[reacharavindh]

Yeah, I don't know if I would associate Tata cars with "solid build quality, and blindly trsuted".. Cheap, less safe, but made for Indian roads - sure..

India's car industry is a bit of a sad story. The market is flooded with cheaper cars that would never think of showing up to any safety tests. The Volkswagens, Toyotas, and Fords that do come to the market are "made for India" models which means they are severely handicapped in the safety department in order to cut the costs to compete. VW at least a few years ago when I knew would sell you the same car platform, but good luck trying to get service for it anywhere in India without paying near German costs.

I have been living outside India for a long time, so my impressions may be outdated.

[jstummbillig]

I mean, something has got to give. Of course we can also shift the goalpost by adding safety to any degree (and then we could do the same with the average gas driven cars used in the region you are looking at).

However, the claim merely stated: "EVs are definitely going to remain a first-world item for my lifetime at least". It's pretty safe to say, looking at what we already have and how quickly it scaled in the last years, that this is complete nonsense and will be increasingly so.

[llampx]

I don't excuse less safety-minded construction, but a lot of what makes modern cars in the West safer is equipment like side airbags, traction control, cameras and sensors, which in turn costs money. Construction standards haven't changed much since the invention of monocoque chasses.

Also, most traffic in India and other 3rd-world countries drives at much lower speeds than in the US etc.