The Future of the Auto Industry

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Even if you're able to afford paying a loan every single month to buy one of these things, repairing the car should anything go wrong is going to be nearly impossible due to how electrically complex these things are. Everything is connected to a module, modules that no mechanic wants to touch. I personally live in an area that's extremely rough on cars so I'm guessing any of those machines will only last around 5 years at most before you need to buy a new one. You think your average person can pay off a loan that big in 5 years? I make a pretty decent salary and I definitely couldn't.
I mean there's no reason we can't have semi affordable cars on par with late 90s Toyotas in terms of quality other than bullshit government regulations regarding emissions right?

And I know I'm not alone in hating just how much tablets and other tech has been integrated into newer cars. Needlessly bloats the price and makes them a pain to work on. As the cars get "smarter" your ownership and control of them will only diminish.
If these companies gave a shit about the planet, they'd make products that can be easily repaired with readily available parts. Whether that be ICE or EV. Driving a 1999 Toyota Camry for 30 years will always be more environmentally friendly than pumping out EV shit boxes to the masses every 5-10 years when the batteries stop working and they cost 6-15k to replace.
Wasn't the major upside to any form of electric vehicle, that they are simpler than their predecessors? Compare a steam locomotive to a modern electric one. True technological progress is when you have the means to make something simpler. For example a mechanical watch compared to a quartz one. You have to take care of a rolex, but the cheap casio terrorist watch I rediscovered at the back of my drawer after several years is only half a minute wrong. An EV is basically a big RC-Car. For maintainance, a dream, right?

Meaning this trend we are witnessing is wholly artificial. The goal isn't saving the planet, that's just a Trojan horse for the real goal: to make the car a smartphone on wheels - and in all the worst ways. The next level of centralisation and planned obsolesence. "Your car doesn't support Windows 11" - what the shit.
Even all of the small electric car start-ups I have seen seem fall for this trap: Half the windscreen is blocked by a TV sticking out of the dashboard.

That 1999 Toyota camry already has planned obsolesence to quite a large extent as well, people were already complaining about how bad cars had allegedly become back then, smaller amount of space to work on the engine and lack of standardised parts for example. That they now seem like a gold standard to us is not a good sign. If the future proceeds as this thread describes, will people in 20 years reminisce in the same way that we do now (this being a vaporwave forum and all) about how good the last of the petrol cars were?

What we are experiencing isn't technical progress, it's technical bloat. Making things as complicated as possible, for profit and for its own sake; Us poor humans are being strung along for the ride.

No wonder people are going back to LPs and analogue photography (CDs and Cassettes too to a lesser extent) - me too, and with cameras just for the fact that an old SLR is just more intuitive to use, however annoying developing film may be. The device has all the features you need to take good pictures, and nothing more. Sure, you need to learn how to do things manually, but all of the functions are intuitively layed out so that they quickly become non-distracting muscle memory - just like in a pre-2010s car. Who even cares about the newest algorithmic auto mode that allows even a brain-amputee to paralel park or win a pulitzer prize. I am human, I don't need this; I just want to drive a car / take pictures for gods sake!

Of course, that our modern world is built for the car, and not for the human is another big problem, the bigger one in my opinion. But that's a whole different can of worms.

The Youtube-search-algorithmication of everything. Either you submit to your new globally centralised tech-industrial overlords and let your new helicopter parent, the algorithm, make the "right choices" for you, or you can let yourself be assaulted by an overwhelming clusterfuck of menus if you dare to have any sort of control yourself. Most will end up choosing the former, if with the latter it will even be possible for a human to have a life otherwise.

I am glad though to hear this sentiment echoed, not just on the lesser known parts of the internet, but among friends too. I believe there is great demand for a repairable barebones car - electric or not- the sort with hand-crank windows, and whoever meets it could make loads of money. Just like, potentially, with the affordable repairable Smartphone or Laptop. But it's not like anyone manufactures what the individual buyer wants these days anyway. Only that which we have been convinced to want.
 
