Some* people are buying EVs because they're "better". Other people, like me, have zero interest in most modern vehicles, whether EV or not. I have zero interest in a vehicle that gets software updates, or that can choose for itself to slam the breaks on, or that has the ability to upload my data for collection, or that can be remotely disabled, or that isn't built to be maintained easily in my garage, or that has giant touchscreen nonsense. I realize I might be in the minority, but that's OK.
I feel that most modern vehicles are designed and built purely to make as much money as possible, rather than to actually a good, reliable, maintainable vehicle. And it works, because the average consume either doesn't care or is easily to manipulate.
If you want to convert more people to EVs, start building some that I'm remotely interested in. That and invest into solid state batteries, I'm mostly waiting for that too. Solid state batteries would solve most of the issues with EV tech.
What if, after hearing about the heated seats subscription, Ford patented the self-repossession so that BMW could never implement such a terrible idea?
Agree. I'll be sad if all we do is simply electrify our shitty 5-ton asphalt tanks.
With the price of modern automobiles you would think the industry was absolutely ripe for disruption. If IKEA came out with an electric tuk-tuk for $4K I suspect the Big Three would lose their shit.
> If IKEA came out with an electric tuk-tuk for $4K I suspect the Big Three would lose their shit
Seems like they already exist (not from IKEA of course), but that sort of vehicle isn't allowed on the road in the US so I don't think the Big Three are too concerned.
In the US, a 3 wheeled vehicle can be sold as a motorcycle and then the regulations are quite lax (though I think helmet laws might kick in). Look at a Polaris Slingshot as an example.
I had a co-worker who actually put $1000 down on an Elio years ago, but as far as I know, they've never come close to making one. I'd be fine driving something like an Aptera, but I just looked and it's like $33K, so I'm not really seeing the savings. I'm also keenly aware that I'm not most people.
It's still more than a Chevy Bolt which looks like a regular sedan and not some retro-futurist science experiment to meld an airplane and automobile that you drive down the road.
Personally, as a 2012 Volt owner I certainly wish the Bolt looked like a regular sedan. It's an ugly modern American "cross-over" (they like the weird ugly "EUV" term in marketing) that isn't a proper sedan in any classic sense but also doesn't commit enough to being a proper hatchback or a light truck enough to make sense for why it is so "cross-over" looking. To me it is a very ugly duckling with no true home in car fashion.
I like the "dolphin tricycle" look of the Aptera. But I suppose I also like retro-futurism and science experiments and in general cars that look like they would take off for the sky if not caged to the ground.
I'd drive an affordable electric car that looks like that, but it's a bit too "look at me" for my taste. A basic box on wheels with doors that moves from A to B is more my thing (I currently drive a Chevy Cruze). See also the Polaris Slingshot; I'm not trying to look like a superhero off on my way to fight crime.
Or something like a Fiat 500 with a Cabrio top (they made a gas one, but not an electric as far as I know). Still a bit odd looking, but more cute than mean or science-experiment.
I've fallen in love with videos of a lot of Chinese sedans. I very seriously think that if import tariffs get worked out and the Chinese EV companies make a serious effort, they have a ripe opportunity to blow up in the US market the way that the Korean sedans did for Gen X and the Japanese sedans did for the Boomers.
(That's such a dumb cycle: Americans forget that they love sedans until an importer starts importing them in bulk. The importer themselves forget Americans love sedans and move on to trucks/SUVs like everyone else. Some new importer needs to come along to disrupt the market again.)
(Related to that, I also fell in love with the Honda e and knew that to be futile love because Honda of America is a truck company.)
Speak for yourself, I've been in line for an Aptera ever since the solar reboot.
I don't drive a ton of miles, but it's over roads where a bike would be literal suicide. A performant runabout with a bit of cargo space is exactly what I want, and if it only needs to be plugged in a few times a year, so much the better.
I'm keeping the A-Team van for when I need to move minicomputers and their peripherals, but an Aptera could do like 95% of my driving.
Would an Arcimoto FUV work for you? Those are available now. (They don't have solar panels and probably have much worse aerodynamics than Aptera. On the other hand, I think Arcimoto has the right idea with front/rear seating rather than side-by-side.)
I think they have half-doors now. It's kind of a weird thing not to have fully figured out at this point, but I give them credit for actually releasing a product and iterating.
For short range urband deliveries in London, in seeing small 4 wheeled electric vehicles that are technically bicycles. This had the advantage that they can use cycle paths, so not need insurance, driving licence, or to any design validation.
The Arcimoto FUV is a 3-wheel electric that's available in some states now. I'm not sure if there are some states where helments are required, but generally they aren't.
Wow what a great idea! This car kinda looks like they are using a Chinese partner to do design and/or creating the build process. Seems like this segment could really use a Tesla like competitor. There has got to be more they can do in that $9k budget to deliver the very best micro car. They can't possibly be squeezing out the best that the LFP battery can offer. I guess maybe their potential budget or scale is limiting what they can deliver to the market.
Yeah, I would think of it as closer to riding a bike than driving a car in that respect. People do it all the time but you want to be careful about route selection.
Well I wouldn't ride a bike on the sorts of roads I had in mind either (and I'm generally comfortable riding on busy roads, but only when there's enough dedicated space for bikes.)
That's what I mean by thinking of it more like a bike. Just because a road is legal to ride on doesn't mean I would want to, you have to take the scenic route sometimes. But at least you're not getting rained on, and you can haul a lot more groceries up a hill than I would want to while biking.
For anyone good with a two-seater, it seems like a people's car to me. Plenty of space for groceries, starts at $25K, exceptionally easy and cheap to charge at home, and committed to "right-to-repair," publishing all their manuals and selling the parts to anyone. It could be the modern equivalent of the original VW Bug.
Looking at the original prices and adjusting for inflation it looks like the Fiat 500 and the 2CV were about $10000, and the Type 1 Beetle was around $15000. So $25k does seem rather high for a people’s car.
I’m not sure the prices I found (450k lira, 350k francs, and 4000 marks) are all correct though.
The cheapest new car in 2023 is the Nissan Versa for $15,730, but most of the ten cheapest cars are around $20K. [1]
The Versa gets 32mpg. The Aptera is the same basic design as their original diesel model which got 300mpg, and it's electric. It'll be way cheaper to run, it won't require as much maintenance, and you'll be able to do your own repairs.
The current US average gasoline price is $3.42/gal. [2] If you drive 32 miles per day, that's $104/month in gasoline with the Versa. Using LendingTree's calculator for a 60-month loan, $104/mo is worth a $5900 difference in purchase price, and that doesn't count maintenance savings. [3]
So yeah, by modern new-car standards I think it's about as close to a people's car as you can get. And batteries keep getting cheaper.
Funny how the people insisting on the "workhorse" thing in practice just take it on a clogged highway to go to work or to some fast-food drive through :)
I think the transition to EVs has far more upside than downside, but weight (to your comment about "5-ton asphalt tanks") is a real and significant downside. Batteries aren't light!
These exist in Europe, for example the Citroen Ami[0] which is about 8000 euros or Renault Twizy[1] which is 12k euros. There are cheaper vehicles like this but I can't remember them offhand. You see these kind of micro EVs in every town basically, pretty sweet.
Getting a driver’s license in France is significantly more difficult than the US. But there’s a hack in that younger kids can drive these smaller cars with an easier to get license.
Oh, is that why I felt like drivers in France are the best I've encountered? I've driven a couple tens of thousands of km's there in total (both city and country) and been regularly impressed by the responsible and conscientious driving in comparison to anywhere else I've driven (17 countries total now). Maybe a bit too much tailgating though if you're not driving "fast enough" on those single-lane country roads, but otherwise great driving skill IMO.
In most of Europe we require drivers to take both classroom training, practical training and to pass both a classroom test and a practical test before they can get their license. My impression of the US is that in most states you just have to show up and drive around a few cones on a parking lot to get your license.
In New Jersey, there is classroom training as part of school curriculum that is typically done in public school around the end of age 15 going into 16 (since people generally get a license while they are still in school). This training consists of teaching the material issued in this booklet[1] which is the official NJ rules and regulations for driving in the state. At the end of the training, there is an exam (typically computerized these days).
