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The rise of the disposable car

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Re: The rise of the disposable car

#41

Post by Brian_K_White »

yareally wrote: post #31
hindsightbias wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCarCareNut SUVs and smaller trucks are now almost universally moving to 4cyl and 6cyl turbos with iffy CVTs. The channels run by folks with greasy overalls are pretty uniform in saying these vehicles won't last like their predecessors (even the Toyotas).

Is this a genuine sentiment or just people upset that their favorite vehicle won't have a massive gas guzzling engine anymore? There are a number of people that also dislike trucks with aluminum bodies, despite that aluminum alloys can be strong (aircraft use them all the time) and it keeps your truck from turning into a rust bucket after 5 years of snowy winters. Car ownership is not always a rational thing and peop…

Both turbos and cvts are genuinely a reliability downgrade. It's because of fundamental and unavoidable reasons in each case. This applies to all vehicles, old or new, including ones they've already been used in for years like how turbo is a standard part of practically all large deisels.

"a number of reliable auto makers using CVTs for years" is an utterly valueless statement. It says, proves, disproves, or even merely indicates, nothing.

There are countless reasons for any company to do anything, including for a "reliable" automaker to use a less-reliable part or design.

Both turbos and cvts increase gas mileage. Simple as that. That one thing has become so important that it's now worth sacrificing other things to get it.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#42

Post by kube-system »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #23
dragontamer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of 'Totaled' is when a comparable car on the used market can replace your vehicle for less than or equal to the repair costs. As such, it makes no sense to repair a totaled vehicle. You should instead buy a comparable used vehicle. But saying the word 'Disposable' is pretty bad with regards to the headline. It doesn't capture the full effect of what the stats are showing. That is, we are all keeping ve…

> As such, it makes no sense to repair a totaled vehicle. You should instead buy a comparable used vehicle. I sometimes wonder how much the carbon footprint of the auto industry would change if people preferred to fix them instead of throwing the whole thing away just because of a fender bender or an expensive part broke

> instead of throwing the whole thing away

But, that already isn't what happens. A totaled vehicle is almost never thrown away. They're sold for salvage value. Some of them are repaired, and sold as rebuilt vehicles. Others are stripped for parts that are recycled to fix other vehicles. And anything left over is recycled for raw material.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#43

Post by kube-system »

neogodless wrote: post #15
jseliger wrote: post #9

I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time, crash rates plummet, and these kinds of articles come to resemble articles from 1910 about horse-related problems. Humans suck at driving: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall...

Define "close." (Anecdotally, I'm outside Harrisburg, and there are no self-driving cars in... this state? People drive their cars just like cave people did, with their hands on the wheel!) Of note, the article mentions your sentiment near the conclusion: > Perhaps one day we’ll all whizz around in self-driving cars and accidents will be rare. But that’s still a ways off.

> I'm outside Harrisburg

Hell, out there you've still got people using horse and carriage.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#44

Post by notjoemama »

GM requiring Google integration and eliminating Apple Car Play and Android Auto makes me think a brand new model is immediately disposable.

If I have choice removed from me, in particular a choice I very much care about, then I’m going to care about owning that car less. The more that happens the more people may view vehicles as pure utility and much easier to walk away from for any reason, especially repair cost. Who cares whether you replace a Chevrolet with a Ford when they are untouchable boxes?

Insurance companies would love this BYW. If they can find a cheaper alternative that’s another brand, you’ll be reimbursed for that, not what you originally bought.

It certainly looks like many small choices are being made towards automobiles being truly disposable.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#45

Post by sokoloff »

nradov wrote: post #32
dragontamer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of 'Totaled' is when a comparable car on the used market can replace your vehicle for less than or equal to the repair costs. As such, it makes no sense to repair a totaled vehicle. You should instead buy a comparable used vehicle. But saying the word 'Disposable' is pretty bad with regards to the headline. It doesn't capture the full effect of what the stats are showing. That is, we are all keeping ve…

It makes sense to repair a totaled vehicle if you can do most of the repair work yourself instead of paying the market rate. A friend has an older Volkswagen Jetta that was hit from behind at an intersection. There was no frame damage or airbag deployment but the insurance company totaled it because inflation has driven labor charges for simple repairs to ridiculous levels. My friend took the insurance payout and rep…

That also works well when you are willing to accept less than fully restoring the car to the pre-accident condition.

Many people are happy to have a mismatched bumper or hood in exchange for $700 in their pocket.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#46

Post by kube-system »

currymj wrote: post #34
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve been “close” for 10+ years now. We are not close.

5 years ago you couldn't hop in a commercial self-driving taxi in a major US city. Now you can. The progress has been slower than everyone's predictions but it is still substantial.

In 1897, you could hop in a commercial electric taxi in London. Alas, Londoners still have many gasoline cars on the road.

Availability and mass adoption are two very entirely different things.

The time in which people take most commutes by any kind of car is: today... 51% of people commute by car currently. That took 136 years.

