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Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

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Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#61

Post by jdmg94 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

“cast bodies might be more difficult to fix in the event of major damage, such as a crash.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a car NOT be written off after “major damage”. The industry already doesn’t bother to fix cars, they just get scrapped, so I don’t see what the actual difference is.

In my 3rd world home country most cars are bought on copart as "salvage", they get fixed up and usually get ran well above the 100k miles, this change will undoubtedly reduce the opportunity to give new life to salvage cars while making it more dangerous for the people who have no other choice. In the end this will create a lot more waste than we had before, its a shame because Toyota's are the most highly regarded cars where I am from

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#62

Post by nine_k »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #9
bitbangboom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I feel like this is the next stepping stone on a path we have been on for years. I remember Rich Rebuilds got rear ended in his Rivian and the total repair bill was somewhere around $30K if I remember right. I really do wish repairability was considered more not less, but with safety standards, manufacturing costs, etc it seems like cars are racing towards the cliff of just “discarding” if they have a problem ju…

With EVs this problem is getting a lot worse. In latest-gen EVs the battery pack is a stressed member of the frame. Any type of collision that distorts the frame will also imply a deformation of the battery module, which means instant write-off. So if you think about it - if you first decide you need to go down the "structural battery" route to save cost and weight, you've already lost repairability if the frame is b…

Don't you lose repairability anyway if the frame is significantly bent?

AFAICT the actual batteries inside the "structural battery" are separate much smaller cells [1] that can at least be recovered from the bent frame and reused if undamaged.

Consider four factors: normal car performance, car's safety in a crash, car's repairability after a crash, and car's price. They all work against each other; no wonder that repairability is sacrificed to optimize the other three. (In a military vehicle the price is usually sacrificed instead.)

[1]: https://insideevs.com/news/323682/rare-look-inside-a-tesla-m...

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#63

Post by Tanoc »

Environmentally friendly my ass. Any minor damage and the car will be toast because the insurance company will total it. Even if it gets back on the road it'll have a salvage title, something that's poison to a car and ensures that it ends up either crushed or parted out. These are already problems with unibody cars thanks to how quickly insurance adjusters will take any deformation of the core unibody, even just cosmetic damage like the C-pillar having a dent, and call the car a total loss.

There are more than a few A-body Oldsmobile Cutlass Cieras and Buick Centuries from the late 1980s that I still see driven around where I live. The environmental impact they've had has been far less than any of these cast-body cars will be because an A-body is a cockroach that will never die no matter how many times you hit something with it. They were produced decades ago and have long since offset their initial production impact. Add in all the Chevrolet C-10s, Chevrolet S-10s, Ford Rangers, Suzuki Sidekicks/Geo Trackers, and XJ Jeep Cherokees I see daily and they still have less of an impact environmentally than these disposable cars will have because they can be repaired instead of requiring total replacement.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#64

Post by theGnuMe »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

“cast bodies might be more difficult to fix in the event of major damage, such as a crash.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a car NOT be written off after “major damage”. The industry already doesn’t bother to fix cars, they just get scrapped, so I don’t see what the actual difference is.

They are scrapped but then usually resold/exported to a cheaper country where they get fixed up and sold there. Maybe the unicast cars will get a lot of duct tape and Bondo.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#67

Post by bitbangboom »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #12
bitbangboom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I feel like this is the next stepping stone on a path we have been on for years. I remember Rich Rebuilds got rear ended in his Rivian and the total repair bill was somewhere around $30K if I remember right. I really do wish repairability was considered more not less, but with safety standards, manufacturing costs, etc it seems like cars are racing towards the cliff of just “discarding” if they have a problem ju…

Wonder if that's the same Rivian that was in a YouTube video that popped up a couple of days ago where some specialty repair shop was able to use nontraditional repair methods to fix the damage at a fraction of the quoted $41,000 repair cost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKPfy5djvLc

Yeah iirc it happened twice to him, the first was a rivian authorized repair at the high price tag and the second was an alternate repair method they tried out at a much smaller price tag

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#68

Post by fbdab103 »

zdragnar wrote: post #55
jgalt212 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do miss physical keys. Replacement cost for an Audi key fob is over $700. And it extends to broader market brands. My mom's Mazda replacement fob cost $500. WTF is going on here?

That's the cost for integration with the immobilizer. Car keys and fobs have chips that signal to the onboard computer, and may use a variety of techniques such as rolling codes to make the cars harder to steal. Gone are the days when you can easily hotwire a car by yanking and touching random wires together from the steering column. Kia and Hyundai are among the last brands to be selling cars without them, and that'…

Surely the BOM on the fobs is at most tens of dollars. Hard to see a $700 cost justifiable as anything but greed against a captive audience.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#69

Post by cityofdelusion »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #11
tifik wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the car is written off doesnt mean it gets scrapped though. It usually gets auctioned, and if its fixable, some mechanic can buy it for peanuts and put it back on the market.

So why the write off nonsense. Just send it to a repair shop directly and if it cannot be repaired, then initiate a write off. Sounds like extra steps for the profit of middle men

Cars bought at auction have a salvage title, and they are not repaired to a level that would be considered acceptable by most people. Those cars are usually mechanics projects using junkyard parts and zip ties.

The other thing is that generally, a person is free to buy their car back from the insurance company instead of taking the cash from the totaling. That is when they will discover they can't just send it to a shop and get it repaired for any reasonable amount, plus the salvage title means no one else wants it.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#70

Post by petee »

Tanoc wrote: post #63

Environmentally friendly my ass. Any minor damage and the car will be toast because the insurance company will total it. Even if it gets back on the road it'll have a salvage title, something that's poison to a car and ensures that it ends up either crushed or parted out. These are already problems with unibody cars thanks to how quickly insurance adjusters will take any deformation of the core unibody, even just cos…

Eh, even now Toyotas have a low threshold for being totaled, the parts are just so expensive. My 2014 Tacoma was essentially sideswiped hard; repair was estimated at $12,000 but was deemed totalled, insu paid me $17,000. It is now rotting in a junk yard for the past 4 years (I check the old VIN time to time)
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