Wouldn't want one here anyway, our charging infrastructure is shit. Literally all owned by lord bazinga. Meanwhile in Shenzhen there are more ev charging stations than there are gas stations and 258 dc fast charging bays at the airport.
Amerikkka is done, planned economies are just superior. We will never admit to it, but we've already lost on the two major manufacturing technologies for the 21st century, evs and renewables
and the cars it wants to foist on the public are cut-rate spyware machines designed to murder American citizens whenever the Chinese Communist Party flips the kill switch.
Those cars are undoubtedly impressive, but I hate the interiors. Screens should be integrated into the center console and nowhere near the gauge cluster.
All of the press conferences for the model debuts were in Chinese, and I didn’t always have a translator or interpreter at hand. When I could, I wandered around, looking to see what else I could learn while in China.
The first stand I stumbled upon was Buick’s. It unveiled two GM Ultium-based concepts, the Electra L and Electra LT. It had also unveiled a PHEV version of its popular GL8 van. But where the hell was everyone? It was barely 10 a.m., on the first day of the Beijing Auto show; two concepts were just revealed sometime earlier that morning, yet there were only a handful of spectators at the Buick stand. There was no information on either concept. No one seemed to care.
He goes on to describe the same scenario at basically all the other western brands.
Can you imagine if the Soviet Union had operated this way? Just let the western brands in and then utterly demolish them with soviet industry prices and quality. You get the benefits of competition pushing your industry to do better while demolishing any argument that your people want or would prefer western luxuries to what's available.
Closing to the capitalists was always a mistake when you could just let your own industries demolish and embarrass them.
Parenti discussed in Blackshirts and Reds how people in the Eastern bloc were seduced by Western consumer goods. The real and perceived superiority of Western treats is a form of soft power. China will not make the same mistake as them.
Touchscreens are ludicrously dangerous interfaces for cars that have basically only proliferated because of techbro dipshits mucking about with things they don't understand. Cars need fixed controls that provide physical feedback and which don't require reading or light to operate. Like that's not a matter of taste, that's a basic "this is usable and safe" thing.
You are being idealistic and giving into American exceptionalism.
However much you or I hate it, it is a matter of taste. Interfaces can be made to work intuitively, touch screen phones prove you do not need to have fixed analog buttons, and screen brightness is easy to program to adjust automatically. Our shit doesn't work because tech bros are addicted to a million unneeded features and menus. If you are just looking for a style you can vastly simplify your interface and limit your options to what is strictly nessecery. Most Chinese people will not be driving these kinds of teched-out cars.
I think it's ugly as sin, and I hope it is a passing trend, but that doesn't mean this stuff is impossible to do well. It just means we can't do it well.
that have basically only proliferated because of techbro dipshits mucking about with things they don't understand
I hate touchscreens too, but the reason they're so prevalent is they're cheaper than engineering and manufacturing a bunch of custom physical buttons and knobs
I prefer physical controls too, but you have to understand that touchscreen car interfaces aren't meant to be used while driving- ie, you're supposed to set climate presets and use voice controls to replace the constant fiddling with buttons and dials. I hate speaking to gadgets and sure as hell don't want to talk to my car, but this is where everything is heading.
I think the saddest thing about modern American engineering and tech is that they would all be fucking psyched about Chinese tech and cars if they were born in China. Like, the only reason these people are so blinkered about China is because they were born in the U.S.
They are so sure that they can see past the propaganda, that they are just eating shit the whole way down.
i'm extremely pissed that melon-musk convinced everyone that the aesthetic of the future was putting a big ass screen for all the car controls. dogshit. asking everybody to drive into each other and die. chinese automakers could be innovating extremely retrofuture tactile controls that do all this cool shit, but no, we just have this nonsense.
The big "infotainment" screens in cars genuinely give me the heebie jeebies, I can't stand looking at them. It doesn't help that reading text in a moving car as a passenger makes me motion sick.
I think the Xiaomi SU7 still has physical buttons in addition to the screen. That's what they show in their promo videos anyway. That car looks so good.
Edit: yup, it has a bunch of physical switches and even a volume knob, Xiaomi keeps winning.
