Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#41

Post by lantry » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

tegmark wrote: post #35

echelon wrote: post #4

Since EVs are mechanically simpler, I'd really like to see a return to kit cars. Perhaps you could buy the preassembled chassis and modify the rest of the car as you'd like. Maybe you could tear down the whole thing and rebuild it. In theory this should be super accessible. You might see a whole community spring up over it. It's potentially a huge market ranging from teenagers to retirees. Lots of people love cars an…

this is the ignorance that drives these silly headlines. building these things is very hard. theres all kinds of crazy solvents and adhesives. the pack is structural. the product that tesla builds is fundamentally not well suited to repair or modification and tesla isnt under any obligation, on any level, to prioritize people who like to imagine they could repair or build a tesla over building the most excellent and…

> building these things is very hard

people buying a kit aren't building a tesla, they're building a kit car. When you buy a kit, you're not expecting the same thing you get from a dealership. You're expecting something you can build yourself, which is fundamentally different

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#42

Post by thayne » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

blamazon wrote: post #11

omgJustTest wrote: post #2

You can’t even jump another car with your Tesla, let alone do repairs.

Small nit: I can 'jump' (read: charge the battery of) other cars with my model X, as long as the other car is an ICE car. In the frunk there is a panel that pops off and underneath there are (unlabeled) 12V and ground terminals that I can put jumper cables on. However, I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before, I really deeply wish I could have received a jump then.

> I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before

It really seems like EVs should have easily replaceable batteries, so that in situations like that you can just have roadside service bring you a charged battery and swap it out. Or for that matter, charging stations could pre-charge batteries, and you pay to swap your drained battery for a charged one.

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#43

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

runnerup wrote: post #33

blamazon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I've always thought it's a no brainer for any ICE car to have a solar roof. At a minimum it can keep a 12v battery from dying over long parking durations or high parasitic drain, and at best it could like, keep a container refrigerated or something.

I’d rather pay $2,000 less for my Honda HR-V than get a solar roof. But I agree it seems like a very nice option for those willing to pay more for their vehicles.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#44

Post by api » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

Transpire7487 wrote: post #32

No normal person can repair a Tesla, it’s basically a trade secret. My brother is a mechanic and servicing Teslas are a non starter due to the complexity. The notion that I can just download a manual, buy some parts and DIY my own repairs is absolutey ludicrous. The only reason for Tesla to support right to repair is to increase regulatory burden on competitors, stunt innovation and raise costs for their competition.…

EVs could be a gigantic step down in complexity but that doesn’t benefit their manufacturers. It would risk making them a commodity that can be assembled from parts like an old school PC.

Instead the industry is looking at the EV transition as a way to increase costs and decrease customer freedom. This is absolutely artificial and in no way mandated by the technology.

A similar case in computing is what happened with mobile and tablets where a change in form factor allowed lock down to be smuggled in without people asking too many questions. A Mac is now a big overgrown tablet in terms of its CPU and innards but you can install your own OS on a Mac but not an iPad. Why? No technical reason at all.

Right to repair is good but it’s actually less than what we need. We need a huge rebirth of DIY technology and less centralized supplier ecosystems. This may require some regulation but it also requires consumers to stop being so passive and prioritizing shininess and laziness over every single other thing. The “millennial minimalism” era needs to end both as an aesthetic and a framework for consumer-producer relations. (The two are related.)

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#45

Post by morphle » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

Transpire7487 wrote: post #32

No normal person can repair a Tesla, it’s basically a trade secret. My brother is a mechanic and servicing Teslas are a non starter due to the complexity. The notion that I can just download a manual, buy some parts and DIY my own repairs is absolutey ludicrous. The only reason for Tesla to support right to repair is to increase regulatory burden on competitors, stunt innovation and raise costs for their competition.…

I do not agree. The parts of the mechanical drivetrain or the molded plastics can be impossible to obtain before a large number of Teslas have been scrapped and sold for parts. But the battery and electronics can be understood and repaired without schematics. The software reverse engineering is possible. I agree that repairs can be far to time-consuming to be economically viable, but given free labour it can be done.

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#46

Post by blamazon » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

thayne wrote: post #42

blamazon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small nit: I can 'jump' (read: charge the battery of) other cars with my model X, as long as the other car is an ICE car. In the frunk there is a panel that pops off and underneath there are (unlabeled) 12V and ground terminals that I can put jumper cables on. However, I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before, I really deeply wish I could have received a jump then.