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ignika98

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Call it cope if you want, but I think a lot of these regulations mandating X% of cars sold to be electric or banning the sale new new ICEs after some date will magically disappear once the industry, investors, and regulators realize just how impossible this is.
This. Car companies are notorious for jumping on trends just as quickly as they abandon them. EVs are just a fad at the end of the day. They might stick around and see some use as small city cars or taxi cabs, but this whole "Electric is the Future!™" thing is just a bunch of marketing crap and propaganda.

Speaking of, I saw the most aggravating ad for a Hyundai EV the other day. There was some woman talking about how her dad "who can't even check his email!" bought an EV. The dad went on to brag about how it "charges from 0 to 80% in 10 minutes!" (as if that's supposed to be impressive?) and the daughter said something like "You might think they take too long to charge, or that they don't go that far. But EVs are the future, so just make the switch already!".
Only for the ad to end with tiny text at the bottom that read:

"This car will be manufactured in limited quantities."

These companies don't even have the confidence to make enough of the damn things, yet they have the audacity to scold their audience for not buying them. Fuck that lmao.
 
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bnuungus

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This. Car companies are notorious for jumping on trends just as quickly as they abandon them. EVs are just a fad at the end of the day. They might stick around and see some use as small city cars or taxi cabs, but this whole "Electric is the Future!™" thing is just a bunch of marketing crap and propaganda.
I really really want this to be true but everything that I'm seeing when working with Ford and GM tells me otherwise. Yes at some point I think we'll see these companies ditch the concept but not before doing plenty of damage to the used car market.

I believe there is great demand for a repairable barebones car - electric or not- the sort with hand-crank windows, and whoever meets it could make loads of money.
We can only dream but also government regulations for certain car parts are a thing (thanks legal bribers-- i mean lobbyists)
 
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Orlando Smooth

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We can only dream but also government regulations for certain car parts are a thing (thanks legal bribers-- i mean lobbyists)
A perfect example of this is the US regulation that all cars built after 2017 are required to have backup cameras. Therefore, all cars necessarily will have screens in the middle of the dashboard. Cost to manufacture goes up, number of points of failure goes up, cost to repair goes up, and drivers are subconsciously trained to pay less attention to their surroundings. One of the things I love most about the driveability of old cars is that the A pillar is not a gigantic blind spot in your FORWARD FACING field of vision. I wonder how many accidents have been caused because of this serious design flaw compared to how many injuries prevented by requiring A pillar curtain airbags.
 
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ignika98

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I really really want this to be true but everything that I'm seeing when working with Ford and GM tells me otherwise. Yes at some point I think we'll see these companies ditch the concept but not before doing plenty of damage to the used car market.
Hey, different companies do seem to have different approaches to the EV trend. Ford and GM might just be late to jump off.

I see this as being really similar to the "biofuel" trend of the mid 00s. Remember when every car company was making new cars that could run on horse piss and corn or whatever? That was "the future" at the time as well. The only reason EVs might go a bit farther than biofuel cars did, is because of how heavily the government is subsidizing them.
 
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A perfect example of this is the US regulation that all cars built after 2017 are required to have backup cameras. Therefore, all cars necessarily will have screens in the middle of the dashboard. Cost to manufacture goes up, number of points of failure goes up, cost to repair goes up, and drivers are subconsciously trained to pay less attention to their surroundings. One of the things I love most about the driveability of old cars is that the A pillar is not a gigantic blind spot in your FORWARD FACING field of vision. I wonder how many accidents have been caused because of this serious design flaw compared to how many injuries prevented by requiring A pillar curtain airbags.
1681242783705.png
 
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Boxerdog

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I will never stop driving shitboxes that have little to no fancy things.

I do not care for a rear camera, i know how to drive, the trade off of being a little bit easier to parallel does not justify a giant screen in my face and all of the stuff that comes associated with it, They make those because they love to make those ungodly giant crossovers that will never go off road on their lifetime.
I do not care for blind sensors, I can easily shoulder check or have a small round mirror if i need to check my blind spot.
I do not care for integrated gps, I already have a phone and if a person has a drivers license they should be able to navigate by looking at street signs, they make them integrated so that they can track you whenever you go.
I do not care for any sort of touchscreen in my dash, if I can't text and drive why can i look and touch at a screen in my car? Its fake improvement, instead of going through multiple menus to turn on a/c you can just have a single analog button, They do it so that you cannot mess with your car Electronics without having to mess with the software too.
If its not a clear upgrade over something there is no need to change it, electric windows while prone to failure are extremely useful if you need to open the back windows or even your own without having to crank it while driving highways speed, its not necessary but there is little to no trade off. If i have to trade a tried and true function on a car, it needs to be truly useful or not invasive, Automatic transmissions are hated but people don't know that they are hydraulic and the best option to 99% of the population, but the real problem is that people will not know the difference when your car has a auto "transmission" That its basically just a button telling the car to go forward or backwards.

