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I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of

I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user, when these inevitably fail (as in this case) - what can the owner do when the parts are no longer available, or if the manufacturer is out of business? Mechanically the car may be sound - but if the system responsible for the interaction between the vehicle and the owner is borked and impossible to replace does that mean the car is a complete write off? I think back to some of the beaters my friends owned when they started driving, with broken HVAC switch gear, burned out audio head unit wiring harness, etc... while mechanically sound (enough to be road legal...), issues like this didn't hinder or prevent driving the car, and they continued in service for years in this state.

hshshs2 6y ago
the average person does not think a car will last over 20 years... on average people keep theirs for closer to 10... what are you basing that idea off of?
- Tagbert 6y ago
  If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Actual average age of cars on the road in the US is around 12 years. If you are not in the rust belts, it is common to still see cars from the nineties. They are usually driven by people who could not afford a newer car or could not afford major expensive or hard to get parts.
  - curryst 6y ago
    > If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Right, but how many of the people that expect their car to last more than 10 years are buying new cars? The signalling I get from Tesla is that they don't care a whole lot about the used market (as evidenced by this issue). I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. If you buy a $60,000 car that you sell for $20,000 when you're done, you paid $40,000 to drive the car. If you buy a $60,000 car that you can't resell because it's dead or too risky for buyers, you paid $60,000 to drive the car. Unfortunately, that cost doesn't manifest until years later. Roughly now, based on how long Teslas have been around and their expected lifetime number. I would not be surprised to see Tesla start losing orders if they can't support the used market.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. I think consumers care very much about the value of what is typically their 2nd most valuable asset. They see it when they discuss trading in a car for a new one. Or when shopping for a used car. The information is very readily available. The people not caring about it consciously prioritizing luxury over resale value.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  What are you basing that idea on? Because the average car in here is 12.5 years old.
  - hshshs2 6y ago
    That’s my point 12.5 (“closer” to 10) is a far cry from 20+
jjeaff 6y ago
I suspect it will be like a lot of older car electronics are now. Aftermarket parts makers will start making drop in replacements to fill the need.
- theodric 6y ago
  Enter the signed parts requiring a factory diagnostic box with Tesla private keys a la iPhone parts and you're out of luck
  - userbinator 6y ago
    Even with ICE cars there's been a long history of manufacturers attempting to lock out third-party repairs and modifications, yet there are plenty of companies who specialise in hacking around those limitations. In the case of an electric car, which is simpler in a lot of ways, it seems more likely that parts will just be replaced with third-party compatible equivalents; which might naturally lead to a Ship of Theseus situation...
    - alphabettsy 6y ago
      The difference had been that most cars did not have a direct connection to the manufacturer. Tesla has the ability to disable third-party parts and accessories remotely unless you prevent the vehicle from connecting.
  - crazysim 6y ago
    This is already a thing on some newer Toyotas. For example, if you wanted to replace a FCW camera, you'll need to subscript to Toyota's service to get something signed so the replacement camera will work with your car. "ECU Security Key".
- mattnewton 6y ago
  Tesla has a history of being somewhat hostile to third party repairs, so I worry there will be a long between-period when this becomes obviously needed, and when legislation and/or market forces create a third party ecosystem despite Tesla’s attitude.
throwbacktictac 6y ago
If Tesla doesn't come up with a diplomatic way of allowing third-party repair they will be the company that forces regulators to add regulation. It's one thing to be out of a personal computing device due to vendor policy but when enough people get burned by a bricked car then all hell will break loose.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > It's one thing to be out of a personal computing device due to vendor policy IMHO, the only reason people tolerate that is because the culture was habituated to it in the 90s/00s, when personal computers were improving so quickly that you'd likely want to replace yours even if it wasn't broken. Cars are so expensive and the culture has been habituated to them having increasing life and reliability that I don't think a car company could pull off shortening their usable lifespan without burning their reputation. Until full self-driving capability gets to a deployable state, I don't really see any technological advancement that could ease people into a faster refresh cycle.
  - mastax 6y ago
    Ironically, that was when computers would come with schematics and repair manuals.
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      That was partly because it was cheaper to upgrade some old parts than buy a whole new machine. You could squeeze an extra couple of years out of a machine with a CPU or GPU upgrade. Replacing broken parts was less common. No one really expected to just maintain the machine to the same specs for several years.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    I think we'll see leasing pushed harder and harder. The car will be a monthly payment (which is already the case for a lot of people, whether they lease or buy) and after 5 or 7 years it's simply replaced with the current version, and the old one reclaimed/recycled. That gets manufacturers off the hook for having to support old cars with repair parts and services (the latter being especially important for manufacturers like Tesla that don't have dealerships). Fisker is pushing this "ownership" model with their new EV.
jmisavage 6y ago
Just image if this happens on the new Model S Plaid and Model X. Both are suppose to have the gear selector on the touch screen with the car guessing weather you are in drive, park, or reverse based on your surroundings. If you screen dies and it guesses wrong they you are stuck. - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354680585139187713 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354680585139187713