If you are past the age where you'd be in school, you can get the official state issued driving booklet and self study or you can attend a third party school which teaches the booklet. Either way you take the same exam.
Passing that exam entitles students to receive a learners permit that allows limited driving privileges (tags must be placed on the car indicating the driver is on a learners permit, restricted hours driving, must be accompanied by someone with a full license, etc.)
Permit holders must complete at least 6 hours of practice over a 6 month period under supervision.
After a year a driving test is conducted and that determines if you are eligible for a probationary drivers license or if you require more training time.
If you pass, you are upgraded to a probationary license. The probationary allows unsupervised driving but with other restrictions (time curfew) for 1 year. No incidents during that year allow you to graduate to a full unrestricted driving license.
> Oh, is that why I felt like drivers in France are the best I've encountered?
I want to hug you, how much has the world hurt you for you to think that? French drivers are terrible. Not the worst (they’re not italians, to say nothing of americans, or south-east asians) but they’re still really rather bad.
hahaha! really? It's purely my subjective judgement, but it may also have been pure chance/coincidence that I encountered good driving in FR compared to other countries. I mean in terms of actual driving skill like not doing dangerous/stupid things, driving with precision in difficult/complicated/narrow roads, anticipating risky situations or avoiding collisions, behaving respectfully/responsibly, appearing to be actually aware of what's happening etc.. In some places it felt like most drivers are basically asleep or barely conscious...
problem with these is that they are ugly but give something that look og mini or fiat 500 and can go 125km/h cost something like 8000 euros I would buy it immediately.
Those exist. Neighborhood electric vehicles have been available in the US for years and can legally be driven on many urban streets. The Big Three don't care.
The extra weight will significantly increase road wear, which is unfair because the road maintenance is paid by a gas tax, which EV drivers are not paying.
The weight of EVs has literally no relevance in the face of trucks, which everyone else subsidises. A loaded semi causes about 3 orders of magnitude the road wear of a large sedan, per unit of distance.
Buying enough vehicle that even your exceptional use case for it isn't pushing the limit of what it's capable of is absolutely a hallmark of upper middle class/white collar consumerist culture.
A socially awkward teenager gets more ass than rear seat of your average HNer's 4Runner or Model 3. IDK why the internet always shits on pickup drivers.
Regardless, I don't think you understand how impactful "a couple orders of magnitude" are. Even the heaviest of light vehicles, like a Hummer EV are of negligible effect on a road that has to handle any proportion of medium and heavy truck traffic.
IKEA isn’t cheap any more and has been massively hiking prices like the rest of the world (while throwing in some artificial scarcity). It’d be more like $8k !
>With the price of modern automobiles you would think the industry was absolutely ripe for disruption. If IKEA came out with an electric tuk-tuk for $4K I suspect the Big Three would lose their shit.
Not gonna happen. Regulatory capture. And each line of regulation is backed by an ungodly number of people who will screech to high heaven if you even think about removing it. Like imagine for a second the vapid HN hand wringing and concern peddling that a headline to the tune of "NHTSA comprehending removal of backup camera requirement on some vehicles" would prompt. It's easier for the regulators, the analysts, the automotive companies, everybody, to just keep rolling with the status quo rather than amass the political capital to challenge it.
So long as society is rich enough to afford all the fluff cars will continue to have all the fluff.
> NHTSA comprehending removal of backup camera requirement on some vehicles...
My understanding is that NHTSA has a visibility requirement. You can make a car without a backup camera provided the driver can see behind them. Seems pretty reasonable.
Unfortunately we are in an arms race with the shitty asphalt tanks.
In most of the USA, trying to navigate the world in an electric tuk-tuk surrounded by enormous pickup trucks and SUVs with distracted pilots is basically a death sentence. If an accident doesn't get you, the apathy and road rage toward small vehicles will — they may shove you into a ditch simply for fun.
I've heard mandatory backup cameras have to do with the rear end collision safety ratings which seem to only be able to be passed by building up the back end of the car leaving a much bigger blind spot when you are backing up.
Backup cameras were required because of a string of tragic “family member backs over own child in driveway” incidents. If it saves one life… and all that is easier to sell if it’s toddlers.
The auto industry is pushing ever larger SUVs, which often don't even have the sightlines in front of the vehicle to see a kid standing on the sidewalk in front of it.
I feel like the solution to this would be to mandate a certain degree of visibility all around a vehicle. I mean, the backup camera on the vehicle I recently rented became borderline useless after a couple days, because of constant rainy weather ensuring the camera was always completely covered in dirt and mud. The image was like if you took a 160x120 photo and scaled it up and then applied some kind of "splatter dirt" filter on top. I just didn't even use it, because looking out the actual windows (like I always do) was more effective. If a vehicle is designed in such a way to literally not even allow proper visibility, that should exclude its acceptance onto the market.
> If a vehicle is designed in such a way to literally not even allow proper visibility, that should exclude its acceptance onto the market.
I mean, 100% agree on that.
As for the usefulness of backup cameras... I don't have one myself but I've rented a few cars with them and they do give you significantly more visibility when backing up than the rear window can provide, even in a reasonably sized sedan. But sure, rain might interfere. I don't think the fact that it's not perfect means it's not useful.
I have a VW Golf and they solved the rain problem by hiding the camera in the hatchback latch. It pops out when you need it and hides away behind the badge when you don’t.
I haven’t priced out what replacing that little motor will cost someday.
I have a Toyota Verso, and the backup camera is close to the tailgate handle, beside the license plate. No moving parts etc, and rain per se isn't a problem, however it tends to get dirty in foul weather. I have a habit of just wiping the lens with my thumb every now and then, works well enough.
And yes, it definitely makes parking in a tight spot easier.
Nobody is going to disagree that windows should give as much visibility as possible and people should know how to drive with them, but it's not physically possible to see something (or someone) on the ground close behind your car without a camera. I'd recommend testing with a traffic cone or something, I think you might be surprised how far back a little kid has to be before you can see them in the mirror even in a small car.
If you won't use them, you should at least be happy that other people have them so they don't back into you. Cars are dangerous.
The problem is crash test requirements require cars be built in a way that limits visibility. Giant pillars in case of a roll over, and lots of air bags stuffed everywhere.
Something had to give, and that thing was visibility.
i almost crashed the other day because a car was "hiding" behind the A(?) pillar. I was driving through the same intersection I do every day, looked both ways and made sure no cars were coming from another close by intersection. It was clear, or so I thought. When I turned left onto the road I suddenly had a car on right. It must have been perfectly behind the A-pillar when I approached the intersection and when I started to turn left. Scary.
The camera on your rent car seems to garbage. My car's camera works on 99% of the time. It's better to design a car with better view, but also rear camera is a huge upgrade for safety.
They're mandatory in the US, Europe, China and India for starters. At this point it's probably harder to find a country where they aren't.
As for why, the safety data shows that cars with backup cameras are safer for the public than those without, same as seatbelts, airbags, or any number of other safety technologies. You shouldn't need any of them, but they're there to improve the situation when reality inevitably fails to meet our expectations.
That’s just as ridiculous as saying headlights shouldn’t be required because you shouldn’t be driving somewhere where you can’t see the road clearly. The point is that the tech makes driving easier and safer and at some point the tech is stable enough that it makes sense to require it.
Also mirrors right? If you “can’t” drive without assistive mirrors, you shouldn’t have a driver’s license, period. In fact, anything mandated after the first Model T rolled off the line is dumb.
I think its coming. At least I'm assuming our local Mazda dealer isn't planning a DCFC installation because they think the MX-30 will suddenly become popular in the southeastern US.
Leaf is decidedly not awesome. The lack of liquid cooling means it runs into thermal limits very easily and battery degradation has been a real issue for them. CHAdeMO is arguably the better spec, but since it's a dead plug for north america and can't handle AC people with leafs are going to find themselves tethered very close to home.
If someone needs a commuter only car they are okay, but I think I'd get a bolt over a leaf if I wanted a cheap used commuter EV.
