The Future of the Auto Industry

[ryan]

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.

In my state it's been signed into law that by 2030 all new vehicles sold must be EV. I really hope they reverse it because it's completely untenable outside of the rich cosmopolitan bubble that policy makers live in.

 

[ryan]

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?

I hate the antichrist so fucking much...

 

[manpaint]

Okay, so one thing I always wondered is does EVs have an operating system? I think I once heard that some cars were running UNIX, but idk. If that's the case, does the car functions depends on the operating system? Can the car connect itself to satelite network automatically?

 

[ryan]

Okay, so one thing I always wondered is does EVs have an operating system? I think I once heard that some cars were running UNIX, but idk. If that's the case, does the car functions depends on the operating system? Can the car connect itself to satelite network automatically?

Yeah all cars with a significantly complex computer in them run OSes. Tesla uses a fork of Ubuntu. And to answer your other questions, yes and yes.

 

[manpaint]

Yeah all cars with a significantly complex computer in them run OSes. Tesla uses a fork of Ubuntu. And to answer your other questions, yes and yes.

Man, imagine being killed by a bugged car system updated that was outsourced somewhere in a 3rd world country.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Man, imagine being killed by a bugged car system updated that was outsourced somewhere in a 3rd world country.

Hot tub time machine 2

 

[bnuungus]

https://www.ge.com/digital/blog/future-automotive-industry
what can I say other than

 

[SolidStateSurvivor]

https://www.ge.com/digital/blog/future-automotive-industry
what can I say other than

Knew this was going to be bad as soon as they positively mentioned ride sharing/shared ownership.

the concept of individual ownership may decline in appeal over the next decade or so

"In the future you will own nothing because we persist the illusion of free will via pricing the majority out of said freedoms"

>General Electric
These assholes don't even make civilian cars. I want to [redacted] whoever is peddling this bullshit, it fucking glows

 

[ignika98]

https://www.ge.com/digital/blog/future-automotive-industry
what can I say other than

This feels like it was written by chatGPT. None of it makes sense and it's littered with buzzwords as if it's a parody. Not worth taking even remotely seriously.

 

[brentw]

This feels like it was written by chatGPT. None of it makes sense and it's littered with buzzwords as if it's a parody. Not worth taking even remotely seriously.

I was in a meeting led by someone from HR yesterday and this accurately describes everything that came out of her mouth.
Literally could have cut the length of the meeting in half if we removed all her rambling empty platitudes and nonsensical buzzword drivel.

 

[bnuungus]

This feels like it was written by chatGPT. None of it makes sense and it's littered with buzzwords as if it's a parody. Not worth taking even remotely seriously.

The page was published in 2018. And trust me, this is how non-engineers in the industry talk. They have no clue what they're talking about so they try to sound smart

 

[ignika98]

The page was published in 2018. And trust me, this is how non-engineers in the industry talk. They have no clue what they're talking about so they try to sound smart

Well chatGPT was trained off people like this.

 

[bnuungus]

And then there's articles like this
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-auto-industry-car-its-software-ai-power-dan-lubetsky/
NONE OF THIS IN HERE IS REAL. I can only assume that there's some narrative being pushed to garner interest in this stupid garbage bc really, what normal person wants an AI chatbot in their car? In the articles own words "creating FOMO for [people who don't have this in their car]." Yes, software designed cars are planned for model year 2027, but to my knowledge, it's more of a technical process (probably to reduce wires in cars) more than this flashy shit. Maybe this is just something they can show to the public who wouldn't get excited over the mundane modifications that are the heart of the change

 

[ignika98]

And then there's articles like this
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-auto-industry-car-its-software-ai-power-dan-lubetsky/
NONE OF THIS IN HERE IS REAL. I can only assume that there's some narrative being pushed to garner interest in this stupid garbage bc really, what normal person wants an AI chatbot in their car? In the articles own words "creating FOMO for [people who don't have this in their car]." Yes, software designed cars are planned for model year 2027, but to my knowledge, it's more of a technical process (probably to reduce wires in cars) more than this flashy shit. Maybe this is just something they can show to the public who wouldn't get excited over the mundane modifications that are the heart of the change

A huge rift has been forming between customers and industry for years. We're at a point now where industry is doing one thing, customers want something else, and articles are being written about how much customers want MORE of what industry is making.

It's unsustainable, gay, and retarded.

 

[bnuungus]

I had a conversation in chat this morning and I wanted to bump this thread because I haven't made one point clear enough: the used car market will be hell in a decade. A big contributor to this is a system that the industry is planning on implementing into their cars in the next 2 years called DoIP. Yes, we can all agree that the ability for the modules in your car to wirelessly communicate with each other and to the outside world is stupid and dangerous, but I want to talk about some details that no one ever talks about because no one ever thinks about them, including the engineers who design the cars. Even the article I linked beautifully glosses over a pretty major step in the process of making a car.