- naebother 6y ago
  No way that's actually getting approved by NHTSA.
- apfsx 6y ago
  This can't end up well. The Tesla's get a lot of stuff right but trying to get everything into that touch screen is a mistake in my eyes.
  - hctaw 6y ago
    I really don't think they get that much right. Everything above the drive train is subpar for vehicles much cheaper than theirs, and now it's become clear that they're less reliable too.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    They also moved the indicators to the steering wheel in what looks like touch capacitive buttons. That also seems like a mistake to me over an actual stalk.
    - dillondoyle 6y ago
      Is that what those circle things are on the wheel? Musk's reply sounds like their AI will automatically turn the left/right on and you have to over ride with a touch screen - which to me sounded like a center console... Either way based on the many posts/videos on their current ML I don't think either is a good idea.
      - 6y ago
userbinator 6y ago
The fact that newer cars are more complex and seemingly expected to have a shorter life has lead to an odd situation where parts availability and price may actually be far better for older cars than newer ones, especially due to the aftermarket.
- moocow01 6y ago
  Is this true? From my memory, many car brands were only good for 100-150k miles when I was a kid. Now it seems like just about all cars made in the last decade are expected to be viable to 200-300k miles
  - blacklion 6y ago
    It is funny, how here in Russia there are a lot of talks that modern engines need rebuild after 100K-150K of KILOMETER (not miles), we could not buy car with "million-worth" engine anymore! It is very common view, that modern cars are much more safe, comfortable, ecologically sane, faster, and even reliable in first 1-2 years, than old ones, but they will break up and require very expensive repair (engine re-sleeving or re-boring with full rebuild) much, much sooner than older ones.
    - fomine3 6y ago
      Possibly social pressure for environment (fuel efficiency, exhaust regulation) affects the reliability. For example, some cars now uses 0W-8 oil.
      - blacklion 6y ago
        Yep, it is understandable. What is interesting to me, that USA users write about new cars that they expect 150K+ miles from them and it was not so in the past. Completely opposite to what users think here.
ardy42 6y ago
> My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user Centralization of controls into a single touchscreen is most certainly not convenient to the user, because touchscreens suck [1]. What is convenient is the thoughtful deployment of physical controls in ergonomic locations. [1] Touchscreens are really only a good choice in situations where there's extreme space constraints, or as an enhancement to existing controls for very specific interactions where they make sense.
- pmontra 6y ago
  In my experience touchscreens are great for passengers and very dangerous for the driver, unless the car is stationary. All commands must be around the wheel. An alternative that could work is voice commands, if the car can really understand the driver. Good luck to foreign drivers, tourists with rental cars or people living abroad, unless they can configure their own language.
  - johncessna 6y ago
    Years ago, I was in Germany with a Serbian, Japanese, and someone from Turkey. We each took turns trying to get the German navigation system of our rental to understand us, and then we finally pulled over to operate the very painful non-touchscreen navigation system.
    - labawi 6y ago
      I don't think the parent was talking about complicated systems like GPS, that you should probably set up before driving, and yes, they are often a pain, touchscreen or not. A touchscreen is a dangerous interface for the myriad of simple mundane systems like heat up/down, AC on/off, fan more/less, sound more/less/next.., heated seats, windows... things that you may need very much want to do while driving.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    This is my experience with voice recognition, and I'm a native speaker of American English: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU
chrisseaton 6y ago
> I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. For a car? Are many people driving around in a car from 2000 or earlier? When I search for cars that old or older it's 0.4% of the used market. Clearly the vast majority of cars do not last this long and I think you have an unreasonable expectation.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > For a car? Yes. > Are many people driving around in a car from 2000 or earlier? A fair number, though not a lot because an accident or neglected maintenance will often kill them first. Though the average age of a car on the road has been climbing quite a bit recently, so 20+ years being common probably isn't unreasonable to see during the lifespan of cars sold today. Well, maybe not for the Teslas, but... > When I search for cars that old or older it's 0.4% of the used market. That's because there is little demand outside of collectibles, so they mostly aren't worth selling; if you've got a car that old, you are probably going to drive it until it's ready for the scrapyard, not reselling it.
- dognotdog 6y ago
  This is interesting, 0.4% in numbers or value?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    In numbers.
    - dognotdog 6y ago
      That doesn't seem to bad, all considered. 5% would be the natural number for any one year out of 20, to get to 0.4% from 5% in 20 yrs should be about 8 yrs of mean life per car, assuming exponential decay. I'm fairly sure this thought process is missing some fudge factor to make it exact, but seems about the right ballpark.
- forty 6y ago
  I think looking at the used market might not be a good way to measure, because 20+ are worth essentially nothing, so they don't get sold a lot :) but that doesn't mean they don't continue working. Think that many people cannot afford changing car, even more so when the current car is worth nothing on the market.
Gibbon1 6y ago
> I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. I've wondered about that myself. Because comments I've made that an electric drive train should have an expected service life of 30 years seems to draw a lot of ire from somewhere. Probably the automotive equivalent of found the google engineer.
api 6y ago
I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf. If I could shove a Tesla Model 3 sized battery in it I would drive it until every last molecule dissociated. I dread the expensive, spyware riddled, buggy, and probably shorter lived future of the automobile. Same goes for appliances, which are becoming encrusted with features and less reliable.
- drh 6y ago
