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Code is run more than read (2023)

olano.dev

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Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#41

Post by Arch-TK »

andsoitis wrote: post #26
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

The real issue is that oil filters and gears are really just legacy design. EVs don’t need them. So, similar with software design, as in other fields, often a problem goes away when you ask a different question.

EVs also have consumable parts which it would be incredibly annoying to place in nonsensical locations.

The obvious one is the battery, and you can argue that modern EVs have batteries so expensive that when they are dead the car becomes scrap, and - sure, whatever.

But EVs still have: cabin air filters, coolant, brake fluid, lubricants in various places (although granted, these lubricants will mostly last the service life).

At the end of the day, as long as you have a car which moves, and not a statue, it will have things which wear out and which should be easy to replace.

Engine oil and oil filters are just an example.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#42

Post by bena »

kerblang wrote: post #37
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

Try replacing the battery. Seems accessible enough at first, but ingenious engineering has made batteries the modern rubik's cube of auto maintenance.

Define "modern". I have a 2017 Civic and I've had to replace the battery a couple of times. There's a holding bar that needs to be removed before the battery can be taken out, but other than that the only real problem is the weight of the thing.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#43

Post by bena »

its_ethan wrote: post #35
ww520 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the engine failed due to missing oil change because of the difficulty, the whole car is gone. The waste in cost, material, and environmental impact far outweighs the savings in 2mpg improvement.

Glad to know in this hypothetical car scenario the owner decided to not get an oil change leading to the total loss of the vehicle. That seems very realistic and definitely something that car designs should be optimized around. Or, we consider that 2mpg across 100,000 cars can save 3,500,000 gallons of gas being burned for the average American driving ~12k miles per year. And maybe things aren't so black and white. Y…

To be fair, you are constructing an entirely hypothetical car scenario where oil filter placement leads to a 5-10% increase in fuel efficiency.

We're already in the land of the fucking ridiculous. Let's have fun with it.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#44

Post by Arch-TK »

wiseowise wrote: post #10
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

But if you happen to own a repair shop, you can make a fortune from drivers who don’t know how to do it. Wink.

Repair shop owners also don't enjoy work which is unnecessarily difficult.

Between rebuilding an engine and disassembling a bumper to replace a lightbulb most mechanics would genuinely rather be doing the lengthy but interesting work of rebuilding an engine than the lengthy and fucking boring task of disassembling a bumper to fix a lightbulb.

Moreover, even if a mechanic must charge you stupid amounts of labour cost to do a simple repair because it genuinely takes that much time, the customer might not come away with it thinking: "fuck, I bought a dumb car which is expensive to repair", they might instead come away with it thinking: "all these mechanics, quoting ridiculous prices to fix a light bulb, they must all be scammers".

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#45

Post by ang_cire »

andsoitis wrote: post #26
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

The real issue is that oil filters and gears are really just legacy design. EVs don’t need them. So, similar with software design, as in other fields, often a problem goes away when you ask a different question.

EVs have gears and gear oil in their drive units. There is a reduction gear that needs lubrication, as well as the differential.

They actually will need oil changes starting anywhere from the 50k to 100k mile mark.

Here's the maintenance guide with pictures walking through changing the oil and filter for the Rear Drive Unit (RDU) in a Tesla Model S:

https://service.tesla.com/docs/ModelS/ServiceManual/Palladiu...

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#46

Post by carefree-bob »

andsoitis wrote: post #26
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

The real issue is that oil filters and gears are really just legacy design. EVs don’t need them. So, similar with software design, as in other fields, often a problem goes away when you ask a different question.

You may not know this, but EVs also have oil filters and gears. They also having cooling systems. What they don't have is an engine (they have motors). But the motors have their own cooling system, and the gears have their own oil system with filters.

Every moving part - especially gears -- needs to be oiled, and whenever you are oiling metal on metal contact such as in gears, you are going to want an oil filter to catch worn metal debris, to remove it from the oil.

The difference between EVs and ICE vehicles is not that only one of them uses oil to reduce friction, but that the oil service intervals on EVs are so long that regular oil maintenance is not needed, you do it every 60,000 miles or whatever the manufacturer recommends, so it's out of mind. But that doesn't mean it doesn't require service.