Yes. It would be fine if the Leaf was cheaper. But at least around here, Leaf costs Tesla money, and getting worse product for the same money makes no sense.
One reason to argue about Nissan is how much they've let their head start stagnate.
The Leaf was Ghosn's baby and some of the ouster of Ghosn was Japanese Nissan leadership getting cold feet about EVs (because none of their Japanese peers cared about EVs "so why should they?") right at the point in time where they should have accelerated.
(The EV concerns being on top of/correlated with conspiracy theories that Ghosn was too friendly with French-owned Nissan sibling Renault because they were just about all-in on EVs and Ghosn was hoping for early economies of scale, faster, but that looked to Japanese investors too much like a French coup for Nissan ownership. Also, my favorite alleged part of that conspiracy was Ghosn saw Nissan of America as an SUV/Truck-loving albatross around Nissan's neck and suggested that the very profitable division get renamed back to Datsun to make it easier to pull the ripcord and jettison the entire division once EVs started to get popular enough and its absurd profits became absurd losses.)
I don't know if the truth will ever come out how much of a crook Ghosn was or was not, versus the spin of the Japanese court system and many conspiracy theories that came out of all that, but that saga definitely seemed to put the breaks on Nissan's EV efforts at a bad moment and they do seem to be lagging behind where they should be considering their head start with the Leaf. It's a fascinating story no matter what the facts were on the ground.
I would LOVE a full EV Mazda 3. Mazda 3 was and still is my first car and I'd love to stay in the family (rust issues aside).
Unfortunately they have a history of lagging in this space, either due to mentality or just the fact that they don't have the money to transition over without help (hence them partnering up with Toyota).
Fun fact: One of their chief designers: Franz von Holthausen just happened to become the lead designer at Tesla! Him leaving Mazda was well documented back in around 2010. He talked about how was frustrated that at Mazda any green initiative was always nothing more than a side project. Hopefully things have changed now.
Like I, Robot (2004) is supposed to be near-futuristic dystopian, and the one super memorable scene I think was - will smith is driving his car and then, well the Tesla Analog - US Robotics shuts him down and tries to kill him.
The government already has enough room planting bombs in cars and cutting brakes, I don't think I need a corporate overlord to have their thumbs in that.
The way the EV market has been going so far has reminded me of the NoSQL hype of the early 2000s. It suddenly became important to have "web-scale" datastores and a lot of new hotness didn't use SQL, so folks started associating NoSQL with scalability, regardless of whether some SQL databases could scale, or some non-SQL databases couldn't.
Fast-forward to the present day where I've recently overheard someone say they "want an electric car so it can drive itself". Tesla has made self-driving (for some definition of self-driving") and over-the-air updates and giant tablet entertainment screens synonymous with EVs, to the point where it seems like every major manufacturer is including those features on every new EV they launch. I'd also like to see essentially an anti-Tesla EV - a simple, good car that happens to be electric, without it being a "smartphone on wheels". Make the entertainment system a double-DIN stereo and I'll know I've found the right car :)
>Fast-forward to the present day where I've recently overheard someone say they "want an electric car so it can drive itself". Tesla has made self-driving (for some definition of self-driving") and over-the-air updates and giant tablet entertainment screens synonymous with EVs
There are even people in this very comment section that think that way ;)
Aside from whatever Tesla is doing, LIDAR has some fundamental technical deficiencies such that it is unlikely to ever be a viable long term solution. I find the arguments against LIDAR compelling with the context of having worked with this data.
LIDAR has some issues in rain and snow, and can't read road markings or signs (or make out colours). And it's pretty expensive currently. A combination of LIDAR and cameras is likely what'll end up working best, they complement each other nicely.
Just to nitpick/paint a less absolute picture: Having worked at a couple companies using lidar, you can make out stuff like road markings based on relative brightness (especially if retroreflective paint is used), in ideal conditions, but that's of course not everywhere.
The one that few people think about is that use of LIDAR interferes with other LIDAR. LIDAR works mostly because almost no one is using LIDAR. By contrast, passive optical scales infinitely even if it is more difficult and there is an existence proof that it is possible. Automotive companies view LIDAR as a dead-end even though it works well (in some environments) now.
LIDAR would certainly solve the problem of crashes, which is indeed a serious issue.
But I don't see how you could drive with it. It couldn't identify lane markings or exits or traffic lights or cones. And if you can do that well, you should be able to avoid hitting things.
Clearly Tesla hasn't solved that and maybe never will. But adding LIDAR wouldn't really solve the problem.
It's not LIDAR alone it's a combo. The problem of course is that Tesla/Elon is being stubborn and unwilling to put the "expensive" lidar claiming that pictures is enough to work on.
Volvo seems to be getting it right hardware-wise with it's forthcoming EX90 (electric XC90). 250 meter range LIDAR (kept clear from ice, snow and dirt by it's own heat emisssions and nozzles at the end of the windshield wipers - you can tell it's not designed in California), 5 radars, 8 cameras and 16 ultrasonic sensors.
their real problem is frame to frame consistency, due to lack of a world model.
this is what Elon talked with Lex a year (or two?) ago. (they mentioned it as how to know you are in a school zone, and remember you are in a school zone, etc)
Sounds like they're working on the world model at least in places. With the removal of the parking sensors, they've started remembering obstructions that are now out of the cameras' vision.
I see LIDAR self driving vehicles all over the place around Phoenix and Tempe. My Tesla’s autopilot can’t reliably stay on the correct side of the road going through intersections.
Camera are better in low light than our eyes
Computers are faster than our brain
Software (Neural Net) are not at the level of our brain, in particular they do not fine tune constantly to the current conditions and problems. But they are getting there. Just looking at the visualisation in FSD you can see how accurate the system is at recognizing all the cars, their position, theirs speeds, etc. Human only only track a few objects and only when they catch our attention. Furthermore theirs system has 8 cameras, no distraction, sleepiness, etc.
I saw this visualisation recently in a taxi. It was constantly changing its mind about things. One second a scooter would appear as a garbage bin, the second it would disappear and then show up as a scooter again. Pedestrians would only be displayed while they moved. I was surprised how inaccurate it was.
And cameras are really bad at noise levels at low light and don't nearly have the dynamic range levels needed for good night vision.
Just wait for better cameras? Big pixels solve the noice level problems and multiple cameras solve the problem of dynamic range. People also can not measure distance to static things if seing capability is limited to only one eye (riding bicycle is possible with one eye but driving a car is not).
Depend on version of fsd. They used to go through a normalization process that tried to make the video similar in differents conditions. This has been ripped off and now the signal go strait to NN.
I heard (and saw video) where the camera detected animal in the dark that were impossible to see to the naked eyes.
It’s possible their system is not that good, but eventually cameras will outperform the human eyes in every way if that’s not already the case.
Our perception is not that good, but our brain filter it out and make us believe that we see the full picture were if fact we see only what catch our attention.
> Put Lidar in there and just get it right. Stop w/ this non-sense.
This is a popular refrain among people who are not studying Tesla’s progress particularly closely, and/or are unfamiliar with the utility LIDAR actually provides. Tesla FSD still has some way to go before it is ready to be a properly autonomous robotaxi — but where it's failing are not areas where adding LIDAR would help.
Tesla's vision stack is already sufficiently capable of mapping the three-dimensional environment with sufficient precision.
Tesla FSD needs better planning strategies when faced with unusual obstructions like novel construction zone diversions. Adding LIDAR wouldn't help there. Tesla FSD desperately needs more road sign reading skills. LIDAR can't read road signs. Tesla FSD will eventually need to recognise law enforcement officers and respond to hand gestures. LIDAR cannot translate hand gestures into actionable driving instructions, and certainly can't assess the plausibility that the person is a LEO.
> Lidar's are excellent at verifying that the 3d model map is correct.
IIRC Tesla does use LIDAR in their test vehicles to measure the ground truth of their 3D model maps. They just don't do that with every single car on the road.