  I have wondered for a while if there is a market for a no-frills vehicle. A modern engine and chassis, etc. but with minimal, tactile, and easily serviceable controls.
  - api 6y ago
    There absolutely is. Here is what I want: An EV with great range (e.g. 300mi), good performance (doesn’t have to be a sports car), and classic controls. You could go real minimal on computers. You’d just need a microcontroller to monitor speed, temp, charge, battery health, etc. Basic cruise control of the 1990s type would be nice but not essential. A radio with a USB plug for a phone to play music and good speakers is all you need for an entertainment system. Basically I’m describing an electric 90s Civic with mid range options. Oh and no cellular modem or spyware. Put all the money into drive train, battery, and reliability. Design it to have easily swappable and upgradable batteries and to last for 25-35 years. You’d have one customer at least. You could probably make a pickup version with killer torque and be like Tesla for red states. Rednecks will be sold on the electric thing once they see what instant full torque means.
    - totalZero 6y ago
      So what exactly are the frills that you're setting aside? XM radio? Regen, DC-DC converter, all of these things require more than just a single microcontroller.
      - tw8345 6y ago
        Some speakers and a standard DIN slot for a stereo. A another slot for DC power.
karmicthreat 6y ago
My guess is that the hardware engineer that originally designed the board picked a reasonable part for a traditional auto OEM. Then at some point software engineering decided to log all the things. Nobody actually looked back at what the storage system longevity would be with this new lifecycle. It's a dumb mistake, but not exactly an uncommon one. I made the same mistake early on and I have contract engineers that propose inappropriate storage solutions to me still on projects. Some very insistently. I think a whole lot of people that work on the embedded side of engineering treat storage as a magic perfect box.
- amluto 6y ago
  The hardware folks picked fancy stuff that was not intended for automotive use. Look up the screen yellowing for an example — no manufacturer would sell a screen in the size Tesla wanted that was rated for hot car interior temperatures, so Tesla went with one that wasn’t.
  - rektide 6y ago
    1.4 drive writes per day is a shit ton of a lot of writes to hit a drive with daily. this is a computational not an automotive concern, & a pretty frelling heinous oversight at that.
    - o-__-o 6y ago
      To be expected when not-a-car company makes cars :) (For instance GM has a strict list of test scenarios for their onstar integration)
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        They still screw up. I like this example because it's their infotainment screen failing prematurely: https://cadillacsociety.com/2019/10/28/second-lawsuit-filed-over-cadillac-cue-screen-issues/ https://cadillacsociety.com/2019/10/28/second-lawsuit-filed-...
1123581321 6y ago
It is normal for cars to outlast many of their parts, which are replaced through periodic service (every x years or x,000 miles.) Sophisticated, user-facing computing is one of the newer parts of cars and so we don’t really know what to expect yet as far as longevity relative to the car itself. However, we should not necessarily see the need to replace computing devices, or parts of them, as prescribing the life of the entire vehicle.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  There's no justification for memory that will hit a wear limit in a few years to be integrated into a couple of layers of components (it's on the controller chip inside the screen control module). If it was a relatively accessible memory card, it'd be fine for it to have a service lifetime.
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    I understand that. How much labor does this require relative to a similarly entrenched and costly mechanical part?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      It's not just the labor, the repair is to replace the module (rather than just the memory). They didn't initially design it to fail so quickly, a software update accelerated the wear of the card. So there's lots of things going on. People would similarly get pissed off if a $10 mechanical part that was embedded in a $300 mechanical part consistently failed in 3 years. Especially if the failure was due to a change in a fluid spec or something.
      - 1123581321 6y ago
        Yes, sorry, I meant to ask if you knew the labor to replace the entire module so I could compare it to a mechanical part of equivalent cost. I realize there's anger but I'm trying to understand how much of a leap this is beyond a mechanical failure that people don't like, and view as an engineering failure, but nevertheless expect and endure when owning cars of a certain age and mileage. If you don't have the information, that's okay. I'm looking for it (unsuccessfully so far.)
a3n 6y ago
My son is driving my 30 year old Honda Civic wagon, bought new. We're thinking of dropping in a rebuilt engine.
- judge2020 6y ago
  The biggest problem with old[er] cars is that they don't compare to modern safety systems like large crumple zones and advanced airbags. There are many examples where even a 1-year gap in make year will greatly increase the safety of passengers: https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0 https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0 (2015 Nissan Tsuru vs. 2016 Nissan Versa) https://youtu.be/5dQbSn94rUQ https://youtu.be/5dQbSn94rUQ (2015 and 2019 Jeep Cherokee driver-side small overlap IIHS crash test comparison) https://youtu.be/ul_uiq-HJPM https://youtu.be/ul_uiq-HJPM (2016 and 2019 Honda HR-V driver-side small overlap comparison) https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck (the most extreme comparison - 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu)
  - wpearse 6y ago
    I drove an 1983 Land Rover. The joke is that the other vehicle is your crumple zone, and I’m quite conscious that if I hit anything I will break my nose (again) on the steering wheel.
SMAAART 6y ago
Service life of >20 years? I doubt it, with all the electronics and stuff car makers are looking for <10 years duration for new cars.
twblalock 6y ago
> I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? Their basic warranty is 4 years, and the drivetrain warranty is 8 years. If you buy a used vehicle direct from Tesla they will add on 1 year to the original warranty, but that's it. That isn't much longer than the warranties you can get on gas-powered cars, and their used warranties seem a bit worse than what you can get from "certified used" programs from other car companies. In theory, an electric car should last much longer than a gas car, but Tesla's warranty isn't any longer. I bet the price tag to replace Tesla battery packs out of warranty is shocking.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- yumraj 6y ago
