The Car, Reinvented • Hacker News Board

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#31

Post by mbreese » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

chris_va wrote: post #26

> First, the skateboard and the upper body could be built separately. Maybe not at the same place (a handful of skateboards will fit perfectly in a shipping container for completion thousands of miles away). I hate to be critical, but this really reminds me of a 1950s "visions of the future" piece more than a practical design choice. For example, the skateboard is not a new concept [1], and there are reasons you don'…

Not knowing anything about how a car is actually built... how does the "skateboard" concept differ from what VW has in their modular platforms? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform

It is a difference of just how independent the "skateboard" is from the top?

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#32

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #24

Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options. Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's…

it'll work better for some people than others. the only stuff I (deliberately) leave in my car is a tire pressure gauge and a bicycle pump, along with the spare tire and related tools that came with the vehicle. if it's not my car and I'm allowed to just ditch it and get another one whenever there's a problem, I wouldn't need any of that stuff.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#33

Post by derefr » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #9

LeonM wrote: post #5

> That will require a major overhaul of technologies like the above-mentioned CAN-bus that is four decades old and employed in every car (including, believe it or not, in a Tesla). I don't understand why the author keeps banging on about CAN bus being an old standard. So what? CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed?

Yup. I don't get why people love to berate older tech. I mean, HTTP is quite old. and CAN is a solid piece of tech. Ultra reliable, fast and low wire count. It's controllers are cheap and reliable.

HTTP1.0 is old. But we're nearing HTTP3.0 now. Not that HTTP1.0 has gone away, nor would it need to; but for the devices that need the features it offers, the newer versions are better.

I think the author is pointing at that concept, with the idea that CAN hasn't evolved over time in the same way as HTTP. Ideally there'd be a CAN2.0 for the cars that want it, that's backwards-compatible with CAN1.0 readers/etc.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#34

Post by frosted-flakes » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

bttrfl wrote: post #25

If we could start from scratch, shouldn't cars be made of plastic to reduce weight?

Wouldn't that increase weight? Steel is much stronger and not much heavier, so it can be made very thin while still being strong (unibody). Also, it would make recycling cars much more difficult.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#35

Post by knolax » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #24

Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options. Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's…

> Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options

One could say the same thing about clothes.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#36

Post by na85 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #19

The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying. I had a truck with a hard to reproduce software bug where the electric steering assist would just turn off. Imagine going down a canyon road towing 5000 lbs and the steering suddenly gets extremely hard and the wheel rips from your hands. I had it happen. Luckily there is still a mechanical shaft going to the steering rack.

>The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying.

Indeed. I have zero confidence that the company who thought Catalina was ready to ship can deliver a safe drive by wire system. That's not the kind of system where you can just patch the bugs out later.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#37

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

mrwesleycrusher wrote: post #29

LeonM wrote: post #5

> That will require a major overhaul of technologies like the above-mentioned CAN-bus that is four decades old and employed in every car (including, believe it or not, in a Tesla). I don't understand why the author keeps banging on about CAN bus being an old standard. So what? CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed?

Because Flex Ray is better for real time systems and has been around over 10 years. Don't get me wrong, CAN and LIN have their place but CAN has a lot of jitter, especially in a car when you can kinda guess how often an ECU is going to spit out messages to the other ones. The only thing you lose with FlexRay is now your controllers have to speak flexray, which is a more complex standard.

[deleted]

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#38

Post by qznc » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #12

dbcurtis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAN is great for real time control, and a huge number of embedded components support it. I don’t see it going away any time soon. That said, it does not have a lot of bandwidth. There will need to be something higher bandwidth to support modern info-tainment systems. A second, high-bandwidth network with less strict real-time requirements.

what high bandwith requirements do exist for an infotainment system that you would want in a car? Navigation and playing music? Both are done by other systems as CAN already.

Cars are getting more sensors (radar, video, lidar, ultrasonic) and increasingly fuse the information. I guess the future here is a hybrid though. "Big" data via Ethernet and status via CAN.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#39

Post by kanox » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

frosted-flakes wrote: post #21

geewee wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely don't want people to "hack" their cars and drive on the same road as me.

"Hacking" of cars has been always extremely popular, and you share the roads with people who modify their cars every time you drive. Why should that change now?

The status quo in car safety is pretty bad. A big hope for autonomous vehicles is that they could dramatically reduce accidents.

Re: The Car, Reinvented

#40

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

Hearing car companies talk about sharing and renting is always suspicious, because it means on the surface they sell far less. This is what ought to happen: cars loose glamor and become a cheaper low-maintaince rental appliance without such huge a industry behind it, but they companies will go do kicking and screaming before that happens.

Let the batteries get cheaper, let there be more public transportation (classic variety and municipal bike sharing including cargo wagons, etc.), and hopefully the industry implodes on itself as described above.

And screw all this wall-e-esque infotainment stuff.