12 ms·

The Car, Reinvented

60 points by spanktheuser 6y ago

rwmj 6y ago
> Hybrid was interesting in its time (the Toyota Prius is a great car), but it is… well, hybrid, i.e. torn between the ancient and the new world, therefore a bad solution. But can be refilled in 5 minutes and driven for 300 miles, which I don't see happening with electric cars any time soon.
- speedgoose 6y ago
  True, but do you need that feature often? When you drive 600km, it's okay to take a break to charge the car. Also Toyota hybrids are not very responsive and fast. And they smell.
  - rwmj 6y ago
    Actually plug-in hybrids seem to be the sweet spot, if only I could afford one. I'd probably use it as an EV 95% of the time, charging overnight and driving under 30 miles each day, but still not lose the ability to drive to my family (200+ miles) without long stops for charging. > And they smell. Erm?
    - speedgoose 6y ago
      Eventually I think you will probably prefer an EV with a large battery that can charge fast. An ICE engine is expensive to buy and maintain, and heavy. The reliability is also not perfect when you almost never use it. If you bike or drive behind a Toyota, you can notice the smoke and the smell. Especially during winter.
pi-err 6y ago
This is missing something on the larger dynamics at play to reinvent the car. It’s one of the biggest addictions inherited from the 20th century (with disposable plastics and cigarettes). This is not only about engineering and sales. Current car culture is rooted in post-WW2 values: masculinity, personal freedom, power and control. Even Tesla plays that book with the SpaceX halo and the insistance on performance. I wonder how Apple will approach this change of “soul” in car culture. It’s a shift not unlike what they brought to computing in the 80s, though they transformed the design then. Can Apple build a personal, shareable, fully automated electric pod? I can’t imagine them selling a vehicle with a wheel for instance. All in all, doubtful we ever see the outcome of the Titan project.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
Perpetual payments are interesting, but not something I want in a vehicle. There are lots of reasons to own, but I don't want a perpetual payment. If the car is more reliable and needs less maintenance then I can expect it to last longer and be a better value to own.
fartpooassbutt 6y ago
The car I really want is a network of fast, affordable, widely available public transit.
fortytw2 6y ago
The third point is extremely close to how trucks have always been built. Body-on-frame construction has been prevalent in the automotive industry for a very long time. Ever see a crazy classic car body dropped on top of a truck frame, i.e. a 4x4 60s mustang on a bronco frame?
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  60s Mustang's are unibody construction - there is no frame. I've restored 3 of them.
- Someone 6y ago
  It’s also what large car companies already do. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform (has nice series of photos that show how different cars on a single platform can look.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  kind of an odd choice. > On top of that, the upper body will take the shape and size depending on the need: a sports or family car equivalent, a commercial vehicle, etc. body-on-frame is not a great design for a family vehicle, as it tends to decrease the interior space and increase the weight for a vehicle of a certain overall size. it's particularly unsuited for a sports car due to the weight penalty and the higher center of gravity. AFAIK, it only really makes sense for large vehicles and/or vehicles designed to have a large towing capacity. I have to wonder if they meant something more like the volkswagen mqb platform [0] but expressed it poorly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform
axus 6y ago
I didn't realize that Apple would be getting into the car rental business, I hadn't been paying attention. The Tesla model seems more palatable, where in theory you are allowed to "hack" your car because you own it.
- geewee 6y ago
  I definitely don't want people to "hack" their cars and drive on the same road as me.
  - xyst 6y ago
    But they already do through third party modifications.
  - frosted-flakes 6y ago
    "Hacking" of cars has been always extremely popular, and you share the roads with people who modify their cars every time you drive. Why should that change now?
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      The difference is that it's quite hard to accidently make a mechanical device dangerous for the most part. You can ruin your brakes for example, but you get mechanical feedback of that happening and you know when to be careful. If you write your own DIY electric power steering firmware, and it crashes or gets stuck it can just suddenly fail on the road and you're dead.
    - kanox 6y ago
      The status quo in car safety is pretty bad. A big hope for autonomous vehicles is that they could dramatically reduce accidents.
LeonM 6y ago
> That will require a major overhaul of technologies like the above-mentioned CAN-bus that is four decades old and employed in every car (including, believe it or not, in a Tesla). I don't understand why the author keeps banging on about CAN bus being an old standard. So what? CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed?
- upofadown 6y ago
