The battery pack is not temperature-controlled so it gets hot in long trips, and recharging becomes excruciatingly slow. Then again, it was not designed for long trips.
The new Citroen e-C3 is a modern, cheap(ish) car with a similar concept: optional touchscreen and many physical controls.
I'd also be surprised to learn auto makers aren't doing this sort of thing because it tends to sell better. Similar situation to phones getting larger every year despite some segment crying for smaller phones.
At some point cars had screens, surrounded by physical buttons. I always thought that was a great compromise.
As a driver of a european car, I'm not sure my car has ever bombarded me with any such sounds except if I drive without a seatbelt. Can you explain further?
Well, let's start with mandatory speed limit notifications. Which would be fine if all cars actually knew what the speed limit was. They don't always get this right. Which could mean that where you drive, your car will constantly be pestering you. And you can turn it off, but it'll be turned back on when you restart the car. Then a lot of new cars will ding if they don't think you are paying attention. For instance if you have to navigate the display or, again, if the system interprets what it sees wrong. Then there's all the situations that the car, for some reason, feels are threatening. Like if I drive over temporary markings in the road. Or the car gets frightened by a shadow or snow on a sensor. Or if there is a bit of wheel slip because it's winter and I'm driving on solid ice.
I've even had "security systems" almost slam me into the guardrail at considerable speed. Because some idiot at BMW thought that it would be a good idea to not make the car understand how temporary road markings work. In Germany. Where the car is designed.
In that case I'll admit that I didn't notice the beeping as much as I was busy trying to stop the car from killing me. And to be fair, that bit of nonsense was on BMW and not the regulators.
The people who regulate these things aren't exactly drivers. Nor are they burdened by insight.
That being said, only some cars do it so I’m guessing it’s poor manufacturer implementations mainly.
Not possible with today's safety rules. You mentioned this in passing but dismissed it without understating. You can argue it's not needed (and some probably are not needed), but this is just yelling into the wind.
Also, as Engineers we know that cost is related not just to simplicity but scale. Your dream car will never be at the cost you or like minded people will buy because it may be simple and featureless, but it will be expensive.
The electric car you're asking for will never exist unless you build it yourself or manage to import from a country with lax laws.
Cars very close to the "dream car" do exist, and they are cheap, but they are not available in US/EU due to our absurd regulations. Look at the new land cruiser 70 series. Simple, reliable, affordable - but not available in the US because they don't meet random punitive safety or emissions rules.
citation needed, please!
The problem here is that "random punitive safety or emissions rules" is subjective and up for debate. That is what regulation and politics are for, nobody will ever 100% agree so compromises are made.
I suppose if this is the most important issue for someone, they could move to Japan and have their J70.
If I had that kind of money lying around I'd probably initially focus on funding projects in academia in collaboration with regulatory and certification bodies. There are already (largely pointless) academic programs to design and build race cars. It should be possible to interest academia in doing something vaguely productive instead. Like collaborating on designing a platform for cheap mobility.
As for simplicity and scale: simplicity is absolutely a requirement for cost efficient scalability. To see how incredibly important this across disciplines, have a peek at "How Big Things Get Done" by Bent Flyvbjerg.
[0]: https://www.retroelectrics.co.uk/classic-fiat-500-electric-c... [1]: https://ev-evolution.eu/solution/fiat-500-ev-conversion-kit/
The story is that a BMW exec brought a design team to see a Volkswagen Jetta and said:
"We are supposed to be the 'ultimate driving machine' but our customers say we have too many menus, buttons etc.
Looks at this VW?
Simple buttons, layout and instruments. Nothing extra. THAT is the ultimate driving machine."
The 1970s car had a ton of parts and mechanisms only professionals could fix. Not being able to touch car software is good, and demand will dictate how many cars will cater to your ideology in the future. Probably not too many.
There are no professional software engineering licenses. If some software is too important for Joe Public to wrench on, it should need to be signed off by a P.E. who can vouch their livelihood and professional standing on the quality of that software, representing not the company's "maybe some people will die, but we can afford it" interests, but the public's "we don't want manufacturers planning to kill people" interests.
Until then, I've got the same qualifications as that person. Let me at it.
What?! Those parts were frequently repaired/replaced by non-professionals. Half of the Craftsman section of the tool department at Sears in the 70s and 80s was mechanics tools so you could exactly that.
Also, how much experience do you have working on cars? The reason I'm asking is that a lot of repair and maintainance jobs may seem hard if you've never done them before, but are actually not that hard.
