The 'Slate' effect, will we see a wave of retro EVs like early 2000s cars?

[fuzzyweis]

My "complaint" with Chinese EVs in the states is it will be another throw away product, packed with subscriptions and data harvesting. Sure the american brands data farm too, politics aside, the more chinese products/cars we have here, the more eyes we have on us from products directly funded by a foreign (and not so great) government.

With them being throw aways, you can have 2 of the three, reliable, cheap, and feature rich. Chinese EVs are very cheap, and are packed with every feature and more then most other brands, I'm sorry, but unless they magically solved vehicle manufacturing in all aspects before anyone ever has in the world, the cars are going to be junk in a few years. 60k miles, on a 5 year old car, that was let's say 30k new, will realistically be worth around 15k at best. once you realize that just one of those wrap around infotainment/cluster displays will fail eventually, that bill to replace is easily going to be in the $5-8k range and basically make the car pointless to repair after the cosst of labor is included, and that's if you can even get the part reliably.

Yes the Chinese definitely went full on with the EV is a smartphone, down to the you should buy a new one every 3 years or so. I read an article where one of the top brands, maybe BYD, would make a car for one model year, and then not even a year later have a new model, but still be making the old model and it kept on like that for years, so they wouldn't improve the old ones they just kept making different ones. Maybe that's trying to take after how Tesla just cranks out Model 3s for nearly 10 years while coming out with a model Y.

But! They do crank out some cool EVs while they're making tons of them, some retro, some ultra futuristic.

The subscription thing bothers me too, I really hope Slate takes off with the lack of connectivity.

-Jim

 

[cadblu]

Those PINs were to protect from thieves, not from you replacing it on your own. The cost to unlock them wasn't $500. Most people would just replace them anyway since there are less expensive options with more features available on the aftermarket. I think my 2007 and 2012 Ridgelines each had a PIN to the stereo. I took it out and tossed it when I replaced the head units a few days after I bought them.

My recollection was that if you disconnected the battery for any reason you needed the unlock code to reactivate the radio. So if you bought the vehicle second hand and didn't have the code, oh well...

 

[ScooterAsheville]

Back to the OP's question... I have been waiting for a "Cambrian explosion" in vehicle form factor, enabled by BEV skateboards. BEVs really free designers, because packaging a "tophat" is so much cheaper and easier.

Ford says this very thing about their new BEV platform. Mutliple "tophats" coming from the same factory. One platform generates trucks, SUVs, sedans, vans, etc.