  I also got the sense that the author didn't know exactly what CAN bus was and how it is used.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed? I don't know this space, but depending it may be there are more messages going to and fro, and so perhaps more bandwidth is desired? IEEE 1394 ("FireWire") seems to have a bunch of 'industrial' uses: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Common_applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Common_applications The marine folks went from a CAN-like NMEA 0183, to a more bus-like NMEA 2000, and are not looking at an Ethernet-based system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_2000 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_OneNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_OneNet If all you're doing is getting sensor values at a few Hertz, then CANbus is probably fine, but if you need to distribute the images of a read-view camera, a bunch sonars, a bunch of radars, etc, then the 500 kbit/s in J1939/14 may not be enough. Even the 'CAN folks' recognize this: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_FD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_FD * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANopen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANopen
- drcross 6y ago
  I always downgrade people in my estimations when I see they correlate old with being bad without a good reason.
  - pandler 6y ago
    I agree, but I try to stick to downgrading the comment/argument instead of the people themselves, because I’ve found it to be a pretty ubiquitous line of thought since I started noticing it.
ape4 6y ago
Since I'm a programmer I'd make the car-o-future modular. A kernel and different replaceable hardware and software modules. It bugs me how hard it is to customize a car now and the high cost of it.
- kazen44 6y ago
  the reason for this is obvious. Having a modular car with a high degree of customization would be a huge hassle in keeping cars safe.
  - LoSboccacc 6y ago
    car safety come mostly from the chassis, an engine swap shouldn't really impact safety, unless it goes to fill crumple zones, but then it's not swapping engines per se that impact safety, the issue comes from putting too big of an engine. the real issue would be making the thing actually reliable. matings and fittings off the production line aren't the same you can get post assembly on a workshop, and that will affect component durability big time
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      Crash testing isn't the be all and end all. If you put a new engine in and it cuts out on the motorway, for example. The verification process takes a lot of time, even for a racing car let alone a road car that has to pass crash tests as well.
      - LoSboccacc 6y ago
        the assumption would be that modularization would come with standard interfaces, cutting down the need for verification
  - ape4 6y ago
    There would be defined interfaces (APIs). Eg easy to add physical knobs to a Tesla for climate control.
- 6y ago
martythemaniak 6y ago
Number 3 is unbelievably wrong. I think he got his ideas from 90s GM concept brochures and never bothered to dig deeper. Yes, conceptually the "skateboard" makes sense, but you're not going to have actual snap-in components like that. By Tesla's own admission, thinking of the Model X as just another body on top of the Model S skateboard set them back a long time. Whether you choose to go the traditional unibody design, or a more unconventional exoskeleton design like the cybertruck, each body is specifically made for each model type. While the Model Y is a "jacked up" model 3, the body is a completely new and different thing.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
> We will be talking exclusively about electric cars. he compared cost, performance, regulations, but I didn't see him tackle the issue of range and recharge times not even in passing. > It is the only way forward. with claims like these, skipping the two major drawbacks seems quite intellectually dishonest.
- supportlocal4h 6y ago
  This was the point I started to lose interest. "Let's completely reimagine from scratch. But we all know there's really only one option so let's ignore any other ideas."
  - LoSboccacc 6y ago
    exactly, this "re-imagined" car just looks a lot like a tesla, but with proprietary connectors instead of the industry standards, I wonder why, surely it isn't to curb stomp the accessories and replacement parts market. (heck, bet they even want even to remove the obd port)
- derefr 6y ago
  Why would Apple's hypothetical car need to solve problems endemic to the vertical itself? Electrical is still "the only way forward" for automakers—politically, due to emissions regulations—whether consumers are willing to accept those drawbacks or not (i.e. whether it's profitable to build EV cars or not.) Auto-makers just have to bite the bullet and accept lower profits as people refuse to compromise for a while, until those same consumers later realize that governments won't be letting them have things any other way. Conveniently for Apple, their strategy has always been to leave enough of a profit margin for themselves (and market to those who can afford to pay it), that the business will pay back its capital outlay even from only niche uptake. Apple isn't Tesla, with a plan to eventually sell an EV car into every garage; they don't need general market adoption, just adoption by conspicuous consumers.
- simonh 6y ago
  With all the major economies planning to ban ICE vehicles within the next few decades, I don’t really see a good argument for dishonesty here.
codegladiator 6y ago
Apple doesn't just make things, they invent it. Reinvent just because its been done before.
winrid 6y ago
