Yes. A parking camera / screen is a straight up improvement compared to relying on windows and skill.

People who complain about screens are usually not complaining about that but rather about common functionality that used to be a single physical button now is buried deep inside a buggy menu system.

Article mentions backup cam is required now. Still, can't think of a reason I'd back into a space in a parking lot. Don't think I ever have. If I needed to for some reason, I'd lower the tailgate.

This particular truck pictured appears to have a footprint about the size of a Toyota Camry, but with far greater rear visibility due to the additional headroom and no rear seat.

There's a niche here given the prevalance of smart phones.

The last tow truck I took a ride on (modern, tilt tray, full lifts, etc) was operated by the driver who happily and easily juggled two phones ... he had one in a cradle, the other hand held, used the cradle one to look up routes, bid for jobs, and general map operations.

At lights or when refueling he was talking on the free phone while cross referencing via text and map searches on the cradle phone.

Additionally the truck console had screens for reversing, etc.

Point being .. we live in a world where it reasonable to have physical control, screen free, relative "dumb" vehicle that still has a diagnostics bus and rear cameras and distance sensors that can accessed via the drivers phone or tablet.

With cable | wifi and auth or some kind the operators smart device can upload music to the cars sound system and the vehicle can return infomation and visuals from sensors .. perhaps.

Indeed - pretty much every single EV maker gets its most important physical bit, the batteries, from BYD.

I feel ya but sabotaging telemetry still feels possible. De-screening a car seems solidly out of reach.

I'm very curious how they are managing "no screens". I thought all vehicles in the U.S. were required to have rear-view cameras for safety. I'm curious how they are getting around that.

Edit: I now see that the article speculates that maybe there's a screen in the rear-view window for this. But I can't find anything concrete.

The basic protocol from an AC charger to your car is, "hello, I have X amps available, don't take more or you will trip my circuit breaker". The car responds by charging at or below the current advertised.

When you charge in a context where the car unlocks the charger (i.e. Tesla Supercharger), the protocol must divulge the car's certificate, signed by the owner of the charging network (like mTLS). There would be privacy-preserving protocols for this, but they are not used in practice.

That just means 27500 MSRP, still very low compared to the 70k-80k existing US options.

Jerry rigs everything did just that with an old army humvee. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0vZL9uwyfOFezIOiBjkdW3...

> I'm the weirdo who still likes crank handles. They are actually faster at opening/closing windows.

Absolutely. Only one vehicle here has electric windows but that car was given to us. The other 6 vehicles are hand crank.

Definitely easier and less cognitive overhead when wanting it just open an inch or two!

Rather than remembering the exact right amount of pressure for that mode on the switch

Have you seen the used Tesla market lately?

I want a cheap ev with less than 150 miles of range for city use. With traffic here I'm literally never driving more than 100 miles a day, and virtually never driving more than 50 miles a day. I can charge at home, I don't care if it takes 12 hours.

But I'd want that car to be under $15k. That car doesn't exist, at least not in the US, so I'm still on an old ICE.

My current car is worth at most $5k, and I spend maybe $500/yr on gas.

There is a nonprofit near me that has some trucks they use for hauling trash, weeds, and some misc equipment on occasion (they do habitat restoration). They rarely go more than 20 miles in a day. This would fit their needs perfectly, assuming they could cheaply charge it. They probably could figure something out, they already have a van with an RV style charger hooked up.

At 60 mph, it would take 5 hours to go 300 miles. I do that much driving in a day maybe once or twice a year. It's not a big deal.

The average US citizen drives 37 miles per day. A vehicle like this would satisfy the needs of the majority of the populace for the majority of their activities. With lower prices renting specialty vehicles for road trips or whatever makes a hell of a lot more sense.

many of us would like to repeat and relive the tech magic like that of PC circa 90-ies and into 2000s.

>The myth of the sub-$25,000 electric vehicle has been around for more than 10 years now,

Equinox EV is MSRP 33.6K before 7.5 tax rebate. Looks and sounds like a decent modern compact SUV.

You can unflag things you flag and there's no time limit on it. Just go to the top of the page and click on "unflag".

If it doesn’t meet safety standard that protect the driver of the vehicle, that’s one thing. But unsafe cars are sometimes unsafe for the other car.

Safety standards are not only for you, for the biggest part they are for pedestrians, other vehicles an people that happen to be in the car with you.

When Americans complain about the "nanny state" I mentally replace it with "we collectively". Because that is what a state ought to be — a expression of collective will and common sense policy. If it isn't that way in your country currently, that isn't on the state, that is on the people who are supposed to hold the power. Quite frankly, an antagonistic perspective on "the state" might even help it becoming worse.

Collective rules are not needed if anybody just would act informed and reasonable. But that is not the case and never has been the case. Without a state the next-big entity (a company, some local war lord, a gang, a king) will become the force where the buck stops. Unless you want to be at their whim collective and divided power (Rule of Law) is the way to go.

I hope you do realize that what you're saying here could also be read as: "I really wish we (collectively) would let me (individually) make bad decisions that would hurt us (collectively) if everybody (individually) did it". But the ultra-individualistic insistance to not be part of society seems to be very trendy right now, and is usally made by people who rely on society to provide everything to them in ways they aren't even aware about.