking for a cheap city car with a warranty for when I am there. I test drove half the cars on that list, the other half I immediately eliminated after sitting in the driver's seat for under a minute.
You can think of those base models like MSRP GPUs right now. They exist on paper, but good luck actually getting one for MSRP.
In the end, I didn't purchase any of those and got a two year old certified preowned vehicle with the top trim and comfortable seats from a dealer with a warranty for about $3000USD more than the cheapest actually available model of those linked in your post.
I guess I'm living firmly in the past, but $20K still seems to be a high price for a car.
You're not even living in the past. Our 20 year old Scion xB cost us $20K out the door new (granted, that's with most of the paltry list of options added, $15K base). And that was a cheap car at the time, Toyota marketing to "the kids".
The last time $20K was "a high price" for a new car was probably before most HN folk were born.
For those price-comparing, it is $20K after the federal incentives. So, its real cost is around $27K which makes it way more expensive than what the article claims.
Keep in mind $20k in 2025 dollars is the equivalent of ~$10k in 1997 dollars, if that helps set your frame of reference
According to this, there is only one new car model of any kind selling for under $20K in the US these days
https://www.carfax.com/rankings/cheapest-cars
One would be wiser to based on annual depreciation in real $ plus time value of purchase price. I suspect out of new trucks a tacoma would be the cheapest since the depreciation is low to negative (IIRC recently a Tacoma was worth more 1 year old than new).
1 reply →
This article is missing at least the Mitsubishi Mirage - the 2024 model year still seems to be available for 17k in the base trim?
> $20K still seems to be a high price for a car
Keep in mind this price is before the USA federal tax credit. So we're potentially talking about a $12,500 car. And consider inflation.
After federal tax credit, ergo $27K.
(Hat tip to @vaidhy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43794867)
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That's with federal incentive and likely before they factored in the tariffs. Those 500 parts aren't all coming from US. I wouldn't expect any usable version of it to be below 30k once it's actually available.
> It's a $20k, street-legal, EV modding platform.
And it'll always be sold out.
This is an $27k car, with $7.5k rebate, so much for the unfairly competing Chinese. The MG4 is £22500 in the UK before tax, which is about $30k in USD, and that's a full-featured 5 door car, with double the range.
I do applaud the philosphy of cheap and barebones, and easily moddable, but my two cents is that trim is not the thing that's making cars expensive to make.
I'm sure you can get on the waiting list (for a lead time of 3-40 years) or buy it from a reseller for $70k. Problem solved.
> buy it from a reseller for $70k.
Now there's the real price.
Is it? They show speakers mounted in the front as a "soundbar". Will people figure out there is a reason cars with good sound systems have them mounted all around the vehicle?
I just want some power ports and good mounting points, then I can put whatever I want there, and upgrade it. I'd imagine that people will come up with a mountable radio kit, like the DIN format radios of old, but with less restrictions.
> I'd imagine that people will come up with a mountable radio kit, like the DIN format radios of old, but with less restrictions.
I am hoping like hell this ends up being the case. Give me power, a place to put my own stuff and some details on the CAN bus and leave me to it.
I do not want to pay a premium for your slow, locked down, buggy / seldom-updated touch screen.
DIN format radios are still around. My recent-ish corolla's infotainment display is just a well integrated double-DIN. I'm surprised this car doesn't as far as I can tell, have a DIN slot for one.
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So mount speakers all around the vehicle? The idea is: customize it yourself.
> Will people figure out there is a reason cars with good sound systems have them mounted all around the vehicle?
No, because they knew what they were getting into when they bought this truck. And I'm sure there will be a dozen DIY ways to add a more traditional sound system.
on long car trips, it seems like everyone in the car (except, me, the driver) has headphones on. no one will miss the lack of rear speakers.
Sounds very twenty-first century. No shared music recognition, no sing-alongs.
If passengers want to DJ, you can get one of those little FM transmitter thingies that plugs into a phone/table headphone port.
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> a comprehensive active safety system that includes everything from automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection to automatic high beams
No stereo, but luckily they still found space for a few DNN accelerators that will slam on the brakes randomly when getting false detections. Likely still has a 4G uplink and all the modern car cancer to make sure they can datamine their clients as much as possible and offset the subsidized purchase cost.
Worst of both worlds?
Another comment said there is no cellular modem; updates come through the app using a phone.
That's exemplary if true, though it's a bit hard to believe.