The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying. I had a truck with a hard to reproduce software bug where the electric steering assist would just turn off. Imagine going down a canyon road towing 5000 lbs and the steering suddenly gets extremely hard and the wheel rips from your hands. I had it happen. Luckily there is still a mechanical shaft going to the steering rack.
- na85 6y ago
  >The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying. Indeed. I have zero confidence that the company who thought Catalina was ready to ship can deliver a safe drive by wire system. That's not the kind of system where you can just patch the bugs out later.
S_A_P 6y ago
There is another reason that the auto industry is on a whole slow to change. Suppliers. With the exception of the ICE most other major systems in vehicles today comes from a handful of suppliers. To make electric vehicles, you have to take on much more of the manufacturing process yourself or subcontract it out. You lose economy of scale when that happens to some degree. Sure the suppliers could start making the parts for evs, and they are starting to but there is a lot of standardization that needs to happen as well.
egypturnash 6y ago
Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options. Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's not. And then I also think about the people I know whose passenger or back seat is a giant pile of trash because there's no easy-to-empty integrated place for trash and it all just ends up on the floor... Also to quote this incredibly relevant point from fartaspoobutt [dead]: [1] The car I really want is a network of fast, affordable, widely available public transit. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780
- fortran77 6y ago
  My toothbrush sits idle 95% of the time. I don't want to rent it.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    It costs 3 orders of magnitude less and you put it in your mouth. Not a great analogy. My car sits idle for 99.9% of the time (I make less than 2000 km per year, and vast majority of that in a few long trips each year). It would probably be cheaper for me to rent a car for vacation trip and go by taxi the other 10 times a year I need it for city driving. But we already have a car and it's been in the family since 1997 and it doesn't break so we keep it. I would love to have a way to pay a reasonable yearly fee and have a good car available when I need it without paying for the parking space, insurance, maintanance, etc. But as it is renting a car is too much hassle.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    It feels like I'm renting mine every time I buy a new set of brushes.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  it'll work better for some people than others. the only stuff I (deliberately) leave in my car is a tire pressure gauge and a bicycle pump, along with the spare tire and related tools that came with the vehicle. if it's not my car and I'm allowed to just ditch it and get another one whenever there's a problem, I wouldn't need any of that stuff.
bttrfl 6y ago
If we could start from scratch, shouldn't cars be made of plastic to reduce weight?
- GuB-42 6y ago
  Fiberglass car bodies used to be a thing. But they mostly came back to steel now. Fiberglass and I guess plastic isn't good enough for structural parts with the current safety standards. And if you have to support your plastic parts with steel, you lose the weight benefits.
  - bttrfl 6y ago
    Wouldn't the safety standards change if all cars would weight X% of current mass? According to quick googling cars got heavier: "The average new car weighed 3,221 pounds [1461 kg] in 1987 but 4,009 pounds [1818kg] in 2010." [1]. The weight of a trabant, which was probably a very badly engineered car, was about 600 kg [2] - 1/3 of a modern car. I imagine we could make cars today even lighter and if weight of all cars would be similar than the safety standards would be much different. [1] https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting-heavier-and-heavier-is-that-dangerous.html https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant
    - GuB-42 6y ago
      It will only matter on car vs car collisions. Fully loaded trucks and ground obstacles will still be a problem. Also I am not a mechanical engineer but it looks like steel is really good at absorbing energy from impacts. Plastics tend to shatter when the impact force is too great. I actually experienced a minor accident in a fiberglass car. No one was hurt because the chassis held everything in place but the body was completely broken.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  It's a tradeoff between weight and strength etc. High end cars (and most/all race cars) use carbon fibre for both bodywork and structural components.
chris_va 6y ago
> First, the skateboard and the upper body could be built separately. Maybe not at the same place (a handful of skateboards will fit perfectly in a shipping container for completion thousands of miles away). I hate to be critical, but this really reminds me of a 1950s "visions of the future" piece more than a practical design choice. For example, the skateboard is not a new concept [1], and there are reasons you don't see it. Modular design really only shines for low-volume production (or a large combinatorial space). When you are doing 10s of millions of units per year, as the auto industry does, modularity often gets thrown out in deference to volume/cost. Also, distributed manufacturing is a huge pain, why would you ever want that? See Boeing's experience with the 737 supply chain. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-wire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-wire
