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Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

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Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#131

Post by konschubert »

VLM wrote: post #107
r00fus wrote: post #31

"The rip-offs of common powertrain control module 4 units relate to the ongoing shortage of microchips" So how long does the microchip shortage continue?

We're still in the toilet-paper-hoarding stage. Also people are still reselling at 400% to 1000% markup. Probably at least a couple years. Imagine if a shipment of 100K Raspberry Pi 2 W Zero came in today. "Everybody knows" if you buy direct you can pay $5, and the lowest price for scalpers on Amazon for a 2 W Zero is currently $149 so you can probably actually sell for $130-ish and clear $125 of scalping profit per…

Is that really how it works? The scalper will eventually want to sell the other 96 units, he has no benefit keeping them around. That should satisfy demand and eventually drive down the price.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#132

Post by DennisP »

prmoustache wrote: post #122
gambiting wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right and how long does it take to charge that 1000 mile range in an average British city? A full year? And I'm not forgetting it - I'm just saying that the overall gain doesn't seem to be worth it. The cost of solar panels integrated into the car would pay for a lot of electricity from the grid instead.

The aptera is still plugable and you would still benefit from the efficiency even in sorry sad UK...And I have seen nowhere anyone saying it was for everyone. It only have 2 seats and limited luggage capacity for a start, it won't replace a family van. I live in Andalusia where decent sunlight is all year and I would love a similar thing with 4 seats. With only 2 I don't really see the advantage over using my motorbi…

Luggage capacity isn't bad if you don't need much vertical space. It has that big flat area in the back.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#133

Post by hotpotamus »

sokoloff wrote: post #49
hotpotamus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the legal requirement thing. In my state, I'm pretty sure I could put a straight pipe down there and I'd never have an issue. In fact, I'd probably look into it if it happened to me. That said, I know my state is pretty lax about that sort of thing. Curious how it's actually enforced in others.

You might need to install a downstream O2 sensor simulator to prevent an OBD2 failure to verify function of the (now missing) converter, but those are readily available for off-road use as I’m sure would be your application. ;)

Yeah, the cheater plugs are part of the deal. I'm pretty sure they're just fixed resistors so it's not complicated.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#134

Post by bluGill »

tialaramex wrote: post #24
donw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't think of that angle, but perhaps! Pretty much everything in transportation is being pushed in the direction of centralized control; hence, the focus on EVs and the push against biofuels. The marketing is all "climate change", but the reality is that biofuel-based vehicles can, in theory, be manufactured locally with machine tools, and the fuel can be grown locally as well. I'd bet money that they're better for…

> biofuel-based vehicles can, in theory, be manufactured locally with machine tools The excellent thing about electricity is that it's fungible . Electricity from a wind farm in the North Sea, a nuclear plant in the South of France or a Texan solar panel is identical as far as the electric vehicle is concerned. In contrast with bio-fuels if you can't make the right chemical soup for this specific model of engine well…

Sure, but the biofuel is a lot more energy dense. People do buy large tanks of fuel so they can drive long distances where there are no gas stations. Think trips across Alaska, or Northern Yukon. Most of us live in range of a gas station and so just stopping for gas every few hundred miles is more reasonable than a large tank (which has issues), but you can do that. You cannot get nearly as much range out of a battery, no matter how large the trailer is.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#135

Post by bluGill »

ddingus wrote: post #41
themitigating wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these thefts are related to economic issues but they come and go. Here's the NY Times in 2008 talking about an epidemic of catalytic coverter thefts https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/29converters.html

That appears to be ramping up again. One of the people on a project I'm working with them on just had theirs stolen. And it could total their car! People driving used Hondas may find out insurance won't cover, or will want to just total used cars due to the converter being worth more than the paper value of the car, despite a used market valuing the car much higher! Cost $1,200 to $2,400 to replace and due to the las…

> Yet the thieves can still somehow trade the metals.