This is essentially what the right to repair movement is pushing for laptops, phones and whatnot. Access to replacement parts for phones and laptops aren't necessarily so you can do the work yourself. It doesn't mean that your grandmother will be replacing BGA components on your laptop. But it does mean that you can go to anyone sufficiently competent to carry out the work and get it done.
And as with computers that were not built for easy upgrading and/or repair: a lot of modern cars suffer from the same problem. And often for the same reason: they want you do spend more money buying a new computer/car or have their clueless service reps tell you that you need to spend money on unnecessary parts because they can't or won't repair them.
Righ now both me and a friend of mine are waiting for components to arrive for our respective cars so the workshop can get around to replacing them. I've been waiting for parts to arrive since the start of december. He has been waiting for almost half a year for to arrive from the factory. The manufacturer can get away with shitty service because there's really only one place to get the parts.
I'd much rather own a car where I can get the parts within 24 hours and I can either get a mechanic to fix it for me, or, if the job doesn't require a lot of custom equipment (which I'm not allowed to buy) and know-how, do it myself.
You sound like you haven't actually given this any thought, so you should ask yourself why you felt compelled to "contribute".
Depending on whether the classic car needs any restoration it will be about as expensive as a mid to upper range electric car but as it's a classic car and most of the installs are reversible you don't have the same worries about a modern electric car being disposable junk to be discarded in 10 years, you can probably just get a new battery pack put in after 10 years or whenever and continue driving.
I'd like to see a car that has a very minimalist architecture and that will meet regulatory requirements. A car that initially may have only a handful of manufacturers producing the key components that need to be done right to fulfil the regulatory requirements. The main structural elements, the drivetrain and control system, suspension, brakes, crumple structures, airbags etc.
The first milestone is a complete car that regulatory bodies can approve. Then it gets interesting.
When a complete system exists I'd wish the designs to be open so that you can do two things. First, the major parts can be made by multiple manufacturers, possibly local, bringing competition to the table. This is mostly about being able to prove that the parts you manufacture are up to spec. The second thing this would enable is evolution. Evolving parts would be more expensive since you have to go through testing and certification processes. But if you can afford that, you can get a competitive edge. Some people may pay more for a chassis that is stronger and lighter, for instance.
This would also open up for individual brands to develop on top of this. Most cars today are already "platform cars". Meaning that the same basic car is give various "personalities" and marketed under different brands. By having an open car, you might even get interesting companies such as the coachbuilders of 100 or so years ago (see wikipedia for "Coachbuilder"). Or more streamlined operations focusing on low cost for consumers and production for inventory
With a completely open car, where all parts can easily be sourced from multiple sources, repair becomes easy again. You buy parts and do it yourself, or you can choose to have a workshop do it for you.
I'm interested in what we can do for the masses. Not the few.
Now imagine what the increased availability and cost reduction of additive and subtractive manufacturing enables.
Cars just keep getting worse. Manufacturers try to cram too much functionality into the car at too low a price point. Even if you buy a car that costs more than most people's house, it is going to be full of technology that at some point will fail. You can't fix it yourself. And when you get it fixed, it invariably ends up costing some significant fraction of what the car is worth. Even if it is just a faulty rail for the seat.
To top it off, silly regulations also contribute to making cars more distracting and annoying. I used to laugh at American cars for making those incessant ding-ding sounds when the door is open. But now European cars ding, and ping, and whine constantly because regulations require them to constantly bombard you with warnings and interruptions. As if that's actually going to make the car safer.
There is something extremely relaxing about driving a vintage car from the 1970s. Sure, you have to learn how to coax the engine into life on cold days. And you actually have to learn how to modulate brakes and throttle. And learn how to fix the 4-5 things that break every couple of years. But that's a lot less bother than having a computer on wheels where every single problem could end up being so expensive it is cheaper to scrap the car and get a new one.
Here's what I'd like: an electrical car modeled on the philosophy of the Fiat 500 or the Citroen 2CV. A minimalist car that is so simple anyone can afford it, and anyone can learn how to repair anything on it. A car with as few parts as possible and where every spare part is easily available. (Fiat 500 parts used to be available where you bought your groceries. That's not going to happen today, but if you could buy every single part online at a reasonable price, that would do).
A car that comes with drawings for every part, for every electrical circuit. A car that can be modified and evolved to fit new needs. A car that can grow a cottage industry of companies that make upgraded parts, rebuild cars etc.
The Fiat 500 and 2CV were important cars. Even more important than the VW Beetle. Because they provided mobility to much deeper demographics. Nobody really makes important cars anymore. Important cars change how society works. And I think the only way we can make cars tolerable again is to figure out a way to come up with a minimalist, open source, vehicle architecture that can satisfy the safety requirements. I think we have the technology to do that today.