Without right to repair, there will be planned obsolescence.
My Citroen EV developed an on board charger fault. It wouldn’t charge. The part was a “coded part” which meant it had to specifically programmed with my EV’s ID by Citroen at manufacture. It took months to finally be fitted and ready. So basically, not only does the coded parts system make service shit, but also means when the manufacturer is done making the part, the car is dead. You can’t swap parts between cars and there is no third party parts. It’s meant to be about car theft, but it’s very convenient it blocks competition and long product life…
If it was a carburetor (which EVs do not have), I’d be okay with a DRM. But boards? Is there an organized crime group that steals EV boards? Next time it will be funking wipers with DRM.
They DRM it all if we let them. We must not. It should going the other way. More open, repairable and upgradable.
How would carburetor DRM make any sense? Those are super common to take apart and rebuild or replace (like step 1 of every old restoration).
I hate these proprietary systems because companies have very bad track records in terms of maintenance, since they’d rather you buy a newer product.
In 2022, the automaker told drivers of the affected cars, some only three years old, that a technical solution was delayed by the pandemic. Now, more than two years later, those drivers still don’t have access to telematics services. […] Vehicles from Hyundai and Nissan, some as late as model year 2019, also lost some features after 2022’s 3G sunset.
In a country with good consumer rights, this would be a valid reason to return it and get a replacement or refund: It’s no longer offering functionality that was advertised and that you paid for as part of the purchase price.
In a country with good consumer rights, this would be a valid reason to return it and get a replacement or refund: It’s no longer offering functionality that was advertised and that you paid for as part of the purchase price.
In the EU this would probably be a no-brainer.
Same in Australia, where I’m from. I’m living in the USA now and it’s a lot harder to get refunds for things like this.
The mandatory warranty for any product in the EU is 2 years. It doesn’t take into account products like cars that you would expect to be usable for 10+ years.
I doubt you could claim anything in the EU either after more than 2 years.
I’m not an expert on this, if there are some regulations I didnt take into account, please correct me.
The mandatory warranty for any product in the EU is 2 years
I don’t know a lot about EU policies. In Australia, products must last for as long as a reasonable consumer would expect them to last (for example, 10 years for a large appliance like a fridge), including advertised features or features a sales rep told you about, regardless of the warranty period. A company removing features only three years after purchase would absolutely qualify for a refund or replacement.
I think Australia’s policies are stricter than the EU though. As far as I know, Australia is the only country where you can return games on Steam if there’s a major bug, even if you’ve had it for months and have hundreds of hours of game time. Valve got sued by the government and fined AU$3 million because they tried their “no refunds after 2 hours of game play” approach in Australia, which is illegal there (you can’t have conditions like that on refunds if the refund is for a major issue). https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-posts-a-notice-about-australian-consumer-rights-on-steam/
products must last for as long as a reasonable consumer would expect them to last (for example, 10 years for a large appliance like a fridge),
I never heard about anything like this in the EU. If my fridge or washing machine breaks after 2 years and 1 week I have no legal claim towards the manufacturer.
Actually most big electronic retailers try to sell you additional warranty with the product you buy. So you pay extra to extend warranty to 5 years.
I like the Australian aproach better, though.
No, it wouldn’t. The same thing happened when 3G was shut off here and there was no recourse for consumers.
It’s not just cars. Anything with electronics (appliances, smarthome devices, healthcare, transportation) that is designed to last more than three years will hit a wall.
The host devices are designed to last 10-15 years, but the electronics will be out-of-date in 3-5 years.
The processor manufacturer will have moved on to new tech and will stop making spare parts. The firmware will only get updated if something really bad happens. Most likely, it’ll get abandoned. And some time soon, the software toolchain and libraries will not be available anymore. Let’s not think of the devs who will have moved on. Anyone want to make a career fixing up 10-yo software stack? Where’s the profit in that for the manufacturer?
So as an end-user, you’re stuck with devices that can not be updated and there’s still at least 10-20 years of life left on them. Best of luck.
Solution: go analog. Pay extra if you have to. They’ll last longer and the ROI and privacy can’t be beat.
The problem isn’t analogue Vs digital, or even software controlled or not. It’s about the design assuming:
- The manufacturer will always exist
- The manufacturer should be the only one to maintain the device.
- The manufacture will define what the owner will do with the device.
An analogue device can be at fault too. Proprietary parts. Construction techniques which don’t allow for dissambly without destroying things. All that stuff.
…but you’re right. Buy the items that let you service them, that don’t rely on cloud servers and software updates, that use standard parts, etc, etc. Right to repair legislation is good too, but the companies understand purchasing power more. So educate those around you too.