We talk about the design of these systems, we talk about the end product, but do you know what we don't talk about? The actual assembly of the car. Let's take this example that I just screenshotted in the article. A post-assembly check is not nearly enough to test a car. When you finish assembling a door, you need to test to make sure that the operators plugged everything in correctly. Problem is, the door is just a door, it's not connected to the rest of the vehicle. Therefore, you need a system to tell the door module to roll the window up and down to make sure it's assembled properly. Making these systems is my job.

So how does this relate to DoIP and the enshittification of the used car market? DoIP allows a reduction on wiring because car components will be able to communicate with each other wirelessly. This makes the assembly process much harder as the easiest way to test that a motor is hooking up an H-bridge circuit to the power and ground of the motor and rolling it up that way. The process right now is to connect up to power, ground, and the LIN pin and use an ECU to send LIN communication messages to the door module telling it to roll up the door. With DoIP, this will be incredibly limited because there are less wires. And before you think that someone designing the car will think about this little issue, trust me, they won't. Every single job I do nowadays involves me gently telling someone they're in idiot for putting the wires for power, ground, and LIN in three separate connectors. And if a test is too hard to perform, they will simply not do a test. Literally earlier this week I was on a call where they were seriously considering eliminating functionality from my tester because the test was too hard for the operators because of the way I had to design the tester due to their stupid vehicle architecture. Another job that I was not a part of involved the OEM turning off basically every test because of tester issues and still running the line despite that fact. So instead of testing the component during assembly, they'll test it after assembly when the car is fully put together. When a test fails, you'll have to disassemble the vehicle and redo it. Congratulations, you have effectively reduced your rate of cars per hour causing vehicle prices to go up to account for it. The added complexity will make repairs either incredibly expensive or straight up impossible, meaning that utter trash will be available in the used car market but you still have to sell a kidney to buy it. They don't care, they still make money.

I wanted to post this because this is an aspect of the auto industry that no one talks about, very few people bother to try to understand it, but it's arguably one of the most fundamental aspects of the car market. I know that me ranting about this doesn't really do anything, but at this point more people need to understand. And hey, if enough people know what the process actually is then maybe the people designing the cars will think about it too and I won't have to deal with as much bullshit.

 

[Pangolin]

I am probably gonna switch to something like an ebike, or the gas-powered bike.

Bike technology, and gasoline technology with 150 MPG, going 30+ MPH is more than enough for the ultra-sprawly Americoid cities. Plus with the massive streets they can get a lot of throughput in their cities for relatively low costs of $800 USD.

My prediction is that with the rise of American auto prices and inflation people will start looking more closely at the used auto market and on these much more efficient single-user vehicles. Maybe they will go for the moped.

 

[brentw]

I am probably gonna switch to something like an ebike, or the gas-powered bike.

Bike technology, and gasoline technology with 150 MPG, going 30+ MPH is more than enough for the ultra-sprawly Americoid cities. Plus with the massive streets they can get a lot of throughput in their cities for relatively low costs of $800 USD.

My prediction is that with the rise of American auto prices and inflation people will start looking more closely at the used auto market and on these much more efficient single-user vehicles. Maybe they will go for the moped.

That sounds nice and all, until you need to get to work in a snow storm.

 

[TheVisionist]

I work in the auto-industry and my company helps to test parts of a car on the assembly line. We work a lot with GM and Ford as clients as well as some other OEMs and car manufacturers. We all know the general plan for selling solely electric cars within the next decade or so but what scares me is the fact that neither GM nor Ford seem to be developing anything remotely affordable to your average person. Ford came out with the Mach-E and the Lightning, both of which are over $50k if you buy from a dealer. GM came out with the Lyriq and is coming out with the Celestiq next year. The Lyriq is priced at around $64K and the Celestiq will be

drum roll please
THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!!
(side note: I've seen this thing in person and yes it is quite an impressive car but it's no way worth that much)

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.

It just seems that both these companies are giving no thought whatsoever to developing a car that the general public could afford and as prices go up, more and more people will be left with not being able to afford private transportation, and since public transportation is pretty much non-existent (in the US and Canada at least) it's going to leave many people without a way to get around. Hopefully there are some projects in the works that I simply haven't been contracted to help work on and therefore know nothing about, but from what I've seen planned for the next few years at least does not point to either Ford or GM developing any electric vehicle that's affordable. I'm also interested to see if there's going to be much of a market for used electric vehicles. I'm leaning towards no due to the cost of repairs, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

A close friend of mine is a senior Ford tech. He is the ONLY one certified to work on EVs in our area, even if they start training someone tomorrow it takes years to be certified. He went off work for surgery and they were fucked. If he leaves, there is nobody to do the work and they cannot train someone quick enough. There is no plan.

