When you buy a car in the US, most of what you pay for is fancy molded plastic and attractive sheet metal work, cleverly organized by the manufacturer into trim level "tiers" intended to create maximum perceived value.
The package is then financed or leased with incentive financing and the sights are set on getting you to replace it after 2-4 years whether it needs to be replaced or not.
I think a 6 passenger mini-van could be manufactured for the US market (electric or gasoline) for under $8K if all the frills were removed.
This would entail simple, rubber bench seats, no radio (just a plastic bracket to snap in a smart-phone, which would also be used as a speedometer, and the smallest allowable engine.
I'd like to see an open hardware platform for car chassis, perhaps modeled after a successful platform like some of the 1980s Toyota trucks, designed to use abundantly available OEM and 3rd party parts.
Of course, self-driving electric cars might leap into reality before any of this is relevant, but once we stop owning our own vehicle, firms can focus on cost cutting for their fleets in ways that will usher in similar platform-style improvements that are difficult when people pick cars for aesthetic and emotional reasons.
This isn't really possible to produce a sub $8k, even with an "open" platform.
The reason I know this is because the VW Minibus, which was engineered in the 40s has been sold in Brazil from 1953-2013 with very little change. Want to know how much a brand new van designed 60 years ago would cost you? $18,000 USD.
That's a vehicle whose engineering and equipment was paid for decades ago, that received numerous exemptions to tightening safety and emission standards and could be produced in a region with cheap labor. It was also the cheapest vehicle of its kind on the Brazilian market.
Super cheap cars like the Versa are really only possible because Nissan figured out how to build value without making money. The $11k stripper model is a good for marketing (i.e., inflated fuel economy #; generates interest in the low price, even if they aren't viable), money can be made on the back-end (financing), lowers lease residuals, it can be used to keep factories at full capacity, and helps negotiate lower prices with suppliers.
The Renault Lodgy is more a more appropriate comparison and it starts around 9 lakh ($13500/12000€)in India. Which is still substantially more than our $8k target price.
Right, but I can imagine Renault doing a van on the same basis. From 4000$(3500€) to 8000$ is a huge gap for changing only the auto body.
It is also funny to see that Dacia Lodgy is more expensive in India than here in France with more regulation where it cost 9900€ (http://www.dacia.fr/gamme-dacia/lodgy/), closer to your target price.
I like this idea, but as someone that recently survived a fairly nasty car accident at less than 60mph, I'd want to see what safety measures you also got for that money. Nothing makes me more happy than that I had the accident in my volvo. It was a decently priced 2nd hand car, but it's safety features are what saved me.
Indeed. It would be interesting to see what kind of star-rating could be achieved using inexpensive technology.
Things like crumple zones and steel reinforced panels are cheap, things like AWD traction control are somewhat more expensive.
In terms of overall platform cost, though, I'd expect it to be possible to design a very safe car without increasing the price significantly, perhaps somewhat at the expense of aesthetics.
Dacia-branded cars from Renault/Nissan are just like that. You can go to euroncap.com and watch their A-pillars crumple upon impact. But they still do pull off their quite decent three stars, and are considered quite safe cars as for third-world markets. They are engineered to have just enough safety for their target markets, and nothing above that.
You could use a standardised software like with a raspberry pi to provide entertainment and more: http://imgur.com/a/9Xpil
With Chinese sourcing, it could be possible to drive down the components cost even more (e.g. http://www.aliexpress.com/category/34/automobiles-motorcycle...). Obviously you need to be careful about quality, but bulk buying for a reliable supplier would really help drive down costs. You won't get the fanciest latest-gen stuff, but it would get the job done for simpler components like knobs and switches.
Sadly, safety regulations make what you're asking for nearly impossible in the 'Land of the Free'...
Sure, things like crumple zones are cheap because they're just metal and space, but regulation never stops. Mandatory tire pressure monitors, mandatory backup cameras (and no, your smartphone screen won't suffice for that requirement, must be fixed in the cockpit), mandatory LATCH, mandatory airbags, ABS, etc etc etc.
And that's just the list of things that have to be in a car today or in the near future. Regulations never shrink, so expect collision warning, lane departure warning, collision avoidance, etc to all be mandatory in vehicles in the span of time it would take you to develop one or two generations of your minivan...
The package is then financed or leased with incentive financing and the sights are set on getting you to replace it after 2-4 years whether it needs to be replaced or not.
I think a 6 passenger mini-van could be manufactured for the US market (electric or gasoline) for under $8K if all the frills were removed.
This would entail simple, rubber bench seats, no radio (just a plastic bracket to snap in a smart-phone, which would also be used as a speedometer, and the smallest allowable engine.
I'd like to see an open hardware platform for car chassis, perhaps modeled after a successful platform like some of the 1980s Toyota trucks, designed to use abundantly available OEM and 3rd party parts.
Of course, self-driving electric cars might leap into reality before any of this is relevant, but once we stop owning our own vehicle, firms can focus on cost cutting for their fleets in ways that will usher in similar platform-style improvements that are difficult when people pick cars for aesthetic and emotional reasons.