Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price • Hacker News Board

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#811

Post by jcgrillo » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 3:31 AM UTC

llmslave wrote: post #40

This makes me think of the new toyotas, the rav4s, 4runner, and land cruiser. Through government regulations, they were forced to create smaller more fuel efficient engines. To get the same power, they overstrain them, and put huge turbos on the engines. The outcome is a strictly worse engine, that essentially uses the same fuel as older engines. The demand for older vehicles in certain segments is actually increasin…

I've got a 1995 FZJ80 and I am counting the fucking minutes until I can rip that goddamn forklift motor out and replace it with the 1HZ + HX30 + 1HD-T rods mashup I have in store for it :P

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#812

Post by tandr » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

evilos wrote: post #450

tandr wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by the looks of it... any front collision == instant death?

They very much designed for collisions. They have an engineer discussing those aspects this video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5QwgQUMGY

thank you! That was quite educational.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#813

Post by calmworm » Tue, Apr 28, 2026, 7:17 PM UTC

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #286

calmworm wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have merch! Hats, apparel!

Why are you mad that they're trying to build brand recognition? I get there's been plenty of vaporware cars in the past but by all signs Slate is making real progress towards delivering actual vehicles.

Who’s mad? Merely a joke. I’m looking forward to the Slate truck.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#814

Post by devilbunny » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #225

devilbunny wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What that means is everything I "enhance" with "smarts" should still work the old way that people are accustomed to. Also the easiest way to achieve high WAF. I added an internet-connected (but self-hosted) garage door controller. My wife instantly got defensive about things when I said I was going to do this until I said that nothing at all that works now would change. It would add a new feature, not subtract anyt…

> Also the easiest way to achieve high WAF. > It would add a new feature, not subtract anything. The old remotes work. The wall buttons work. It's just that you can do it from your phone, too. Exactly! If I'm doing my "job" correctly then I should be able to add "smarts" without anyone noticing at all. It's purely additive. It lowers my stress levels immensely as well since there is a never a "P1" emergency of "The l…

This post is old enough now that nobody is likely to see it, but it’s such a good WAF story that I can’t not post it. This iis one of the only times I did something where the old way would not work anymore.

I bought a used ReplayTV circa 2003. She came home and instantly said, wtf did you do to the TV? Three days later, the 120 GB hard drive I had bought to quadruple the storage arrived and I told her that she needed to watch all her shows because the software didn’t allow transferring recordings. She was apoplectic.

DVR junkie from day 1.