It isn't hard to melt down the metals and extract the valuable ones. A proper factory can do a much better job (get more of the valuable metals out), but it is something I could profitably do in my backyard over a fire. I haven't looked into the details of refining platinum, but I doubt is is much different from any other metal. (when I looked into it I lived in an area with a lot of iron deposits, I've since moved and no longer have access to iron ore so that potential hobby is dead to me)

Once you have raw metals you can claim any source you want. Just form them into a ring and say you were saving it for your anniversary, but your wife left you - I'm sure you can come up with other ways to make it look like got a legal source.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#136

Post by hpkuarg »

VLM wrote: post #112
janekm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen Chinese manufacturers and component distributors built up big stocks when the tariffs/sanctions against China were announced a few years ago. Then when the recent events affected supply chains, they were sitting on decent stocks of popular chips and were able to sell them at 10x original price. Since then the industry has been in a cycle of: - Manufacturer finishes a batch of popular chip - Everyb…

Don't forget scalpers. The market on Amazon is clearing for Pi 2 W Zero boards at a mere 2600% profit over retail price (higher prices are not selling), so people whom actually want to build something with a Pi are competing with people whom compare a 29% APR credit card vs 2600% per unit profit margin and buy everything they can get for resale. Its classic hyperinflation market. Too much money chasing too little pro…

> The CC interest rate thing would not sell well in an election year LOL

Nominally, the Federal Reserve is politically independent...

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#137

Post by [deleted] »

mschuster91 wrote: post #101
bob1029 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does something with as much mass as a semi truck have the ability to wrest control away from the operator in the first place? Collision avoidance nannies seem substantially more tolerable when the physics equation has 2 zeroes removed from the mass figure. It's not like arbitrary jackasses can get behind the wheel of these vehicles anyways... there is a reason a commercial licensing program exists.

> It's not like arbitrary jackasses can get behind the wheel of these vehicles anyways... there is a reason a commercial licensing program exists. The problem isn't "arbitrary jackasses", the problem is the relentless pace modern truckers are put through. Utterly insane demands for just-in-time delivery that have absolutely no margin left for inevitable delays or completely unrealistic schedules that many drivers com…

[deleted]

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#138

Post by sokoloff »

hotpotamus wrote: post #133
sokoloff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might need to install a downstream O2 sensor simulator to prevent an OBD2 failure to verify function of the (now missing) converter, but those are readily available for off-road use as I’m sure would be your application. ;)

Yeah, the cheater plugs are part of the deal. I'm pretty sure they're just fixed resistors so it's not complicated.

Usually a fixed resistor to simulate the heater and a square wave oscillator to simulate the O2 sensor output cycling between lean and rich.

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#139

Post by ticviking »

cowtools wrote: post #42
Syonyk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So how long does the microchip shortage continue? Warning: Paid Pessimist point of view (I've done computer security for far, far too long). Indefinitely. It doesn't recover. Because (modern, leading process) microchips are the sort of globe spanning supply chain problem that works great, right up until it doesn't. Coolant for some laser is made in this country that's at war. Some critical surface processing chemic…

I mean it's not like most consumer hardware has to be on the latest nodes. The current hardware is more than enough for any consumer applications I can think of. Maybe just need to reuse more hardware. Standardize and commodify replacement parts for mobile devices like framework/fairphone. Reduce the amount of IoT crap in toasters/etc. Use multiseat instead of thin clients. Upcycle old computers.

This is the problem, and we can't actually do this because we have a shortage of even basic "blub programmers" who can get business logic correct. Developers who are able to produce basically correct simple code are expensive, how much more expensive are people who are able to build low-level secure and optimized code?

Re: Rash of parts thefts is leaving Freightliner trucks inoperable

#140

Post by ticviking »

Syonyk wrote: post #56
zdragnar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I keep multiple electron apps, node processes, and chrome windows and tabs open at the same time, and they're really not at all CPU intensive (except for node running tsc builds or tests). It's the RAM usage that is annoying, and even that isn't too terrible. Edit: of course, I'm running swaywm on linux, so my environment is generally pretty light as it is compared to Windows.

I generally try to use ARM small board computers as much as possible. They really struggle with running a bunch of Electron stuff at the same time, and while you can reasonably use some modern websites on them, it's amazing just how much absolute crap you can get rid of with NoScript/Ghostery/etc, and still have a perfectly functional website. My massive, powerful, "Do absolutely everything!" computer in college was…

I strongly suspect that we have stopped trying to reduce bloat. The cost in engineering time cannot be sustained. As a dev I can't even afford the time to optimize my local development machine to reduce bloat.
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