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 :)

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.)

Lifetime 172 mpg over 60,000 miles!

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.)

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)

Give them another generation or two, and they might reach the point you're describing. But they ain't there yet.

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.

REV4.

  - it's a Rav4
  - it's an EV
  - it revs
  - it's a revolution

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.

Toyota press people don't like people calling it the Beezey Forks. But much like the XBone, once you hear the name, it sticks.

There must be some solid reason as to why mid-capacity batteries in a hybrid don't make economic sense for car companies.

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.

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.

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.

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".

Sadly it never made it to market.

BTW, the volt was advertised/promoted as a serial hybrid, which was a really interesting idea ... right up till it shipped and it wasn't.

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).

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.

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 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.

Tesla is far and away more of a smartphone on wheels than any other car.

I'd be okay with this if they weren't f'ing it up.

Put Lidar in there and just get it right. Stop w/ this non-sense.

Personally, I'll never trust their self-driving product for anything more than lane-keeping unless they incorporate LIDAR

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.

Maybe it is, but not today.

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)

I agree a combo seems like the way forward.

Computers are nowhere near the capability of our brains in terms of image processing, object identification, path anticipation etc.

Until these things improve, self driving cars need to compensate for this gap with more data inputs to be reliable.

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.

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.

Tesla FSD needs better planning strategies when faced with unusual obstructions like novel construction zone diversions. LIDAR can'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 disambiguate a LEO from any random person, nor can it translate hand gestures into intent.

The long tail of driving is dealing with the extremely obscure and yet blatantly straightforward tasks. LIDAR is useful for none of them.

For item recognition the resolution gets low quick though with range.

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.

Examples:

https://twitter.com/gbrulte/status/1395356317410287617

https://electrek.co/2020/06/29/tesla-spotted-testing-prototy...

Waymo talks about using LIDAR on their gesture recognition system: https://blog.wing.comhttps//blog.waymo.com/2022/02/utilizing...

If it can't make sense of something as simple as that, why would I trust it with hazards?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/teslas-can-be-tricked-into-sto...

(Self-driving seems to me to be somewhere you absolutely want as much defense in depth and redundant sensors as possible.)

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.

There are even people in this very comment section that think that way ;)

Now, that's an EV I'd consider buying.

But you can just turn off all internet connections and go on your way.

I believe there would be a huge market for a simple (but with safety equipment) golf cart style electric car.

My next car will definitely be an electric truck, but I agree, I want simplicity and probably wont get it.

https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/statistics-and-an...

Needless to say, almost no car in Europe has it. Simple upgrades to the model do not require an approval for manufacture.

French cars are total trash. This is a given. New cars are total trash would require more datapoints.

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…

https://www.classic-trader.com/en/magazine/peugeot-205-gti-b...

Pretty opiniated statement.

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.

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)

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crit%27air

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.

So modern cars have millions of new shiny sensors, but cannot get accurate information on the fuel tank, something my old shitty car reliable can?

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.

Otherwise it was, like all things back in the good old days, incredibly precise +/- 10%

The sad thing is, if todays values are worse.

Going uphill? Gauge says 1/4 tank left.

Steep downhill? Out of gas.

Not sure which end the pump was on, but I never ran out despite what the gauge would say.

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.

Hey, but I'm a dreamer.

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.

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-electric-passenger-tu...

https://electrek.co/2023/03/22/wink-motors-test-drive-electr...

https://www.arcimoto.com/fuv

I don't think most people are actually interested in a three wheel officially-a-motorcycle-but-effectively-a-tiny-car.

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.

I'm gonna say no. I deal with months of snow and slush and a few miles of "70mph" (really 85+mph) highway.

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.

As far as what I'd actually like, a Chinese maker already made it but I don't imagine it coming to the US ever - https://insideevs.com/news/614218/wuling-hong-guang-mini-ev-...

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.

(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.)

[0] https://www.citroen.fr/ami

[1] https://www.renault.fr/vehicules-electriques/twizy.html

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.

[1]:https://www.state.nj.us/mvc/pdf/license/drivermanual.pdf

[2]:https://www.state.nj.us/mvc/license/youngadult.htm

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.

https://aptera.us/

I’m not sure the prices I found (450k lira, 350k francs, and 4000 marks) are all correct though.

