In addition to being full of screens, China now wants its cars to be packed with AI.
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There’s a lot of hype about Chinese EVs—is any of it true?
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Twin, massive touch screen panels on the dashboard? No thanks. My Sonic has a small, single 6-inch diagonal touch screen that supports Android Auto and that's good enough for me. Manual, mechanical controls are underrated.
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When it comes to the overall auto market, the North American market is large.
When it comes to EVs, it's an afterthought. Uptake is around half or a third of the global average, and government policy in the largest component of the market aims to keep it that way.
When it comes to EVs, it's an afterthought. Uptake is around half or a third of the global average, and government policy in the largest component of the market aims to keep it that way.
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How reliable are they? I have seen videos of the Chinese cars falling apart brand new.
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For people not living in the US, I'm not convinced that American cars can be trusted more than Chinese cars.
"This is what you want?"
The cars shown in the article with the explicit weirdo intent to scare people away from Chinese EVs are mostly designed... for the Chinese market.
If Chinese EV were allowed in the US, they would be customized or designed for that market (with more physical buttons if that's what people want).
They invest and innovate much more than others on the software front. And unlike many american cars, they always support CarPlay and Android Auto - AND their native software is usually better and focused on customer value rather than upselling subscriptions.
"This is what you want?"
The cars shown in the article with the explicit weirdo intent to scare people away from Chinese EVs are mostly designed... for the Chinese market.
If Chinese EV were allowed in the US, they would be customized or designed for that market (with more physical buttons if that's what people want).
They invest and innovate much more than others on the software front. And unlike many american cars, they always support CarPlay and Android Auto - AND their native software is usually better and focused on customer value rather than upselling subscriptions.
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Even if that meant 95% of drivers made trips by car that couldn't be reasonably made in an EV so rarely that renting or making other arrangements when they did made sense -- which it doesn't (the trips I over 75 miles I made last year were way less than 2% of trips -- but were over 25% of the miles I drove, and since that was more than one or two trips, renting a car for them wouldn't be cost effective), but I'd still think is probably true -- that doesn't mean 95% of drivers could have an EV, because a lot more than 5% either have no reasonable place to regularly charge or can't afford a decent EV (as Gitlin's articles have shown, getting past compliance cars and really high-mileage EVs basically starts in the $20K range). I love EVs, I've got one, I think way more people should have them than do. But hyperbole does not help.
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But there is next to the driveway of most of the rental houses I’ve seen. Or lived in.
(Were those goal posts heavy?)
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Strangely, the trade-offs between designing for a small(ish) device that is handheld and used primarily while sitting or standing are different from the ones for controls designed to be used while traveling at up to 80MPH with your visual focus tightly constrained to not looking at the controls.
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Just for the record, GM has done a fair job of balancing buttons/knobs and touchscreen in various models, too, including the Bolt (which I've owned and also (the new one) test-driven) and Equinox (test-sat ... not a good fit in general but the controls were OK). A couple of rental GM crossovers in the last few years also still had buttons for functions that frequently require adjustment while driving, and touchscreen for things that mostly don't need "in flight" fingerpoken. Overall, not perfect, but way better than a laptop screen glued to the dashboard for everything.You must be young and strong
A touch screen is a problem per se, because...
- It requires you to look at it so you know what you are touching. A knob or button can be made differentiated from its neighboring knobs and buttons (by its position, touch, feedback, knurling) so you can reach and operate it without having to look at it. And any operation that requires you to not look at the road is a negatively distracting one and should be avoided. Knobs and buttons were the culmination of a whole science, with rules written in blood. It all desintegrated in the last ten years.
- Even if it is perfectly safe to watch a touch screen and operate it, and even if the interface was perfect - the dynamics of vehicle movement make it difficult to operate. The vehicle moves and bounces, and your extended arm also does. Your fingers are at the extremity of a fulcrum, and have no natural asperity/bump/ledge to hold on. They have to hit that screen button, and hit it correctly.
In the real world, the fingers at the edge of your extended arm, in a bouncing vehicle, have a natural oscilation variation from the "target" on the screen of at least a couple of inches vertically. They are trying to hit a mostly vertical surface, with precision, while waving around (well, mostly up and down, but a bit sideways too).
Might not be an issue for a youngster on a screen that is say 45 degrees inclined, but for an older person on a Tesla for example - it's mission impossible. Ask a person of any age past 50 to keep their arm even half-extended in a vehicle, with fingers staying over a button-sized target, and have fun.
Whereas buttons and knobs also allow you to rest your hand/fingers on them while opertaing them, potholes and oscillations be damned.
HyunKia, bless them, actually have their screens designed with protruding bezels, which can be used as a ledge (top bezel for the top two rows of commands, bottom bezel for the bottom two) on which you can rest one finger, stabilizing your hand, for the other finger to reach what you want precisely. Not sure if it's done on purpose, or just a design quirk, but it's there.
