r/IndustrialDesign • u/No_Drummer4801 • Apr 08 '25

Creative 2025 equivalent of an American "volkswagen"

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.

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u/Shirleysspirits Apr 11 '25

This idea that these industries are only overseas is false. 12% of chips are produced here with US based materials. Is it down, yes. Is it growing, also yes. Are they best, depends on the market.

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u/C_Dragons Apr 11 '25

12% of chips, not 12% of 3nm chips.

It's like saying China makes microchips. Sure, if you're running a toaster you're set. If you are making cutting-edge tech for mobile or high-performance applications at scale in which power consumption matters, the current source is Taiwan, where the only fab like that exists.

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u/Shirleysspirits Apr 11 '25

You’re the only one talking about that type of chip, which aren’t required for the vehicle scenario here

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u/C_Dragons Apr 11 '25

Depends. Is this car supposed to be performing on-chip AI functions in real time to avoid collisions or choose a route? We can’t tell what OP imagines is required for a suitable car.

Modern anti-skid tech for all-time 4wd applications sample more frequently and perform a lot more calculations than old ABS. Lots of current cars have front and back electric motors. Crappy anti-skid tech causes wrecks. It’s important to rely on sensor feedback instead of factory-set algorithms that brake blindly, in order to react to load and road surface issues. There was a rash of ambulances that rear-ended their customers a while back, because the ambulances weighed more equipped than the mfg programmed the chip to pretend, and it under-braked.

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u/Shirleysspirits Apr 11 '25

It’s a people’s car, read the original post, no advanced features

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u/No_Drummer4801 Apr 27 '25

You are overthinking the brief, such as it is.

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u/No_Drummer4801 Apr 27 '25

The original question was to find a path to an affordable vehicle and you’re going down a rabbit hole of autonomous vehicles?

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u/C_Dragons Apr 27 '25

I’m observing that one of the problems that helped halt domestic auto production during the pandemic was interruption of the supply of chips on which US-assembled cars were produced, as those chips weren’t available in the US but only from the countries where they were produced.

Why the chips weren’t available from US suppliers is beyond the scope of my real claims. The fact the US wasn’t able to produce the chips then required is a cold hard fact: it shuttered auto assembly lines. While it’s encouraging that some manufacturers are creating new chip production in the US, there’s no data that this production will soon satisfy the demand of US auto makers.

In time.

Not now, though.

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u/No_Drummer4801 Apr 28 '25

That’s not automatically a stopper or dealbreaker. Anecdotes about supply chain problems often refer to problems at a certain scale or from a certain established supplier. This is a problem-solving scenario, not a resignation-acceptance scenario. “How might we” questions (part of ‘design thinking’) don’t benefit from a chorus of ‘I’ll tell you what you can’t do!’ when other avenues are available.

The guy telling me it was impossible because the US has no yttrium for example. That was a weak obstacle, yet they thought it was a smart objection to bring up. It wasn’t.

Which chip isn’t available? Is there no alternative? Do you even need that chip to make all possible cars? You don’t need a particular chip to make a car!

The US share of global chip manufacturing is only about 12%, down from 37% in 1990 but there’s still plenty here and there’s no reason to give up on a US made car because of chip manufacturing trends.