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.

[1] https://www.hotcars.com/cheapest-new-cars-for-2023/#2023-nis...

[2] https://www.finder.com/gas-prices

[3] https://www.lendingtree.com/auto/calculators/payment/

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.

[1] https://www.hotcars.com/cheapest-new-cars-for-2023/#2023-nis...

[2] https://www.finder.com/gas-prices

[3] https://www.lendingtree.com/auto/calculators/payment/

https://ecofriend.com/5-neighborhood-electric-vehicles.html

Not in any way relevant either. Semis could “do a job” and be properly accounted for in infrastructure damage still.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Example: https://www.miniusa.com/model/electric-hardtop.html

They all do seem to have some sort of screen though, sorry.

Some Android Auto setups are bad either way, though, tbh.

As for why in the US: literally too many kids being killed by their parents in SUVs and trucks [2].

[1] https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/EN/Articles/StV/Roadtraffic/...

[2] https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/110th-congress...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

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 haven’t priced out what replacing that little motor will cost someday.

And yes, it definitely makes parking in a tight spot easier.

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.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/03/the-danger-of-bl...

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/rearview-cameras-reduce-pol...

Something had to give, and that thing was visibility.

[1]:https://youtu.be/Vs0HCITcP-4?t=936

This was my first car after getting my driver's license so I'm afraid I'll never be able to park in a car without it...

Is what you just asked. Safety features are just that: they enhance passenger and pedestrian safety because humans make mistakes.

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.

Frankly I think all cars should come with those birdseye camera systems - it's 4 cameras and makes parallel parking a breeze.

Also: the backup camera is very nice. I can survive without one but it is oh so nice. I can hook up a hitch in one go.

The MX-30 EV is very expensive and has a tiny battery and consequently terrible driving range. It’s a city-only vehicle.

The Japanese auto industry, more than anywhere else, is on a burning platform.

Why arguably? The Leaf is awesome. Nissan blazed the trail with bidirectional charging.

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.

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.e. the underdog who didn't have a well oiled money printer jeopardize by bringing self-competing EVs to market.

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.

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.

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.....

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.

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.

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-fsd-causes-8-car-pile-up-on-sf-ba...

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 magic; 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

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)

So you went on a sci-minded website just for claiming unproved statements (seatbelt point is proved though)?

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

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.

You can already buy lifepo4 cells, I've thought about making a boat, but time and money etc.

But this is about the masses, the Toyota Camry sells well, and I'm sure those same people will eat up the Toyota Camry EV when it comes out.

And the factory service manual is available for free. Aside from HV parts, most parts are directly orderable from the service center as well.

I assume HV == High Voltage, if that's the case isn't that basically all the important stuff. I.e. the bits that do the actual automobile things.

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.

[0] https://insideevs.com/news/656775/tesla-switch-48v-voltage-s...

I would just love to see winches and stuff at 48v, a whole lot of things would just be dramatically less awkward.

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.

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.

What's more complicated about taking care of a car today?

Oil, oil filter, transmission fluid, air filter, maybe differential fluid, spark plugs. All cars today have these in fact cars today don't have distributor caps, spark plug wires, and power steering fluid.[3]

So what is more complicated about performing maintenance? How was it easier in the past? I can't think of a required maintenance task that exists now but didn't exist in the past and isn't a replacement for something.

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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. Here's a NY times article about how cars are now (in 2012) lasting more than 200k miles.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-k...

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) before 120k miles. Anecdotal but again Honda and Toyota were so popular the US government made Japan limit the number of cars coming in.[3]

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-01-28-fi-1076-s...

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Newer cars are less complex in key areas, including less maintenance [6]

- 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 pumps because of EPS racks. This also eliminates hydraulic lines

- Throttle by wire which eliminates the throttle cable that would get stretched out and sometimes break.

- 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] I was also going to mention less oil changes but the argument there would have been massive. Oils are so much better than they've ever been that as long as you aren't burning it 10k / 1yr is probably for most people, 5k / 1yr for those that are worried.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

No one is repairing an alternator, vacuum tube(what car has them), or a control module.

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

I haven’t analyzed the whole world, but in the developed parts of Europe, EV fuel costs are clearly cheaper than ICE

compared to gas?

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.