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  In addition, the idea that manufacturers can just plop any old body on top of the skateboard is a bit of a pipe dream. Crash safety is hugely important, and it isn't the skateboard that hits other cars/people/objects. So the integration will need to be very tight and engineered as a whole. Just like it is today, even if we call it a chassis.
- mbreese 6y ago
  Not knowing anything about how a car is actually built... how does the "skateboard" concept differ from what VW has in their modular platforms? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform It is a difference of just how independent the "skateboard" is from the top?
  - csours 6y ago
    Think of MEB as a set of abstract parts with default implementations. If you want to change the whole vehicle, you only have to change certain parts. Make these pieces bigger, these pieces smaller, etc. A true skateboard would be a static implementation of the frame and propulsion system, with defined interfaces for the "top hat" (industry term for the body of the vehicle).
Ericson2314 6y ago
Hearing car companies talk about sharing and renting is always suspicious, because it means on the surface they sell far less. This is what ought to happen: cars loose glamor and become a cheaper low-maintaince rental appliance without such huge a industry behind it, but they companies will go do kicking and screaming before that happens. Let the batteries get cheaper, let there be more public transportation (classic variety and municipal bike sharing including cargo wagons, etc.), and hopefully the industry implodes on itself as described above. And screw all this wall-e-esque infotainment stuff.
csours 6y ago
> "No industry is pulled down more by the burden of the past than the automotive industry. Also, no industry is slower at adapting its practices — design, manufacturing, marketing. The main reasons are an ossified culture and the amount of capital required to launch a new model" I think this is fair, but incomplete. (Disclaimer, I work for General Motors, these are my opinions alone). It is hard to make things work. It is harder to make things work consistently. It is even harder to make things that will work consistently when you don't have control of the thing and users can use and abuse it in unforeseen ways. Everyone who has spent more than a little time in a car has something they can complain about, regardless of the brand. Now think about how many parts are implicated in that defect. Now think about how many parts are in a car. A very very small number of defective or under-designed or mis-designed parts can lead to a bad experience. Think about testing. Many people on HN are programmers or otherwise involved in software development. Think about writing tests for your code. How many end-to-end integration tests do you have? How many unit tests? What happens when you change platforms or update middleware? Tests in the real world are EXPENSIVE! When you test a new car, you're not testing 1 cheap part from a run of 1,000,000 parts; you're testing 1 expensive prototype part from a run of 10 parts. The article touches on the dealership experience. For legacy automakers, there are laws in place that prevent them from ditching their dealers. Legacy automakers also have agreements with labor unions. Adopting new work processes takes patience and understanding in the best of times. Re-arranging work can quickly become confrontational and not collaborative. The other major partner for OEMs are suppliers. Suppliers do much of the design work, based on specifications from OEMs. Suppliers can sell the same or substantially similar parts, made from the same sub-components to many different OEMs; but the further down the sub-component tree you go, the smaller the profits. Also, if you want to do something crazy like ditch CANbus or upgrade your 12 volt architecture to 48 volts, you'll have to do a lot of work with your supplier base. Cars aren't judged on the things that work well, they're judged by the things that don't. The car design and manufacturing process is all about limiting and eliminating those things. Uncontrolled changes can cause a huge spill of defects. ---- Edit: My main point here is that, Yes, the industry is ossified and slow moving, but you can't just speed up. You have to address the reasons why it is slow moving, and you have to do it WITHOUT RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!
Theodores 6y ago
Why from scratch? If it was a racing series then you could supply the tyres and insist no parts came from existing cars with everything scratch built. That would make for an interesting race series. But cars are about how they are made, so final assembly and the supply chain. Having the capital to reinvent that is way too capital intensive for where we are. Might as well build a web browser in a computer where you have to build your own CPU working back from the HTML specs.
vsskanth 6y ago
The biggest reinvention going on right now in cars is in software. Traditional automakers are not seup to do this well because suppliers have their own stack and all the controllers are pretty much fixed outside a firmware flash. Tesla doesn't follow this approach. Their software is pretty unified and they can update everything including their controllers OTA.
starchild_3001 6y ago
I see a lot of critique. I would like to thank the author for opening up my mind. There's plenty of well organized, food-for-thought here.

