[MarkMarine]

I have a modern diesel truck and a 1988 Land Cruiser. I’ve been a mechanic since I was 14 (farm tractors) and was a helicopter mechanic and crew chief in the marines, then a transmission mechanic on cars during college. I’ve got a mechanical engineering degree.

The Land Cruiser requires a lot more of my time working on it, but it’s a dream. I can fix something in a couple hours. The diesel, it’s a nightmare. Everything sucks working in it. Access is horrible, I end up having to jack into the CAN bus all the time, I spent a while with an oscilloscope plugged into it a month ago, and I’ve had to write my own software to interact with it.

Modern cars are more computer than car, and they are pushing more and more towards being fixed like them. I’d rather work on an electric car… what wears out? The cooling system? A bearing? Simple.

[jcgrillo]

The same overcomplex, proprietary computer surveillance systems infect all electric cars because they're all modern. They're all (for some reason?) connected to the internet, subject to OTA updates, and completely locked down to the end user. If a manufacturer would make an EV with open software and systems--no useless internet crap--for less than $100k I'd buy it tomorrow.