While I’m not in love with proprietary software nor APIs from the start, I would accept some policy/regulation that would require smart device manufacturers to open-source the drivers after some given time.
Too many devices become obsolete software-wise then become e-waste not too long after. At least by open-sourcing you allow others to at least use the hardware, and the manufacturer benefits by saying “we didn’t just brick everything” while people who actually care to support it can do so.
Analogue doesn’t have firmware that can reject a device based on id.
So you can reverse engineer a replacement part if you absolutely have to.
A lot of what’s driving these decisions is the mass switch to subscription models. Everything’s designed so you have to keep coming back to the manufacturer.
It used to be making a high quality, standalone product meant you could spend less on customer service and RMA’s. Now they’ve figured out they can sell you service contracts and make money off you being locked in.
Yes and no. My “smart” TV is still doing just fine a good decade since I bought it… by never connecting it to the internet.
If only. They are more like rolling SmartTVs. Once they stop getting updates, only the offline features will work.
Please tell me someone thought about a switch to take them offline.
Just another way to force you to buy a new one
Cars should just come with a big open socket up front, where I can buy (or build) my own infotainment system to install there. That way I can replace it over the course of the car’s lifetime. Or, give me the option to just plug it up or install a traditional car radio or something. I should be able to cram an 8-track player in if I want.
Keep all automobile controls as physical buttons, knobs, and levers.
I haven’t owned a car in over 10 years, but whenever I look at what’s available, I can’t get past how much planned obsolescence is baked into newer cars. I would never buy one…
If automakers focused on cars, and let tech companies and focus on building the infotainment systems, we’d have better choices and less vendor lock-in.
Cars should just come with a big open socket up front, where I can buy (or build) my own infotainment system to install there.
…which is precisely what we used to have, before auto makers decided to insist that they should be enclosed in a swooping dash.
I mean, the DIN hole was a standard size but it certainly wasn’t a ‘socket’ and anyone who had a Ford Focus that needed a Mercedes-Benz writing harness to plug up their aftermarket radio knows what I’m on about.
I’d be fine with a reinvention of the modular system with more digital I/O and connections to other features of the car. Let me buy something like a “Samsung Galaxy Drive” infotainment dash that embodies the “swooping dash” concept, or let me buy a pre-built shell that I can build out like a custom PC.
I can cram my car full of corporate apps, or I can run it on Linux. I would love to have the choice.
Any future self-driving capabilities need to be inside of their own dedicated system like an aircraft autopilot.
I may be weird but why would you need an infotainment system at all? I have all the infotainment I could possibly want in my phone, the car is only needed as a Bluetooth speaker and for standard playback controls.
The car screen is significantly bigger than the phone screen, making it quicker to glance at it for driving instructions.
But now we’re just coming back to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I just want a big screen with physically touchable controls for those. My previous car did exactly that, but now I’ve gone near two decades older so I now get a fancy screen with no functionality beyond FM radio and DVD video lol
That was also the point of Apple CarPlay/Android auto. Let the manufacturer provide the hardware but your phone can run the infotainment. Let actual software companies do that, instead of the horrible mess that car manufacturers make out of software
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I’ve been screaming about this for years and no one listens. My old car will run longer than my new one because I can change the head unit in the old one
Noone listens because they want people to buy new cars every 10-15 years. Capitalism endgame where companies don’t care about what the consumer wants anymore, as long as they make sure consumers don’t have choices.
Your family members want that?
No, they don’t listen because they don’t understand.
Some people don’t care enough to try and understand
I think no one listens to me because I’m just some dude, lol. You right though
Cellular enabled cars are conceptually dumb. That’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
Me when my car gets hack and remote controlled to drive off a cliff:
“Ahhh” D: sploosh
Crash-detection systems can use cellular to alert medical authorities, that and theft are about the only practical use cases i see for that.
I feel like these days the tech should be there to just leverage our cell phones for this. Most drivers have their phones paired to their cars now anyway, and perhaps some sort of emergency protocol could be created where a car could even connect through a nearby non-paired phone for an automated emergency call too. As for tracking - make cars have something like an air tag type function built in that can share both android+apple tracking networks. This is all a pipe dream anyway - there’s money to be made on connected car services so the shareholders won’t be for modernizing the approach anytime soon.
Makes no sense to me…but at this very moment I’m a hypocrite lol
Naw, I live in a hot as hell country I’m super jealous of people who can remote-start the air conditioning in their cars.
It should be an open interface like OBD2 though where you can choose the hardware/provider instead of being locked to the car manufacturer deprecating everything in 3 years to sell you a new car.
