5 ms·

Unfortunately, among all the wonders the European Union has brought to us, the cars is where it failed in my opinion. Cheap cars are not permitted any more in

by pif 1y ago

Unfortunately, among all the wonders the European Union has brought to us, the cars is where it failed in my opinion. Cheap cars are not permitted any more in the EU. Lots and lots of non-essential electronics are required to satisfy European norms, and you putting your hands on your car is frowned upon.

phoronixrly 1y ago
If by 'putting your hands on your car' you mean deleting your catalytic converter, EGR, DPF, DEF, or tuning your engine so that it has worse fuel economy or better fuel economy but worse emissions, then yes, and rightly so. I would also argue that these features are essential if you use your car on public roads, especially in the tightly packed European cities (where you get low-emission zones with nice hefty fines if you enter them with a vehicle that doesn't adhere to them). The only failure I see is not enforcing the GDPR on auto vendors, and cars being surveillance machines with no way to opt-out ( https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/arti... ). Edit: right to repair as well.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Some mandatory systems are unnecessary and drive up the cost of new cars, though. Things like backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and lane assist add very little to road safety (research has even shown that people relying on these features even start paying less attention on the road), but are mandatory. Safety features that are easier to defend (automatic emergency braking, driver fatigue detection, driver distraction warning systems, black boxes, tire pressure monitors, "intelligent speed assistance", oncoming vehicle detection) are also adding a whole heap of electronics to cars that drive up the base price of any vehicle. Then there were the inherent privacy risks when the EU wanted to introduce mandatory, automated SOS call functionality ("eCall") on crashes (because their mobile modems are basically tracking devices you're not allowed to remove) but the requirements were altered to keep the modem off under non-crash circumstances. You can't rip out the touch screen of your car and replace it with physical buttons unless you also figure out how to make the reversing camera work. Modifications to the outside of your car may also be a challenge because you need to keep the lane assist system working or your car won't pass the mandatory safety inspections. I'm in favour of most new safety systems, but EU regulations seem to be making some very strange choices in this regard that make it impossible for newcomers to have even a remote chance of coming to market. The rules are excluding a whole bunch of Chinese and Indian cars (on purpose), but also stifling competition from new EU manufacturers.
  - CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
    >Things like backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and lane assist add very little to road safety (research has even shown that people relying on these features even start paying less attention on the road), but are mandatory. I could believe it about the other things, but I really don't see how backup cameras fit in that list
    - phoronixrly 1y ago
      Oh lane assist is another good example. People daydream and often wander off of their line... Intelligent speed adaptation solutions are also very interesting, especially the closed type. I live in a country where the highway speed limit was raised from 110 to 130kph so that drivers going up to 180kph don't get their drivers license suspended and vehicle impounded and are just slapped with a fine. I kid you not. Driving the speed limit is als frowned upon by many fellow drivers. It's so bad that the government has started to put physical barriers between the lines to prevent illegal overtaking on several high risk two-lane roads because so many people die due to head-on collisions that it starts to pose a problem with the public...
      - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
        Regarding the speed limit, I have mixed feelings about it. They seem outdated, even 20-30 year old cars are stable enough on the road to go 80-100km/h instead of 50. Germany has shown that driving as fast as the car can go is not the main cause for car accidents. With some exceptions where I think they're doing something good, like dangerous curves, they are mostly used by police to make money for the city/government.
  - phoronixrly 1y ago
    > You can't rip out the touch screen of your car and replace it with physical buttons unless you also figure out how to make the reversing camera work. Modifications to the outside of your car may also be a challenge because you need to keep the lane assist system working or your car won't pass the mandatory safety inspections. Sorry, the only thing I could find on the topic was that the vehicles manufactured after 2024 need to have a back-up camera when sold on the EU market, nothing about you actually ripping it out, can you please link? That said, you, personally, may not need a back-up camera, but considering the general public, do you not think it would be a net-benefit? The general public includes inept/distracted drivers, and old people who don't see or can't turn around easily. I can easily see people being saved by appearing in the back-up camera of an inept driver while the vehicle flashes red lights and sounds alarms. There is of course the lobbying angle to this -- more mandatory base features means auto vendors can safely drive up the base prices without fear of competition. The real question is is this going to lead to a net reduction of vehicle accidents?