  What does warranty have to do with the lifetime of a car, or anything? Most items have 1-2 year warranties, but we expect most of them to last much much more than that.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    It's simply a good indicator for how long the manufacturer is willing to commit to fixing their own mistakes for free - the point is that Tesla matches or exceeds the duration of their hardware guarantee relative to other automakers. Actual repairability is, of course, a different metric.
tashoecraft 6y ago
I think every major company that sells consumer based product wants to move to the iPhone model (atleast what I call it). They want you paying them constantly, always, monthly. Pay Tesla 450/month and when an update to their car arrives you can pay 475/month to now have the “latest”. The pressure for a company to have everyone paying them monthly is just to high. You’ll get pulled into their “ecosystem”, where it’s harder to switch. Why sell a car once per 10 years to a dealer who marks it up and has the interaction with the customer. Electric cars already have less maintenance (theoretically). Tesla doesn’t want you going away from paying them, no company does, and they are all fighting to prevent you from not paying them.
- powerbroker 6y ago
  This works great in a software dominated world, or in a world where Moore's law (or something like it) makes the device (though useful) obsolete. However, cars fit in a category that people consider to be a durable good. For decades, now, the expectation is that the car does not become landfill material until long after 10 years of use. If basic functionality is either a) unobtainable; or b) ridiculously pricey before those 10 years are up -- you've just lost a customer. For all their GPS and voice-commands, the Teslas, at root, remain a car. Buyers still expect that the point-A-to-point-B functionality can safely be maintained during the typical lifespan of a car -- and not that of an iPhone.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > However, cars fit in a category that people consider to be a durable good. It’s not because people consider it a durable good. It’s because people can’t afford or aren’t willing to pay the amount for a new car if an alternative is available. Many people aren’t going to shell out for a $35k Tesla that only lasts 10 years / 200,000 miles and is worth near zero at the end of 10 years if they can get a Toyota that will last 300,000+ miles, 20+ years, and is still worth a few thousand dollars. Cars are the second most expensive purchase most people make in their life, they literally can’t afford the luxury of a new one willy nilly (for cars brands aiming to be mainstream brands).
asiachick 6y ago
Random aside, I wonder which is better in an apocalypse, gas or electric? At first I thought "gas wins" because there will be no power grid. But then I thought "maybe electric wins" because getting more gas might be impossible where as getting electricity I can get from solar cells, water wheels, hand cranks, etc... Maybe I takes 2-3 days of charging for every N kilometers of travel but that's better than zero when you run out of gas. Maybe Mad Max is showing the age of its source material. All their cars should be electric. They'd even go faster!
- Syonyk 6y ago
  Why not both? Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs, range extended EVs, that general class of vehicle) give you the flexibility to run on whatever you can find, and also function nicely enough as a reasonably efficient generator for electrical power. But if you have to pick one, no question, electric. The supply chains for refining and delivering gasoline far, far exceed the supply chain for charging an electric: Sun, solar panels, inverter, car. Probably some batteries on the house side in there, but if you're charging during the day when the sun is out, those are more or less skipped if you have enough panel. Mad Max has plenty of problems. "Oh no, guzzoline is in short supply, let's use it as fast as we possibly can!" is not a particularly useful way of approaching resource limits. On the other hand, it makes for some absolutely spectacular cinema! I love that Fury Road was almost entirely practical effects - the giant vehicles driving across the desert look absolutely right, because... well, they were giant vehicles driving across the desert. I understand the Doof Wagon (gigantic wall of speakers on wheels) tended to get stuck an awful lot, though.
  - natch 6y ago
    Hybrids are false flexibility because if the government posts the national guard to close gas stations, hybrids can only go a few miles or less in some cases on electric power. Electrics can charge at home or at friendly places along the way and with long range, but for hybrids, with 2-30 miles of range, it’s not going to help. At worst a hybrid is basically a gas car with naive virtue signaling. At best it’s a slightly more fuel efficient gas car.
Triv888 6y ago
An electric car should last at least as long as an ICE car... because they are simpler...
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Are you being sarcastic? People say similar things a lot in seriousness, but I don't think they know what they mean by "simpler". Is EFI simpler than a carburetor?
  - Triv888 6y ago
    EFI should probably be compared with its electronic counterpart in an electric car... not a carburator. The transmission should be compared with nothing because an electric car doesn't even need one even though Elon tried to put one in Teslas. Also, an electric motor is simpler then a combustion engine and usually is a lot more reliable.
  - blacklion 6y ago
    EFI is much, much simpler and reliable than carburetor. It has much less moving parts and exact dimensions, it don't need to be re-jetted for different conditions, etc. Yes, carburetor is more reparable, if you know what to do, but EFI is much simpler. It is different attributes.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      The thing that's confusing me, is that apparently people who think things without moving parts and adjustments are "simpler", are basically looking at things from an end user perspective. Your response seems to confirm that. But it's not obvious to me what simpler for an end user has to do with more reliable. I mean, my smartphone usually dies in about a year or two. Actual phones in olden days didn't. So I still don't get why electric cars would be considered simpler in a sense that's relevant to reliability in expectation. Carburetors need adjustment and maintenance, but some cars with ECUs and EFI from the 80s are getting old enough that the electronics are actually failing. So how do you define "simple" and "reliable"?
Haga 6y ago
Introducing the arduino fallback welding kit.

