There are some interesting proposals for electric ships using containerized batteries which can be loaded/unloaded with the same cranes they use for shipping containers and charged in port. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/05/24/beyond-the-harbor-electrifying-short-sea-routes-and-hybridizing-blue-water-shipping/

It may not be suitable for transoceanic trips but a lot of shipping follows the coasts or even travels by river where this may be more practical.

The lack of official touchscreens/GPS/center console media etc seems like a good step - at the very least, unnecessary antennas and microphones should be easier to spot/replace with an old MP3 player with one annoying song.

So genuine question: are the parts like batteries/motors safe and otherwise good enough to be used in ICE conversions? Or is there some kind of software/network boobytrap to be circumvented? The car itself is a horribly flawed surveillance box, but it seems like the flaws I’ve seen are mostly a sort of problem by compilation, like the finished product is worse than the sum of it’s parts. Is there a chance at least that this overproduction could help provide parts for conversion vehicles?

Genuine question: would fiberglass and resin adhere to this material? I’m familiar with it from patching up old boats and canoes and could see that being an easy weekend project.

TBH even if they got robo taxis working (and I think that’s a big if without lidar) they’d be even more of a lightning rod for vandalism than personal vehicles and dealerships. They’d more thoroughly represent Tesla than personal cars and they’d be safer targets than dealerships since they could be summoned into a known (camera free) environment which would minimize risk to anyone who wanted to paint it or drop a rock on it or whatever. Especially if they were active long enough for their behavior and routes to get predictable.

The panels falling off and hubcaps flying off seem like a decent reason to avoid the cybertrucks at least

Agreed, that mess was when I realized he was a tool. That said, most CEOs are some flavor of bastard and buying almost anything means giving your money to some exec who doesn’t deserve it so I can understand overlooking it at that point.

As the competition got better and he got more overtly fashy, buying a Tesla became more and more a political statement rather than a normal purchase. Sucks for the early adopters but most ire seems to be reserved for the cybertrucks.

I’ve heard that before for porche, but I’ve also heard that electric vehicles tend to require less maintenance overall since there are many fewer mechanical parts. I don’t know anything about this particular model so I guess I’m wondering which holds true in this case.

This is very cool - not quite as cute as the canoo (RIP) but it seems quite practical and I hope it makes it to market - I’d like a small electric truck someday.

It’s nice that their incentives finally line up with something I want. Now if only building surveillance into new cars was somehow unprofitable.

I had no idea so much of their power was from hydro! It sucks that a drought can cause such disruption to the grid but I admire their ambition (in power generation and in their car rules).

It’s easier to make your own electricity than to make your own gasoline.

All big companies do. The only thing mitigating that is regulations and the US is generally laxer than other places (like Europe and Canada) on safety standards.

I got to visit a car museum once - I was surprised to see that there was a brief window where gas, electric, and steam cars were all equally bad and folks didn’t seem to know which format would become ascendant.

That’s too bad, I liked the more utilitarian approach and thought the design was cute

Normally I accept that new tech is more expensive so they need to make it a luxury product at first to make a profit but car companies have been prioritizing ‘luxury’ pickups and SUVs for awhile now, even in ICE vehicles. A few years back now I’d have loved to buy a small, practical Ford Ranger or Toyota Tacoma or similar, but they’re only making big trucks with all kinds of cost-markup-worthy luxury features. (So I bought a sedan). The focus on higher returns per individual sale seems to be the overall trajectory and why wouldn’t it? The line must always go up.

I don’t doubt that the established car companies can turn an ever-growing profit (at least for awhile) by cutting overhead and fine-tuning existing products, but I’m frankly skeptical that they have the nerve or ability to really invest in developing an entire new type of vehicle. I just don’t think they have the ability anymore, they’ve spent too much time specializing in short-term profits. It’s much easier to complain and demand protectionism from competition.

I don’t disagree that the chinese companies have a lot of advantages, many of which are unfair. But I also don’t have any real sympathy for our Too Big To Fail™ car companies, who have received a frankly absurd amount of help themselves with far less benefit to show for it. And even when they get that protection I find I’m skeptical that they’ll use that cover to actually work to improve their electric vehicles to something comparable to the vehicle fleet that’s being locked out of the market.

I also really don’t like the implication that people without an addiction should somehow be ‘above’ reuse, salvage, or diy projects. That consuming products and filling landfills is somehow safer or more dignified. It feels like marketing at work and it’s an attitude I sometimes get from some conservative relatives who see fixing old things as poor people behavior and don’t understand why I wouldn’t just buy something new if I could afford it. I love fixing things, making things, and finding interesting ways to reuse or repurpose parts. I think this idea that buying products, especially new, should be the default or only way is wasteful and damaging. Especially when those products are deliberately made worse so you’ll buy them again and again.

I’ve done some car work over the years and easily half the parts I put in came secondhand off eBay, undoubtedly from a junkyard in some other state.

I’d like to switch to an electric vehicle but I’m deeply skeptical of the built in surveillance and overreliance on internet enabled software. I kind of wonder if my best bet for a car I trust to not spy on me or get hacked will be some kind of kit car situation in a few years.

Fair - if it looked like that because it was cheap I’d actually find that pretty endearing

I mean, shade tree mechanics, modified cars, kit cars, and cars restored/rebuilt by amature mechanics, etc have all existed about as long as cars in general. If your local government does vehicle inspections those will still apply when the kit cars become electric. And if it doesn’t you’ll be in no more danger than you already are.

Salvage is already a huge part of car repair and restoration, and certainly isn’t the exclusive domain of methheads.

Seems like the disk of hot gas escaping through the cylinder gap would be just as bad though. I suppose they could have a gas seal mechanism like the Nagant M1895… in which case they’d be continuing the bullpup tradition of added complexity.

Yeah I’m not holding out a lot of hope, especially from normal dealership models. If I find something that fits it’ll probably be a secondhand commercial vehicle, a really cheap Chinese off brand I’ll never be allowed to import, or something intended to be recreational along the lines of La Bagnole. Or some kind of diy kit - there were some really cool homebuilt EVs made from scrapped Tesla parts and old ICE vehicles but I’m still just learning about fixing cars so that’s a long way off. For now I’m just driving less and using a bike when I can.