11 ms·

Carmakers fret their industry is on the brink of huge disruption

43 points by nopinsight 11y ago

wrong_variable 11y ago
@disruption @threat The economist really likes to paint everything as a gloomy picture. The way I see it - the modern internal combustion engine is a threat to civilization. Car Makers especially americans ones have a lot of blood on their hand. Everything from helping redesign cities to make it impossible to not afford buying their product. To making walking a crime ( jay walking ). "Young city-dwellers are turning their backs on owning a costly asset that sits largely unused and loses value the moment it is first driven." Good - we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars.
- monk_e_boy 11y ago
  "we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars" ... I think we will have to... for a while. Education is the best way of reducing population. Cars (or any type of personal transport) is crucial, moving the effort from humans to machines, leaving the human with more time and options. This leads to education and caring about the environment, politics etc. So for a while we'll have to have 7 billion people using cars (or at least that's what the goal should be) then this will drop to 6 billion, then 5 then 4 etc. We can power cars using solar. Terrestrial or orbital.
  - smhg 11y ago
    > Education is the best way of reducing population. Going slightly off topic. Overpopulation can be solved in 2 ways: reducing population or expanding our habitat. Education contributes to both, but the second sounds like a more feasible path to take.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      There are around ~400k people born every single day. If we expand our habitat to other planets, we'd need the capability to launch a million people a day to have even the remotest impact on population in the near future. Unless anti-gravity or some new weird physics is invented, this isn't ever going to happen.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        It's the net change after accounting for deaths that would count here. So the pertinent number is about 200,000/day. Not that this changes your overall point.
      - smhg 11y ago
        Does that mean you assume reducing population to be easy/easier? Increasing our habitat isn't simple. But it at least is likely to get more feasible over time. While reducing population seems to be the opposite of our 'nature' (not that we aren't able to go against that) and it requires the cooperation of basically everyone. Which isn't required by the former. Cooperation seems to get [insert mathematical function] harder when more people are involved. Sidenote: expansion would of course not exclude taking care of existing habitats.
    - chillwaves 11y ago
      The problem is more of over consumption than over population, but I can see why the two would be confused because their is significant overlap. However I find the "over population" argument a red herring to make wealthy Americans feel better. I can assure you if we cut the population of the planet in half but consumed at US levels, that is unsustainable. Just like if we double the population but consume at India levels we'd be fine.
      - duncan_bayne 11y ago
        What evidence have you that 'US' levels of consumption are unsustainable? This seems to be a modern article of faith since Malthus.
    - superuser2 11y ago
      The sentiment that interplanetary colonization is more feasible than education is perhaps the most characteristic HN filter-bubble statement I've ever heard.
      - smhg 11y ago
        I absolutely didn't intend to say anything about the importance of education. The transfer of knowledge is one of the most important features of humankind. The comment was intended solely as an extra view on the overpopulation subject.
rhino369 11y ago
Does anyone have solid figures regarding automobile lifespan and what variables affect it. I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main variable. I wonder if driver-less automobiles will really reduce the need for cars. Sure, you can have a car run 3 different commutes a day instead of 1 typically done now. But that will produce 3X the wear and tear on the car. In New York, taxis are used for 3-5 years. Plus, with driveless cars we may end up driving much more and further. Instead of a bus, I may just have a car drive me to work. In fact, Uber already lets me commute by car instead of public transit 4/5 days a week. Uber has already caused me to drive more, not less. I wonder what the end result is. But they are right to be worried. Any major change in technology brings in winners and losers.
- acgourley 11y ago
  I don't have the data, but that's intuitively correct. Time does matter some when it comes to the corrosion of the underframe (in states that salt roads), dried gaskets, weather damage to paint. But miles matter for everything else including body damage from accidents.
- ars 11y ago
  > I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main variable. And my experience is exactly the opposite. I have never had a car die from mileage. I've had several die from time. In my experience cars last about 10 year, 15 if you are careful. How many miles you drive during that time is mostly irrelevant. Personally I think cars should track hours when turned on, not miles.
  - cam- 11y ago
    My car tracks engine hours and rpm over the lifetime of the car. It is in the console with a couple of clicks.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    When you say die from time, do you mean time turned on or just age?
danjoc 11y ago
This article seems to overlook the obvious. Self driving cars are still cars. Someone has to make them. Car makers are not going out of business in that scenario.
- shakethemonkey 11y ago
  Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary, and, as the article notes, limit the ability of manufacturers to upsell features. If the fleet of cars on the road were largely self-driving, there is no way it would support the present variety of car manufacturers. I would hazard that most would go bankrupt.
  - danjoc 11y ago
    >Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary The fact that the cars drive themselves really changes nothing. Car pooling reduces the total number of cars necessary. Public transportation reduces the total number of cars necessary. You might try to argue that car pooling will increase as a result of the change, but I don't think that is a given. You'd need to explain away surge pricing to convince me otherwise. But certainly, if you'd like to sell me your Tesla shares now at half price and get to safety, I'll be a friend and take them off your hands for you :)
- acdha 11y ago
  Seconding shakethemonkey's comments and would ask: how much thought do people put into the car they buy versus the cars they rent? The car companies have enjoyed brand loyalty and the ability to sell feature bundles because many people associate their car with their identity. When you say “Mustang owner”, “Subaru driver”, etc. specific images come to mind, and across all cars you see things like people paying considerably more to e.g. have a fuel-inefficient engine because there are a few times where they can step on the gas and enjoy the rapid acceleration. Manufacturers made billions selling SUVs to people who thought safer, cheaper minivans were too boring. That doesn't completely go away with self-driving cars – someone with 4 kids will still have different needs than the avid bicyclist or single urbanite — but a lot of it will become less important if people start thinking about their car as, say, the place where they play games or catch up on Netflix while they head home from work. Why pay Ford for the premium sport package when you can put the money into a faster mobile data plan or a better tablet? They certainly don't go out of business in that scenario but the business becomes tighter and less exciting if it becomes more of a commodity where people generally just buy whatever's cheaper.
sandworm101 11y ago
Carmakers always fret. SUVs, the decline of suburbs, gas prices, hybrids, in-dash entertainment ... there is always something just around the corner that is to revolutionize everything. That's business.
wmeredith 11y ago
...And consumers are licking their chops. Car buying and repair is a racket from top to bottom. This is in no small part the fault of the manufacturers from design to actively campaigning for policy that's bad for customers and good for car makers/sellers. I hope they rot.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  I see this exact sentiment all the time. Even people who have a favorite brand will gripe angrily about getting ripped off on the purchase and how repairs are so needlessly expensive.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I think this is one reason why car makers (except that one that always shows up on the front page here) love having dealers. The maker gets all the love for a great machine, and the dealers get all the hate for dishonest sales practices and ripoff repairs.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Really? According to this, Western Europe has over 50,000 dealers, and only 3% are operated by the manufacturers: http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/number-new-car-dealer-operations-falling-europe http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/number-new-car-dealer-ope...
- zurbi 11y ago
  So true. I have zero loyalty to my car maker. Or, to formulate it positively, in all the years of owning a car I have only once been positively surprised about the service I got.
TYPE_FASTER 11y ago
Disruption all around...1.8l gas engine that gets over 35mpg and produces 170hp on regular gas, cars that are reliable ten years later, fully electric cars, self driving cars...it's awesome.