Certainly that is the current Tesla PR spin that their vision stack is good enough to not need it, but it is hard to see why LIDAR wouldn't be useful for defense in depth against the situations like people tricking Teslas into painted tunnels like Wile E. Coyote. Especially when we all know the reality is that LIDAR is extremely patent protected and expensive to buy because of that and Tesla dropping LIDAR was pure cost cutting.
(Self-driving seems to me to be somewhere you absolutely want as much defense in depth and redundant sensors as possible.)
I'd like to see someone exposing a Tesla to a intricately produced Wile E. Coyote tunnel. I would predict that it would stop, because the vision stack leans heavily on motion vectors to map out drivable space. And even if it didn't, the tunnel could only be painted to have the correct perspective at one point along the road. Moving closer would result in the model seeing the road get narrower, causing the car to slow down (narrower roads necessitate slower speed) until it gets within a few car lengths — at which point the painted road would appear so narrow as to be literally undriveable.
If Tesla hasn't already tested this in simulation, I'd be astounded.
Also if a false tunnel good enough to fool FSD beta, I'd suspect it'd also be good enough to fool a decent proportion of human drivers too.
What you're looking for is basically the Prius Prime. Sure it's not fully electric, but it gets 40 mile electric range (which for a lot of people is enough for the day to day), gets legit 70 mpg at 40-55 mph, and around 50mpg at 70mph. No fancy tech, but it drives.
That's right, the moment Toyota actually jumps on the full EVs, I hope they preserve that direction - those would be amazing cars.
There's one fancy thing from Prius I don't think anyone else does though - the heads up display, which looks amazing and I would really like to have. (It's still optional, so you don't lose the usual dashboard)
The name does actually have a meaning: bZ(Beyond Zero emissions) 4 (based on Rav4) X (Crossover)
That said, I wish they had just called it the Rav4 Electric. I believe mass adoption comes from car companies integrating the electric models into what (non-cutting edge) consumers already trust (Chevy is the only one really embracing this idea)
Considering this model was announced before they asked Toyoda to step down for failing in EV adoption, I suspect it was named to not sully the reputation of an established model.
> That said, I wish they had just called it the Rav4 Electric. I believe mass adoption comes from car companies integrating the electric models into what (non-cutting edge) consumers already trust (Chevy is the only one really embracing this idea)
There are some more. Peugeot has electric models with the same naming as their ICE models but an "e" on front (e-208, e-2008, etc.) Hyundai has the Ioniq in EV and non-EV versions. And there was also a Volkswagen eGolf, although I think that one has been abandoned to be replaced by models with electric-specific naming.
I actually really wish Toyota kept pushing their plug in hybrids. The Rav4 Prime get 40 miles on its battery and 40 mpg as a small suv is impressive plus 600 miles worth of gas in it. My neighbor pretty much uses most of the battery during his commute, charges it and uses the battery coming back. He can take it on long road trips without any stops too.
If you've got 40 miles of range when it's new and you're doing a full cycle of the battery twice a day, won't the battery basically be dead weight within 3 years or so?
Been driving our Rav4 PHEV for 2 years soon. My wife drains the battery once a day on her way to work. We still get 65+ km (40 miles) in winter and over 80km (50 miles) in summer, driving mostly in the city.
that's not how car batteries work. phone batteries suck because they are incredibly space and weight constrained and they're too small to effectively include thermal management. Toyota warrentees their hybrid vehicle batteries for 10 years/150k miles for 30% range degredation. after that, since it's a relatively small battery some looking around suggests that the cost of an out of warrentee replacement is roughly $4000, and needing the replacement is relatively rare over the life of the vehicle
Not only is Toyota's warranty on Prius batteries quite good, a good chunk of the battery issues with older Priuses come down to corroded terminals. A dealership will happily throw a new battery in there for a few grand, but a good indie hybrid mechanic knows to try the cheap and easy fix of cleaning the terminals before replacing the battery (and will recommend reconditioned battery packs for a serious $$ savings)
There was a moment in 2017 when I was sure the GM Volt would usher in an age of series hybrids with larger and larger batteries. Then Tesla released the M3 and GM released the Bolt and the Volt was subsequently discontinued.
There must be some solid reason as to why mid-capacity batteries in a hybrid don't make economic sense for car companies.
Batteries getting cheaper and required emissions equipment getting more expensive and complex have made PHEVs a tough market. For most small and mid sized cars and crossovers the cost of equipping a full ICE drivetrain along with a reasonably sized battery and electric motor drivetrain pencils out to about the same price they can make a full battery electric car for, especially when pure BEVs tend to have higher government incentives compared to PHEVs (varies by location).
Packaging is also a big downside. Fitting a 10-20 kW battery and a full combustion drivetrain takes a lot of space, so BEVs with packaging advantages over even pure ICE cars priced around the same number suddenly look a lot more attractive to the potential buyers who overlap a lot between PHEVs and BEVs.
With clever engineering a PHEV doesn't really need a "whole drivetrain". You can use the fact that you have a motor and a big battery to solve a ton of problems that ICE engines typically have.
To make an ICE efficient, you want to give it a big transmission with a lot of gears so it stays in peak efficiency RP, undersize it, and put a big turbocharger on. This produces a relatively heavy drivetrain that has lag when you put your foot down.
When you have an electric engine and battery, you can take the same small engine, but instead of a transmission, you just steal energy and put it in the battery when you don't need power and give it back instantly when you put your foot down. This removes almost all the weight and complexity of the transmission, keeps your engine at peak RPM, and gives you the responsiveness of an EV.
But the engineering cost to do all that is very expensive and unique, two things car makers hate and avoid at all cost. There is a reason the long discontinued Volt is still the best PHEV around and only BMW i3 has ever had your proposed layout. No one else has been willing to spend the money required to really optimize a PHEV and i3 could use more power getting up hills than the engine could generate, so your battery % could drop with the engine running. The OEMs want a 'good enough' PHEV to qualify for subsidies with minimal spend and allocate all the real resources to BEVs since they see the end of combustion.
Plus it's not just the mechanicals. You still need a gas tank, exhaust, catalytic converter and all the other ancillaries that come with combustion. That all adds to the bill of materials, engineering and assembly complexity, and packaging constraints.
> The OEMs want a 'good enough' PHEV to qualify for subsidies with minimal spend and allocate all the real resources to BEVs since they see the end of combustion.
I think a lot of this comes from seeing PHEV as "worse EV" rather than "better ICE". Car manufacturers see their business as building ICEs and EVs as a weird distraction that you have to throw money into as basically a PR expense (although this has started to change in the last couple years). The engineering cost here is expensive but not especially unique since it could pretty easily apply to the entire ICE fleet. The fact that the Prius has existed for 25 years, but most cars sold today don't have regenerative braking is kind of crazy. It's not like OEMs haven't put a ton of engineering into ICEs, they just haven't considered hybrids as "real engineering".
Except no cars do that. That's called a serial hybrid, which never shipped, unless you count oddballs like the BMW i3, with the optional "range extender".
I read a review of a prototype BMW mini. The turbine (fixed RPM) + batteries seemed like a great combination. Plenty of HP for highway cruising, plenty of battery+AWD for great acceleration. Turbines are efficient, crazy small for the HP, and have few moving parts. The downsize is having a fixed RPM, which would normally make them unacceptable for a car.
The reason is because hybrid drive trains don't make sense, as evs get cheaper. I suppose there is less demand. I was hoping for a car with 100 miles ev range and 250 more miles gas range. Then you get a lot of weight from two drive trains and the batteries.
Heads up displays are common for most carmakers (maybe apart from cheapest ones like Dacia or chinese brands), but they are always a premium equipment for (big) extra charge.
Our bmw 5 series from 2014 has it. It is amazing tech, easily the best improvement for me in car driving in past 2 decades. Constant visual contact with road and surroundings, while being aware of my current speed to the level of single kmh, speed limit, car navigation, switching songs/volume with knob on steering wheel, perfectly readable in all conditions and never obtrusive. I just dont look inside the car anymore. The problem is when I drive car without it, it feels severely lacking and ancient (like driving long stretches on highways and a lot of speed radars without cruise control).