A friend of mine has an electric car and the car company can raise and restrict his range from their headquarters, he called them about a potential problem with the car and they shut the car down and left him without means of transportation for like a week. Their fix? They just cut his range in half so that the problem doesn't happen again.

I will never pay for anything physical that i don't own 100% Ive been thinking about buying a diesel car so i can just make my own fuel once gas gets prohibitively expensive.
The only reason EVs might go a bit farther than biofuel cars did, is because of how heavily the government is subsidizing them.
The only reason why biofuel cars never went anywhere was because the gov went to the middle east for the sole purpose of getting oil, if bio cars became a thing it would make the whole war useless. They put money against biocars because they would single handed kill the oil industry if you could make your own fuel in your backyard.

Diesel is the real future.
 
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SolidStateSurvivor

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Waitingfor2050

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They are changing their target. They don't care anymore about low and middle class (lmao that's not even a thing anymore) buying their cars. I looked into BMW and they are selling less cars than ten years ago but with a bigger profit. How? Well, just give up making cars for peasants, make cars for rich people and charge as much as you want. It has worked so far.
I've seen people argue "ha! Electric cars will never be viable because they are not practical and they cost too much!" Uh? What makes you think they are trying to make electric cars for you to buy? You take the bus or the subway so you can survive off your 9 to 5, you don't need a car.
 
They are changing their target. They don't care anymore about low and middle class (lmao that's not even a thing anymore) buying their cars. I looked into BMW and they are selling less cars than ten years ago but with a bigger profit. How? Well, just give up making cars for peasants, make cars for rich people and charge as much as you want. It has worked so far.
I've seen people argue "ha! Electric cars will never be viable because they are not practical and they cost too much!" Uh? What makes you think they are trying to make electric cars for you to buy? You take the bus or the subway so you can survive off your 9 to 5, you don't need a car.
welcome!
 
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brentw

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I dont pay attention to the news and had assumed this was all empty rhetoric. How serious is it? Sounds poorly thought-out, to say the least.

Extremely serious. Some places already have laws, and more have them in the pipeline.
If you take them at face value, it's very stupid and not thought out at all.

But that's because they're not telling you the whole truth. It is intentional. They don't plan for you to have a car.
They are gradually enacting a long term plan to remove the personal transportation and autonomy of the lower and then middle classes.
They know the cars will be too expensive for most to own. They don't care because they don't want most to own a car.
 
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found that meme about apple, little nonsequitor here, you can repost it in thread, i dont remember which one now
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found related post
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I hate no horse in the EV race but i want to talk about a otto 2018ish car we tried to repair. I just remember it was a small 207 type of car, i don't remember the model. The driver window didn't move when you pressed the buttons. Soo we first tested the motor that moves the window, it worked at 12 voltage we provided from the battery. Then we tested the button panel that had more than just the window controllers, the button had 2 story electronic circuit in itself soo we couldn't just reach the buttons. It had about 8 channel output that connected to the brain and we found the ones that acted when we pressed the window buttons but for some reason, instead of letting current flow when you press and restrict it when you release, it let current flow at the start and finish for a split second. This absolute retardation caused us a lot of time because it is not standart but buttons worked too. After this we tested the current we get from the brain( which is a literal small black box) with a bulb that worked 9v to about 15v, bulb worked fine. After rechecking everything twice more we tried to test the exact voltage we got from the brain, it was 9.5v and that couldn't move the window motor. We can't do anything to the brain because it is soo delicate and propriatery soo we took half of this car out for nothing.

