Like the title says, are there any EVs that just have a Bluetooth radio and that’s it? Like a normal car, not a smartphone on wheels? If not, do you all think that this will actually happen at some point? This is the main reason why I can’t (and will never) buy an EV. I like to have actual buttons everywhere on my car. I think those massive tablets on these cars with all the touch buttons are very dangerous. I like an “entertainment system” that only connects to my phone with either a headphone jack of or Bluetooth. It’s a car, not a PC.
Probably not available where you are but there are lots of Chinese options that are exactly this.
Any examples? I live in China and even the worst shoebox on wheels has a touch screen and built-in always online capabilities.
Some names would be appreciated
I thought the Nitro EV was a pretty normal EV
Fiat 500e first gen and Nissan volt first gen.
Pretty much it unless diy
Hopefully someday.
My 2017 Chevy Bolt is fully electric and has less fancy integrations than most cars sold today. It’s got Bluetooth and aux audio in but you have to connect a phone with a cable for Car Play or Android Auto, it’s got normal buttons and switches for all the car stuff too. It had a remote start until I ran out of free On Star months.
Seeing how OP hasn’t replied to any comments, I’m starting to wonder if they’re just anti-EV and trying to stir the pot. I test drove the newer bolt, the leaf, and a few others, it’s clear OP hasn’t really done much research if that’s an actual complaint they have, most are as you said. They range from basic to super fancy.
Canoo if they every exist IRL.
Not that I know of. Let smaller automakers make EVs and we might get something like that.
But with the federal government mandating that all cars must have automatic braking after a certain date in the future I guess we’re never going to get away from tons of sensors and computers in cars.
They also mandate a backup camera, so that means they need to have a screen.
I mean, the government has mandated that all cars built since the 90s have to have a lot of computers and sensors for engine monitoring and emissions logging so that ship has long since sailed. Automatic braking is also credited with eliminating something like 1 in 5 fatalities in car accidents, so as long as we have any motorized vehicles around at all I don’t really have a problem with the government requiring manufacturers to spend the extra 20 dollars or so per vehicle it costs them to add a few ultrasonic sensors and a microcontroller it takes to slow the vehicle to the point where a driving into a pedestrian might just be survivable.
Automatic braking doesn’t require the level of tech that’s being packed into EVs these days
You could make automatic breaking without a full blown computer, but it’s so much cheaper to put a full-blown computer than it is to do it all in hardware. Everything uses turing complete equipment now, it’s actually less expensive at this point.
There’s absolutely no reason not to put multiple computers in the car I think the real win is not surfacing it to the end user.
“Tech” is a conflated term. The way I read OP is that they don’t want their cars main user interface to be a smartphone app. Doesn’t mean the car can’t be technologically advanced.
Exactly. If my car can connect to the internet then it has too much tech in it.
The ability for a car to call emergency services in the event of a crash, and thus the mobile / data connection required to do that, has been mandatory since 2018 in all new cars sold in the EU.
So there is no cost incentive not to have the internet connection in there, as it is a basic safety feature now, like seatbelts.
You don’t need a data plan to call emergency services. Any protocol-compatible device can dial 911/112/etc. for free.
This is why in remote areas your phone may say “Emergency Calls Only”. Your carrier isn’t available, but someone else’s is and they are legally obligated to route emergency calls.
Of course if your car has a modem and a computer, adding a data plan isn’t a huge leap. But it’s a recurring expense and plenty of cars sold today do not have internet connectivity, at least on the cheaper side.
Had a 1998 Citroen Electrique once. Not much fancy electronics there…
How about the 1974-1977 CitiCar, highest volume American electric car until Tesla. It came with an 8-track player.
Those “cheap” Asian EV’s look like bare bone vehicles. But you get what you are paying for.
For once I wouldn’t suggest to buy an old first gen EV. They are unpredictable, and have a lot of different issues.Smart cars maybe?
I don’t think you can easily find new thermal cars without technology, so EVs
Old man yells at cloud.
I mean, I think EV needs to be separated from the fancy systems here. I see ICE vehicles with fancy touchscreens with no buttons, they aren’t an EV specific thing.
As for me, I have the Hyundai Kona EV, I love the thing. Yes, it has screens, I think they’re neat, but specifically it has physical buttons below the screens to control the entire car with physical buttons. That was a hard requirement of mine. So, if you want no screens or anything then no, unless you buy the cheapest car out there right now you’re probably getting something “smart”, and those happen to be ICE cars because at this point they’re cheaper. If your actual issue is physical buttons, then sounds like you need to go actually test drive some. The only EV I know of with no buttons is a Tesla, and there are a ton of other EVs out there.
specifically it has physical buttons below the screens to control the entire car with physical buttons. That was a hard requirement of mine.
I’d love to get av EV with physical buttons too. My current car is a 2012 Mazda 3, but I want to get a EV to take advantage of my solar panels.
The Kona looks nice. Do you know if it supports Qi wireless charging, and wireless Android Auto?
It does! Just used it today! There’s a wireless charger just under the main dash in front of the drink trays, and I can confirm Android Auto works perfectly wirelessly. When we got it the sales guy said it’d be coming in a later update, and we were like “uh yeah, sure”, but it honestly worked day one, no updates needed. Feel free to DM me, happy to answer any questions honestly.
You might want to look into taking an older car and paying to get someone to install a conversion kit. If you have an existing car you could see if there’s a compatible kit that’ll save you some money.
From what I’ve seen, conversions are generally preferred on pre OBD cars, as even the accessories like lights, AC etc run through that.
It puts you back looking at vehicles from the 70s or earlier. VW beetles, combis,Porsches seem to be popular choices.
OBD2 wasn’t mandatory until 1995 in the US, and OBD1 was really primitive. I suspect an EV conversion of an '80s or early-'90s car would be okay too.
Is there an issue with running OBD for the accessories, but not the engine?
Mitsubishi has been selling one for nearly a decade. It’s not great.
Toyota has a Corolla hybrid that seems pretty close.
The issue is that why would they build a budget EV when they can sell an expensive, high margin, EV? The batteries are low supply, high demand so they should be wringing every dollar possible from it.
Things where federal and California regulations step in and force these vehicles into market.
