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Comment by mlrtime | Hacker News Reader

>> Here's what I'd like: an electrical car ... A minimalist car that is so simple anyone can afford it.

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.

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I agree that a open car concept would be hard to bootstrap. It wouldn't surprise me if we're talking about $3-4bn to get to where it becomes a pure manufacturing problem and evolution can drive itself. That is, you just need to be able to prove that the critical parts someone manufactures are within spec.

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.

> 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.

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.

I guess you are agreeing with me then as I said "unless you build it yourself or manage to import from a country with lax laws."

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.

> don't meet random punitive safety or emissions rules

citation needed, please!

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