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So you only take your car to the dealer for repair? You wouldn’t take it to a competent independant mechanic? What if a certified Tesla mechanic got fed up with

So you only take your car to the dealer for repair? You wouldn’t take it to a competent independant mechanic? What if a certified Tesla mechanic got fed up with Elon Musk’s bullshit and opened his own shop? Would that be reckless? BTW brakes are dead simple. Fixing them is a task any self respecting person should be able to do.

dyarosla 8y ago
Brakes was an example. Imagine the completely hypothetical situation where your self driving car was malfunctioning due to an OTA update. As the owner of the car, would you say you have a right to go into the software and now modify it? All I’m saying is that there should absolutely be some limit to what you have a right to repair, independent of your ownership.
- bacon_waffle 8y ago
  > Imagine the completely hypothetical situation where your self driving car was malfunctioning due to an OTA update. As the owner of the car, would you say you have a right to go into the software and now modify it? Yes, if it's my car I would absolutely say I have that right. The way I operate my car is my responsibility too. Would you say that operating a car safely carries less responsibility than repairing one safely?
  - dyarosla 8y ago
    You need a license to operate a car. And insurance.
    - bacon_waffle 8y ago
      Yes, I do need a license to operate a vehicle on the road. But, I actually don't need to buy my own insurance, because I live in New Zealand. Here, we have socialised insurance which covers accidents in general. Vehicle operating fees (handwave) do vary a bit, basically depending on the cost of that type of vehicle to society. We also have 6-monthly or annual safety checks on vehicles (depending on age of vehicle AFAIK; I still haven't owned one newer than mid-90s), if they are to be used on the road. And, we have a thriving car culture, despite my best efforts to get everyone moving on bus/foot/bike, but that's a distraction to the current discussion... When you earn that license to operate your car, part of the deal is that you shouldn't operate your car if you think it might not be safe. That requirement does not go away depending on who fixed it last, or for that matter, the car's entire history. I think there are some serious issues with regulating people's repairs (or just tinkering with) of their own stuff. For a start; I can't imagine a practical implementation of this "car repair license" which would solve any realistic problem, so to me it sounds like a proposal for mostly-useless bureaucracy. Beyond that, I (and my employer) put a lot of value on the knowledge I've gained to be able to competently, to your example, fix my own brakes (two weekends ago, I replaced a wheel bearing - seems to be working fine). I think that adding barriers to technical work effectively dumbs down society in general. It also encourages waste - if the cost of a repair increases (as it probably would, if the licensing requirements increased), then the broken thing is more likely to be discarded wholesale, rather than repaired. Maybe we should move on from this car discussion, and consider other regulated machines in common use. Radios, in particular, seem like an interesting parallel - they operate in a public space and carry safety risks. When radio regulation started, radios were similar complexity to concurrent cars, but now are largely software controlled. Do you think you should be legally prevented from changing the driver/firmware in your WiFi radio or cell phone?
- lozaning 8y ago
  In this hypothetical who carries the liability and insurance for if the self driving stuff crashes? If thats Tesla I dont have a problem with them not letting me modify anything. But if I'm still ultimately responsible for whatever the car does when in autonomous mode then I should be able to do whatever I want to the whole car. Essentially I dont expect Tesla to allow me to make changes to their system that's indemnifying me from risk.
PhantomGremlin 8y ago
BTW brakes are dead simple. Fixing them is a task any self respecting person should be able to do. Au contraire. An EV uses a combination of traditional friction braking and regenerative braking, with a sophisticated algorithm to appropriately shift between methods. If the batteries are fully charged, that means less regenerative braking. If a vehicle is driven aggressively the batteries are probably already hot, so less energy should be dumped back into them when braking. But at the same time, the friction brakes are probably being overused. How to keep them from being destroyed? What if a car is yawing or drifting? When stability control kicks in, some combination of friction braking and regenerative braking may be warranted. How much at the front axle, how much at the rear axle, how much at each wheel? If this were "dead simple", why did Formula 1 teams need a few years to work out their braking issues at the start of the current turbo hybrid era? We're no longer in the days of a master cylinder responding to pressure from a driver's foot by simply sending hydraulic fluid to drum brakes. Sure, simple maintenance such as replacing brake pads in most cars can still be DIY. But "repair" in general is no longer simple.
- Animats 8y ago
  That's a good point. Remember when Tesla reduced braking distance with an over the air software upgrade? Unlike locomotives and street cars, few electric cars have a resistor bank for dumping braking energy when the batteries are fully charged. So a fully charged battery does reduce braking performance.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  "We're no longer in the days of a master cylinder responding to pressure from a driver's foot by simply sending hydraulic fluid to drum brakes." I think there are many cars on the road that literally fit that description, and certainly it's still legal to drive such. More cars that you'd think have rear drum brakes. The complexity of electronic aids is not really germane to the complexity of maintaining brake systems when you normally don't get failures and if you do there's going to be a code that tells you.
  - PhantomGremlin 8y ago

dyarosla 8y ago

Brakes was an example. Imagine the completely hypothetical situation where your self driving car was malfunctioning due to an OTA update. As the owner of the car, would you say you have a right to go into the software and now modify it? All I’m saying is that there should absolutely be some limit to what you have a right to repair, independent of your ownership.