60 points by spanktheuser 6y ago

rwmj 6y ago

> Hybrid was interesting in its time (the Toyota Prius is a great car), but it is… well, hybrid, i.e. torn between the ancient and the new world, therefore a bad solution. But can be refilled in 5 minutes and driven for 300 miles, which I don't see happening with electric cars any time soon.

speedgoose 6y ago
True, but do you need that feature often? When you drive 600km, it's okay to take a break to charge the car. Also Toyota hybrids are not very responsive and fast. And they smell.
- rwmj 6y ago
  Actually plug-in hybrids seem to be the sweet spot, if only I could afford one. I'd probably use it as an EV 95% of the time, charging overnight and driving under 30 miles each day, but still not lose the ability to drive to my family (200+ miles) without long stops for charging. > And they smell. Erm?
  - speedgoose 6y ago
    Eventually I think you will probably prefer an EV with a large battery that can charge fast. An ICE engine is expensive to buy and maintain, and heavy. The reliability is also not perfect when you almost never use it. If you bike or drive behind a Toyota, you can notice the smoke and the smell. Especially during winter.

pi-err 6y ago

This is missing something on the larger dynamics at play to reinvent the car. It’s one of the biggest addictions inherited from the 20th century (with disposable plastics and cigarettes). This is not only about engineering and sales. Current car culture is rooted in post-WW2 values: masculinity, personal freedom, power and control. Even Tesla plays that book with the SpaceX halo and the insistance on performance. I wonder how Apple will approach this change of “soul” in car culture. It’s a shift not unlike what they brought to computing in the 80s, though they transformed the design then. Can Apple build a personal, shareable, fully automated electric pod? I can’t imagine them selling a vehicle with a wheel for instance. All in all, doubtful we ever see the outcome of the Titan project.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Perpetual payments are interesting, but not something I want in a vehicle. There are lots of reasons to own, but I don't want a perpetual payment. If the car is more reliable and needs less maintenance then I can expect it to last longer and be a better value to own.

fartpooassbutt 6y ago

The car I really want is a network of fast, affordable, widely available public transit.

fortytw2 6y ago

The third point is extremely close to how trucks have always been built. Body-on-frame construction has been prevalent in the automotive industry for a very long time. Ever see a crazy classic car body dropped on top of a truck frame, i.e. a 4x4 60s mustang on a bronco frame?

annoyingnoob 6y ago
60s Mustang's are unibody construction - there is no frame. I've restored 3 of them.
Someone 6y ago
It’s also what large car companies already do. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform (has nice series of photos that show how different cars on a single platform can look.
leetcrew 6y ago
kind of an odd choice. > On top of that, the upper body will take the shape and size depending on the need: a sports or family car equivalent, a commercial vehicle, etc. body-on-frame is not a great design for a family vehicle, as it tends to decrease the interior space and increase the weight for a vehicle of a certain overall size. it's particularly unsuited for a sports car due to the weight penalty and the higher center of gravity. AFAIK, it only really makes sense for large vehicles and/or vehicles designed to have a large towing capacity. I have to wonder if they meant something more like the volkswagen mqb platform [0] but expressed it poorly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MQB_platform

axus 6y ago

I didn't realize that Apple would be getting into the car rental business, I hadn't been paying attention. The Tesla model seems more palatable, where in theory you are allowed to "hack" your car because you own it.

geewee 6y ago
I definitely don't want people to "hack" their cars and drive on the same road as me.
- xyst 6y ago
  But they already do through third party modifications.
- frosted-flakes 6y ago
  "Hacking" of cars has been always extremely popular, and you share the roads with people who modify their cars every time you drive. Why should that change now?
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    The difference is that it's quite hard to accidently make a mechanical device dangerous for the most part. You can ruin your brakes for example, but you get mechanical feedback of that happening and you know when to be careful. If you write your own DIY electric power steering firmware, and it crashes or gets stuck it can just suddenly fail on the road and you're dead.
  - kanox 6y ago
    The status quo in car safety is pretty bad. A big hope for autonomous vehicles is that they could dramatically reduce accidents.

