So can a $300 dollar iPad. Large EV scale batteries are needed to feed powerful computers? What are they on about?
Honda is killing its EVs
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Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#722Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting how many complaints I see on HN that are framed as if they're complaints about a specific piece of technology when they are really complaints about capitalism. I'm all ears if you want to criticize our entire economic system, but I think it's silly to have that conversation specifically in the context of car software rather than at a societal level.
Do personal computers even really emerge under communism? it is yet to be seen. But this specific technology seems to only evolve under capitalism to suit the needs of a certain type of buisness against the consumer. If it emerged under communism, it probably would be equally as bad. I imagine if it emerged under communism or socialism it would be designed to solve a similar problems: securing the needs of the state…
The economies of all countries that claimed to be socialist or communist were the extreme form of monopolistic capitalism.
Because nowadays the economy of USA resembles more and more every year to that of the socialist countries from the past, a non-negligible risk has appeared for the personal computer to become an endangered species.
The prices of personal computers and of their components have been increasing steadily during the last decade, long before the current wave of extreme price increases.
There is a steadily increasing pressure from big companies and from the governments controlled by them to eliminate true ownership of computers and of many other electronic devices, by introducing more and more restrictions for what owners can do with their PC/smartphone and by introducing more and more opportunities for others to control those devices remotely.
Many kinds of computing devices have eliminated their low-price models and they are offered now only in models so expensive as to be affordable only for big businesses, not for individuals or SMEs.
Ten years ago, I could still buy various kinds of professional GPUs with high FP64 throughput and any model of Intel Xeon server CPUs.
Nowadays I can choose to buy only high-end desktop CPUs for my servers, because the state-of-the-art server CPUs and datacenter GPUs now have 5-digit prices. NVIDIA, Intel and AMD see only big businesses as customers for such products, and they no longer offer any smaller SKUs in these categories (Intel nominally offers a few cheap Xeons, but those are so crippled that they are not worth for anything else but for enabling the testing of some server systems).
So in the kind of unregulated capitalism that exists today in USA, PCs would not have appeared and there is a risk for them to disappear, because they have become a relict of the past.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#723Earlier quoted context omitted.
A country where you're looked down upon for driving a Focus RS or other "fun" car seems like a boring, austere place to be. Perhaps that's why we never hear about Norwegian car culture (as opposed to Germany and the US). Ferdinand Porsche would have resigned to building apple carts.
US car culture has been dead for a long time, at least internationally. People like big American cars made in 50s - 70s for their looks, but since then all I can think of are oversized pickups, Nascar and Tesla which is getting eaten alive by Chinese competitors.
Car culture is getting killed everywhere because safety and comfort by far outweigh fun in gov priorities but I'm literally considering the US because I'll be able to drive whatever I want. Good luck finding someone running nitrous on the street in Europe nowadays, stretched bikes, engine swaps, etc. It all comes with administrative fees, a lot is forbidden and even if your documents are in order you'll get in trouble because police officers are not qualified or incentivized to deal with severely modified vehicles.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#724Honda is setting itself up for failure on the second disruption sweeping the automotive industry: the software-defined vehicle (SDV), which has core capabilities that can be upgraded and improved over time. No thank you. Not sure why the author frames this as a good thing. They've been bamboozled by the automakers and have got it backwards - you're buying a vehicle that already has the capabilities, but are disabled,…
Most people including the author think more software = premium/better. But as software engineers, we know better. That's not the case at all. More software = more control by everyone else except you. Manufacturers. Governments. For this reason, I always avoid cars with big flashy LCD screens that are central to controlling the cars accessories like sunroof, AC and other electricals. The other issue is support. So man…
People feel that cars haven't really improved much in practical terms over the last 20 years. At least to the layman, they don't feel smoother, safer, more comfortable to drive. They just got more expensive, more cameras and crap like auto-start that no one asked for.
So at least the hope is to take some of the best parts of modern software manufacturing and apply it to the car. Tesla did this and is why it was the first successful car company that's been started in the past 50 years or so.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#725Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people including the author think more software = premium/better. But as software engineers, we know better. That's not the case at all. More software = more control by everyone else except you. Manufacturers. Governments. For this reason, I always avoid cars with big flashy LCD screens that are central to controlling the cars accessories like sunroof, AC and other electricals. The other issue is support. So man…
Maybe that's because software that we use every day (websites, saas, etc) generally get better over time and it's still relatively cheap. Meanwhile cars still rely on things like an archaic check engine light rather than just tell you what's wrong with the car and an infotainment system that's worse than a circa 2012 iPad. People feel that cars haven't really improved much in practical terms over the last 20 years. A…
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#726Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people including the author think more software = premium/better. But as software engineers, we know better. That's not the case at all. More software = more control by everyone else except you. Manufacturers. Governments. For this reason, I always avoid cars with big flashy LCD screens that are central to controlling the cars accessories like sunroof, AC and other electricals. The other issue is support. So man…
There is also the issue of longevity. Most people don't expect 20 year old laptops to keep working, but they expect 20 year old cars to keep working. The software defined vehicle is a disposable vehicle, and that means it better be cheap or someone is taking a depreciation bath.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#727Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've often thought the touch screen should be replaced by a socket that accepts an iPad, The last thing I need is Apple spying on me when I am driving.
Do you have a car now? A phone? If you are wearing pants you are being tracked right now!
I'm being a bit sarcastic but also not. I understand the sentiment of people here but also the 2 standards applied.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#728Guys, cars are specifically designed to work for their entire life in areas where there is no coverage. Thus, there are plenty of EVs, probably all of them, where you can just open the telematics box and pull the SIM card. Then the software will never update, and the car will just stay in whatever state it’s currently in. The moment you do this things will stop working: for example phone app, but your car will be mor…
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#729Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting how many complaints I see on HN that are framed as if they're complaints about a specific piece of technology when they are really complaints about capitalism. I'm all ears if you want to criticize our entire economic system, but I think it's silly to have that conversation specifically in the context of car software rather than at a societal level.
Because we don't care about capitalism, we don't want over the air updates to our cars.
This kind of attitude is like saying "I don't want software that updates on my PC" when you are actually complaining about SaaS products.
Re: Honda is killing its EVs
#730Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people including the author think more software = premium/better. But as software engineers, we know better. That's not the case at all. More software = more control by everyone else except you. Manufacturers. Governments. For this reason, I always avoid cars with big flashy LCD screens that are central to controlling the cars accessories like sunroof, AC and other electricals. The other issue is support. So man…
> Finally, there's the issue of privacy. Most manufacturers contract with analytics vendors to send your data back to them. You can't even turn it off. You absolutely can. Pull the fuse of the cellular modem aka "telematics unit" or even completely remove it. Some vehicles don't have a separate fuse, in which case you will need to physically unplug the modem. Do your research and don't buy any car where this can't be…