> I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before It really seems like EVs should have easily replaceable batteries, so that in situations like that you can just have roadside service bring you a charged battery and swap it out. Or for that matter, charging stations could pre-charge batteries, and you pay to swap your drained battery for a charged one.

In that case I was towing a U-haul trailer, which leads to another thing that probably should exist: trailers with supplemental EV batteries. Not sure if the extra capacity is made up for by the extra weight though.

(For context my car uses maybe ~1.5 - 4.0 times as much power when pulling the various sizes of U-haul cargo trailers)

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#47

Post by Retric » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

runnerup wrote: post #33

blamazon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I've always thought it's a no brainer for any ICE car to have a solar roof. At a minimum it can keep a 12v battery from dying over long parking durations or high parasitic drain, and at best it could like, keep a container refrigerated or something.

I’d rather pay $2,000 less for my Honda HR-V than get a solar roof. But I agree it seems like a very nice option for those willing to pay more for their vehicles.

2k is IMO a poor price point as it’s too much for the minimal utility but not enough for meaningful power. IMO solar roofs are useful at the low end for ~400$ ICE cars could top off their battery and run a solar fan to keep the temperature down when parked in the sun. Not a huge deal, but still a nice luxury feature.

Or a significantly more expensive solar roof could add meaningful highway mileage per year. You both largely offset its cost via less charging and have the option for a low speed crawl to a charging station.

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#48

Post by morphle » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

api wrote: post #44

Transpire7487 wrote: post #32

No normal person can repair a Tesla, it’s basically a trade secret. My brother is a mechanic and servicing Teslas are a non starter due to the complexity. The notion that I can just download a manual, buy some parts and DIY my own repairs is absolutey ludicrous. The only reason for Tesla to support right to repair is to increase regulatory burden on competitors, stunt innovation and raise costs for their competition.…

EVs could be a gigantic step down in complexity but that doesn’t benefit their manufacturers. It would risk making them a commodity that can be assembled from parts like an old school PC. Instead the industry is looking at the EV transition as a way to increase costs and decrease customer freedom. This is absolutely artificial and in no way mandated by the technology. A similar case in computing is what happened with…

When we transition to 4WD in-wheel motors the drivetrain and the moving parts could become standard. The inverters could become programmable. We designed programmable networks of per-battery-cell (dis)charger computers that would take the danger out of clusters of battery cells of unequal batteries. When each battery is wired in parallel, not in series not only can you go from 800 charge cycles to 20000 cycles (lifetime nearly 50 years) but you would eliminate fires and prevent short circuits in the power networks. It would thus be possible to build cars completely from standard parts. Mind you, not a single company has tried this yet, but there is no economical or theoretical impediment to build from off-the-shelf components in the next two decades. EV car kits will be poossible and probably cheaper. After an amateur has build one, for example the Dutch Government RDW would test the car for safety for less than a thousand Euro's, like they already do for car, truck and camper conversions. I remember an Scientific American article in the 90's predicting single mechanic African custom EVs as a future possibility.

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#49

Post by blamazon » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #47

runnerup wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather pay $2,000 less for my Honda HR-V than get a solar roof. But I agree it seems like a very nice option for those willing to pay more for their vehicles.

2k is IMO a poor price point as it’s too much for the minimal utility but not enough for meaningful power. IMO solar roofs are useful at the low end for ~400$ ICE cars could top off their battery and run a solar fan to keep the temperature down when parked in the sun. Not a huge deal, but still a nice luxury feature. Or a significantly more expensive solar roof could add meaningful highway mileage per year. You both…

It's worth noting simple solar 'trickle chargers' can be had for less than 100 bucks, today. They are awesome for such things like additional confidence while overlanding in a remote location, or for a trailer with a winch, or an electric boat lift on a dock without shore power.

Re: Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’

#50

Post by candiddevmike » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

marak830 wrote: post #29

I'm sorry I have seen the thread leads, and I cannot agree with them and think the replies do not get enough notice. Right to repair should be a full set of instructions for "everything" are available. That's it. Give the full specs for everything. If it's code reliant(which wtf), what does it require to work? That's. Fucking. It. We give you rules to say peeps cannot sell what you made, you make it so we can repair…

Right to repair eventually runs head first into security and encryption--how do you allow right to repair and TLS, encryption, secure computing, etc to coexist? Get rid of IoT black boxes like Google Homes? Allow Linux on Xbox?

How do you create secure platforms while also giving consumers the keys to their devices?

(FWIW I'm not advocating against right to repair, I actually hope it helps to get rid of black box IoT devices. My device, my keys, etc)