LeonM 6y ago

> That will require a major overhaul of technologies like the above-mentioned CAN-bus that is four decades old and employed in every car (including, believe it or not, in a Tesla). I don't understand why the author keeps banging on about CAN bus being an old standard. So what? CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed?

upofadown 6y ago
I also got the sense that the author didn't know exactly what CAN bus was and how it is used.
throw0101a 6y ago
> CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low wire count. Why should it be changed? I don't know this space, but depending it may be there are more messages going to and fro, and so perhaps more bandwidth is desired? IEEE 1394 ("FireWire") seems to have a bunch of 'industrial' uses: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Common_applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Common_applications The marine folks went from a CAN-like NMEA 0183, to a more bus-like NMEA 2000, and are not looking at an Ethernet-based system: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_2000 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_OneNet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_OneNet If all you're doing is getting sensor values at a few Hertz, then CANbus is probably fine, but if you need to distribute the images of a read-view camera, a bunch sonars, a bunch of radars, etc, then the 500 kbit/s in J1939/14 may not be enough. Even the 'CAN folks' recognize this: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_FD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_FD * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANopen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANopen
drcross 6y ago
I always downgrade people in my estimations when I see they correlate old with being bad without a good reason.
- pandler 6y ago
  I agree, but I try to stick to downgrading the comment/argument instead of the people themselves, because I’ve found it to be a pretty ubiquitous line of thought since I started noticing it.

ape4 6y ago

Since I'm a programmer I'd make the car-o-future modular. A kernel and different replaceable hardware and software modules. It bugs me how hard it is to customize a car now and the high cost of it.

kazen44 6y ago
the reason for this is obvious. Having a modular car with a high degree of customization would be a huge hassle in keeping cars safe.
- LoSboccacc 6y ago
  car safety come mostly from the chassis, an engine swap shouldn't really impact safety, unless it goes to fill crumple zones, but then it's not swapping engines per se that impact safety, the issue comes from putting too big of an engine. the real issue would be making the thing actually reliable. matings and fittings off the production line aren't the same you can get post assembly on a workshop, and that will affect component durability big time
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Crash testing isn't the be all and end all. If you put a new engine in and it cuts out on the motorway, for example. The verification process takes a lot of time, even for a racing car let alone a road car that has to pass crash tests as well.
    - LoSboccacc 6y ago
      the assumption would be that modularization would come with standard interfaces, cutting down the need for verification
- ape4 6y ago
  There would be defined interfaces (APIs). Eg easy to add physical knobs to a Tesla for climate control.
6y ago

martythemaniak 6y ago

Number 3 is unbelievably wrong. I think he got his ideas from 90s GM concept brochures and never bothered to dig deeper. Yes, conceptually the "skateboard" makes sense, but you're not going to have actual snap-in components like that. By Tesla's own admission, thinking of the Model X as just another body on top of the Model S skateboard set them back a long time. Whether you choose to go the traditional unibody design, or a more unconventional exoskeleton design like the cybertruck, each body is specifically made for each model type. While the Model Y is a "jacked up" model 3, the body is a completely new and different thing.

LoSboccacc 6y ago

> We will be talking exclusively about electric cars. he compared cost, performance, regulations, but I didn't see him tackle the issue of range and recharge times not even in passing. > It is the only way forward. with claims like these, skipping the two major drawbacks seems quite intellectually dishonest.

supportlocal4h 6y ago
This was the point I started to lose interest. "Let's completely reimagine from scratch. But we all know there's really only one option so let's ignore any other ideas."
- LoSboccacc 6y ago
  exactly, this "re-imagined" car just looks a lot like a tesla, but with proprietary connectors instead of the industry standards, I wonder why, surely it isn't to curb stomp the accessories and replacement parts market. (heck, bet they even want even to remove the obd port)
derefr 6y ago
Why would Apple's hypothetical car need to solve problems endemic to the vertical itself? Electrical is still "the only way forward" for automakers—politically, due to emissions regulations—whether consumers are willing to accept those drawbacks or not (i.e. whether it's profitable to build EV cars or not.) Auto-makers just have to bite the bullet and accept lower profits as people refuse to compromise for a while, until those same consumers later realize that governments won't be letting them have things any other way. Conveniently for Apple, their strategy has always been to leave enough of a profit margin for themselves (and market to those who can afford to pay it), that the business will pay back its capital outlay even from only niche uptake. Apple isn't Tesla, with a plan to eventually sell an EV car into every garage; they don't need general market adoption, just adoption by conspicuous consumers.
simonh 6y ago
With all the major economies planning to ban ICE vehicles within the next few decades, I don’t really see a good argument for dishonesty here.

codegladiator 6y ago

Apple doesn't just make things, they invent it. Reinvent just because its been done before.

winrid 6y ago

The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying. I had a truck with a hard to reproduce software bug where the electric steering assist would just turn off. Imagine going down a canyon road towing 5000 lbs and the steering suddenly gets extremely hard and the wheel rips from your hands. I had it happen. Luckily there is still a mechanical shaft going to the steering rack.

na85 6y ago
>The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying. Indeed. I have zero confidence that the company who thought Catalina was ready to ship can deliver a safe drive by wire system. That's not the kind of system where you can just patch the bugs out later.

