When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness • Hacker News Board

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#61

Post by simonh » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:17 AM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #56

boomlinde wrote: post #54

> Still, cars without reception become vulnerable in a few scenarios: when members lose or do not have their physical Zipcard with them, when they exceed their reservation time or want to extend their Zipcar reservation, or when the vehicle battery dies. That last scenario was the one my family and I found ourselves in, though we did not know it at the time. Can someone change the title to reflect that cell phone rec…

I believe the issue was that, after losing both reception and battery, the car needed reception before being unlocked.

Looks like it. They got a tow to somewhere with reception but the car wouldn't start. That implies they did get into it, but were still stuck due to the dead battery. So presumably the door unlock system has it's own backup battery?

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#62

Post by Jonnax » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:22 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #23

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 issue…

Sounds like he was talking about something specifically to their network.

There's not some magic thing that everyone should be doing that will give 100% cell coverage.

It's a two way radio. The transmitter needs to talk to the phone. But the phone also needs to talk back.

Also carriers have different frequency spectrums allocated to them.

A carrier using 900MHz has to have fewer base stations than one operating using 1800MHz because lower frequencies transmit further.

They also are able to go underground and through walls better.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#63

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #54

> Still, cars without reception become vulnerable in a few scenarios: when members lose or do not have their physical Zipcard with them, when they exceed their reservation time or want to extend their Zipcar reservation, or when the vehicle battery dies. That last scenario was the one my family and I found ourselves in, though we did not know it at the time. Can someone change the title to reflect that cell phone rec…

[deleted]

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#64

Post by undecisive » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #61

rocqua wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the issue was that, after losing both reception and battery, the car needed reception before being unlocked.

Looks like it. They got a tow to somewhere with reception but the car wouldn't start. That implies they did get into it, but were still stuck due to the dead battery. So presumably the door unlock system has it's own backup battery?

No, the power required to unlock the door (a small motor) is usually a lot less than the power required to ignite the fuel. You'll probably find that the radio and internal lights still worked too (though likely not for long).

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#65

Post by karlp » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

bt848 wrote: post #34

msbarnett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 les…

OK, here's another test. A common way to end up with a dead battery is to leave the lights on overnight. The lights on a car draw over 100W (standard halogen headlights and incandescent tail and marker lights). But you can leave your lights on for hours and still start the car. Therefore it stands to reason that the same battery could power a GSM radio for hundreds of hours.

This assumes the battery is fully charged, if it's cold or if the battery is slightly defective, it could be a lot less than full charge.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#66

Post by xzmmd » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #58

dx034 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the ban sounds justified to me. If you know that parking in the garage will lead to a 50% probability of them having to tow the car, repeating this is just unnecessary. It would obviously be better if they could handle such scenarios but ignoring a known limitation to incur cost to others (since you have no advantage as you also can't use the car in this scenario) sounds wrong to me.

Disagreed about the ban. Since when is shitty technology (which any engineer worth their salt should’ve predicted - this is not rocket science) the fault of the customer? Unless they say in bold in their marketing statements “Only drive within cell coverage” the customer isn’t at fault for trying to use it as a normal car (in fact it’s crazy to think that parking in a place with no reception is no longer normal, at l…

You're justifying acting like an asshole.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#67

Post by ivanhoe » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:38 AM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #54

> Still, cars without reception become vulnerable in a few scenarios: when members lose or do not have their physical Zipcard with them, when they exceed their reservation time or want to extend their Zipcar reservation, or when the vehicle battery dies. That last scenario was the one my family and I found ourselves in, though we did not know it at the time. Can someone change the title to reflect that cell phone rec…

How then do you explain this part: "A similar thing happened to Tom Coates, another Californian and, as luck would have it, an expert in the internet of things. He used a Zipcar to get to the Getty Villa, part of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. His mistake was to park in a garage, where his bars went to zero and he found himself stranded as the sun went down and the museum closed and the on-staff security guards started to circle in annoyance." ??

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#68

Post by Frqy3 » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:50 AM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #23

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 issue…

It's a solved issue, in that the cell company "simply" has to spend enough on infrastructure to cover the desired area.

Justifying the business case to cover the low value (i.e. few customers) areas is another story. However, even here, it might be possible to justify it if the rest of the customer base sufficiently values wide coverage to pay a premium. Particularly if the competitors don't have the same level of coverage.

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#69

Post by brohee » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:53 AM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #39

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…

Honestly, the ban sounds justified to me. If you know that parking in the garage will lead to a 50% probability of them having to tow the car, repeating this is just unnecessary. It would obviously be better if they could handle such scenarios but ignoring a known limitation to incur cost to others (since you have no advantage as you also can't use the car in this scenario) sounds wrong to me.

The common man would think a company would try the fix with the utmost priority a mission critical issue...

Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness

#70

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

xzmmd wrote: post #66

Nextgrid wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreed about the ban. Since when is shitty technology (which any engineer worth their salt should’ve predicted - this is not rocket science) the fault of the customer? Unless they say in bold in their marketing statements “Only drive within cell coverage” the customer isn’t at fault for trying to use it as a normal car (in fact it’s crazy to think that parking in a place with no reception is no longer normal, at l…

You're justifying acting like an asshole.

No I’m trying to justify using the product as it’s advertised. Otherwise it’s too easy to just falsely advertise something and ban the people that manage to figure out the catch.