- GeekDill 1y ago
  Your attitude is incredibly short-sighted. If I can't repair the car myself, I do not own it. BTW Putting "your hands on your car" means doing basic repairs and maintenance e.g. - I changed my oil on my car. - I've bled my brakes. - I fixed the H-strap as it was broken on my driver's side door. - I replaced the wiper system myself. This BTW would have cost several thousand pound to be done by a specialist (you have to remove significant portions of the dashboard to do this. - Replacing the rear shocks on my suspension. A vehicle is the second most expensive purchase people make after a home and yet because you disagree with how a small minority of people modify their cars, you are fine with the concept of ownership being erased and your vehicle forever being beholden to the manufacturer. It is incredibly short sighted. Modern cars currently are getting to a stage where they cannot be repaired by anyone except for the manufacturer. This will drive up prices of repairs (dealerships/specialists are already expensive as they are) and you won't be able to go to smaller shops to get your car serviced / repaired and these places will go out of business and jobs lost. This is already causing huge amounts of waste because cars are being scrapped because they are uneconomical to repair after minor accidents, or minor faults. Compare this with 15/20 years ago and I had a car that did 300,000 miles before it became uneconomical to repair (I still got £500 from the scrap man). Repairing a vehicle is much less wasteful than replacing it.
  - phoronixrly 1y ago
    I was asking what they meant by that. I did not disagree with right to repair. To the contrary -- IMO vehicles must be completely repairable with freely available standardized general purpose parts, as opposed to pre-made custom assemblies at ungodly prices and limited production periods. Removing emissions functionality (which I explicitly listed), or safety functionality is not repairing your vehicle, it is altering your vehicle to your own benefit and at the expense of everyone else, and must be prevented by the government, and not by auto manufacturers. I thought this was implied with 'being frowned upon', because society and their government representatives frown upon stuff, auto manufacturers outright prevent it. Still, I reiterate, one must have the complete power to do so as part of owning a vehicle, just not the privilege of using it on public roads afterwards.
    - deleted 1y ago
- pif 1y ago
  Emissions are the most important thing in a car, just after its responsiveness. I'll never be able to forgive the EU for making modern cars so less responsive than they used to be. Drive-be-wire killed it all.
  - phoronixrly 1y ago
    Responsiveness is important to what purpose and from whose point of view -- yours or your society as a whole? I can tell you that responsiveness is the last thing on my mind when I slog from one traffic light to the next, or generally when I drive the speed limit, and try to get from point A to point B. And I can tell you that my wife absolutely loves drive by wire when she needs to park in a tight spot -- I've had her (try) to park a car without electric power steering and with a carburetor...
    - GeekDill 1y ago
      > Responsiveness is important to what purpose and from whose point of view -- yours or your society as a whole? My needs and the rest of society will be different. So posing every response through this filter is asinine. Not everyone drives in a city with perfect well maintained roads in a city. I drive on roads that of full of pot holes, has deep ditches on either side and frequently there maybe obstacles in the road (rocks, trees, animal). I drive under the speed limit normally as the roads can be dangerous. Having a vehicle that is more responsive/lighter/better visibility is better than something that has bunch of driving aids which are largely useless in such circumstances. > I've had her (try) to park a car without electric power steering and with a carburetor Parking a vehicle isn't that difficult and you should have learned to do it properly by the time you take your test. If you wife can't park a vehicle without driving aids than she shouldn't be driving that vehicle.
      - phoronixrly 1y ago
        Look, I'll agree with you that driving should be made less accessible to the general public, and that everyone should have go through a driving test each 5 years where they among other things, get to drive an old manual car with no electronics, no power steering or electronic throttle control, or any assists, on shit roads with deep ditches, and show that they can park it, and while at it that they can exchange its fluids and change its tyres... I'm pretty sure that the upheaval against any government that takes such a position is going to be a thing to behold, which is why the general approach in the EU has been working around shit drivers with technology to achieve net less deaths and emissions, while making walking, public transport, and biking more attractive. As opposed to making driving less accessible, so that only good drivers are left on the road, while no convenient alternatives exist for the rest.
pabs3 1y ago
Convert an old ICE to EV with the open source Zombiverter project. Looks like folks in the EU have gotten those approved, although it is a lot of work and in some places not cheap. https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/Legalities https://openinverter.org/wiki/Legalities