Well I paid for it 20% of the price of new, 6 years old with 90k km on it. Even if I had to invest another 20k into it on repairs (which I wouldn't and I won't), its so much better value than new ones. After 1.5 years and 20k km, seems like aircon died (getting it fixed soon) but that's it.
I'd never buy a new car, price/value compared to used ones is ridiculously bad, not grokking who does that unless its like 1-5% of their annual salary. Even then its just throwing tons of money away. Electric cars seem to me much worse in this, hopefully this changes over time.
So no ultra expensive cars, you can have it for the price of really basic new cars (if I ignore maintenance but this can be managed by not using official repair shops, which is good idea anyway since they just love swapping whole expensive blocs instead of fixing actual problems). On top of massively better crash security, comfort, proper fun driving etc.
Because on average you'll pay the same in repairs or replacement compared to a more recent car. You got lucky, and that's ok. But the prices aren't completely made up. Your BMW costs a lot less, because the expected average time it will survive is low. Anecdote != data and all that.
On the other hand, having an ex-demo car from a dealer meant no silly markup and when the transmission fell apart after 4 years, I got it replaced for free instead of paying thousands to an independent shop. There are pros and cons.
(And yes, completely new cars have silly markup, but used ones with low mileage don't)
The Prius Prime is definitely a "smartphone on wheels" by any measure. In fact, a lot of people appear to covet the lowest end model because it at least has some knobs for the AC. The upper models force the driver to use an enormous touchscreen with shitty responsiveness and shitty UI/UX.
And at least in the U.S. it has had a 25 mile electric range for the past decade or so. Only the 2023 model claims to have a 40 mile electric-only range, and that hasn't been released yet.
What would be great is if Walmart released some kind of electric vehicle analog to their old Sceptre tv models. Steering wheel, pedals, battery, and of course a flash drive reader that autoplays any mp3s it finds. (Premium version could add a cigarette lighter.)
I have a 2015 Volt with 98k miles. Still drives great and charges to full capacity. Chevy dramatically over built the first gen, it was the second gen where they were forced to actually limit their design based on lame goals like "making a profit"
I have a '17 second gen that I'll be selling within the next 3 years. 60k miles on it right now. Gotta sell it before it has a $20k boat anchor on board. Unless something happens and I get the battery replaced under warranty for some reason, then I'll continue using it.
How is it misleading? It seems to be a standard measurement for vehicles that can move via both gas engines and electric motors.
It gets around 42 mpg when running purely on the gas engine. Based on the distance I have traveled and the amount that I have used the gas engine, it works out to 172 miles per actual gallon used.
MPGe is what you would refer to for your fully electric car.
I have a set from Thrustmaster for my combined driving and flight sim rig, it works really well for mfd input. (F16 mainly).
A set of blank buttons eg at the bottom of the display that could be mapped to in display functions would have been very useful.
(I've gotten used to how it is now - and actually really like it after a year - but not going to say it couldn't have been done better. It would look less minimalistic, however.)
Playing games can hardly have any consequences, but driving does. All those buttons/knobs are designed to minimize the chance you have to look for something.
Virtual keys somehow alleviate a little bit as there are reduced physical keys but still, you will probably have to press multiple buttons to do one single task.
Wehn driving, you don't want to move your sight away from the road. Thus, muscle memory is super important. But touch screen simply rendered all that useless.
The new Prius looks like they've got what Tesla is about, as laid out in this comment chain down to here. It's aesthetics, ease of use, frictionless experience, etc.
The iPhone moment was often referred to as the smartphone revolution, but 15 years later, the experience it offers are not fundamentally different from advanced flip phones it replaced, just better. Technical aspects of an iPhone, such as touchscreen user interface, non-replaceable battery, jailbreakable OS, were not fundamental in disrupting the market.
You can just turn off or disable the internet connection from the car (take out the circuit breaker for the modem). It turns out the things on even my 8 year old tesla were really useful. I liked streaming music for free, voice recognition, maps with up to date traffic. But the car would still work great without an internet connection. Some people are driven crazy by not enough touch screen buttons, it's never bothered me.
But you can just turn off all internet connections and go on your way.
TBH, the maintainability probably isn't as bad as you've imagined. Short of full battery replacements, there isn't much on a Tesla 3 or Y that is significantly harder than other cars.
And the factory service manual is available for free. Aside from HV parts, most parts are directly orderable from the service center as well.
Battery replacements shouldn't be hard. A lot less work than an engine, for sure. I had the battery replaced in my Bolt a couple months ago and it was about 6 hours from when I dropped it off to when I picked it up. I think the actual job is like 3 hours or something.
Yes and no. The powertrain is big and expensive, but it's a fairly small fraction of the car's complexity. (And some parts of the cabin climate system are probably also high-voltage for power and packaging reasons, but that doesn't change the discussion here.)
But everything else, the instruments, the infotainment and telematics, the ADAS, the windows and wipers and headlights, seats and airbags and lock solenoids, the list goes on... That represents a lot of complexity and cost, a lot of moving parts, and it's all still 12-volt. Partly for legacy reasons, partly for safety. (There was a push 20 years ago to go 42 or 48 volts to make the wire thinner while still being LV/SELV safety, but legacy held it back.)
Plus all the undercar stuff, wheels and bearings and control arms and bushings, half-shafts and CV joints and boots and swaybars, wheels and tires and stuff, that just never changes, and since EVs tend to be heavier, they tend to be harder on all that stuff than their ICE counterparts.
So there's plenty of stuff you can service with good old mechanic skills and tools, and plenty of it needs servicing.
Actually, Tesla is moving to 48v on their new(er) systems. This is a good thing and I can't wait for the rest of the industry to follow them. 48v has been needed for years and I'm glad someone took the first shot at it.
Aside from the things already mentioned, its important to note that "HV parts" isn't always an intuitive category.
For example, the charge port isn't a HV part, since it isn't energized by the car and requires no special skills to replace it. This is useful, since its also one of the most likely parts to take physical damage.
A lot of the other wear items are suspension related and are pretty conventional parts.
And, of course, there's a vibrant aftermarket of used parts for Tesla in general, so even HV parts are not necessarily hard to come by.
Everyone says things like this thinking "Tesla" in their head, while in the real world there are all sorts of EVs that are just cars that happen to be electric.
That’s a hilarious comparison knowing the build quality of teslas. You’re getting sold a shiny yugo for the price of a merc, but it has a Maserati power train so it goes fast.
The quality of Berlin, Shanghai and Texas made Teslas have been pretty great. Maybe you should listen to what actual experts like Sandy Munro say instead of believing in fake news.
Yeah, I just drove a brand-new (16km on the odometer) Peugeot 308 for a trip in France. It was a complete piece of shit that I spent the entire trip yelling at. Always-online via 4G cellular (prompting for a system update on every shutdown and prompting me to go through their tutorial on every startup), glossy touch screens (zero analogue/physical gauges of any sort), constantly forcibly steering me back if I go near the painted line (such as when I'm trying to make extra space as I go around a driver who can't seem to stay in their own lane) which I was not able to turn off, beeping incessantly every single time I park because I am vaguely close to a curb or a random plant or small object (another thing I couldn't turn off), all controls on said touch screen with a horribly-designed UI... Oh the fuel gauge stopped working the night I was taking the car back to the rental company, gotta love that. They charged me for refilling 1/4 of the tank even though I completely refilled it - the gauge is simply faulty. I'm sure the charge will be reversed once we're done dealing with that, but you don't expect something as fundamental as the fuel level gauge to fail within ~4000km of driving. The steering wheel isn't even round, and of course because it's all "drive-by-wire" software-driven it literally feels like driving one of those arcade racing simulators, including the pedals. I don't know if new US/JP vehicles are like this but driving Peugeot and Renault rentals in EU has taught me that new cars appear to be total trash. I still can't believe people pay some tens of thousands of dollars for such atrocious computers on wheels.
That is not what your link says. There is no mention of any type of live data tracking, just the deployment of black box loggers (which need not be online) for vehicle data to be used in the event of a crash.
I have a Tesla model Y. It’s definitely different to operate than any ICE car I’ve ever had. But Tesla made it kinda easy to help you transition. They sent me like five videos to watch about 25 minutes total I think. I watched them and was able to
get in it and drive it 400 miles home without issue.
