https://insideevs.com/news/779920/zeekr-ev-hardware-upgrade-tesla-when/ China’s Zeekr went a little too hard on the hardware front from one model update to the next, so now owners of older models are not exactly pleased with the situation they’re in. To make things right, Zeekr is going on an interesting path to upgrade the hardware in its older EVs to make their advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) more capable.
As spotted by Autohome, the Chinese automaker started a crowdfunding campaign to upgrade the 2024 001 and 009 EVs to the latest Nvidia-based ADAS architecture, which significantly ups the computing power. As you may have noticed, the cars themselves are not even that old–they were made last year–but nevertheless, over 70,000 of them are eligible for the comprehensive hardware upgrade.
Good for Zeekr. But it raises the question of how fast will one’s EV will be obsolete?
The increasing fast technological advances seem to be moving at light speed.
I’m pretty sure that NHTSA won’t let a manufacturer brick a $20,000 used car after 10 years. Maybe you’ll need a $50 or $100/month software subscription, but there will be some path to keep the vehicle running.
EVs won’t be wearing out like ICE vehicles since they have far fewer moving parts.
I agree. I’m thinking about buy’s remorse for a purchase of $40k-$50k EV that has a lot of reduced capability of next year’s model.
In the Zeelr case, it is a hardware upgrade to better Nvidia chips.