by pif 1y ago

phoronixrly 1y ago

If by 'putting your hands on your car' you mean deleting your catalytic converter, EGR, DPF, DEF, or tuning your engine so that it has worse fuel economy or better fuel economy but worse emissions, then yes, and rightly so. I would also argue that these features are essential if you use your car on public roads, especially in the tightly packed European cities (where you get low-emission zones with nice hefty fines if you enter them with a vehicle that doesn't adhere to them). The only failure I see is not enforcing the GDPR on auto vendors, and cars being surveillance machines with no way to opt-out ( https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/arti... ). Edit: right to repair as well.

jeroenhd 1y ago
Some mandatory systems are unnecessary and drive up the cost of new cars, though. Things like backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and lane assist add very little to road safety (research has even shown that people relying on these features even start paying less attention on the road), but are mandatory. Safety features that are easier to defend (automatic emergency braking, driver fatigue detection, driver distraction warning systems, black boxes, tire pressure monitors, "intelligent speed assistance", oncoming vehicle detection) are also adding a whole heap of electronics to cars that drive up the base price of any vehicle. Then there were the inherent privacy risks when the EU wanted to introduce mandatory, automated SOS call functionality ("eCall") on crashes (because their mobile modems are basically tracking devices you're not allowed to remove) but the requirements were altered to keep the modem off under non-crash circumstances. You can't rip out the touch screen of your car and replace it with physical buttons unless you also figure out how to make the reversing camera work. Modifications to the outside of your car may also be a challenge because you need to keep the lane assist system working or your car won't pass the mandatory safety inspections. I'm in favour of most new safety systems, but EU regulations seem to be making some very strange choices in this regard that make it impossible for newcomers to have even a remote chance of coming to market. The rules are excluding a whole bunch of Chinese and Indian cars (on purpose), but also stifling competition from new EU manufacturers.
- CorrectHorseBat 1y ago
  >Things like backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and lane assist add very little to road safety (research has even shown that people relying on these features even start paying less attention on the road), but are mandatory. I could believe it about the other things, but I really don't see how backup cameras fit in that list
  - phoronixrly 1y ago
    Oh lane assist is another good example. People daydream and often wander off of their line... Intelligent speed adaptation solutions are also very interesting, especially the closed type. I live in a country where the highway speed limit was raised from 110 to 130kph so that drivers going up to 180kph don't get their drivers license suspended and vehicle impounded and are just slapped with a fine. I kid you not. Driving the speed limit is als frowned upon by many fellow drivers. It's so bad that the government has started to put physical barriers between the lines to prevent illegal overtaking on several high risk two-lane roads because so many people die due to head-on collisions that it starts to pose a problem with the public...
    - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
      Regarding the speed limit, I have mixed feelings about it. They seem outdated, even 20-30 year old cars are stable enough on the road to go 80-100km/h instead of 50. Germany has shown that driving as fast as the car can go is not the main cause for car accidents. With some exceptions where I think they're doing something good, like dangerous curves, they are mostly used by police to make money for the city/government.
