Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#81

Post by codedokode » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #54

valine wrote: post #12

This is very troubling to read. I can understand that tampering with an automobile might pose safety concerns. I can also understand that Tesla is trying to protect its brand. That being said, the fact that Tesla is monitoring individual cars in a way that they can detect when you're used the Ethernet port is seriously Orwellian. I can only imagine this will get worse as cars become more autonomous.

The ability to potentially break your car has never stopped any other car in history from having an accessible engine compartment. This is basically in tandem with the John Deere story - the consequences of proprietary software bleed into the physical world and cause an incredible amount of difficulty for people who do not even recognize what the problem is. Tesla can only get away with all this because of how digita…

Also the ability to replace software would allow criminals to bypass anti-theft mechanisms.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#82

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

qume wrote: post #66

wlesieutre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that this is true of any car in a car dealer lot. But it only matters as a comparison when a car is potentially at end-of-life, and whether it stays on the road or gets shoved in a junkyard and replaced with a new one is an open question. If somebody decides to replace their 2013 model, it's basically 100% odds of staying on the road, and that car being on the road maybe represents one less new car that could ha…

I would wager that 80% of cars that are crushed (which weren't in an accident) could be repaired (if broken) or 'fixed up' to operate better than the last owner thought possible for less than a days work and perhaps a few hundred dollars. I do appreciate your point, but I think people are far too afraid of older cars and they are scrapped too soon. I was hoping to convince some folk in this tech community that old ca…

You may have luxury of feeling that way -- most people do not. The average age of the US auto fleet is significantly older than it once was. 10+ year old cars are like 5-7x more common than they were 10-15 year ago.

Hell, I drive a 2003 model year car that isn't going anywhere.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#83

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

gioele wrote: post #58

ryandrake wrote: post #45

One of the things that makes a car valuable is having a healthy aftermarket. It looks like, from this article anyway, Tesla is doing anything they can to make sure there is no aftermarket for their vehicles. To me, a car that you can't service yourself is worthless. A car that needs the manufacturer's permission to activate is not your car--it's owned by the manufacturer. And, when the manufacturer places a threateni…

> To me, a car that you can't service yourself is worthless. A car that needs the manufacturer's permission to activate is not your car--it's owned by the manufacturer. How many cars sold in 2016 can be activated without the manufacturer's permission? If you break your engine control module, who, if not the original manufacturer, can provide you a new one that works for your car? (Serious question, no sarcasm.)

> How many cars sold in 2016 can be activated without the manufacturer's permission?

What do you mean with manufacturer's permission? The parts are sold independently of the vehicle as far as I'm aware. You can buy loads of ECUs for modern cars on the internet and there is no consequence of installing it.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#84

Post by userbinator » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #76

zanny wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to potentially break your car has never stopped any other car in history from having an accessible engine compartment. This is basically in tandem with the John Deere story - the consequences of proprietary software bleed into the physical world and cause an incredible amount of difficulty for people who do not even recognize what the problem is. Tesla can only get away with all this because of how digita…

Replacing hardware parts and replacing software is diferent. Unofficial "jaibreak" software updates can contain errors or backdoors or intentionally written malicious functions programmed to be acivated on a special day.

Unofficial replacement parts can also be of lower quality and fail just as dangerously if not more so (e.g. a suspension part can break and a wheel literally falls off.)

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#85

Post by teacup50 » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #72

teacup50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iterate quickly? Hardware is not software. The environmental cost alone of building a new car is outrageous. In addition to which, the SV2.0 "iterate quickly" ideal turns consumers into guinea pigs for half-baked and half-broken products that will just be updated out from under them.

And yet Apple produces a new $500+ phone every single year, intentionally leaving behind customers who are still using hardware more than 3 years old. I would say that the software iteration business model is making inroads into the hardware market as well, including in the automotive space. The solution to your guinea pigs point is a lease model, in which customers get a new car every two years to stay on top of dev…

What you're proposing isn't a good thing. It's an ugly, environmentally unfriendly, anti-consumer model.

