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When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

theatlantic.com

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Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#21

Post by gizmo686 »

braythwayt wrote: post #8
minutillo wrote: post #4

TL;DR: the car battery was dead

That's actually a problem with all modern cars: If the battery dies, the key fob won't open the door. In fact, if the battery dies in the car or the fob, you can't open the door. But, there is a mechanical backup with an ordinary car. In my 2012 Volvo, I can open the driver's door with the mechanical key. If the fob is ded, I can physically insert it and start the car. If the car is also dead, I have to sort that out…

I'm amazed at how easy it is to kill the battery on modern cars. I would think that they would monitor the batter and shut-off all non-ignition systems when it gets low. Or at least turn off the headlights when the car is off.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#23

Post by myrandomcomment »

In my younger years I worked at a startup that had an advisor that was one of the original technical architects at Air Touch Cellular. For those that do not know they were one of the original cell phone companies in California and the west (now AT&T). He did not own a cell phone, a fact which I found strange. I asked him why and his answer was “they screwed it all up..the deployments and coverage, it’s a solved issued but they screwed it up anyway. I will not own a cell until it works everywhere.”

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#24

Post by cj »

I got banned from using Zipcar last year.

I lived in a condo building with an under ground parking lot in SF. A few times I rented a Zipcar and left it parked in the parking lot at my condo building.

About 50% of the time, the car would not unlock. In all cases, I successfully contacted Zipcar who informed me the only thing they could do is tow the car (usually 24+ hours later).

The parking lot had no cell service.

Other times I extended the car’s reservation on the iPhone app, but because there was no cell service, the internal Zipcar rfid didn’t get the updated reservation time; and the car locked me out after the original expiration time.

Zipcar probably realized they were losing money due to these issues, and banned me from using Zipcar forever.

Also: Never leave your Zipcar parked very long without cell service... the cellular unit will drain the car’s battery very quickly when it’s constantly searching for a signal...

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#25

Post by mirimir »

wolrah wrote: post #20
mirimir wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on the vehicle. If it's an ICE with a manual transmission, and you can get it moving fast enough, you can pop the clutch to start it. Back in the day, with a ~dead battery, I'd park on a hill. Even without a hill, 2-3 people can generally just push.

> That depends on the vehicle. If it's an ICE with a manual transmission, and you can get it moving fast enough, you can pop the clutch to start it. This depends on just how dead it is on newer cars. If it's able to run the electronics but just unable to crank enough to start, this can work. If it's dead enough that you can't unlock the doors it's probably also dead enough that the fuel pump, ECU, etc. aren't going t…

Good point. I should have noted that I've only done that with a 60s VW Bug. Just to see, I have turned off and restarted my ~10 year old Civic, going down a hill. But not with the battery disconnected. Maybe I'll try it. Not now, though.

Edit: And upon reflection, maybe not. Because I'd have to pay someone to reset the computer.

Edit: But wait a minute. If the vehicle is moving downhill, and you engage the clutch in first gear, the engine will be turning. And even if it's not firing, the alternator will also be turning. So you should have enough power for the computer, ignition and fuel pump. Or am I missing something?

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#26

Post by sqs »

cj wrote: post #24

I got banned from using Zipcar last year. I lived in a condo building with an under ground parking lot in SF. A few times I rented a Zipcar and left it parked in the parking lot at my condo building. About 50% of the time, the car would not unlock. In all cases, I successfully contacted Zipcar who informed me the only thing they could do is tow the car (usually 24+ hours later). The parking lot had no cell service. O…

Interesting. So it caches the authorized zipcards offline for this case, right? Why did it fail to unlock 50% of the time? If it failed, could you just retry, or did it fail 100% of the time in specific bad locations?

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#27

Post by bt848 »

cj wrote: post #24

I got banned from using Zipcar last year. I lived in a condo building with an under ground parking lot in SF. A few times I rented a Zipcar and left it parked in the parking lot at my condo building. About 50% of the time, the car would not unlock. In all cases, I successfully contacted Zipcar who informed me the only thing they could do is tow the car (usually 24+ hours later). The parking lot had no cell service. O…

The bit about the cell phone discharge seems pretty unlikely. A charged car battery has at least 2MJ of stored energy. GSM in its highest-power mobile station state draws 800mW. Add maybe another 150mW for the GPS, call it 1W total. The battery should power such a phone for weeks.

You should be able to smell-test this fact by considering that your mobile weighs nothing and runs all day whereas a car battery weighs 20kg.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#28

Post by PetahNZ »

bt848 wrote: post #27
cj wrote: post #24

I got banned from using Zipcar last year. I lived in a condo building with an under ground parking lot in SF. A few times I rented a Zipcar and left it parked in the parking lot at my condo building. About 50% of the time, the car would not unlock. In all cases, I successfully contacted Zipcar who informed me the only thing they could do is tow the car (usually 24+ hours later). The parking lot had no cell service. O…

The bit about the cell phone discharge seems pretty unlikely. A charged car battery has at least 2MJ of stored energy. GSM in its highest-power mobile station state draws 800mW. Add maybe another 150mW for the GPS, call it 1W total. The battery should power such a phone for weeks. You should be able to smell-test this fact by considering that your mobile weighs nothing and runs all day whereas a car battery weighs 20…

Anecdotal, but if I leave a USB charger plugged into the cigarette socket, without even anything plugged into the usb, it drains my battery overnight.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#29

Post by bt848 »

PetahNZ wrote: post #28
bt848 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit about the cell phone discharge seems pretty unlikely. A charged car battery has at least 2MJ of stored energy. GSM in its highest-power mobile station state draws 800mW. Add maybe another 150mW for the GPS, call it 1W total. The battery should power such a phone for weeks. You should be able to smell-test this fact by considering that your mobile weighs nothing and runs all day whereas a car battery weighs 20…

Anecdotal, but if I leave a USB charger plugged into the cigarette socket, without even anything plugged into the usb, it drains my battery overnight.

Get a refund.

I leave a phone plugged into my car's USB port 24x7 and the car has its own GSM modem too and obviously it starts right up every time.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#30

Post by msbarnett »

bt848 wrote: post #27
cj wrote: post #24

I got banned from using Zipcar last year. I lived in a condo building with an under ground parking lot in SF. A few times I rented a Zipcar and left it parked in the parking lot at my condo building. About 50% of the time, the car would not unlock. In all cases, I successfully contacted Zipcar who informed me the only thing they could do is tow the car (usually 24+ hours later). The parking lot had no cell service. O…

The bit about the cell phone discharge seems pretty unlikely. A charged car battery has at least 2MJ of stored energy. GSM in its highest-power mobile station state draws 800mW. Add maybe another 150mW for the GPS, call it 1W total. The battery should power such a phone for weeks. You should be able to smell-test this fact by considering that your mobile weighs nothing and runs all day whereas a car battery weighs 20…

Your smell test is a bit misleading in that most car batteries have a drastically lower energy density than Lithium Ion cells. There’s still a lot more energy in the car battery, of course, but not by nearly as much as a naive comparison of the weights would suggest. If it had the energy density of your cell phone, the lead acid battery in your car would only weigh 5 or so kgs.

Your cellphone will also last a lot less than “all day” if you take it somewhere where it has to run the radio at full power to try to maintain a connection. I’ve seen otherwise reliable and long lasting phones easily end up burning 1% a minute in areas of really bad signal.

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