hshshs2 6y ago

the average person does not think a car will last over 20 years... on average people keep theirs for closer to 10... what are you basing that idea off of?

Tagbert 6y ago
If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Actual average age of cars on the road in the US is around 12 years. If you are not in the rust belts, it is common to still see cars from the nineties. They are usually driven by people who could not afford a newer car or could not afford major expensive or hard to get parts.
- curryst 6y ago
  > If the average person expect their car to least 10 years then a lot of people are expecting their car to last more than 10 years. Right, but how many of the people that expect their car to last more than 10 years are buying new cars? The signalling I get from Tesla is that they don't care a whole lot about the used market (as evidenced by this issue). I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. If you buy a $60,000 car that you sell for $20,000 when you're done, you paid $40,000 to drive the car. If you buy a $60,000 car that you can't resell because it's dead or too risky for buyers, you paid $60,000 to drive the car. Unfortunately, that cost doesn't manifest until years later. Roughly now, based on how long Teslas have been around and their expected lifetime number. I would not be surprised to see Tesla start losing orders if they can't support the used market.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > I think consumers don't realize how much they actually care about the used market. I think consumers care very much about the value of what is typically their 2nd most valuable asset. They see it when they discuss trading in a car for a new one. Or when shopping for a used car. The information is very readily available. The people not caring about it consciously prioritizing luxury over resale value.
Hamuko 6y ago
What are you basing that idea on? Because the average car in here is 12.5 years old.
- hshshs2 6y ago
  That’s my point 12.5 (“closer” to 10) is a far cry from 20+

jjeaff 6y ago

I suspect it will be like a lot of older car electronics are now. Aftermarket parts makers will start making drop in replacements to fill the need.

theodric 6y ago
Enter the signed parts requiring a factory diagnostic box with Tesla private keys a la iPhone parts and you're out of luck
- userbinator 6y ago
  Even with ICE cars there's been a long history of manufacturers attempting to lock out third-party repairs and modifications, yet there are plenty of companies who specialise in hacking around those limitations. In the case of an electric car, which is simpler in a lot of ways, it seems more likely that parts will just be replaced with third-party compatible equivalents; which might naturally lead to a Ship of Theseus situation...
  - alphabettsy 6y ago
    The difference had been that most cars did not have a direct connection to the manufacturer. Tesla has the ability to disable third-party parts and accessories remotely unless you prevent the vehicle from connecting.
- crazysim 6y ago
  This is already a thing on some newer Toyotas. For example, if you wanted to replace a FCW camera, you'll need to subscript to Toyota's service to get something signed so the replacement camera will work with your car. "ECU Security Key".
mattnewton 6y ago
Tesla has a history of being somewhat hostile to third party repairs, so I worry there will be a long between-period when this becomes obviously needed, and when legislation and/or market forces create a third party ecosystem despite Tesla’s attitude.

throwbacktictac 6y ago

If Tesla doesn't come up with a diplomatic way of allowing third-party repair they will be the company that forces regulators to add regulation. It's one thing to be out of a personal computing device due to vendor policy but when enough people get burned by a bricked car then all hell will break loose.

ardy42 6y ago
> It's one thing to be out of a personal computing device due to vendor policy IMHO, the only reason people tolerate that is because the culture was habituated to it in the 90s/00s, when personal computers were improving so quickly that you'd likely want to replace yours even if it wasn't broken. Cars are so expensive and the culture has been habituated to them having increasing life and reliability that I don't think a car company could pull off shortening their usable lifespan without burning their reputation. Until full self-driving capability gets to a deployable state, I don't really see any technological advancement that could ease people into a faster refresh cycle.
- mastax 6y ago
  Ironically, that was when computers would come with schematics and repair manuals.
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    That was partly because it was cheaper to upgrade some old parts than buy a whole new machine. You could squeeze an extra couple of years out of a machine with a CPU or GPU upgrade. Replacing broken parts was less common. No one really expected to just maintain the machine to the same specs for several years.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  I think we'll see leasing pushed harder and harder. The car will be a monthly payment (which is already the case for a lot of people, whether they lease or buy) and after 5 or 7 years it's simply replaced with the current version, and the old one reclaimed/recycled. That gets manufacturers off the hook for having to support old cars with repair parts and services (the latter being especially important for manufacturers like Tesla that don't have dealerships). Fisker is pushing this "ownership" model with their new EV.

jmisavage 6y ago

Just image if this happens on the new Model S Plaid and Model X. Both are suppose to have the gear selector on the touch screen with the car guessing weather you are in drive, park, or reverse based on your surroundings. If you screen dies and it guesses wrong they you are stuck. - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354680585139187713 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354680585139187713

naebother 6y ago
No way that's actually getting approved by NHTSA.
apfsx 6y ago
This can't end up well. The Tesla's get a lot of stuff right but trying to get everything into that touch screen is a mistake in my eyes.
- hctaw 6y ago
  I really don't think they get that much right. Everything above the drive train is subpar for vehicles much cheaper than theirs, and now it's become clear that they're less reliable too.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  They also moved the indicators to the steering wheel in what looks like touch capacitive buttons. That also seems like a mistake to me over an actual stalk.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    Is that what those circle things are on the wheel? Musk's reply sounds like their AI will automatically turn the left/right on and you have to over ride with a touch screen - which to me sounded like a center console... Either way based on the many posts/videos on their current ML I don't think either is a good idea.
    - 6y ago

userbinator 6y ago

The fact that newer cars are more complex and seemingly expected to have a shorter life has lead to an odd situation where parts availability and price may actually be far better for older cars than newer ones, especially due to the aftermarket.

