welding aluminum requires TIG. It's harder and more specialized.

welding mild steel body panels are simple with equipment any body shop will have.

Wrong for who?

Slate' service partner blurb at least has some sound bites related to ease of repair. But aren't they also a 'our car only has 3 parts' company?

I used to drive an Isuzu Trooper. I got rear-ended which totaled my car. Theoretically it was repairable, but when your car is old enough to vote it doesn't take much damage for it to get totaled.

There was other damage, but one thing that still pisses me off is that a few hundred bucks of that calculation was my spare tire cover, which had some cracks after the accident, and the insurance company would not let that drop.

It was a plastic shell that is mostly just decorative that covered the spare bolted to the back of my vehicle. I didn't care that it was cracked, it in no way affected the safety of my vehicle, I would have happily driven that car for another decade with it being cracked, if they slapped 5¢ worth of epoxy on it I would have been more than satisfied, or hurry they could have just thrown the damn thing away and I guess my spare would get a little dirtier that it would if it was covered.

But they had to include that in the repair cost estimate, and since it was kind of an uncommon older car, replacement spare tire covers were scarce and pricey and added a few hundred bucks onto the estimate.

I don't know if that was the thing that pushed me over the edge to a total loss but it certainly didn't help

I had a perfectly mechanically sound vehicle that was paid off, and could possibly still be on the road today, and instead I got stuck with a couple years of car payments on a car I liked less than that one.

That's a Buick thing. Was it a CTS? I've seen two year old CTS total from small accidents because there were no parts available for it.

Make the software foss too and i'm in

Slate.. though who knows if it will ever materialize in the real world.

Dacia Spring (but that's probably not exported to the US which I guess you're from)

You are close to describing the Slate truck

I'm not even a mechanic and I can tell you that no car company thinks about repairability.

Hell, just replacing a consumable like the battery can be a major chore that requires far more disassembly than anyone with a functional braincell would consider appropriate on some cars.

Meanwhile, only 30 years ago when we had sealed-beams in standardized shapes, you could replace a headlight for like $10. And the lens was actually glass instead of plastic prone to yellowing and abrasion.

I mean if it's just a fender bender, who cares? Bumpers are meant to bend. Do you think it was hit hard enough to cause actual structural damage?

Rivian and Tesla are trying to hit price points with lower volumes so they are 100% aiming to reduce manufacturing costs even if it creates scenarios like this.

If you don't scrutinize then you don't find any issues?

Just drive it as is. When other road warriors see your battle scars, they'll know not to mess with you.