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Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

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Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#81

Post by skullone »

petee wrote: post #70
Tanoc wrote: post #63

Environmentally friendly my ass. Any minor damage and the car will be toast because the insurance company will total it. Even if it gets back on the road it'll have a salvage title, something that's poison to a car and ensures that it ends up either crushed or parted out. These are already problems with unibody cars thanks to how quickly insurance adjusters will take any deformation of the core unibody, even just cos…

Eh, even now Toyotas have a low threshold for being totaled, the parts are just so expensive. My 2014 Tacoma was essentially sideswiped hard; repair was estimated at $12,000 but was deemed totalled, insu paid me $17,000. It is now rotting in a junk yard for the past 4 years (I check the old VIN time to time)

Don't feel too bad about your truck in a junkyard. It has probably donated enough parts to keep a dozen other ones on the road with economical scrapped parts.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#82

Post by tomatotomato37 »

Tanoc wrote: post #63

Environmentally friendly my ass. Any minor damage and the car will be toast because the insurance company will total it. Even if it gets back on the road it'll have a salvage title, something that's poison to a car and ensures that it ends up either crushed or parted out. These are already problems with unibody cars thanks to how quickly insurance adjusters will take any deformation of the core unibody, even just cos…

Don't forget part of the reason a lot of older cars can survive an accident is because they don't have crumble zones. That's great for the structural integrity of the car, not so much for the humans that interact with it. It's better for society to just write the car off and keep people alive than try to keep some smelters a little less busy by killing people off

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#83

Post by technofiend »

oldpersonintx wrote: post #42
ChumpGPT wrote: post #30

Does anyone think 99% of the car buyers market cares about cast bodies? Just look at all the folks who bought Tesla's, they don't have a problem buying a car that costs more to insure, waiting for months to get repaired, at the same time happy with poor finishes, paying extra for every possible detail, and never being able to fix them on their own. Most folks in the car market chase fashion and could care less about…

99% of the market cares about cheaper cars...and eventually, cast bodies will reduce costs substantially

No doubt it's projection on my part but I too assume the majority of car buyers are looking for cheap, reliable new cars and therefore that's where the greatest volume would be, right? Yet manufacturers are moving to higher profit cars. What surprises me is even Chevrolet is ending their low-cost EV which enjoys a hefty subsidy via purchaser tax break.

Instead their next EV will move to a different platform to be consistent with their newer cars which is good but also at a higher price point, which is not. Particularly with that subsidy they could own that low-end EV market; they've had to extend the retirement date of the current car several times due to demand!

But, they're not alone: from the linked article "Last month, 17% of new vehicles sold were under $30,000, compared to 44% five years ago." Which sucks for people who do just want a point-a to point-b vehicle and not a rolling status symbol.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cheapest-cars-abandoned-by-a...

Not to be too cynical about it, but if wrecking a car means totalling a car, that's also another potential sale. At the very least making them less repairable smacks of consumer-hostile moves we've seen in the electronics industry and similarly without right to repair legislation, the manufacturers can do whatever they want. At least for me it's frustrating.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#84

Post by nine_k »

novok wrote: post #75
nine_k wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you lose repairability anyway if the frame is significantly bent? AFAICT the actual batteries inside the "structural battery" are separate much smaller cells [1] that can at least be recovered from the bent frame and reused if undamaged. Consider four factors: normal car performance, car's safety in a crash, car's repairability after a crash, and car's price. They all work against each other; no wonder that rep…

A salvage operation where you harvest raw cells is no where near repairability. That is one step removed from taking a crushed car selling it for scrap metal.

Indeed, not reparability but reusability. The cells are standard and can be readily reused in a variety of ways, unlike a badly bent frame / chassis that can only go to scrap metal.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#85

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #59
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hand raised. Of course, your question is basically a tautology if you define "major damage" as "that which causes a car to get totaled". The whole concern is that, with these cast bodies, damage that would have been considered fixable or minor in the past now becomes an instant write off.

Well the article says major damage, not me.

I know, but you are the one proposing that "major damage" is always written off.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#86

Post by coryrc »

binarymax wrote: post #27
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

Cast metals are rather brittle, normally? Good for complex shapes that may be further refined by machining, and in compression loads, but not in shear or tension. I would think they would shatter in a collision rather than bend like steel.

They must anneal them

Also when people hear "cast" they think "cast iron" or cheap appliance broken piece (mostly zinc). They're brittle because of material choice, not because of casting. (Though casting does influence the choice of materials)

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#87

Post by silisili »

coryrc wrote: post #86
binarymax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must anneal them

Also when people hear "cast" they think "cast iron" or cheap appliance broken piece (mostly zinc). They're brittle because of material choice, not because of casting. (Though casting does influence the choice of materials)

Ruger, for example, makes everything from gun barrels to golf clubs from casting.

They claim that due to material advances and such, casting can meet or exceed the strength of typical 'forged' steel.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#88

Post by jgalt212 »

skullone wrote: post #76
jgalt212 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do miss physical keys. Replacement cost for an Audi key fob is over $700. And it extends to broader market brands. My mom's Mazda replacement fob cost $500. WTF is going on here?

Would you rather the keys be $5 from Walmart and pair with the car without needing an OEM programmer?

I'd be fine if they offered the same security as house keys.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#89

Post by Tade0 »

Tanoc wrote: post #63

Environmentally friendly my ass. Any minor damage and the car will be toast because the insurance company will total it. Even if it gets back on the road it'll have a salvage title, something that's poison to a car and ensures that it ends up either crushed or parted out. These are already problems with unibody cars thanks to how quickly insurance adjusters will take any deformation of the core unibody, even just cos…

> The environmental impact they've had has been far less than any of these cast-body cars

Most(85%+) of a car's environmental footprint comes from usage - namely fuel.

And no wonder - a car works itself through approximately 10x its weight in fuel during its lifetime.

A car from the 80s or even 90s will naturally have visibly higher fuel consumption that a modern car and thus keeping it running is actually the more environmentally impactful choice.

On top of that nowadays factories run on a much cleaner grid than in the 90s, so despite there being more tech and sophisticated materials inside, it's actually less environmentally damaging to produce a car than it used to be.

Re: Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix

#90

Post by Tade0 »

GravityLab wrote: post #39

> Toyota anticipates it'll generate 20 percent higher productivity than its competitors, and could halve body assembly time from 10 hours. This is a nice efficiency gain, but they don’t seem to be constrained by how quickly they can produce cars…as far as I can tell, demand in the market for their product is more based on the cost of the supply, not how quickly they are producing units. Or are they thinking that by p…

One large part is much cheaper to produce than the same section made out of several parts - chiefly because you don't have to spend time and resources on putting it all together.

Also, you can actually use less material since you don't have to reinforce the points where you weld/bolt.

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