moocow01 6y ago
Is this true? From my memory, many car brands were only good for 100-150k miles when I was a kid. Now it seems like just about all cars made in the last decade are expected to be viable to 200-300k miles
- blacklion 6y ago
  It is funny, how here in Russia there are a lot of talks that modern engines need rebuild after 100K-150K of KILOMETER (not miles), we could not buy car with "million-worth" engine anymore! It is very common view, that modern cars are much more safe, comfortable, ecologically sane, faster, and even reliable in first 1-2 years, than old ones, but they will break up and require very expensive repair (engine re-sleeving or re-boring with full rebuild) much, much sooner than older ones.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Possibly social pressure for environment (fuel efficiency, exhaust regulation) affects the reliability. For example, some cars now uses 0W-8 oil.
    - blacklion 6y ago
      Yep, it is understandable. What is interesting to me, that USA users write about new cars that they expect 150K+ miles from them and it was not so in the past. Completely opposite to what users think here.

ardy42 6y ago

> My worry with a large number of modern tech heavy cars will be that while the centralisation of a lot of these controls and features into one panel may be convenient to the user Centralization of controls into a single touchscreen is most certainly not convenient to the user, because touchscreens suck [1]. What is convenient is the thoughtful deployment of physical controls in ergonomic locations. [1] Touchscreens are really only a good choice in situations where there's extreme space constraints, or as an enhancement to existing controls for very specific interactions where they make sense.

pmontra 6y ago
In my experience touchscreens are great for passengers and very dangerous for the driver, unless the car is stationary. All commands must be around the wheel. An alternative that could work is voice commands, if the car can really understand the driver. Good luck to foreign drivers, tourists with rental cars or people living abroad, unless they can configure their own language.
- johncessna 6y ago
  Years ago, I was in Germany with a Serbian, Japanese, and someone from Turkey. We each took turns trying to get the German navigation system of our rental to understand us, and then we finally pulled over to operate the very painful non-touchscreen navigation system.
  - labawi 6y ago
    I don't think the parent was talking about complicated systems like GPS, that you should probably set up before driving, and yes, they are often a pain, touchscreen or not. A touchscreen is a dangerous interface for the myriad of simple mundane systems like heat up/down, AC on/off, fan more/less, sound more/less/next.., heated seats, windows... things that you may need very much want to do while driving.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  This is my experience with voice recognition, and I'm a native speaker of American English: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU

chrisseaton 6y ago

> I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. For a car? Are many people driving around in a car from 2000 or earlier? When I search for cars that old or older it's 0.4% of the used market. Clearly the vast majority of cars do not last this long and I think you have an unreasonable expectation.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> For a car? Yes. > Are many people driving around in a car from 2000 or earlier? A fair number, though not a lot because an accident or neglected maintenance will often kill them first. Though the average age of a car on the road has been climbing quite a bit recently, so 20+ years being common probably isn't unreasonable to see during the lifespan of cars sold today. Well, maybe not for the Teslas, but... > When I search for cars that old or older it's 0.4% of the used market. That's because there is little demand outside of collectibles, so they mostly aren't worth selling; if you've got a car that old, you are probably going to drive it until it's ready for the scrapyard, not reselling it.
dognotdog 6y ago
This is interesting, 0.4% in numbers or value?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  In numbers.
  - dognotdog 6y ago
    That doesn't seem to bad, all considered. 5% would be the natural number for any one year out of 20, to get to 0.4% from 5% in 20 yrs should be about 8 yrs of mean life per car, assuming exponential decay. I'm fairly sure this thought process is missing some fudge factor to make it exact, but seems about the right ballpark.
forty 6y ago
I think looking at the used market might not be a good way to measure, because 20+ are worth essentially nothing, so they don't get sold a lot :) but that doesn't mean they don't continue working. Think that many people cannot afford changing car, even more so when the current car is worth nothing on the market.

Gibbon1 6y ago

> I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? I would imagine the average person on the street would expect to see a service life of >20 years. I've wondered about that myself. Because comments I've made that an electric drive train should have an expected service life of 30 years seems to draw a lot of ire from somewhere. Probably the automotive equivalent of found the google engineer.

api 6y ago

I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf. If I could shove a Tesla Model 3 sized battery in it I would drive it until every last molecule dissociated. I dread the expensive, spyware riddled, buggy, and probably shorter lived future of the automobile. Same goes for appliances, which are becoming encrusted with features and less reliable.