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1) What's a warranty?
2) Why would anybody keep a car after the warranty (and which one?) runs out? You're supposed to scrap them at that point, aren't you?
/s of course, but a lot of comments seem to vaguely assume that.
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thelongdarkteatimeof
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Also, progressive countries tax based on engine displacement. You don't need an F150, and you should pay 100 times more taxes than a Kei Car because you don't need an F150 and you're ruining the roads, killing pedestrians, and destroying the planet for no reason.
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A
And if the car can’t handle 100% if the trips that are made, they are worthless for the many single car families. That’s like saying a parachute is okay for most people if it works 98% of the fall to the ground.
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Ok, I'll move the goalpost: not everyone can rent a house either.
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Right now the season is such that’s it is 40F at night and up to 75F on the day, with the sun shining. Getting in my shaded car in the morning means turning on the seat heater and heated steering wheel. Driving means gradually turning down the seat heater, eventually turning off the heated steering wheel. Depending on the direction of the sun, adjusting the vents to blow directly on the sunlit side or not, and adjusting the temperature up or down a few
degrees since the automatic system doesn’t care about my actual temperature. Using the turn signal, turning the cruise control on and off, sometimes adjusting the sport/normal mode occurs on a drive.
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Some fit that description. Others want the cheapest vehicle they can get, as long as it is reliable. What American made car would that be? A Chevy Trax is cheap, but it is made in Korea, and I don't know if it is reliable. Let's count it anyway. Looking at sales figures for 2025
https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2025-u-s-auto-sales-figures-by-model-all-vehicle-ranked-2/
it usually falls right after the pickup trucks, pickup truck adjacent vehicles, the usual Toyota and Honda sedans and the Tacoma. That makes it roughly the 11th most popular vehicle sold in America. So some people are willing to settle for not having "all the things".
The car I would prefer would be so stripped (not even power door locks) that no US car manufacturer would sell it today. Too little margin. Consider Ford, they used to sell cars, and they were better than what GM and Stellantis were building, but they stopped, because the margins were bigger on trucks and the Mustang (technically a car, but actually a toy.)
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I really wonder how far the cost of labor is important in the final price of a vehicle.
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Most people in the US live in single family homes.
Most people in the US don't have an EV.
See that gap? We can close it while we add chargers to apartments.
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In other parts of the world, they get around edge case travel by resorting to trains, planes, and rented automobiles. Some folks I know rent larger cars for long road trips just because the extra space makes the trip so much better, even if their daily driver could do the job.
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One of the deciding factors in my choice of a Bolt over an Ioniq 5 and my wife's choice of a RAV4 PHEV over a Tucson PHEV were the physical controls. Hyundai often uses capacitance touch buttons in its lower-end vehicles. If the Tucson had the controls from the Santa Fe, good chance we'd have one in the driveway instead of the RAV4.
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One of the reasons why I fiddle with the climate controls is because vehicle automatic temperature controls are often so bad. Sometimes I don't want the fan set to hurricane after a few minutes. Sometimes I need it higher if it is sunny and I am wearing dark clothes. My Bolt dials back the fan when it is on high and I am on the speakerphone, but not all cars do that.
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Ditto, we'll agree that we were discussing "everything to touchscreen" setups, Tesla and Chinese EV style. And MB and BMW and whatnot.
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I'd have more sympathy for that argument if there were a single American car I'd consider buying. How many small, inexpensive EVs are there from American companies? One. The Chevy Bolt. And they've already announced they're ending production of it and converting the factory to make a bigger, more profitable vehicle. I know better than to buy a car that's already been discontinued. That leaves zero.
I know, I know, Americans don't want small, inexpensive EVs. Except all the talk about Chinese cars sure makes it sound like they do.
My answer to the American car companies: don't complain that someone else isn't competing fairly when you don't even have an entry in the game.
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As do European automakers. Never in living in North America have I come across a Renault. They're "basically irrelevant internationally." Automakers are regional and always have been.
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My only concern about this article is that this is about a car show. In a car show, isn't there a lot of "Hey, look at me, look at me!" happening? It's kinda like the Mobile World Congress cell phones they show off each year. There's a lot of cell phones and other products that are designed just to catch a journalists eye, but there are a lot of normal products too.
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I can't decide what is more interesting:
1. Who is exporting 55.2k of plastic lids to the US from North Korea
2. What is the other 2.3k?
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Something like an mid 00's Honda Fit please. I want a modern safety spec'd one with modern pollution controls, and oddly for most, stick shift please. Sold a Fit over a year ago and miss it even though it was well beyond it's life span after being used hard for 280,000 miles.
I want small car that is high tech but the user controls are low tech as anything exposed in the compartment will be abused by UV and humans. I'm willing to pay what ever that truly means. Just picked up an old Prius that was left in a garage for a decade, that will have to do for now.