I once owned a 306 Peugeot (90s) as a student vehicle and it went way over 350'000 km without any noticeable problem. The TU series engines of Peugeot were beast of a kind and pretty hard to kill as long as you minimum service them.
Recent Peugeots are like any recent, EU-made cars: full of electronics, fragile piece of tech and with turbo-compressed engine that favor fuel consumption over reliability. VW and German counterpart (which I also drove) tend to be the same crap.
Nowadays, almost only the Japanese constructors stand off for their reliability.
Renault was making good non luxury electric cars, that are still on the road today, in 2012. Their engineering is so good, and they are so simple, that they just do not stop. Their aftermarket prices show how much the market prefers EVs.
I’m only winding French car owners up. I owned a Peugeot for a few years and I loved it!
Sure, bits of it used to fall off with alarming regularity, and it’d just turn itself off when stopped at the lights periodically… but apart from that…
Haha, I am really happy with my 2019 Renault, too (I never wanted to own a french car, but the model we bought was the only one in the entire market that fit all our requirements). There is and should be no french car without its little "strangenesses" and ours is no exception. Still: overall we couldn't be more happy, had zero technical issues, and enjoy the fact that besides the occasional "why did they do that??" it has also lots of "how great that they actually thought of this!"-moments
Can't tell about US cars but for JP manufacturers, aim for Mazda. They seem to get it right on all the points you described, and more (at least my Mazda 2 does)
Yeah I have an RX-8, it is amazing and basically the perfect car IMO (though the visibility is not as good as I'd like, and of course the rotary engine has its uhh, shortcomings). Mazda would definitely be high on my list for a new vehicle. I had a 2008 Honda Fit as well which was quite excellent. It seems like I'd probably have to stick with like late 2000's if I wanted a new vehicle... >_>
> It seems like I'd probably have to stick with like late 2000's if I wanted a new vehicle
Unfortunately that's not possible for me: Crit'air certificates (which are based on EURO ratings) are being enforced. Our city is going to ban anything above and including level 2 by 2025.
It means I will have to let go of my other car (a '08 Civic Type-R, rated level 2) which is a damn shame and completely absurd to have to scrap it given its overall (at ~100000km it's mint-like) and yearly (2000km/yr, emission contribution is well below the noise floor) mileage.
That's also why we bought a 2020 Mazda 2 (level 1). There's AirPlay but apart from that it's all good. 3 trim levels which basically add HUD, bigger wheels, leather. Everything else is included from the basic one, zero options, completely opposite mindset from the software-gated nonsense. The engine compartment has plenty of room for maintenance and I could swear it was designed to hold a much bigger engine. The screen is touch-able, but disables touch over, like, 2km/h. Ultimately I just use the dial joystick, which is just so good. So, definitely, you don't need to go back 20 years to get a car you are in control of.
I had lately an VW Golf as rental car. The car itself, was yes, ok. But the touch interface. What did they think?!? It was f.. bright and no way to make it darker, because it was already in the darkest mode. It was so annoying at night. And when the heating was on, after a while the touch screen had trouble to feel the touch. And just bellow the touch screen, there had been so modern clickless touch buttons. Often when you clicked something on the touch screen bottom, you accidently activated also a button from below the screen. Symbols on the map are often to small for fingers (while driving anyway). I mean, it's 2023 and we know how to do such things. Who does such things test and accept?
This is working-as-intended. Some modern cars only have a very approximate sensor in the fuel tank, and then use computer modelling of fuel use to make the gauge look like it is going down smoothly. After all, the engine knows exactly how many ml it injects with every stroke, so can measure fuel use very precisely - the only unknown is what you are putting in.
Therefore, they assume that you never fill up less than say a half tank. If you fill up less, it will pretend you didn't fill up at all, and the gauge will still say three quarters when it is full to the brim.
The only way to get the gauge and actual tank back in sync is to use up at least half a tank, and then refill all the way.
I think it's because fuel tank sensors frequently break, due to being buffeted by sloshing fuel, and sometimes getting corroded if there is a little salt water in the fuel, so car manufacturers have decided to use other methods other than a float and variable resistor...
I'm not sure what is actually used instead, but I'd guess they just measure the pressure on the inlet to the fuel pump. An absolute pressure sensor only costs 3 cents and the fuel pump is probably already on the CAN bus.
Back in my day, before all the newfangled shiny sensors you would get an accurate fuel tank reading every time - except if you were going around corners, accelerating or breaking, or had done any of those in the past few minutes and the spring returning the float was feeling slow that day.
Otherwise it was, like all things back in the good old days, incredibly precise +/- 10%
How many decades? Because mid-range and up euros routinely did that multiple times over in the 80s. So you’re either thinking 50+, or you’re thinking reliability issues on early direct injection.
> Cars barely made it to 100k miles decades ago. They didn't even have 6 whole digits on the odometer and rolling over was an event
That would be a lot of decades ago. Cars from the 80s routinely went well over 100k. The 70s cars I remember as more cantankerous but if taken good care of (which was simple because the cars were simple) they would as well.
Ironically, a hundred years from now I predict that the only working museum/collector cars left will be those from the 1990s and earlier. Newer cars will not survive as long, with all the fragile electronics that require maintenance with factory equipment that will no longer exist in a century.
>" The 70s cars I remember as more cantankerous but if taken good care of (which was simple because the cars were simple) they would as well."
What's more complicated about taking care of a car today? In fact it's easier as the number of maintenance items has gone down
Cars still have oil, oil filters, transmission fluid, air filters, maybe differential fluid, and spark plugs
Car NO LONGER have distributor caps, spark plug wires, power steering fluid[3], and timing belts. Finally you don't need to adjust the timing, the throttle cable tension, for FWD cars [8] you eliminate the need to change differential fluid, and you don't need to "lube" anything.
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> Cars from the 80s routinely went well over 100k
That heavily depends on the brand. American cars were piles of garbage in my opinion and I'm sure I could find some source to support that. You are right about Japanese cars and that was a new phenomenon at the time. Here's a NY times article about how cars are now (in 2012) lasting more than 200k miles.
My friend had a 91 Civic that lasted for about 250k but I had multiple GM cars (86 lesabre, 91 corsica, 88 6000) where either the transmission went or bent valves (exceeding the cost of the car at the time in the late 90s when I owned them) without even getting to 120k.[6] Anecdotal but again Honda and Toyota were so popular the US government made Japan limit the number of cars coming in.[3]
Newer cars are less complex in key areas. I quickly mentioned this in the first section but there's more:
- Spark plug wires are gone. Since they carried high voltage from the distributor cap they needed thick insulation and that insulation would crack due to heat cycling. once small cracks appear it would arc to the engine or other wires because of the high voltage. Now we have ignition coils which aren't considered a maintenance item (they last at least 100k but really more depending on use)
- No more distribution caps (due to ignition coils). Caps were a maintenance item
- No more power steering fluid, and power steering pump because of EPS racks. This also eliminates the hydraulic lines
- Throttle by wire which eliminates the throttle cable that would get stretched out and sometimes break. This also allows for cruise control without the use of vacuum lines [9]
- In the past cars have timing belts, timing belts can break and if your engine was an interfere engine the valves will contact the piston causing a massive repair bill. Today almost every car has a timing chain which lasts significantly longer to the point where it's not a maintenance item.[1]
Starting the 80s we got OBD 1 then later 2 which provides sensor data. This allowed you to see the real symptom of the car instead of the apparent one. For example, car has a rough ideal but really it's running lean. Besides the massive performance and efficiency increase because the ignition timing can be based on the exhaust contents , temp, air flow levels, etc it also makes it easier to fix things by providing data on how the engine was operating. Today cars have even more computer diagnostic systems to help repair them.
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Finally let's get to the electronics you are concerned about. Cars now have more control modules, (which are mini computers for systems, like the door controls) then in the past. There's door modules[2], ambient lighting module, cruise control, etc. The point is you don't repair these modules you just replace them. You aren't soldering little resistors onto a board or something. It's no different than replacing a steering wheel. It's just a thing. [5]
Many of these modules are for optional luxury items. If 20 years from now the ambient lighting and module doesn't work in my car who cares. If lane assist, blind spot detection, or the rear camera breaks then the car is just like the older cars you think are better.
