Who will repair them and maintain all of the electronics? Even if you buy cars that's a giant operation.

You don't really maintain electronics, you swap them out when they are detected to be bad. Electric vehicles don't need tune ups or overhauls, it is light maintenance and full on component swaps. Send the defective components back to the factory for refurbishment and/or recycling.

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nradov 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nah. The local car dealerships and Tesla service centers seem to be pretty busy doing heavy maintenance on electric vehicles. The drive train might be marginally simpler but there are still a lot of moving parts that break or corrode just like any other vehicle.

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seanmcdirmid 3 days ago | parent [-]

Body work, misaligned panels, I mean surely there is a lot of work to do on Teslas. But you don't need to build out for that, you could just get repair shops to do it under contract.

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nradov 3 days ago | parent [-]

No, you're missing the point. Collision damage repair is farmed out to separate body shops. But Teslas are mechanically very unreliable and break down a lot even without collisions. Ironically, more mechanically complex vehicles like the Toyota Prius hybrid are more durable and reliable.

	▲	seanmcdirmid 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		That has more to do with Tesla being incompetent than with EVs being intrinsically more complex vehicles that cannot be durable and reliable.

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dmix 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think $50k LIDAR sensor suites are disposable like that and the computer integrations is pretty sophisticated I'd imagine. These cars will take a beating.

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seanmcdirmid 3 days ago | parent [-]

> In China, the cost of automotive LiDAR has plummeted due to aggressive manufacturing scale and the shift toward solid-state designs, with mass-market ADAS units now priced as low as $150 to $200. Leading Chinese suppliers like Hesai and RoboSense have reduced the average selling price of LiDAR in China to between $450 and $500, significantly lower than the $700 to $1,000 global average. While high-performance, robotaxi-grade sensors—similar to those used by Waymo—still command higher prices of approximately $500 to $1,000 per unit, the total cost of a comprehensive autonomous sensor suite in China has fallen to roughly $2,100, compared to the tens of thousands required just a few years ago. This rapid price erosion has enabled LiDAR to become a standard feature in Chinese electric vehicles priced as low as $25,000, far outpacing adoption rates in Western markets.

I'm not sure how much google is spending today ATM, but it is probably nowhere near $50k even with 100% tariffs.

	▲	dmix 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Just look at prices for the new Audi SUV with LIDAR. It's $30k more than the prior model without it and it's far simpler than Waymos setup, with a single front sensor. Waymo's have multiple and a much more sophisticated computer set up.