As an African I really want an electric car that just has a speedometer, airbags, range meter and nothing else. I can do without air condition, outside temperature sensor ... We already struggling to fix the modern petrol and diesel cars full of electronics.
They are making a much simpler electric car with the ethos that anyone can fix it, with readily available parts and manuals/blueprints for every part of the car.
I am excited by it having solar panels as my average daily drive is probably in the region of 10 miles.
This looks like a perfect car for Africa. We have plenty of sun for solar charging component of the car. We really do not have the money to build out our power grid and if we can use solar panels for charging stations it make rolling out charging stations easier. The price though is still out of reach for most of us.
I didn't know this existed - specs look interesting! ...But god, it looks so goofy for no reason whatsoever. The trend of intentionally unconventional-looking EVs continues to baffle me. It's possible to stand out while not looking dumpy/derpy.
I thought that was going to be much worse before clicking, akin to the VW XL1 for aerodynamics. To me, it looks pretty similar in "weirdness" to other small cars like a Fiat 500 or Mini.
Fixing older cars with electronic problems is a nightmare everywhere. It is pretty much depending on getting the original spares which manufacturers might just stop providing at some time (and sometimes they get caught by some chip no longer being available).
On the other side, considering how many videos I see on youTube about people using batteries and electric motors from salvaged Teslas to build their own electric cars/conversions to electric, the technology seems to be quite hackable. In the end, an electric motor is easy to control and a battery is just a battery. So even a homegrown controller should be quite feasible, compared to managing ignition on a modern combustion engine.
I think the electric cars are rather going to trigger a wave of new small car companies emerging, as most of the required technology is quite commonplace. Which also should make maintenance and repair easier.
Even the old 3rd world favourite, the Toyota Hilux, has gone over to the dark side and become much harder to repair with all the fancy shit they stick in them now.
I thought it was the Toyota Land Cruiser that was the old favourite. When I was in Mali (in 2006), those things were everywhere.
Waiting for the ferry across the Niger at Timbuctoo was a long line of Land Cruisers and a single Hilux. Along the way (not really a way, actually, but everybody was going roughly the same route) we encountered tons more Land Cruisers. Only a single Mitsubishi 4WD, which had broken down.
Rumour had it that if your Land Cruiser broke down in the desert, you could probably buy parts from a guy on a camel. But that's not going to be much use if they're getting harder to repair.
Well both really. In my part of the developing world it was the Hilux. The LN106 and then LN166 (the last to be built in Japan) were awesome and ubiquitous. Quality seems to have declined (anecdotally) after they started making them in Thailand, but then worse... they started filing them up with fancy electronics to target urban dwellers.
I know exactly what you mean. Now we forced to go the dealers who charge exorbitant prices for simple things like replacing a light. Sigh I miss the old days when you just pulled out the globe and asked for a replacement.
