191–200 of 219 posts
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…
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> Right to repair should be a full set of instructions for "everything" Tesla provides that (and more) for free: • Service Manual, Parts Manual, and Body Repair • Tooling Catalog and Wiring Diagrams • Service Bulletins • Labor Codes and Times • Service Mode Diagnostic Software (on the touchscreen)
Does Tesla sell parts? If so, do you need a Tesla tool to program/activate them? Electronics fail more often than mechanical parts and even today with independent auto shops having access to manufacturers programming software you still have to go to the dealer for some things
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It's legal to build it, but at least in Texas it's not legal to drive it on the highway as you won't be able to get registration. https://ftp.txdmv.gov/pub/txdot-info/vtr/title_manual_book_4... >On page 376, under 'Eligibility for Title' it says "Homemade vehicles are not eligible for title or registration. Homemade vehicles are described as vehicles that were not previously manufactured by a NHTSA approved manufactu…
Georgia is extremely friendly with it, and I know lots of people with garage projects. You'll frequently see these cars on the road. (I also know people building planes in their garage. I think Georgia just has a lot of this.) https://dor.georgia.gov/assembled-and-unconventional-vehicle...
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Would be nice, but the economics would be kinda wack with how much of the cost is in the battery pack. Especially when companies like tesla put the same pack in all their cars and determine your "capacity" in software. I'd imagine that would either change, or people would start buying up the lowest-cost EVs just to pull the battery out of them (like "shucking" external drives) and resell all the other parts.
> Especially when companies like tesla put the same pack in all their cars and determine your "capacity" in software. This is an enormously exaggerated statement, bordering on entirely false. Yes, the company has done this from time to time, including on some current Model S/X models, but the vast, vast majority of Tesla cars sold (the 3/Y) almost always have a different sized battery pack in reality, not just in sof…
Any chance you have a source for this info?
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That situation calls for an entirely separate set of legislation.
It calls for the ability of the general public to be able to repair their vehicles, so that anyone with such a vehicle can fix such problems. What alternative would you even propose? The only entity with the ability to feasibly fix the bug is defunct and bankrupt, leaving them both judgment proof and with no resources to develop a patch. The only people with the incentive to spend resources fixing it are the people w…
I don’t think people should be forced to self-manage software updates on multi-ton machinery.
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That is the exact use case where solar roofs on EV’s become very useful. However you can “jump” EV’s, supply power to their 12v system and then charge off of another cars 120v plug, or a portable generator etc.
Solar roofs provide very little power, generating less than 5 miles a day in charge.
It’s a lot more interesting on the ~8m2 roof of a van / full sized SUV than a ~1.5m2 center roof of a car.
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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.
Continental America averages on the order of 4.5kWh/m^2/day total solar irradiance. A clean, car roof sized solar panel in direct sunlight all day would be good enough to offset parasitic drain with maybe enough left over to charge a phone or two but not much else. Not worth the cost (or the variance given you’re not always going to park in direct sunlight for 8+ hours).
The recent solar Prius has a small roof and gets a few miles of range per day. Things get more interesting on a van/full sized SUV with a far larger roof.
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In addition to all the legal restrictions on "reverse engineering" (i.e. examining how stuff works) and circumventing DRM, as technology advances, using technical means to restrict otherwise legal end-user activities is becoming a big problem. That you're legally allowed to repair your tractor doesn't help much if the on-board secure TPM chip flags your replacement parts as counterfeit, locks the engine, and reports…
This is something I've wondered about. For cars there is a bunch of regulatory stuff that might preven you from doing this, but I believe the regulatory burden on tractors is much less. Why has no one just built a full on control system swap for tractors? Yeah, the OEM control board won't recognize your replacement part. Or it won't tell you whats actually wrong. Etc. Etc. But if you just replace it with an entirely…
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Because they are apples and oranges and Tesla is using 48v! Jumping a 12v lead acid battery with 48v is a fantastic way to completely fry the ICE vehicle.
Tesla has future plans for 48V, but they're still on 12V today.
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It calls for the ability of the general public to be able to repair their vehicles, so that anyone with such a vehicle can fix such problems. What alternative would you even propose? The only entity with the ability to feasibly fix the bug is defunct and bankrupt, leaving them both judgment proof and with no resources to develop a patch. The only people with the incentive to spend resources fixing it are the people w…
I’d propose something like the FDIC. Every car sold pays into an insurance fund that, if a company collapses, takes over to maintain access to software updates for the reasonable lifespan of the vehicles. I don’t think people should be forced to self-manage software updates on multi-ton machinery.
That's still a third party. Where are they supposed to get parts or source code after the company fails? It could be a car company in Asia with no engineering team in your country. The reason they failed could be a natural disaster that wiped out their facility.
The ability to make repairs has to be in the hands of the public before something happens to them. And it has to be the public and not some government filing cabinet to demonstrate that whatever they provide actually allows it to be done.
A clear example would be that they rotate the signing keys without providing the new ones to anyone else. Third party mechanics would notice this immediately; government bureaucrats may not.
> I don’t think people should be forced to self-manage software updates on multi-ton machinery.
They're not forced to do it any more than they are now. They can have someone else do it for them -- anyone else, in fact.
The problem right now is that the one someone else is trying to keep a monopoly on being able to do it, which creates a single point of failure in the event that anything happens to them.