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There is speculation that the Bolt will be replaced by an electric version of the Trax, which makes sense since the Bolt [EUV] is about the same size and shape as the first-gen Trax and that the Trax has more name recognition outside of enthusiast circles.
Also, the '27 Bolt shares a number of powertrain components with the electric Equinox. I also wouldn't be surprised if the part sharing between it and the Trax is quite high. So, probably not as much of a one-off orphan as you suspect.
e: spelling
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As someone spends months at a time in China, I can tell you have no clue about what you are talking about. This comment alone tells the story: "Chinese average wages are a quarter of those in the US, and being able to throw more workers at a factory while still keeping overheads lower than your rivals gives Chinese OEMs a cost advantage."
The Chinese factories you will see making these cars, are the most advanced you will see anywhere, with the fewest people making cars that you will see. Dark Factories.
Do some actual fact checking next time.
The Chinese factories you will see making these cars, are the most advanced you will see anywhere, with the fewest people making cars that you will see. Dark Factories.
Do some actual fact checking next time.
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Wait, people take Ars comments seriously???
But genuinely this was a good article. Multiple times while reading it I started thinking "but what about.." only for the next paragraph to cover that exact topic.
Some of the vehicle developments from these automakers seem genuinely transformative (like recharging as fast as gas), but a lot of them seem less good when you peel back the top layer (like the price they'd actually cost in a non-subsidized market). Even the out of spec fast-charge video had an odd amount of "they might actually be lying about this" skepticism, which is... Interesting.
Either way if the tech is there and real that's great! But I also have no desire to ever do karaoke in my car.
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I thought they were a division of Samsung. I always see those vehicles branded as Renault Samsung.
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thank you for this sober analysis - the breathless hype behind chinese evs from mostly influencers needs a serious counter weight.
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If China were allowed to sell cheap EVs in the USA, a whole lot more people might seriously consider buying an EV, though. Which would be good for the environment (well, maybe - depends on total lifecycle GHG emissions - shipping a whole car or van or suv or truck across the pacific ocean carries emissions, as does manufacturing it in China) and bad for the US auto industry and supply chain.
An EV at $35,000 would almost surely get less interest from buyers than an EV at $20,000.
With price of gas going up, EVs might start to look even more attractive (although many places the price of electric is also going up).
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The author seems to miss a couple of critical points here:
Like most western auto manufacturers turers, Chinese auto makers recognise the need for physical controls foe safety. So much so that it is actually being regulated by the Chinese government going forward.
The presence of AI in vehicles is not so functionally different from what western companies are trying. There are a number of them now that recognise potential roadside hazards, not just speed signs. Vision models are embedded in the vehicles tech and are transparent to the user.
Being "a few thousand cheaper" is disingenuous. My vehicle about 3/5s the price of the competition. Its a hard sell to tell me that I should be dropping another $20,000 so that local automotive manufacturers feel better about their bottom line after decades of reading about billion dollar profits. That money is better off in my pocket rather than the shareholders.
From a market where Chinese vehicles have made significant inroads and have provided a compelling quality, feature, and price alternative to the expensive market otherwise: this article is fear mongering rubbish.
Like most western auto manufacturers turers, Chinese auto makers recognise the need for physical controls foe safety. So much so that it is actually being regulated by the Chinese government going forward.
The presence of AI in vehicles is not so functionally different from what western companies are trying. There are a number of them now that recognise potential roadside hazards, not just speed signs. Vision models are embedded in the vehicles tech and are transparent to the user.
Being "a few thousand cheaper" is disingenuous. My vehicle about 3/5s the price of the competition. Its a hard sell to tell me that I should be dropping another $20,000 so that local automotive manufacturers feel better about their bottom line after decades of reading about billion dollar profits. That money is better off in my pocket rather than the shareholders.
From a market where Chinese vehicles have made significant inroads and have provided a compelling quality, feature, and price alternative to the expensive market otherwise: this article is fear mongering rubbish.
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I'd love to get the Explorer EV (coming from a '22 Explorer), however, wouldn't you know it, they don't sell that here in the US, their own home market.
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Did you read the article? The introduction just mentions the cat show, and the pictures are from cars sold for one or two years already. He didn’t go to the car show.
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The level of automation that Chinese manufacturing plants can achieve (to "lights out" levels) because their designs rely more on lower part counts has been discussed on Ars before, including by Dr. Gitlin. Ford CEO Farley has talked about it and following the philosophy is a big reason that the Slate Truck is able to keep its cost down.
But there are still people in the process somewhere and their wages do matter.
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I've seen videos of American cars falling apart brand new too lol.
Just travel across the border to Mexico (or soon enough Canada) and look at the thousand of Chinese ev cabs with hundreds of to thousands of miles on on them or hundreds of thousands of Chinese cars under regular ownership.
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