How many people are debt-financing their $800+ iPhone? How much value is that extracting from people, and what are the opportunity costs for them?

What's the environmental impact of phones becoming nothing more than expensive bricks after 2-3 years due to lack of vendor support, coupled platform DRM that prevents re-use?

What happens when market choices disappear along with the very concept of ownership?

This dystopian ideal of inescapable corporatism may be a commercially viable, but it's not remotely ethical.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#86

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #45

One of the things that makes a car valuable is having a healthy aftermarket. It looks like, from this article anyway, Tesla is doing anything they can to make sure there is no aftermarket for their vehicles. To me, a car that you can't service yourself is worthless. A car that needs the manufacturer's permission to activate is not your car--it's owned by the manufacturer. And, when the manufacturer places a threateni…

> I think we're going to start seeing "jailbroken" Teslas soon after they start falling out of their warranty period.

You sure about this? Because I am sure many of the Teslas are just leases and with how the calculation looks it's more interesting to get a new car at the end of the leasing period than to try to buy it out.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#87

Post by bavcyc » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #4

The "paywalled workshop manual" requirements are common to every manufacturer. The only reason service manuals are available for free online for other modern cars is that they're ripped from the manufacturer's pay portal, not that the manufacturer is supplying them out of the goodness of their hearts. And the service prices are pretty much in line with other luxury cars at the price point. Not that that really defend…

Although some manufacturer's are including service with the price of a car. If you drive 15k miles a year with oil changes every 3k (or 5k) miles, then you are spending $60-100 /year for oil changes. Depending on the vehicle you might be paying for a tune up and mileage interval servicing as well.

$400-$800 isn't too bad for basic maintenance.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#88

Post by mikeash » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #38

Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@20.8 mpg city when new that's 10,000 gallons of fuel for 200k miles or ~30,000$ while gas is cheap. A Tesla model 3 (To Be Unveiled March 31st) is 35,000$, costs far less (~1/10th) for fuel, and is not 22 years old. That's why people care about electric cars.

10k gallons costs you $18,000 or less right now "while gas is cheap" - for a TCO of $20,000 in 20 years (plus cheap-ish repairs) - and you are driving a Merc. The model 3 (once you can actually get hold of it) will cost you $35,000 up front, plus about $7,000 in electricity for 200k miles at prices of 13-15c/kWh, plus about two battery replacements - battery lifetime is 8 years or 125k miles - at $10,000ish a pop - f…

The battery warranty is 8 years. Lifetime is not certain at this point but is likely to be longer.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#89

Post by resoluteteeth » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

nbzklr wrote: post #43

lacker wrote: post #18

None of this seems "throwaway" to me. It just means that rather than build a product that ends up being repaired by a distributed army of mechanics, they are going "full stack" and aiming to repair everything in-house. To me that seems like the ideal system - some people like the author might enjoy repairing their own cars, but I would rather not.

Tesla is basically selling a "CAAS" (Car As A Service). More and more (Tech) companies try to lock down their products and protect the customer from himself. It's a worrying pattern. How can that be the ideal system?

As the article notes, they really could make it a service by leasing the cars like other electric cars have been. It's the model where they are supposedly selling the cars, but the cars effectively remain their property, that is particularly troubling.

If you leased the car for 8 years and then returned it, that wouldn't be so bad, but most people wouldn't want to pay the full retail price of a car only to have it potentially become a paperweight after 8 years.

Re: Why I think Tesla is building throwaway cars

#90

Post by brandmeyer » Sun, Mar 06, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

nraynaud wrote: post #8

Interesting, I work in the wind turbine industry (at the margin, and since one month, I guess I'm an expert), and it's the same, there are interesting sensors and data everywhere, but everything is locked down, and as long as the warranty runs, the owner of the turbine is at the mercy of a very reluctant maker for every maintenance task. The owner can't use any of those very useful sensors to assess the state of the…

And then what happens when the mfr. goes out of business? For example, see Clipper Windpower.