Many years ago, like in 2017, my wife and I designed a dating app that was based on astrological matching. We knew it was tongue in cheek and advertised at as such. At that time we got a clear rejection from the App Store that they were no longer going to allow astrology apps. Fair enough, we pivoted the dating app to something else and it has been in the store doing fine for years now. But what we noticed was sometime around 2020, all of a sudden apple allowed a huge influx of new astrology apps into the store. It made no sense to us and seemed like bullshit, but what can you do?
Today it only exists in the imagination of the company CEO and a few trusted others, none of whom have figured out how to hire someone with automobile CAD experience to produce a mock-up that might increase interest for their proposed product.
People are so worked up online in places like Reddit and YouTube comments about how there aren't small trucks anymore. It feels almost like a strange mania. So it makes sense that someone like this would come along and capitalize on that (and probably never produce anything). People will throw $25 at a company without intention to actually purchase the truck, just because they feel some weird memetic vibe to support a small truck movement or whatever.
There is a lot of truth here. Especially the part about capitalizing on the interest without ever producing a vehicle. This is something that I have considered when looking at Slate, Rivian, and other interesting vehicle concepts. Those two did end up with production vehicles. Others were a lot more vaporware.
It feels great and sad at the same time that automakers have lost touch with their customers and no longer produce vehicles that the average consumer would buy and use.
Ford, with the Bronco, took years to commit to resurrecting the nameplate. In the process, they gathered so much critical information from Bronco drivers and other 4WD enthusiasts that they were able to condense their configurations to match the options that buyers were requesting and to offer factory installs of and warranties for components that buyers usually had to buy from aftermarket sources. They did everything right and even though there are hiccups with the vehicles, some due to pandemic parts shortages, others due to similar quality issues, they have a bonafide hit. It is hard to go anywhere around me in NTexas without seeing multiple Broncos and Bronco Sports.
If this guy at REO is smart and committed to the process he will scour forums for configuration information for his vehicles so that he can select components that buyers prefer. He can work on styling once he hires someone with CAD experience.
Haven't tried OpenCode too much but I found it great. It's more batteries included so I would recommend it over Pi if you don't want to write extensions yourself or use community-provided ones (like webfetch and websearch).
While this is all true and we keep beating this dead horse, the other reality is that while it may not take less time, it certainly takes less people now. And that can't be ignored.