This car had nothing, i mean absolutely nothing, more advanced than some random full packet Corolla from 2010 but 10 times harder to repair. They just connected everything to the brain and the average repairman doesn't have the tools to fix this alone now. A electrician couldn't fix them because these things are propriatery too, no car window uses same components soo you need a huge storage of car window parts if the issue is in the motor or the buttons but a car window repairshop can't fix the brain because you also need propriatery components to even try to fix it.

I fucking hate the car industry, it is dead in my eye.
 
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bnuungus

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I hate no horse in the EV race but i want to talk about a otto 2018ish car we tried to repair. I just remember it was a small 207 type of car, i don't remember the model. The driver window didn't move when you pressed the buttons. Soo we first tested the motor that moves the window, it worked at 12 voltage we provided from the battery. Then we tested the button panel that had more than just the window controllers, the button had 2 story electronic circuit in itself soo we couldn't just reach the buttons. It had about 8 channel output that connected to the brain and we found the ones that acted when we pressed the window buttons but for some reason, instead of letting current flow when you press and restrict it when you release, it let current flow at the start and finish for a split second. This absolute retardation caused us a lot of time because it is not standart but buttons worked too. After this we tested the current we get from the brain( which is a literal small black box) with a bulb that worked 9v to about 15v, bulb worked fine. After rechecking everything twice more we tried to test the exact voltage we got from the brain, it was 9.5v and that couldn't move the window motor. We can't do anything to the brain because it is soo delicate and propriatery soo we took half of this car out for nothing.

This car had nothing, i mean absolutely nothing, more advanced than some random full packet Corolla from 2010 but 10 times harder to repair. They just connected everything to the brain and the average repairman doesn't have the tools to fix this alone now. A electrician couldn't fix them because these things are propriatery too, no car window uses same components soo you need a huge storage of car window parts if the issue is in the motor or the buttons but a car window repairshop can't fix the brain because you also need propriatery components to even try to fix it.

I fucking hate the car industry, it is dead in my eye.
God forbid we make a car that has simple current driven motors to move things. But nooo, we have to tie everything into a module instead. I'm sick of this shit it makes my job much more difficult. Manufacturers nowadays are even going as far as making the communication between modules and motors somewhat "wireless" (it really isn't wireless but there are some aspects to the systems that do have communication protocols similar to a localized internet solely for the car's parts).
 
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God forbid we make a car that has simple current driven motors to move things. But nooo, we have to tie everything into a module instead. I'm sick of this shit it makes my job much more difficult. Manufacturers nowadays are even going as far as making the communication between modules and motors somewhat "wireless" (it really isn't wireless but there are some aspects to the systems that do have communication protocols similar to a localized internet solely for the car's parts).
The wireless controls are just anti-repair shit, it is literally worse at everything against wired control but car manifucturers do it anyways. Thankfully i only saw one and we didn't take that car.
 
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ryan

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I think so too. There are not enough resources on planet Earth for everyone to have their own personal car, gas or electric. In 50 years time your average person is not going to own a car and will get around through a combination of public transport and easy to access rental vehicles that you will use for road trips, moving etc. Kind of like how you can go rent a regular sized pickup from U-Haul right now if you don't own your own pickup and use it to cart stuff around. I think there'll be widely available smart car/fiat sized electric rentals.


That being said, I just bought a brand new 4x4 Jeep Renegade. Vroom Vroom motherfuckers.
As much as I despise the "you will own nothing" trend and champion for individual ownership (I've cancelled all of my subscription services in favor of physical goods), my unpopular opinion here is that I would absolutely take a combo of good public transport, urban planning and bikes over endless sprawls forcing car ownership. I would much rather be able to ride a bike or walk around town and take a train on vacation than be stuck in god awful traffic every day and be forced to funnel money into the vampiric industry of private insurance.

Unfortunately with how much everything sucks I'm sure they'll find a way to remove car ownership and make it impossible to live without one.
 

PraxHeadroom

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with how much everything sucks I'm sure they'll find a way to remove car ownership and make it impossible to live without one.
This is literally exactly what they want. They are actively trying to create the human equivalent of an industrial farm. Livestock don't get freedom of movement, so why should you?
 
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