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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

> I just hope "dumb" EV's become a thing soon

What business case is there for a "dumb" EV?

By using touchscreens and software for most functionality, you dramatically reduce your supply chain overhead and better enhance margins (instead of managing the supply chain for dozens of extruded buttons, now you manage the supply chain of a single LCD touchscreen).

This was a major optimization that Chinese automotive manufacturers (ICE and EV) found and took advantage of all the way back in 2019 [0] - treat cars as consumer electronics instead of as "cars".

Edit: Any answer that does not take COGS or Magins into account is moot.

[0] - https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/automot...

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The business case is that I will actually buy it. I won't buy "consumer electronics" garbage when I want to buy safe and reliable transportation.

That hasn’t worked for TVs. Or phones. Or plenty of other things.

Not sure what your point is when we're talking about cars, where fixed physical controls are demonstrably more usable and safer for drivers that need to keep their eyes on the road. Multiple manufacturers have pulled back from excessive touch controls (not just touchscreens, but capacitive buttons and sliders) and reinstated more traditional buttons and dials.

Physical controls and smart cars are not mutually exclusive. That’s why they’ve been fixing that.

I agree that was an idiotic trend.

But if someone wants a car without connectivity, it’s too late. The market is not strong enough to get rid of that. Most people either like it or don’t care enough to avoid it.

Just like most people liked or didn’t care enough to avoid smart TVs.

So that’s all you can buy.

I declined the master data agreement when Toyota updated it, and my car hasn’t connected to the Internet since. They also wanted to charge me like $20 a month for stuff like bothering me with notifications that my wife has failed to lock the car when I’m halfway across the city after the first year of ownership.

I suppose they could still remote kill the car though, and have no idea what would happen if I hit the emergency button.

Oh, true. I got sidetracked by alephnerd's argument about touchscreens.

^ This

The business case is the same as every “dumb” device since the dawn of time, up until maybe 10 years ago.

Sell and product with enough margin to make money. Don’t sell it at or below cost, then spy on your users and sell them to the real customers, the advertisers.

“Dumb” stuff has a very simple and honest business model. Market the cars by exposing what every other car brand is actually doing.

>Edit: Any answer that does not take COGS or Magins into account is moot.

Auto quality touch screes are not cheap. A high quality switch/button assembly is still cheaper for a give lifetime (100k, 200k, whatever), which is why it's what the 3rd world compact cars all use. The switches start losing when you start having a ton of different sets of features the car needs to support.

The case is that you’ll sell more cars giving people options. Slate is bucking the trend, we’ll see if successful.

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