drh 6y ago
I have wondered for a while if there is a market for a no-frills vehicle. A modern engine and chassis, etc. but with minimal, tactile, and easily serviceable controls.
- api 6y ago
  There absolutely is. Here is what I want: An EV with great range (e.g. 300mi), good performance (doesn’t have to be a sports car), and classic controls. You could go real minimal on computers. You’d just need a microcontroller to monitor speed, temp, charge, battery health, etc. Basic cruise control of the 1990s type would be nice but not essential. A radio with a USB plug for a phone to play music and good speakers is all you need for an entertainment system. Basically I’m describing an electric 90s Civic with mid range options. Oh and no cellular modem or spyware. Put all the money into drive train, battery, and reliability. Design it to have easily swappable and upgradable batteries and to last for 25-35 years. You’d have one customer at least. You could probably make a pickup version with killer torque and be like Tesla for red states. Rednecks will be sold on the electric thing once they see what instant full torque means.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    So what exactly are the frills that you're setting aside? XM radio? Regen, DC-DC converter, all of these things require more than just a single microcontroller.
    - tw8345 6y ago
      Some speakers and a standard DIN slot for a stereo. A another slot for DC power.

karmicthreat 6y ago

My guess is that the hardware engineer that originally designed the board picked a reasonable part for a traditional auto OEM. Then at some point software engineering decided to log all the things. Nobody actually looked back at what the storage system longevity would be with this new lifecycle. It's a dumb mistake, but not exactly an uncommon one. I made the same mistake early on and I have contract engineers that propose inappropriate storage solutions to me still on projects. Some very insistently. I think a whole lot of people that work on the embedded side of engineering treat storage as a magic perfect box.

amluto 6y ago
The hardware folks picked fancy stuff that was not intended for automotive use. Look up the screen yellowing for an example — no manufacturer would sell a screen in the size Tesla wanted that was rated for hot car interior temperatures, so Tesla went with one that wasn’t.
- rektide 6y ago
  1.4 drive writes per day is a shit ton of a lot of writes to hit a drive with daily. this is a computational not an automotive concern, & a pretty frelling heinous oversight at that.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    To be expected when not-a-car company makes cars :) (For instance GM has a strict list of test scenarios for their onstar integration)
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      They still screw up. I like this example because it's their infotainment screen failing prematurely: https://cadillacsociety.com/2019/10/28/second-lawsuit-filed-over-cadillac-cue-screen-issues/ https://cadillacsociety.com/2019/10/28/second-lawsuit-filed-...

1123581321 6y ago

It is normal for cars to outlast many of their parts, which are replaced through periodic service (every x years or x,000 miles.) Sophisticated, user-facing computing is one of the newer parts of cars and so we don’t really know what to expect yet as far as longevity relative to the car itself. However, we should not necessarily see the need to replace computing devices, or parts of them, as prescribing the life of the entire vehicle.

maxerickson 6y ago
There's no justification for memory that will hit a wear limit in a few years to be integrated into a couple of layers of components (it's on the controller chip inside the screen control module). If it was a relatively accessible memory card, it'd be fine for it to have a service lifetime.
- 1123581321 6y ago
  I understand that. How much labor does this require relative to a similarly entrenched and costly mechanical part?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    It's not just the labor, the repair is to replace the module (rather than just the memory). They didn't initially design it to fail so quickly, a software update accelerated the wear of the card. So there's lots of things going on. People would similarly get pissed off if a $10 mechanical part that was embedded in a $300 mechanical part consistently failed in 3 years. Especially if the failure was due to a change in a fluid spec or something.
    - 1123581321 6y ago
      Yes, sorry, I meant to ask if you knew the labor to replace the entire module so I could compare it to a mechanical part of equivalent cost. I realize there's anger but I'm trying to understand how much of a leap this is beyond a mechanical failure that people don't like, and view as an engineering failure, but nevertheless expect and endure when owning cars of a certain age and mileage. If you don't have the information, that's okay. I'm looking for it (unsuccessfully so far.)

a3n 6y ago

My son is driving my 30 year old Honda Civic wagon, bought new. We're thinking of dropping in a rebuilt engine.

judge2020 6y ago
The biggest problem with old[er] cars is that they don't compare to modern safety systems like large crumple zones and advanced airbags. There are many examples where even a 1-year gap in make year will greatly increase the safety of passengers: https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0 https://youtu.be/85OysZ_4lp0 (2015 Nissan Tsuru vs. 2016 Nissan Versa) https://youtu.be/5dQbSn94rUQ https://youtu.be/5dQbSn94rUQ (2015 and 2019 Jeep Cherokee driver-side small overlap IIHS crash test comparison) https://youtu.be/ul_uiq-HJPM https://youtu.be/ul_uiq-HJPM (2016 and 2019 Honda HR-V driver-side small overlap comparison) https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck (the most extreme comparison - 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu)
- wpearse 6y ago
  I drove an 1983 Land Rover. The joke is that the other vehicle is your crumple zone, and I’m quite conscious that if I hit anything I will break my nose (again) on the steering wheel.