You don’t really need connected cars for that. My car has no smart features but still has a remote start capability. It uses the car remote to trigger it instead of cellular connection.
Two way alarm systems with remote start have been a thing for pretty long and don’t all require cellular connection. Some are just super long distance key fobs.
I cannot remote start my car. If it’s really hot or really cold, I go outside for a few seconds to start the car and then go back inside. It’s really not that big a hardship.
Assuming you park next to your house a WiFi connection on the local network would be everything you need. Relatively cheap compared to the car would be a repeater to extend it for people like me who park 30-50m away I agree with you assumption that this is car manufacturers creating software based planned obsolescence. An open source framework would resolve this concern even over cell networks but defeats the entire point of also pushing power windows and seat heating as a service.
And this is why I drive a 1980 Volkswagen rabbit pickup. better gas mileage then modern cars (50mpg+ on the highway) I can replace about any part in it for under a few hundred in most cases even a new engine can be done under 1000. And everything is dead simple to work on no fancy computers or anything.
Polluting as hell though, or so I imagine?
Even in Sweden catalysators were not mandatory before like 1986 IIRC.
The rest is awesome though 👍😎
And what are the pollution costs of even manufacturing a new vehicle, VS one that’s already in place?
We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.
You can, though. There are many lifecycle analyses using actual data to calculate the tradeoff point.
We can’t manufacture our way to using fewer resources.
Why not? Seems like a pretty simple formula: if it costs X amount of resources or pollution to save Y amount of resources or pollution per unit time, the break-even point is whenever Y times time exceeds X.
This depends a lot on how much the one already in place pollutes, vs the new one.
For an EV vs a slightly older ICE, on your average western power grid (so not fully renewable, but not fully coal either), it takes just a few years till the EV’s total lifetime emissions are less.
Oh yea it’s a straight pipe diesel ain’t anything good for the environment gonna put a slightly more modern engine in it at some point for some more power the 1.6l in it currently only makes like 50 horse so when I do that it’ll be a little better but still not great
Well there are a bunch of reliable late 90s and early 2000s German engines that would make that thing ridiculously fast compared to now, pollute less, burn less fuel, and would be pretty easy to maintain.
Long as you avoid all the ones with known pitfalls and research standalone ECU options first of course.
I’m partial to Mercedes engineering myself, I’d tell you to use an OM646. But there’s nothing wrong with an M47 or a VW 1.9 tdi either. The PD version of the tdi is slightly more complex than the oldschool versions (66 and 81 kW), but would get you ridiculous performance and fuel economy considering how little your car weighs.
Of course if you had more space in there, I’d suggest an OM648 or M57, but I don’t think you’d get an inline 6 to fit. MAYBE an OM647 since it’s an inline 5?
You can get a inline 5 in it cause I know you can fit a o7k or a vr6 lol. my plan was to swap it to a TDI I actually have an 01 TDI sitting here for it just don’t have the money currently to finish it but once i do, this TDI is actually supped up some pushing 20+ psi of boost not the I will probably run that much since I plan to daily it but it can
How about those crumple zones? Feel safe in your passenger cage? Hope you’re shorter than the dashboard in case of a rollover. Don’t have to worry about getting hit by those airbags, do you? Imagine that steering column spearing through your chest
New cars aren’t just about the latest infotainment, gadgets, and design. There have been huge improvements in pollution control and safety. There has also been huge improvements in efficiency, even if they’re masked by the increased weight of safety improvements, increased performance, and generally much larger size. So far a lot of that increased complexity is well worth it - I’ll never have another car without anti-lock brakes
New cars aren’t just about the latest infotainment, gadgets, and design.
They mostly are, companies don’t care to innovate anymore, only to sell.
There have been huge improvements in pollution control and safety.
Safety? Some, sure. Pollution? The only reason governments regulate is because car companies want to sell you a new car every year. Ooops, big bad government whom we happen to have in our pocket wants Euro5 now…
…even if they’re masked by the increased weight of safety improvements, increased performance, and generally much larger size.
More weight/size = more raw materials, is it really that good for the environment?
If companies and governments are so keep on being green (they’re not) they’d ensure cars are easily repairable and upgradable. And they’d keep supporting older models - design a more efficient engine to replace the one in the older car why won’t they?
More weight/size = more raw materials, is it really that good for the environment?
If a vehicle doubles in size, vastly improves performance, and still has similar efficiency, yes, that’s a win. If it improves safety enough to save tens of thousands of lives every year, yes it’s worth it.
That’s the only reason I bought a modern car.