bacon_waffle 8y ago
> Imagine the completely hypothetical situation where your self driving car was malfunctioning due to an OTA update. As the owner of the car, would you say you have a right to go into the software and now modify it? Yes, if it's my car I would absolutely say I have that right. The way I operate my car is my responsibility too. Would you say that operating a car safely carries less responsibility than repairing one safely?
- dyarosla 8y ago
  You need a license to operate a car. And insurance.
  - bacon_waffle 8y ago
    Yes, I do need a license to operate a vehicle on the road. But, I actually don't need to buy my own insurance, because I live in New Zealand. Here, we have socialised insurance which covers accidents in general. Vehicle operating fees (handwave) do vary a bit, basically depending on the cost of that type of vehicle to society. We also have 6-monthly or annual safety checks on vehicles (depending on age of vehicle AFAIK; I still haven't owned one newer than mid-90s), if they are to be used on the road. And, we have a thriving car culture, despite my best efforts to get everyone moving on bus/foot/bike, but that's a distraction to the current discussion... When you earn that license to operate your car, part of the deal is that you shouldn't operate your car if you think it might not be safe. That requirement does not go away depending on who fixed it last, or for that matter, the car's entire history. I think there are some serious issues with regulating people's repairs (or just tinkering with) of their own stuff. For a start; I can't imagine a practical implementation of this "car repair license" which would solve any realistic problem, so to me it sounds like a proposal for mostly-useless bureaucracy. Beyond that, I (and my employer) put a lot of value on the knowledge I've gained to be able to competently, to your example, fix my own brakes (two weekends ago, I replaced a wheel bearing - seems to be working fine). I think that adding barriers to technical work effectively dumbs down society in general. It also encourages waste - if the cost of a repair increases (as it probably would, if the licensing requirements increased), then the broken thing is more likely to be discarded wholesale, rather than repaired. Maybe we should move on from this car discussion, and consider other regulated machines in common use. Radios, in particular, seem like an interesting parallel - they operate in a public space and carry safety risks. When radio regulation started, radios were similar complexity to concurrent cars, but now are largely software controlled. Do you think you should be legally prevented from changing the driver/firmware in your WiFi radio or cell phone?
lozaning 8y ago
In this hypothetical who carries the liability and insurance for if the self driving stuff crashes? If thats Tesla I dont have a problem with them not letting me modify anything. But if I'm still ultimately responsible for whatever the car does when in autonomous mode then I should be able to do whatever I want to the whole car. Essentially I dont expect Tesla to allow me to make changes to their system that's indemnifying me from risk.

PhantomGremlin 8y ago

BTW brakes are dead simple. Fixing them is a task any self respecting person should be able to do. Au contraire. An EV uses a combination of traditional friction braking and regenerative braking, with a sophisticated algorithm to appropriately shift between methods. If the batteries are fully charged, that means less regenerative braking. If a vehicle is driven aggressively the batteries are probably already hot, so less energy should be dumped back into them when braking. But at the same time, the friction brakes are probably being overused. How to keep them from being destroyed? What if a car is yawing or drifting? When stability control kicks in, some combination of friction braking and regenerative braking may be warranted. How much at the front axle, how much at the rear axle, how much at each wheel? If this were "dead simple", why did Formula 1 teams need a few years to work out their braking issues at the start of the current turbo hybrid era? We're no longer in the days of a master cylinder responding to pressure from a driver's foot by simply sending hydraulic fluid to drum brakes. Sure, simple maintenance such as replacing brake pads in most cars can still be DIY. But "repair" in general is no longer simple.

Animats 8y ago
That's a good point. Remember when Tesla reduced braking distance with an over the air software upgrade? Unlike locomotives and street cars, few electric cars have a resistor bank for dumping braking energy when the batteries are fully charged. So a fully charged battery does reduce braking performance.
perl4ever 8y ago
"We're no longer in the days of a master cylinder responding to pressure from a driver's foot by simply sending hydraulic fluid to drum brakes." I think there are many cars on the road that literally fit that description, and certainly it's still legal to drive such. More cars that you'd think have rear drum brakes. The complexity of electronic aids is not really germane to the complexity of maintaining brake systems when you normally don't get failures and if you do there's going to be a code that tells you.
- PhantomGremlin 8y ago