This is super cool. But for better or worse I have an instant aversion to short punchy sentences because they read like AI whether they are or not, e.g. "The T4X by the numbers, from the lineup brief. Stock is the base build; Ransom is the off-road package, available at launch."

This [1] is up there with all the 82-0 clones for the most vibe-coded thing I've come across in a non-professional context.

The type of customer looking for a practical cheap truck won't take kindly to a bunch of silhouette photos and a brand nobody's ever heard of. For the subset who have a good mental radar for AI slop, this whole website just looks like a scam.

[1] https://postimg.cc/2bRfDbNp

Designs come out on Monday. Here's hoping I'm driving one in two years.

Godspeed. In my eyes, until proven otherwise they're Nikola for a less scrupulous target market.

Except that the technology is straight out of the 90s. The only challenges here are manufacturing and marketing.

Which Fisker, who has an actual background in the industry, fell flat on his face executing on. The person behind this REO initiative is a real estate guy.

Not saying it's impossible, because I very much want this to be a thing, but if Fisker couldn't pull it off with much more funding, I'm not going to bite until I see a real vehicle and some actual adults backing the thing.

Fisker was trying to make weird hypercars, not extremely basic vehicles that could be built from scratch by most mechanic's shops.

There are no unsolved problems here. If you find one, you can take apart a Frontier, Tacoma, or Colorado from before 2005 and check how it was done then.

Agreed. I appreciate that they're actually executing so far (as far as anyone can tell). CEO is answering questions in discord.

> $25, refundable. A place in line, not an order.

Yeah, it’s a safe bet.

It's a bet I'm extremely happy to make.

It’s incredible how distinct the stench is… shudders

I'm curious to see how much of the engineering is AI-boosted. Can one designer do a full production-ready interior solo?

I was interested because I thought we might be talking about an EV, noticed its not. Isn't Ford working on a cheaper light pickup? This seems like it'd compete against more capable options on the used market? $25k for a conventional truck doesn't seem to be any sort of revolution. Conventionally powered cars are a place where I do give the edge to incumbents; they've spent many decades accumulating institutional knowledge on how to design, build, optimize and maintain those systems.

EV's are different, the power trains there are something a 10yr old can understand. But even in EV land, Tesla spent quite a few years learning things Toyota and GM and the likes had learned half a century earlier about how cars work in the real world. Why the roll the dice at $25k for a conventional vehicle from a no name brand?

If I'm just missing the USP feel free to tell me I'm a dummy.

Because ICE vehicles are a solved problem, and the used market is finite. If you want a small truck that's built to be a truck, you don't have options anymore. If the REO is as advertised (which is essentially a remake of the 2003-era Tacoma), I'll be able to do any job in the service manual myself with under $100 of tools.

EVs don't make sense for trucks, especially trucks that will do actual work. I love my Tesla, but I know what it's meant for, and work ain't it.