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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Anyone else remember the Yugo? Lots of enthusiasm for that car when it launched for $4999 or whatever. I knew someone who owned two of them … one for parts, the other to drive.

Low prices can get you only so far in the US market. Once there are doubts about quality or safety, you’re toast.

Details: https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/a-quick-history...

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Nah, let's let Dan Neil defenestrate it in grand form. "Yugo. Or not."

https://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,...

There was a car dealer in the UK that had a buy one, get one free offer on the Dodge Avenger SXT in 2008. [0] Apparently there are only 107 left of that particular model on UK roads, with a further 36 cars classed as 'SORN' [1][2]. I reckon the latter are being used for parts.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/nov/08/automotive-...

[1] https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/dodge_avenger_sxt

[2] https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/dodge_avenger_sxt_a

> Once there are doubts about quality or safety, you’re toast.

If they did only as well as Tesla, that’d be a big success.

BYD already sells more EVs than Tesla does.

More cars, not more EVs. A lot of their cars aren’t EVs

Not in the U.S. market, which was the context of the comment I was replying to.

Reliability was likely the most damning problem. People drive dangerously unsafe cars, but people cannot stand unreliable cars.

Nearly all of the problems listed for the Yugo came from a terrible internal combustion power train.

I was fond of that car largely because it enabled me to make the following bad pun: Hyundai and Yugo we're going to merge, but decided not to when they realized the most logical name for the merged company would be:

Yodai

“It’s built for efficiency, not speed!” Samuel Jackson’s character about the Yugo in Die Hard with a Vemgeance

Except in this case there are very few things in this car that even could break, or need any maintenance. I was wondering when such a car would appear. There’s no rational reason why a basic EV should cost 40-50k.

There’s everything else besides the engine? Most consumables are in the rolling stock (tires, brakes, suspension, …)

And in those areas, they use standard parts of established manufacturers.

The least reliable part of any ICE car is its engine. A ton of moving parts, difficult thermals, lots of finicky electronics subject to vibration, pumps, fluids, oils, fuel system, you name it. Then theres also the transmission. None of that is even in the picture in an EV.

Yeah but that tend to not fail randomly too often. You do need to maintain and change them but that is largely dependent on use and something you do on schedule.

I have a lot of problems on a motorcycle right now that are entirely related to the engine, I wish it would be electric but they are still too expensive for the capabilities…

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