S_A_P 6y ago

There is another reason that the auto industry is on a whole slow to change. Suppliers. With the exception of the ICE most other major systems in vehicles today comes from a handful of suppliers. To make electric vehicles, you have to take on much more of the manufacturing process yourself or subcontract it out. You lose economy of scale when that happens to some degree. Sure the suppliers could start making the parts for evs, and they are starting to but there is a lot of standardization that needs to happen as well.

egypturnash 6y ago

Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95 percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options. Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's not. And then I also think about the people I know whose passenger or back seat is a giant pile of trash because there's no easy-to-empty integrated place for trash and it all just ends up on the floor... Also to quote this incredibly relevant point from fartaspoobutt [dead]: [1] The car I really want is a network of fast, affordable, widely available public transit. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780

fortran77 6y ago
My toothbrush sits idle 95% of the time. I don't want to rent it.
- ajuc 6y ago
  It costs 3 orders of magnitude less and you put it in your mouth. Not a great analogy. My car sits idle for 99.9% of the time (I make less than 2000 km per year, and vast majority of that in a few long trips each year). It would probably be cheaper for me to rent a car for vacation trip and go by taxi the other 10 times a year I need it for city driving. But we already have a car and it's been in the family since 1997 and it doesn't break so we keep it. I would love to have a way to pay a reasonable yearly fee and have a good car available when I need it without paying for the parking space, insurance, maintanance, etc. But as it is renting a car is too much hassle.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  It feels like I'm renting mine every time I buy a new set of brushes.
leetcrew 6y ago
it'll work better for some people than others. the only stuff I (deliberately) leave in my car is a tire pressure gauge and a bicycle pump, along with the spare tire and related tools that came with the vehicle. if it's not my car and I'm allowed to just ditch it and get another one whenever there's a problem, I wouldn't need any of that stuff.

bttrfl 6y ago

If we could start from scratch, shouldn't cars be made of plastic to reduce weight?

GuB-42 6y ago
Fiberglass car bodies used to be a thing. But they mostly came back to steel now. Fiberglass and I guess plastic isn't good enough for structural parts with the current safety standards. And if you have to support your plastic parts with steel, you lose the weight benefits.
- bttrfl 6y ago
  Wouldn't the safety standards change if all cars would weight X% of current mass? According to quick googling cars got heavier: "The average new car weighed 3,221 pounds [1461 kg] in 1987 but 4,009 pounds [1818kg] in 2010." [1]. The weight of a trabant, which was probably a very badly engineered car, was about 600 kg [2] - 1/3 of a modern car. I imagine we could make cars today even lighter and if weight of all cars would be similar than the safety standards would be much different. [1] https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting-heavier-and-heavier-is-that-dangerous.html https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant
  - GuB-42 6y ago
    It will only matter on car vs car collisions. Fully loaded trucks and ground obstacles will still be a problem. Also I am not a mechanical engineer but it looks like steel is really good at absorbing energy from impacts. Plastics tend to shatter when the impact force is too great. I actually experienced a minor accident in a fiberglass car. No one was hurt because the chassis held everything in place but the body was completely broken.
mhh__ 6y ago
It's a tradeoff between weight and strength etc. High end cars (and most/all race cars) use carbon fibre for both bodywork and structural components.

chris_va 6y ago

> First, the skateboard and the upper body could be built separately. Maybe not at the same place (a handful of skateboards will fit perfectly in a shipping container for completion thousands of miles away). I hate to be critical, but this really reminds me of a 1950s "visions of the future" piece more than a practical design choice. For example, the skateboard is not a new concept [1], and there are reasons you don't see it. Modular design really only shines for low-volume production (or a large combinatorial space). When you are doing 10s of millions of units per year, as the auto industry does, modularity often gets thrown out in deference to volume/cost. Also, distributed manufacturing is a huge pain, why would you ever want that? See Boeing's experience with the 737 supply chain. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-wire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-wire