I'm sorry to make this accusation but you are probably letting nostalgia, the current climate of simmering anger at the world, and the desire for things you grew up with and are comfortable with to form your opinions.
I want to put a millennial into a muscle car from the 60s and they'll see the over boosted power steering, the giant v8 that was overrated in power and get 10mpg, a body that leans in every corner, tires that can't grip, and a chassis that feels like a rubber band when you turn. A modern 4 cylinder turbo hot hatch would destroy them and outlast them.
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[1] Some older cars had timing belts and non-interference engines. This means that if the belt broke the piston wouldn't contact the valves and the only repair you'd have to pay for is the timing belt and towing. Still annoying but better. Timing chains make more noise and because of their weight create more drag on the engine but with engine covers and the power today it doesn't matter
[2] In the past cars didn't have as many modules even for things like like power locks. Power locks used to just have control wires and power running directly to other parts of the car where relays might turn them on and off.
The advantage of having a module is computer control. For example the following features are present on many new cars:
- lock the car when you start driving
- unlock in park
- windows up when rain is detected
- auto down and up windows (all the way).
- car can't go into drive when the door is open
- specific door warnings (though old cars had a general one)
Doing all this by running wires around to other devices is insane so there's a module the window switches, lock switches, door sensor, door locks, window motor, and etc all connect to which then receives control info from other modules
[3] A few performance cars and maybe some older models of mass produced cars still use hydraulic steering.
[4] Mostly due to "perceptions" of American quality, small cars becoming popular, and the horrific engines in American cars in the late 70s and 80s as American manf had little experience with small engines that people wanted because of the gas crisis. There's also an emissions issue. American quality has somewhat equalized after the late 90s IMO
[5] Modules do need to be programmed with the config for your particular car. Buying one for your model and in your country usually means it's fine. There are also programmers that aren't expensive and dealers will often do it for a fee.
[6] My experience with American cars was everything breaking besides the engine, then that going.
- Headliner would fall off and rub on your head
- The door that controlled recirculation of air would break because it's a cable connected to the knob on the hvac controls
- Plastic trim pieces came off or rattled
- Door locks would stop working or require two key turns or if I had a fob two button presses
- Rough idle and erratic idle
- AC definitely didn't work past 60k, probably R12 leaks
Rather have a cool new electronic feature break today than no AC
[8] Most popular style drive config is to have the engine in the front and front wheel drive. The diff is built into the transmission in this situation (called a transaxle) If your car is AWD or RWD with the engine in the rear you need to replace the differential fluid every so often. Larger SUVs are AWD, some sedans, many pickup trucks.
There are a few performance FWD cars that have a limited slip differential that requires a fluid change, super rare though (Elantra N, Golf GTI maybe R, Veloster?)
[9] Vacuum lines were how cool features pre 2000s worked in cars, like cruise control. Problem is the lines got cracked and a slow vacuum loss was difficult to diagnose and often caused unusual issues. I've been in so many older cars where cruise control just wasn't working.
> The point is you don't repair these modules you just replace them.
You replace them if you can find a replacement. It's a lot harder to make ICs for outdated cars than mechanical parts for old cars, which was probably the OP's point.
Let's say you want a trunk lid for a 1965 something. If you can't get a used part having that made is extremely difficult. You would need plans or precise measurements and a machine shop.
Control modules are just software and you could probably make a generic one that takes different flashes with a variable pin layout, think raspberry pi.
This is done today to an extent with power upgrades. Take a look at a jb4 for a bmw b58. It intercepts data signals for different components, like the turbo, and changes values. It's just basic software.
> Control modules are just software and you could probably make a generic one that takes different flashes with a variable pin layout, think raspberry pi.
That's not going to pass SMOG checks. It must be the factory control module, and it that's no longer in production, too bad.
For track cars it's fun to replace the electronics with customizable units, but you can't get away with that for a street car (in California at least).
Older cars aren't subject to smog protection and if the module is set to the OEM configuration it will. I only used a tuning module because it's an easy example
> Older cars aren't subject to smog protection and if the module is set to the OEM configuration it will.
Only cars prior to 1974 are not subject to smog check in California.
And part of the smog check is a visual inspection which will fail in the presence of any non-factory emission related equipment (such as engine control modules) even if their behavior is 100% identical to factory.
> What's more complicated about taking care of a car today? In fact it's easier as the number of maintenance items has gone down
Electronics is what makes todays cars very difficult to repair down the road.
You're right in that when they are new it's actually easier to repair. Just plug in the diagnostic computer, it tells you what's wrong, you replace the whole module and done.
This gets very expensive though. For example I had a BMW with a brake light problem. In any old car that's a $0.25 bulb change, or worse case $10 in wiring if you need to replace all the wiring to it. Easy to do by anyone at home. On the BMW? It was a $1500 brake light control module that had to be programmed with a factory computer that only factory technicians have access to so on top I had to pay labor.
The real problems come when the cars get older. Any voltage variations from aging cables makes the whole system (everything is interlinked, unlike old cars) become very unpredictable. A friend is a BMW factory mechanic and the horror stories are endless.
As I noted in a peer comment, I had to sell for scrap a ~60K (when new) BMW that was mechanically and cosmetically perfect but had so many electronics glitches that it was impossible to repair without spending tens of thousands of dollars. What a waste. Such a problem is never possible with older cars, since the electrical system is simple and easy to diagnose and repair.
All the things you list as complex (spark plug wires, vacuum tubes, distributors, etc) are mechanically and electrically extremely simple devices. That's what makes repairs so easy at home without access to esoteric parts that might be out of production or factory tools not available to consumers.
I think the criticism is fair - charging takes time.
I'll speak personally from my parents who are pushing 70. They purchased a Tesla because of the EV credits and overall price attractiveness.
My dad tells his friends about it because the driving experience is so much better. He presses the "gas" and it's instant and the handling is very good. He likes to say never goes to the gas station anymore.
I think it's easily arguable that you could get a lot of the same benefits of drivability and handling in say a BMW or Audi. The last one is a paradigm shift.
The way you've done things is now different, better (in that life is a bit easier). It's not yet a massive one, so I agree the numbers who are switching will be slow, but steadily it'll get there.
There are some very promising alternative battery chemistries out there, graphene-aluminium being one of them. Sodium is another that is perhaps closer to commercialization (there's some chinese EV already that has them).
Recent article (forgot the link, but I’m sure it’s on google) basically said BMW, VW, and many others are abandoning solid state batteries because of its negligible performance compared to LiFePo4 and regular NMC batteries that are easier to produce and are slowly improving their density and stability.
It is one of the best cars I have ever driven. I like driving.
I think the very heavy battery helps.
That said, modern electric cars are given away for free (the one I'm getting is). The only thing you pay for is the battery. I found this out by pricing replacement batteries....
The whole model of car making is going to collapse if batteries become cheaper, but for now: By a battery and get a car thrown in.....
The used EV battery industry hasn't even started yet. Even the very first Nissan Leafs and Tesla Model S's are still running on their original batteries, way longer than the manufacturers expected.
When we start actually getting used EV batteries on the market in masses there will be multiple industries repurposing them and thus giving "expired" EV batteries resale value.
A 50kWh battery that's "unusable" for EV use (let's say 30% degraded) is still a 35kWh battery - which is insanely big for storing solar power in a home. Or it can be split to multiple sections and 3 RVs can get a 10kWh battery that they can charge at any EV charger or even at a campsite.
Ditto. At one point, car makers realized that if their cars lasted too long, they would not be able to sell more of them when most people had one. Modern cars have various unreliable and anti-maintenance features to make sure you are going to buy the next one in 10 years time. All these tracking is also a profit source since the data is sold.
That’s hyperbolic. Toyota is still selling the same quality cars (if not better) than their 2004 - 2009 Prius I’ve seen go 550k and similar miles repeatedly.
