- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
One of the things I notice about Silicon Valley & Big Tech is how often they co-opt the language of transformation and change, and yet how poor they are at following through. Education, healthcare, and housing - all getting gradually worse. Not Silicon Valley’s concern. They’re chasing investor trillions to get rich quickly from AI.
The US administration is tariffing left, right, and center to encourage homegrown stories like the one in Mexico. What if Silicon Valley is built to just not care?
Because very few people are actually interested in an $8000 golf cart. This thing can do 30 mph, most of the speed limits on the main roads in my city are higher than that. And that of course assumes that this thing is in any way safe enough to be on the road with an F-250.
This car was designed for use on low-speed roads in densely populated areas and to be bought by lower income people, so it’s not a fair comparison. It’s a car made for the reality of the third-world, with a low cost, low power consumption and that does the job. Also, the expertise in making cars doesn’t come from nowhere, so they have to start somewhere, and this is a great start.
But what is worth comparing is the general idea of making a low-consumption car for the working people, instead of making show-off machines for the well-off people
The question was why are other companies not doing this, so you’re not exactly arguing against my point.
There is a version of this for the roads here it’s called the Slate Truck and we all know why it doesn’t cost just $8000.
I can buy a street legal golf cart for about $8,000; there is a decent market in parts of the USA for them. There were articles back in '08 suggesting that Americans use them as second cars in sunbelt suburbs as a cheaper alternative to a full car.
there are a lot of people interested in such a thing in the US. We call them XUVs and the likes of Polaris and John Deere have been selling them for decades. The price is more than $8000, but you get a lot of luxury features and a network of dealers who know how to fix it. They are likely more heavy duty [than the thing in the article] as most people who buy these are using them for work.
If you think this thing is as capable as a John Deere Gator then I have a bridge to sell you.
I didn’t mean to imply that, fixed the wording
It’s a great design for driving in say, mexico city: 30mph is about as fast as you’ll reasonably need to go off the autopistas (though it is a bit slow for major travel off peak hours), they’re tiny and they won’t put a huge strain on the electrical grid. To replace the ~140k local-service taxis and delivery vehicles in MC, they’re a great option, for intercity transit, they’re a deathtrap. Similar to a Kei truck or the Smart ForTwo (don’t @ me).
I’d personally never want one in the US or most of Europe because the trip distances and density of cities there aren’t super compatible with microesque cars like this. But for toodling around places like Giza, Saigon, Mumbai, MC, Damascus (okay maaaybe not damascus), Istanbul, they’d be pretty great!