43 points by nopinsight 11y ago

@disruption @threat The economist really likes to paint everything as a gloomy picture. The way I see it - the modern internal combustion engine is a threat to civilization. Car Makers especially americans ones have a lot of blood on their hand. Everything from helping redesign cities to make it impossible to not afford buying their product. To making walking a crime ( jay walking ). "Young city-dwellers are turning their backs on owning a costly asset that sits largely unused and loses value the moment it is first driven." Good - we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars.

monk_e_boy 11y ago
"we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars" ... I think we will have to... for a while. Education is the best way of reducing population. Cars (or any type of personal transport) is crucial, moving the effort from humans to machines, leaving the human with more time and options. This leads to education and caring about the environment, politics etc. So for a while we'll have to have 7 billion people using cars (or at least that's what the goal should be) then this will drop to 6 billion, then 5 then 4 etc. We can power cars using solar. Terrestrial or orbital.
- smhg 11y ago
  > Education is the best way of reducing population. Going slightly off topic. Overpopulation can be solved in 2 ways: reducing population or expanding our habitat. Education contributes to both, but the second sounds like a more feasible path to take.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    There are around ~400k people born every single day. If we expand our habitat to other planets, we'd need the capability to launch a million people a day to have even the remotest impact on population in the near future. Unless anti-gravity or some new weird physics is invented, this isn't ever going to happen.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      It's the net change after accounting for deaths that would count here. So the pertinent number is about 200,000/day. Not that this changes your overall point.
    - smhg 11y ago
      Does that mean you assume reducing population to be easy/easier? Increasing our habitat isn't simple. But it at least is likely to get more feasible over time. While reducing population seems to be the opposite of our 'nature' (not that we aren't able to go against that) and it requires the cooperation of basically everyone. Which isn't required by the former. Cooperation seems to get [insert mathematical function] harder when more people are involved. Sidenote: expansion would of course not exclude taking care of existing habitats.
  - chillwaves 11y ago
    The problem is more of over consumption than over population, but I can see why the two would be confused because their is significant overlap. However I find the "over population" argument a red herring to make wealthy Americans feel better. I can assure you if we cut the population of the planet in half but consumed at US levels, that is unsustainable. Just like if we double the population but consume at India levels we'd be fine.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      What evidence have you that 'US' levels of consumption are unsustainable? This seems to be a modern article of faith since Malthus.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    The sentiment that interplanetary colonization is more feasible than education is perhaps the most characteristic HN filter-bubble statement I've ever heard.
    - smhg 11y ago
      I absolutely didn't intend to say anything about the importance of education. The transfer of knowledge is one of the most important features of humankind. The comment was intended solely as an extra view on the overpopulation subject.