My parents would always buy cheap beaters. They had a car from the 90s they only recently got rid of because the transmission was shot. My first car was an '05 Caravan I drove for almost two years and got rid of in 2018.
I swallowed the pill after seeing cars get absolutely crushed to the point where the jaws of life were necessary yet passengers could just walk out.
I remember someone posted a picture of their brand new sedan. It was involved in a serious accident and sandwiched between two large pickup trucks. The entire car was squished down until it was smaller than the passenger compartment. The driver was able to walk away with minor injuries and the paramedics weren’t even surprised.
I don’t give a shit about the fancy features. I just want something that is reliable and safe.
How is the 3G sunset not solvable by just swapping out a modem module for an LTE or 5G one and maybe installing some new modem firmware? A lot of cars are running a Linux kernel under the hood, so I’d think it’s pretty well swap and go
Ah, if only car hardware was modular and standardized… And if you had access to your infotainment system beyond touching the pretty buttons…
Imagine something as outlandish as user serviceable infotainment systems. Like they used to have in the old days. I’m hanging on by a thread to my basic 2014 car which still has a double DIN slot I can put my own system into…some day
Are these buttons in a room with us right now
Give me my buttons back
I’m lucky enough to never have owned a car without buttons - My newest car was a '19 Benz and they LUCKILY were pretty slow about hopping onto the touchscreen bandwagon
However, in my comment I meant on-screen buttons anyway, as that seems to be the norm nowadays :(
Hopefully that’ll change, iirc the EU discussed about requiring physical buttons for the highest safety rating a few months ago. Idk how that turned out but if it passed there’s hope
I love it when politicians in a democracy are doing things for the people.
I think the question is not if it’s solvable, but ‘who pays for it?’ and ‘who can be held accountable if things go awry?’
The company that didn’t see the 3G sunset coming, I would think. I know auto moves slow, but damn…4G was out for what, 4-5 years before development likely started on the 2019 model year?
I’d think so too, but (I assume) you and I don’t have a small army of lawyers and lobbyists on retainer.
this should be part of car safety and legislated by the govt, no?
in the uk it would be part of the MOT to see that your software is up to date and working
Just like they legislate vehicle size, headlight brightness, and enforce fuel economy standards?
Then whatever is fucked in the electronics will be fucked forever.
Just like it has been for the last 20 years or so.
You don’t need a computer in a car, especially an electric one. Sure, you want some electronics, but do you think 1970s milk floats had computers in them. Today’s EVs are basically the same thing with better motors and batteries.
Software control should be kept for luxury aspects of the vehicle. Nothing critical.
Software control should be kept for luxury aspects of the vehicle. Nothing critical.
Tesla would disagree, lol. But then again, for the price, the whole car is a luxury.
Go to hell Elon
I have never heard of a vehicle that was referred to as a milk float, ever. What they is?!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float
Basically how milk men would deliver fresh milk to your doorstep in the early hours of the morning.
Locked bootloaders should be illegal. Manufacturers should have to provide enough specs that third parties can write code that runs on the hardware.
Manufacturers should have to provide enough specs that third parties can write code that runs on the hardware.
“But Crowdstrike” would probably be an argument against.
“Security” as an excuse for self-serving bullshit isn’t new.
Sure, there’s a risk of breaking things. I can do that with a hacksaw and a soldering iron too, and it’s widely recognized that it isn’t up to the manufacturer of the thing to keep me from breaking it. We need the same understanding for devices that depend on software.
…linux cars? Pretty please?
Vehicle control systems are overwhelmingly programmed in C, mostly from graphical design tools such as MATLAB Simulink via an automatic process. These are real time control systems which are quite different to an interrupt based operating system such as Linux. The many individual controllers must work in concert according to a strict architecture definition and timing schedule that defines the functionality of the vehicle. It’s not at all like a PC or phone, whose OS become irrelevant over time, with respect to their environment of other systems. The vehicle environment is the same environment that we inhabit i.e. the one with gravity, friction, charge and the other SI units. This is slowly changing with advent of self driving but, yeah.
Yeah but the infotainment system can be Linux based.
This is correct. If using an OS, an RTOS like the Linux Foundation Zephyr OS is the right choice here.
These are real time control systems which are quite different to an interrupt based operating system such as Linux.
You do know you can operate the linux kernel in real time, right?
It’s not a hard real time OS though. Real Time Linux would be appropriate for some subsystems in a car, but not for things that are safety critical with hard timing constraints, e.g. ABS controllers.
fine, fine, I learned 3/4 new things there, thanks for taking the time
God no
