[btbuildem]

There's a fortune to be made for whomever produces a car that has minimal features, and and electric-drivetrain with onboard gasoline generator. No screens, knobs and buttons, no assists. Extra fortune if you can licence designs and revive some of the old-and-loved classics with new safety features.

[mdasen]

> electric-drivetrain with onboard gasoline generator

Generally speaking, it's more efficient to power a car using a series-parallel hybrid system than an electric drivetrain with generator (series hybrid) while not really being any more complicated.

In a series hybrid (electric with generator), you're losing energy converting the rotational energy into electric energy. It's better to use the engine's output to power the wheels while it's in an efficient range. It's why Toyota's series-parallel hybrid design offered better mileage than vehicles that (primarily or fully) operated as series hybrids like the Chevy Volt.

> No screens

You can't really sell a car without a screen due to government regulations which require backup cameras (since 2018 in North America, since 2022 in the EU and Japan).

> no assists

Automatic Emergency Braking is going to be required in the US in 2029 (detecting frontal crashes about to happen and automatically braking, including pedestrian detection).

The EU requires even more including blind spot detection and lane-keeping assist.

I certainly agree that cars need knobs and buttons for controls like AC/heat, music, etc. However, it'd be hard to make a car where you aren't putting in a screen and assistive technology. I think a better argument would be to make a car where the screen was simply Apple CarPlay/Android Auto and a backup camera - rather than shoving a lot of garbage UX into it.

[ErroneousBosh]

> Automatic Emergency Braking is going to be required in the US in 2029 (detecting frontal crashes about to happen and automatically braking, including pedestrian detection).

I'm never going to want to drive a car that has that.

[bdamm]

My car has AEB and it's great. I'll never drive another car without it. Why not take the energy out of the impact? Humans aren't perfect, and even less so as we age.

[ErroneousBosh]

What impact?

Why do you think it's great?

[bdamm]

"Impact" as in an inevitable crash. I like it because it has unquestionably caused the avoidance of two cases where my car would have hit something. Once when I was merging onto a freeway and the car ahead of me basically brakechecked panic'd at the last second while I was briefly looking over my shoulder at the traffic I was merging into, and the other when a friend of mine borrowed my car and nearly hit a deer. Both cases the AEB kicked in, the car came to a very aggressive halt, and the crash was avoided. Yes, the AEB has kicked in at other times, but on the whole, it's been great and I appreciate having it. Probably other manufacturers have different implementations and different experiences. Mine is a Tesla.

[advisedwang]

Why? You presumably don't enjoy get into frontal crashes, are you worried about it doing false positives? Is that a significant issue?

[ErroneousBosh]

Because I don't want anything in the vehicle apart from me deciding when I should brake.

[advisedwang]

So if you get into a crash, you would rather not have an extra few hundred milliseconds of deceleration? You would rather have more costly repairs, more injuries, maybe even more liability? I just don't see what you get in exchange for that by avoiding these features, or what principal is at stake

[ErroneousBosh]

What crash?

My car already has this awesome safety feature called a "windscreen". It's a bit of thick glass about a metre and a half across, kind of like the screens that cars now have inside but here's the clever bit - it lets you look outside the car! It's completely transparent with no electronics (although mine has very fine wires embedded to heat it to clear ice off, that's not really "active" in any sense).

By looking out of this "windscreen" at other things in front of your car, you can prevent crashes.

[ssl-3]

I guess you know your cutoff date, then. My own perspective differs.

A couple of years ago, I was involved in a stupid car crash that probably would have been prevented by this kind of system. Everyone was pretty much OK (yay), but both vehicles were ruined. And for me, at least, it was a complete and utter pain in the ass to find something else to drive that fit my intended use.

0/10. Would rather be annoyed by false positives.

[Mathnerd314]

It is probably like with smart TV's where the value of the telemetry data ends up subsidizing a significant fraction of the hardware. Car manufacturers seem to be doing a lot of experiments with what they can charge for in terms of ongoing subscriptions. I am sure if they could show ads without it being considered distracting they would.

[bobro]

I think the problem is there isn't a fortune there. It would be a successful endeavor, but not something to rake in huge piles of cash. The kinds of leaders and investors who could pull off what you're describing are instead working where they can make multi-millions rather that multi-hundreds of thousands.

[bdamm]

Well, Bollinger Motors tried just that, but they couldn't make it fly.

However, you now have a chance to buy one of the rare prototypes!

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/bollin...

[merpkz]

There is no way that is true, basic cars have always existed, like Dacia with bare minimum features to pass all requirements and they are far from being popular. The fact of the matter is, is that people just like fancy things and cars especially

[SoftTalker]

The vast majority of car buyers know nothing more than "right pedal to go, left pedal to stop, turn wheel to steer"

They never read the owner's manual, they never touch the options menus, they never even check the oil or tire pressure.

They certainly are not going to mess with fuses or disabling anything.

[hoppyhoppy2]

A screen for the back-up camera is federally required for new cars in the US, afaik. But using the screen for additional purposes is still optional... for now...