 

[Ross_Я]

Fuck, this thread is just amazing. And depressing. I went from OP to the end, and of course I do want to add several cents of my own...

No one has given any thought to the infrastructure needed to maintain a car-centric society with all electric cars. We won't be able to go on long road trips anymore bc you can only go for a couple hours before needing to recharge the car.

He-he. He-he-he. They do not want you to be able to go on long road trips. Ties in with these posts:

...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.

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.

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?

***

I seriously doubt there will be any real investment money being put into reverting to gas cars. You could argue that "oh well it will be easy to revert back to gas cars because the technology is already very well defined" and while to a certain extent that's true, it's also very far from reality. Going back to gas cars will require a similar amount of money thrown at the industry due to the insane task of changing what goes on in assembly plants.

This man definitely knows what he is talking about.
I mean, I'm not sure about US, but a lot of plants around this part of the world - be it assembly or not, car industry or not - are absolute frankensteins by now. They have layers upon layers of technology from different decades built into them, and it all works on unholy incantations and several people who might as well become the founding fathers of Cult Mechanicus. Like, around this place there are plants that use PCs with DOS software and floppies, and there are several people who operate those, and do be sure, the company won't bother to replace those PCs until every human who is at least remotely familiar with DOS is 6 feet underground. Until that time, the DOS will be there, and hell knows how many newer systems were built and will be build relying upon that poor DOS PC. I assume that car assembly plants in US are kind of similar, since trying to search for the latest built car assembly plant on US soil give me news like this: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-16/ford-s-new-5-6b-electric-car-factory-stirs-concern-in-rural-tennessee
Also, huh, electric car factory. They've probably decided that building a new one is easier than upgrading an old one. There's also a thread on Agora that kind of offers a glimpse into this whole problem.
Even before this hellish nightmare full of computers with different systems, changing an assembly plant has been hell of a task. The 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car concept has been rejected primarily because of the costs that were projected to be required for the changes that needed to be done to assembly plants in order to support a car with quite a radically different type of engine.
That was in the 60's! The amount of money needed to change the modern assembly plant - frankenstein or not - is much higher, and the fact it is being discussed even in theory means that someone is ready to bet truly enormous amounts of money onto the whole endeavour. You can be sure those people are serious.

I wanted to post this because this is an aspect of the auto industry that no one talks about, very few people bother to try to understand it, but it's arguably one of the most fundamental aspects of the car market. I know that me ranting about this doesn't really do anything, but at this point more people need to understand. And hey, if enough people know what the process actually is then maybe the people designing the cars will think about it too and I won't have to deal with as much bullshit.

Very few people bother to try and understand their car (or computer, or smartphone, or pretty much anything) to start with, save for the market and the industry. I do bump this thread in hopes more people will read it and, I don't know, maybe at least several heads will click, but most people at this point do not even suspect how much simplier the average car was in 1960's. There was a reason why people were able to build cars in their garage.

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.

This is what I kind of hope for. I mean, there's a market for kit cars out there, like Factory Five cars: https://www.factoryfive.com/order-a-kit/
But so far it is rather small and, as far as I can see it, not particularly cheap either. But it is mostly because kit cars are pretty much made by order, with hand laid bodies and stuff. If any of kit car manufacturers could actually get enough demand to move onto a mass assembly, it could become the second coming of a car culture I'm wishing for.
Or it could just create another premium-priced manufacturer. You never know.
But at least partial return of body-on-frame construction into public masses could probably wake people up.

~snip~

In cases like that it sounds like it is easier to disconnect the button and find an electrician who would somehow build a system from scratch for the driver window. It is definitely not the simpliest of tasks, but it is possible. I'm looking to do something like that for my coupe-cabrio, since the roof failed and I do not think anyone would be able to repair it. I know somebody had invented a system for my car in Spain, but, unfortunately, I failed to make a contact with inventor (hoped he will share schematics or something).
Such a scratch-built system likely won't be anyhow pretty, but it will work. Not sure, maybe someone will find it useful...

I don't have a whole lot to add other than saying I will buy a horse before I buy an electric car, or a car built after 2010 for that matter.

Fun. As I was reading the thread, 2010 was the year where I drew a line as well.

 

[Chuffed]

I enjoyed the read on the bump, some good takes in here. I live in a state that pushed a bill for all electric vehicles registered/sold by 2030 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/washington-state-plans-ban-non-electric-vehicles-2030-rcna21683)... Also my power company just sent out a message begging everyone to do their part and not do laundry or dishes because the grid was overloaded due to the cold snap. I hope they're right and unicorns farting stars magically fixes this because reality says this isn't going to work and we can't support (let alone afford) electric cars for everyone.