Once EVs have been around for a while and there is an established market for used EVs, the people who buy them are going to want to change the oil to add more life to the EV. So it's something that is dealt with in the long-life maintenance, not the monthly maintenance. But when you do the oil service, you will curse Tesla for needing to drop the battery in order to do it, and all of a sudden you will care where things are placed and how accessible they are.

Here is a nice video -- I follow Sam Crac as one of my favorite automotive youtubers - and he picked up an old Tesla and did an oil service for it. It's a nice watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0ZNHKjHalY

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#47

Post by Arch-TK »

its_ethan wrote: post #12
jollyllama wrote: post #8

And cars are driven more than worked on, but putting the oil filter inaccessibly in the middle of the engine block is still an unforgiveable sin.

What if there's an efficiency in engine design by placing the filter in the middle that leads to a +2mpg improvement for the driver? Or that it fails, on average, 22k miles later into it's life? Not all hard-to-repair-yourself designs are malicious...

We don't have magic oil filters which last even 22k miles. You should be replacing them every 6 months / 6k miles, or 12 months / 12k miles depending on your risk tolerance (some people suggest even half my short interval).

Anyone who actually drives their car regularly will be doing an oil change at least twice a year. If an oil change takes more than 30 minutes of actual labour time of an inexperienced mechanic, it's going to be a serious financial burden which will likely outweigh any 2mpg improvement.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#48

Post by logancbrown »

bena wrote: post #42
kerblang wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try replacing the battery. Seems accessible enough at first, but ingenious engineering has made batteries the modern rubik's cube of auto maintenance.

Define "modern". I have a 2017 Civic and I've had to replace the battery a couple of times. There's a holding bar that needs to be removed before the battery can be taken out, but other than that the only real problem is the weight of the thing.

The Ford Maverick (2022+) requires removing the air intake to remove the car battery. This is fairly common across many new car models.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#49

Post by its_ethan »

carefree-bob wrote: post #39
its_ethan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there's an efficiency in engine design by placing the filter in the middle that leads to a +2mpg improvement for the driver? Or that it fails, on average, 22k miles later into it's life? Not all hard-to-repair-yourself designs are malicious...

This is like saying you can get a 10% improvement in battery life by changing where you position the RAM on your motherboard. There is just no universe in which placing an oil filter in one location or another is going to make such a difference. You'd have to mount it completely outside the engine, say sitting as a cylinder on top of the hood, and even there you are not going to get a 2mpg improvement.

Sorry we're talking about a hypothetical car engine, and as an analogy to software development. I'm not an expert in designing car engines like you, but acting like this example being not fully realistic is some kind of "gotcha" for the point I'm making is really frustrating.

The point that I am making (obviously, I think) is that tradeoffs exist, even if you don't think the right decision was made, your full view into the trade space is likely incomplete, or prioritizes something different than the engineers.

Based on the replies, saying there's a hypothetical 2mpg improvement to be had was a mistake, everyone is latching on to that like there's some actual engine we're investigating.

Re: Code is run more than read (2023)

#50

Post by its_ethan »

bena wrote: post #43
its_ethan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to know in this hypothetical car scenario the owner decided to not get an oil change leading to the total loss of the vehicle. That seems very realistic and definitely something that car designs should be optimized around. Or, we consider that 2mpg across 100,000 cars can save 3,500,000 gallons of gas being burned for the average American driving ~12k miles per year. And maybe things aren't so black and white. Y…

To be fair, you are constructing an entirely hypothetical car scenario where oil filter placement leads to a 5-10% increase in fuel efficiency. We're already in the land of the fucking ridiculous. Let's have fun with it.

I'm using this hypothetical to illustrate the point that: tradeoffs exist, and that you (we) may not have full insight into the full complexity of the trade space that the engineers were working with.

Putting some random number of hypothetical mpg improvement was clearly a mistake, but I assumed people here would be able to get the point I was trying to make, instead of getting riled up about the relationship (or lack thereof) of oil filters and fuel efficiency.

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