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rootusrootus 6y ago
In addition, the idea that manufacturers can just plop any old body on top of the skateboard is a bit of a pipe dream. Crash safety is hugely important, and it isn't the skateboard that hits other cars/people/objects. So the integration will need to be very tight and engineered as a whole. Just like it is today, even if we call it a chassis.
mbreese 6y ago
Not knowing anything about how a car is actually built... how does the "skateboard" concept differ from what VW has in their modular platforms? For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform It is a difference of just how independent the "skateboard" is from the top?
- csours 6y ago
  Think of MEB as a set of abstract parts with default implementations. If you want to change the whole vehicle, you only have to change certain parts. Make these pieces bigger, these pieces smaller, etc. A true skateboard would be a static implementation of the frame and propulsion system, with defined interfaces for the "top hat" (industry term for the body of the vehicle).

Ericson2314 6y ago

Hearing car companies talk about sharing and renting is always suspicious, because it means on the surface they sell far less. This is what ought to happen: cars loose glamor and become a cheaper low-maintaince rental appliance without such huge a industry behind it, but they companies will go do kicking and screaming before that happens. Let the batteries get cheaper, let there be more public transportation (classic variety and municipal bike sharing including cargo wagons, etc.), and hopefully the industry implodes on itself as described above. And screw all this wall-e-esque infotainment stuff.

csours 6y ago

> "No industry is pulled down more by the burden of the past than the automotive industry. Also, no industry is slower at adapting its practices — design, manufacturing, marketing. The main reasons are an ossified culture and the amount of capital required to launch a new model" I think this is fair, but incomplete. (Disclaimer, I work for General Motors, these are my opinions alone). It is hard to make things work. It is harder to make things work consistently. It is even harder to make things that will work consistently when you don't have control of the thing and users can use and abuse it in unforeseen ways. Everyone who has spent more than a little time in a car has something they can complain about, regardless of the brand. Now think about how many parts are implicated in that defect. Now think about how many parts are in a car. A very very small number of defective or under-designed or mis-designed parts can lead to a bad experience. Think about testing. Many people on HN are programmers or otherwise involved in software development. Think about writing tests for your code. How many end-to-end integration tests do you have? How many unit tests? What happens when you change platforms or update middleware? Tests in the real world are EXPENSIVE! When you test a new car, you're not testing 1 cheap part from a run of 1,000,000 parts; you're testing 1 expensive prototype part from a run of 10 parts. The article touches on the dealership experience. For legacy automakers, there are laws in place that prevent them from ditching their dealers. Legacy automakers also have agreements with labor unions. Adopting new work processes takes patience and understanding in the best of times. Re-arranging work can quickly become confrontational and not collaborative. The other major partner for OEMs are suppliers. Suppliers do much of the design work, based on specifications from OEMs. Suppliers can sell the same or substantially similar parts, made from the same sub-components to many different OEMs; but the further down the sub-component tree you go, the smaller the profits. Also, if you want to do something crazy like ditch CANbus or upgrade your 12 volt architecture to 48 volts, you'll have to do a lot of work with your supplier base. Cars aren't judged on the things that work well, they're judged by the things that don't. The car design and manufacturing process is all about limiting and eliminating those things. Uncontrolled changes can cause a huge spill of defects. ---- Edit: My main point here is that, Yes, the industry is ossified and slow moving, but you can't just speed up. You have to address the reasons why it is slow moving, and you have to do it WITHOUT RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!

Theodores 6y ago

Why from scratch? If it was a racing series then you could supply the tyres and insist no parts came from existing cars with everything scratch built. That would make for an interesting race series. But cars are about how they are made, so final assembly and the supply chain. Having the capital to reinvent that is way too capital intensive for where we are. Might as well build a web browser in a computer where you have to build your own CPU working back from the HTML specs.

vsskanth 6y ago

The biggest reinvention going on right now in cars is in software. Traditional automakers are not seup to do this well because suppliers have their own stack and all the controllers are pretty much fixed outside a firmware flash. Tesla doesn't follow this approach. Their software is pretty unified and they can update everything including their controllers OTA.

starchild_3001 6y ago

I see a lot of critique. I would like to thank the author for opening up my mind. There's plenty of well organized, food-for-thought here.