SMAAART 6y ago

Service life of >20 years? I doubt it, with all the electronics and stuff car makers are looking for <10 years duration for new cars.

twblalock 6y ago

> I wonder what Tesla think is the expected service life of their vehicles? Their basic warranty is 4 years, and the drivetrain warranty is 8 years. If you buy a used vehicle direct from Tesla they will add on 1 year to the original warranty, but that's it. That isn't much longer than the warranties you can get on gas-powered cars, and their used warranties seem a bit worse than what you can get from "certified used" programs from other car companies. In theory, an electric car should last much longer than a gas car, but Tesla's warranty isn't any longer. I bet the price tag to replace Tesla battery packs out of warranty is shocking.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
yumraj 6y ago
What does warranty have to do with the lifetime of a car, or anything? Most items have 1-2 year warranties, but we expect most of them to last much much more than that.
- judge2020 6y ago
  It's simply a good indicator for how long the manufacturer is willing to commit to fixing their own mistakes for free - the point is that Tesla matches or exceeds the duration of their hardware guarantee relative to other automakers. Actual repairability is, of course, a different metric.

tashoecraft 6y ago

I think every major company that sells consumer based product wants to move to the iPhone model (atleast what I call it). They want you paying them constantly, always, monthly. Pay Tesla 450/month and when an update to their car arrives you can pay 475/month to now have the “latest”. The pressure for a company to have everyone paying them monthly is just to high. You’ll get pulled into their “ecosystem”, where it’s harder to switch. Why sell a car once per 10 years to a dealer who marks it up and has the interaction with the customer. Electric cars already have less maintenance (theoretically). Tesla doesn’t want you going away from paying them, no company does, and they are all fighting to prevent you from not paying them.

powerbroker 6y ago
This works great in a software dominated world, or in a world where Moore's law (or something like it) makes the device (though useful) obsolete. However, cars fit in a category that people consider to be a durable good. For decades, now, the expectation is that the car does not become landfill material until long after 10 years of use. If basic functionality is either a) unobtainable; or b) ridiculously pricey before those 10 years are up -- you've just lost a customer. For all their GPS and voice-commands, the Teslas, at root, remain a car. Buyers still expect that the point-A-to-point-B functionality can safely be maintained during the typical lifespan of a car -- and not that of an iPhone.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > However, cars fit in a category that people consider to be a durable good. It’s not because people consider it a durable good. It’s because people can’t afford or aren’t willing to pay the amount for a new car if an alternative is available. Many people aren’t going to shell out for a $35k Tesla that only lasts 10 years / 200,000 miles and is worth near zero at the end of 10 years if they can get a Toyota that will last 300,000+ miles, 20+ years, and is still worth a few thousand dollars. Cars are the second most expensive purchase most people make in their life, they literally can’t afford the luxury of a new one willy nilly (for cars brands aiming to be mainstream brands).

asiachick 6y ago

Random aside, I wonder which is better in an apocalypse, gas or electric? At first I thought "gas wins" because there will be no power grid. But then I thought "maybe electric wins" because getting more gas might be impossible where as getting electricity I can get from solar cells, water wheels, hand cranks, etc... Maybe I takes 2-3 days of charging for every N kilometers of travel but that's better than zero when you run out of gas. Maybe Mad Max is showing the age of its source material. All their cars should be electric. They'd even go faster!

Syonyk 6y ago
Why not both? Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs, range extended EVs, that general class of vehicle) give you the flexibility to run on whatever you can find, and also function nicely enough as a reasonably efficient generator for electrical power. But if you have to pick one, no question, electric. The supply chains for refining and delivering gasoline far, far exceed the supply chain for charging an electric: Sun, solar panels, inverter, car. Probably some batteries on the house side in there, but if you're charging during the day when the sun is out, those are more or less skipped if you have enough panel. Mad Max has plenty of problems. "Oh no, guzzoline is in short supply, let's use it as fast as we possibly can!" is not a particularly useful way of approaching resource limits. On the other hand, it makes for some absolutely spectacular cinema! I love that Fury Road was almost entirely practical effects - the giant vehicles driving across the desert look absolutely right, because... well, they were giant vehicles driving across the desert. I understand the Doof Wagon (gigantic wall of speakers on wheels) tended to get stuck an awful lot, though.
- natch 6y ago
  Hybrids are false flexibility because if the government posts the national guard to close gas stations, hybrids can only go a few miles or less in some cases on electric power. Electrics can charge at home or at friendly places along the way and with long range, but for hybrids, with 2-30 miles of range, it’s not going to help. At worst a hybrid is basically a gas car with naive virtue signaling. At best it’s a slightly more fuel efficient gas car.

Triv888 6y ago

An electric car should last at least as long as an ICE car... because they are simpler...

perl4ever 6y ago
Are you being sarcastic? People say similar things a lot in seriousness, but I don't think they know what they mean by "simpler". Is EFI simpler than a carburetor?
- Triv888 6y ago
  EFI should probably be compared with its electronic counterpart in an electric car... not a carburator. The transmission should be compared with nothing because an electric car doesn't even need one even though Elon tried to put one in Teslas. Also, an electric motor is simpler then a combustion engine and usually is a lot more reliable.
- blacklion 6y ago
  EFI is much, much simpler and reliable than carburetor. It has much less moving parts and exact dimensions, it don't need to be re-jetted for different conditions, etc. Yes, carburetor is more reparable, if you know what to do, but EFI is much simpler. It is different attributes.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    The thing that's confusing me, is that apparently people who think things without moving parts and adjustments are "simpler", are basically looking at things from an end user perspective. Your response seems to confirm that. But it's not obvious to me what simpler for an end user has to do with more reliable. I mean, my smartphone usually dies in about a year or two. Actual phones in olden days didn't. So I still don't get why electric cars would be considered simpler in a sense that's relevant to reliability in expectation. Carburetors need adjustment and maintenance, but some cars with ECUs and EFI from the 80s are getting old enough that the electronics are actually failing. So how do you define "simple" and "reliable"?

Haga 6y ago

Introducing the arduino fallback welding kit.