Future cars will be moved forward by electric engines. That's not even debatable.
The power, reliability and efficiency are in a whole different bracket than in ICEs.
What IS up for debate is how the power for those engines is stored in the car. Currently we're going with batteries or liquid combustion fuels (PHEV and serial hybrids).
Yes, there are very specific use-cases and industries where EVs don't work today, but the tech is developing insanely fast.
>or that can choose for itself to slam the breaks on
Given the possibility that this feature could save your life or another driver/pedestrian's life, I don't see a strong objection to this. Driving is one of the deadliest activities that we tolerate as a society and the more we can do to reduce the risk the better. I agree with everything else though, I don't want an iPhone on wheels.
It's an empirical question what the ratio of false positives to true positives is. If the ratio is 1 to 10000, for example, I think that's tolerable and a net positive. You also have to account for humans making similar mistakes.
But humans aren't always logical. Especially when it comes to low probability events that have a high impact if they do occur. Like plane crashes, or to a lesser degree car crashes.
Yeah but in this case, the impact is the same whether you die from human error or automation error. I would rather reduce the overall probability of death by 50% even if probability death by malfunctioning equipment goes up by 1%.
it can also end your life or another driver's or pedestrian's life; slamming the brakes on is how a tesla model s caused an 8-car pileup on the bay bridge a couple of months ago, though astoundingly that somehow failed to kill anybody
generally speaking individual people are better at choosing risk tradeoffs than governments are, both because they know more about their own situations and because their incentives are better aligned
this is why liberal societies are not only much wealthier but also have much higher life expectancy than authoritarian societies. but governments aren't uniquely corrupt; they're just organizations with great unaccountable power, a somewhat more extreme version of any large corporation. we shouldn't entrust ford or tesla with the ability to kill with impunity any more than we should entrust the fbi with it, or for that matter pinkerton or peabody or pullman or the teamsters
so you should be able to freely choose which slamming-on-the-brakes software to run on your own car, or to run none at all
> it can also end your life or another driver's or pedestrian's life; slamming the brakes on is how a tesla model s caused an 8-car pileup on the bay bridge a couple of months ago
Come one... I thought I was on a scientifically-minded website. That's not how things work. It's like saying seatbelts are bad because they sometimes trap people in burning cars. Yeah, that's true, but it happens orders of magnitude less than crashing and splattering your brains across the highway if you aren't wearing one. That's the point x)
> this is why liberal societies are not only much wealthier but also have much higher life expectancy than authoritarian societies
Worth noting this is referring to classic liberalism where individual rights and freedoms are a top property, not modern liberalism where universal rights are protected by larger governments and laws that limit individual freedoms in the name of the greater good
> If you want to convert more people to <product>, start building some that I'm remotely interested in.
This is such a peak HN comment. The best part is that the author admits they’re a tiny minority. If they are a minority, isn’t it rational to ignore them and make something the majority wants?
Top HN comments will tell you all kinds of wild things about what HN commenters think are essential to succeed. For example, client software should never be written in electron and never contain telemetry if it wants to succeed. Most successful text editor used by 75% of all developers? That’s VS Code, written in electron and chock full of privacy busting telemetry.
I’m reminded of the top comment on the original thread revealing Dropbox, asking “why would I want this when I can simply use ssh + curlftpfs + git”. I’m sure many HN users are capable of doing that, and yet Dropbox found more than a few takers in the real world.
At this point I honestly believe that the top HN comment talking about a product is useful to read because it’s going to be the opposite of correct in every way.
This thread is filled with “EVs don’t work because they don’t cater to my outlier use case today”. Firstly, you’re an outlier. EVs do well for the majority whose commute is less than 300 miles. Secondly, they don’t need to cater to outliers today, they can gradually fill niches as they become more mainstream.
> The best part is that the author admits they’re a tiny minority. If they are a minority, isn’t it rational to ignore them and make something the majority wants?
I didn't see any data either way, so it remains to be seen if s/he is really in minority. Even sales number might be bogus for approx. the same reasons why A/B might be bogus. “Most consumers buy EVs with touchscreens, therefore they want touchscreens”. No, they don't, given choice they would choose differently. The big problem, which GP pointed correctly, is lack of decent choice, and it follows TFA.
> This thread is filled with “EVs don’t work because they don’t cater to my outlier use case today”. Firstly, you’re an outlier. EVs do well for the majority whose commute is less than 300 miles. Secondly, they don’t need to cater to outliers today, they can gradually fill niches as they become more mainstream.
They either need to fill the niches by 2035, or “EV transformation” will be a failure for a significant chunk of population, who will feel let down by whoever decreed that they need to change without providing viable alternative (solving existing problems within their purchasing power). Currently it doesn't take much to fall outside scope of the market: for example it's enough that you have 3 kids aged 4, 2, 0 and carrier fitting drastically reduces your choice (or bumps the price beyond reachabilty). EV won't happen if you can't be a low to mid income 5-people family, for whom lack of car means significant degradation of living standard.
Additionally, the risk exposure of owning an EV is pretty bad. The initial cost is extremely high, the immediate depreciation is high, fluctuating energy costs impact TCO, fast chargers are effectively more expensive than petrol here limiting long range economy, longevity data is fairly limited, there are serious difficulties getting them repaired and the complexity results in reliability issues. At this point I don't know anyone who's bought an EV who didn't eventually replace it with another vehicle, apart from one guy who has a Model S as a drive ornament and never uses it.
Seems like a poor investment. I'll stick with my 2014 Citroen which I can replace entirely for the first 20 nanoseconds of depreciation if I buy an EV. And the 5 year fuel cost is paid for by the second 20 nanoseconds of depreciation :)
>Additionally, the risk exposure of owning an EV is pretty bad.
I'm not sure where you're getting that data from, maybe it's different where you live.
> The initial cost is extremely high, the immediate depreciation is high
I dispute that the initial cost "extremely high". Higher, yes, but those prices are coming down. The depreciation here in Ireland is a lot less than a traditional ICE car. My 3 year-old Mini Electric had lost a lot less, percentage-wise, than the comparative ICE model when I traded it in recently. My service costs for those 3 years were zero.
> fast chargers are effectively more expensive than petrol here limiting long range economy
The key word in that is probably "here". In Ireland, I can do 300 miles per €25 of fast charge. My previous diesel car would have cost €50 for the equivalent distance.
Have you had the opportunity to charge your EV at home? I think in most countries, charging your EV at home is the only way to make EV cheaper to drive than ICE.
I live in an apartment building with chargers in the underground carpark, so that's where I usually charge. It's cheaper than public chargers, but not quite as cheap as a home one.
Having said that, fast charging is still cheaper than running an ICE, as I mentioned in the parent comment.
I don't think we can universally say that fast charging is still cheaper than ICE, this statement will not apply everywhere in the world. In most EU countries I've been to or lived in, fast charging was more expensive than driving an ICE car with an economy engine. The cost of public charging in my home country for example equals to a fuel consumption of 6.5L/100km in cost, while an economy ICE car consumes less than that.
"Some"? Try "most". I've never seen anybody outside HN and environmental communities who think of EVs in the context of saving the environment. Indeed, everybody I know use their EVs in very environmentally-unfriendly ways such as using fast charging often.
I too would love a vehicle that is both energy efficient and not designed solely as a way to extract as much money from me as possible, but sadly the corporatists who run our world have decided that we can't have such things as it would mean some very rich people would get richer less fast, which is the one thing that's truly not allowed in any circumstances the world today.
Car companies know full well there's a huge market of people just like us that want exactly the vehicle you're describing, but it would make them less money than the subscriptions on wheels garbage they're forcing on us now, so get ready for a future where every car is over $100K and costs $10K a year in subscriptions.
I feel that most modern vehicles are designed and built purely to make as much money as possible, rather than to actually a good, reliable, maintainable vehicle. And it works, because the average consume either doesn't care or is easily to manipulate.
If you want to convert more people to EVs, start building some that I'm remotely interested in. That and invest into solid state batteries, I'm mostly waiting for that too. Solid state batteries would solve most of the issues with EV tech.
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