rhino369 11y ago

Does anyone have solid figures regarding automobile lifespan and what variables affect it. I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main variable. I wonder if driver-less automobiles will really reduce the need for cars. Sure, you can have a car run 3 different commutes a day instead of 1 typically done now. But that will produce 3X the wear and tear on the car. In New York, taxis are used for 3-5 years. Plus, with driveless cars we may end up driving much more and further. Instead of a bus, I may just have a car drive me to work. In fact, Uber already lets me commute by car instead of public transit 4/5 days a week. Uber has already caused me to drive more, not less. I wonder what the end result is. But they are right to be worried. Any major change in technology brings in winners and losers.

acgourley 11y ago
I don't have the data, but that's intuitively correct. Time does matter some when it comes to the corrosion of the underframe (in states that salt roads), dried gaskets, weather damage to paint. But miles matter for everything else including body damage from accidents.
ars 11y ago
> I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main variable. And my experience is exactly the opposite. I have never had a car die from mileage. I've had several die from time. In my experience cars last about 10 year, 15 if you are careful. How many miles you drive during that time is mostly irrelevant. Personally I think cars should track hours when turned on, not miles.
- cam- 11y ago
  My car tracks engine hours and rpm over the lifetime of the car. It is in the console with a couple of clicks.
- rhino369 11y ago
  When you say die from time, do you mean time turned on or just age?

danjoc 11y ago

This article seems to overlook the obvious. Self driving cars are still cars. Someone has to make them. Car makers are not going out of business in that scenario.

shakethemonkey 11y ago
Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary, and, as the article notes, limit the ability of manufacturers to upsell features. If the fleet of cars on the road were largely self-driving, there is no way it would support the present variety of car manufacturers. I would hazard that most would go bankrupt.
- danjoc 11y ago
  >Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary The fact that the cars drive themselves really changes nothing. Car pooling reduces the total number of cars necessary. Public transportation reduces the total number of cars necessary. You might try to argue that car pooling will increase as a result of the change, but I don't think that is a given. You'd need to explain away surge pricing to convince me otherwise. But certainly, if you'd like to sell me your Tesla shares now at half price and get to safety, I'll be a friend and take them off your hands for you :)
acdha 11y ago
Seconding shakethemonkey's comments and would ask: how much thought do people put into the car they buy versus the cars they rent? The car companies have enjoyed brand loyalty and the ability to sell feature bundles because many people associate their car with their identity. When you say “Mustang owner”, “Subaru driver”, etc. specific images come to mind, and across all cars you see things like people paying considerably more to e.g. have a fuel-inefficient engine because there are a few times where they can step on the gas and enjoy the rapid acceleration. Manufacturers made billions selling SUVs to people who thought safer, cheaper minivans were too boring. That doesn't completely go away with self-driving cars – someone with 4 kids will still have different needs than the avid bicyclist or single urbanite — but a lot of it will become less important if people start thinking about their car as, say, the place where they play games or catch up on Netflix while they head home from work. Why pay Ford for the premium sport package when you can put the money into a faster mobile data plan or a better tablet? They certainly don't go out of business in that scenario but the business becomes tighter and less exciting if it becomes more of a commodity where people generally just buy whatever's cheaper.

sandworm101 11y ago

Carmakers always fret. SUVs, the decline of suburbs, gas prices, hybrids, in-dash entertainment ... there is always something just around the corner that is to revolutionize everything. That's business.

wmeredith 11y ago

...And consumers are licking their chops. Car buying and repair is a racket from top to bottom. This is in no small part the fault of the manufacturers from design to actively campaigning for policy that's bad for customers and good for car makers/sellers. I hope they rot.

merpnderp 11y ago
I see this exact sentiment all the time. Even people who have a favorite brand will gripe angrily about getting ripped off on the purchase and how repairs are so needlessly expensive.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I think this is one reason why car makers (except that one that always shows up on the front page here) love having dealers. The maker gets all the love for a great machine, and the dealers get all the hate for dishonest sales practices and ripoff repairs.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Really? According to this, Western Europe has over 50,000 dealers, and only 3% are operated by the manufacturers: http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/number-new-car-dealer-operations-falling-europe http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/number-new-car-dealer-ope...
zurbi 11y ago
So true. I have zero loyalty to my car maker. Or, to formulate it positively, in all the years of owning a car I have only once been positively surprised about the service I got.

TYPE_FASTER 11y ago

Disruption all around...1.8l gas engine that gets over 35mpg and produces 170hp on regular gas, cars that are reliable ten years later, fully electric cars, self driving cars...it's awesome.