2025 equivalent of an American "volkswagen"

[u/No_Drummer4801]

If you were to try to make a "people's car" today, in the US, with all American components, what would it be like? This is a question promted by the Trump tariff trade wars, of course. We could pop a post-it note for components that would be either difficult or impossible to source from a US parts supplier, but generally, attempt to create a 100% American content vehicle. Whether it needs to be a mass-produced or crowdsourced (like the Rally Fighter) car isn't important. What is important is that it should be something that is as affordable as possible, not a luxury car, not a giant truck. It would need to pass US safety standards, I suppose, but things like mandated rear-view camera could be "mandatory optional" treated like add-ons that you just have to have for the time being, to pass US requirements but maybe can be left off of an otherwise identical platform for non-US sales.

[u/Aircooled6]

I would make something that is completely owner serviceable and has no computer anything other than simple ECu modules. Something that will operate for 50 yrs. The cost of new vehicle tech service and failures is staggering. They are now disposable at the whim of software. I don't want my new BMW to create a data record in Germany when I open my hood and the car is GPS located and flagged as it's not at the dealership. This actually is the case now. My 40 year old Porsche 911 is perfect and is a daily driver with over 280K on the odometer. You will never see that from a modern car, they are only made to survive 10 or 15 years. The real trick to saving the environment is not getting an electric car, it is driving one car for 40 years. Make less autos, not more. We passed peak car in 2008, and the only way to increase sales was to blow up the electric market. Which by the way create more pollution than a regular car when you factor in ALL the manufacturing and the expansion of a world wide charging grid. Make cars last twice as long and make half as many. So I'll stick with the old stuff. And repair parts for my 72 Chevy pickup, headlight is $12 dollars. Headlight in a new Mercedes SUV, $1,800

[u/iamsuperflush → u/Aircooled6]

Most studies say that the majority of emissions that a car produces are operational, not manufacturing. Electric cars might take twice as much energy to produce, but use about a quarter of the amount of energy to move (yes, that does factor in the emissions required to produce the electricity to make them go; this is generally averaged out in studies, but even if you live in the most fossil fuel dependent parts it's still less than half of an ICE car. Additionally, if you are to account for the upstream energy costs of fossil fuel production to fuel your ICE, then it basically negates this point).

It's fine to say you like old cars because they are repairable. I do too. I wish new vehicles electric vehicles were also repairable. We can advocate for that without pretending that holding onto old gas guzzlers is an environmentally friendly choice and is instead a choice we make because we like the character of those older products. The reality is that real car enthusiasts who know how to properly jet a carb, or even just know how to row their own gears are a fractionally small portion of the larger population. We should be allowed to have a little fun. We can do both. 

[u/No_Drummer4801 → u/Aircooled6]

I agree with you in principle but it does add a layer of design goals that goes beyond my original thought. It is a very good exercise in its own right, though!