'most of the time' for 'most people' is quite a high bar. That's a lot of travel, for about 4 billion people. A few people in Phoenix taking one after a night at the bar doesn't even to begin to scratch that surface.

We're very much still at the 'Carl Benz demoing his horseless carriage' stage of self-driving cars.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#47

Post by vel0city »

yareally wrote: post #31
hindsightbias wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCarCareNut SUVs and smaller trucks are now almost universally moving to 4cyl and 6cyl turbos with iffy CVTs. The channels run by folks with greasy overalls are pretty uniform in saying these vehicles won't last like their predecessors (even the Toyotas).

Is this a genuine sentiment or just people upset that their favorite vehicle won't have a massive gas guzzling engine anymore? There are a number of people that also dislike trucks with aluminum bodies, despite that aluminum alloys can be strong (aircraft use them all the time) and it keeps your truck from turning into a rust bucket after 5 years of snowy winters. Car ownership is not always a rational thing and peop…

CVTs (generally) rely on belts sliding on cones. With more weight, you need more torque, with more torque you get more wear on the internal components. This is a big reason why CVTs have historically targeted smaller cars instead of larger trucks.

When it comes to motor reliability, generally speaking a smaller engine with higher compression running closer to its peak output all the time will have more wear than a slightly larger engine that doesn't have to run at as high of pressures and load percentage. Lower RPMs needed for the same power output means less friction on all the components in the motor. There's a lot of variances in that so it is not exactly a given.

These kind of go away with more modern "eCVTs" which don't rely on belts and hybrid systems which can help even out that peak engine load challenge. But still, turbos will generally reduce your reliability. More moving parts, higher pressures, etc. The questions are, will the increased efficiency balance out the reduced reliability and will the motor reliability be the thing that does the car in at the end.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#48

Post by salad-tycoon »

I just want a cheap, safe dependable car. Anti lock brakes, a couple of air bags, crumple zones, maybe Bluetooth, real dials, two base versions: AWD and non AWD. That’s it. No telephony, no on star, no breathalyzers. I don’t need to play Witcher in it. Just need it to turn on and then off after running around.

I’m holding onto my ancient POS because it’s impossible apparently to find the above. Everything is new and full of drive by wire, telephony, spyware crap. Oh and the prices… come on!

I never was a car buff, I wish I had been as it definitely appears we have ended an era and I mourn isolated from the gear heads.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#49

Post by kd5bjo »

sokoloff wrote: post #26
StableAlkyne wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As such, it makes no sense to repair a totaled vehicle. You should instead buy a comparable used vehicle. I sometimes wonder how much the carbon footprint of the auto industry would change if people preferred to fix them instead of throwing the whole thing away just because of a fender bender or an expensive part broke

Our CR-V was rear-ended. It's a great car and it's pretty likely to be totaled because the cost of repairs is going to end up being higher than the insurance company is willing to pay. (And then I expect it's going to be a massive fight for me to get paid enough to replace it like-for-like, but that's a separate issue from the overall footprint.) I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car tha…

> I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car that I could replace for $8K and would salvage for $1K, I can't reasonably expect someone else's insurance company to pay $12.5K in costs (for repairs plus rentals/loss of use plus diminished value plus incidentals) to put me back in a place where I then have a crash-repaired car worth $7K plus $1K in cash in my pocket for diminished value.

The problem with that logic is the assumption that the car can be replaced for $8K. To some (maybe most) people, cars are non-fungible and there is a significant amount of personal, non-transferrable value in one particular vehicle, due e.g. to the memories acquired in connection with it.

Part of the reason that people get upset when the insurance company decides to declare their car totaled is that the replacement value offered is significantly lower than they would have accepted for the car had it not been in an accident-- The actuarial value assigned isn't properly valuing the intangibles.

Edit to add: Or, in other words, if the market-clearing price of "comparable" vehicles represented the actual value of the car to its owner, the car would have already been on the used market. The fact that it wasn't signals that there must be some premium over the market price that's necessary to make the owner whole.

Re: The rise of the disposable car

#50

Post by sokoloff »

kd5bjo wrote: post #49
sokoloff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our CR-V was rear-ended. It's a great car and it's pretty likely to be totaled because the cost of repairs is going to end up being higher than the insurance company is willing to pay. (And then I expect it's going to be a massive fight for me to get paid enough to replace it like-for-like, but that's a separate issue from the overall footprint.) I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car tha…

> I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car that I could replace for $8K and would salvage for $1K, I can't reasonably expect someone else's insurance company to pay $12.5K in costs (for repairs plus rentals/loss of use plus diminished value plus incidentals) to put me back in a place where I then have a crash-repaired car worth $7K plus $1K in cash in my pocket for diminished value. The pro…

True. As a car person, I’m expecting an annoying battle here, and that’s over just replacing the utilitarian aspects of what is a pure utility car for us.

If it was my fairly modified (by me) ‘66 Mustang, that would be very difficult to get to a settlement figure that I’d find fair.

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