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  > You can't rip out the touch screen of your car and replace it with physical buttons unless you also figure out how to make the reversing camera work. Modifications to the outside of your car may also be a challenge because you need to keep the lane assist system working or your car won't pass the mandatory safety inspections. Sorry, the only thing I could find on the topic was that the vehicles manufactured after 2024 need to have a back-up camera when sold on the EU market, nothing about you actually ripping it out, can you please link? That said, you, personally, may not need a back-up camera, but considering the general public, do you not think it would be a net-benefit? The general public includes inept/distracted drivers, and old people who don't see or can't turn around easily. I can easily see people being saved by appearing in the back-up camera of an inept driver while the vehicle flashes red lights and sounds alarms. There is of course the lobbying angle to this -- more mandatory base features means auto vendors can safely drive up the base prices without fear of competition. The real question is is this going to lead to a net reduction of vehicle accidents?
GeekDill 1y ago
Your attitude is incredibly short-sighted. If I can't repair the car myself, I do not own it. BTW Putting "your hands on your car" means doing basic repairs and maintenance e.g. - I changed my oil on my car. - I've bled my brakes. - I fixed the H-strap as it was broken on my driver's side door. - I replaced the wiper system myself. This BTW would have cost several thousand pound to be done by a specialist (you have to remove significant portions of the dashboard to do this. - Replacing the rear shocks on my suspension. A vehicle is the second most expensive purchase people make after a home and yet because you disagree with how a small minority of people modify their cars, you are fine with the concept of ownership being erased and your vehicle forever being beholden to the manufacturer. It is incredibly short sighted. Modern cars currently are getting to a stage where they cannot be repaired by anyone except for the manufacturer. This will drive up prices of repairs (dealerships/specialists are already expensive as they are) and you won't be able to go to smaller shops to get your car serviced / repaired and these places will go out of business and jobs lost. This is already causing huge amounts of waste because cars are being scrapped because they are uneconomical to repair after minor accidents, or minor faults. Compare this with 15/20 years ago and I had a car that did 300,000 miles before it became uneconomical to repair (I still got £500 from the scrap man). Repairing a vehicle is much less wasteful than replacing it.
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  I was asking what they meant by that. I did not disagree with right to repair. To the contrary -- IMO vehicles must be completely repairable with freely available standardized general purpose parts, as opposed to pre-made custom assemblies at ungodly prices and limited production periods. Removing emissions functionality (which I explicitly listed), or safety functionality is not repairing your vehicle, it is altering your vehicle to your own benefit and at the expense of everyone else, and must be prevented by the government, and not by auto manufacturers. I thought this was implied with 'being frowned upon', because society and their government representatives frown upon stuff, auto manufacturers outright prevent it. Still, I reiterate, one must have the complete power to do so as part of owning a vehicle, just not the privilege of using it on public roads afterwards.
  - deleted 1y ago
pif 1y ago
Emissions are the most important thing in a car, just after its responsiveness. I'll never be able to forgive the EU for making modern cars so less responsive than they used to be. Drive-be-wire killed it all.
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  Responsiveness is important to what purpose and from whose point of view -- yours or your society as a whole? I can tell you that responsiveness is the last thing on my mind when I slog from one traffic light to the next, or generally when I drive the speed limit, and try to get from point A to point B. And I can tell you that my wife absolutely loves drive by wire when she needs to park in a tight spot -- I've had her (try) to park a car without electric power steering and with a carburetor...
  - GeekDill 1y ago
    > Responsiveness is important to what purpose and from whose point of view -- yours or your society as a whole? My needs and the rest of society will be different. So posing every response through this filter is asinine. Not everyone drives in a city with perfect well maintained roads in a city. I drive on roads that of full of pot holes, has deep ditches on either side and frequently there maybe obstacles in the road (rocks, trees, animal). I drive under the speed limit normally as the roads can be dangerous. Having a vehicle that is more responsive/lighter/better visibility is better than something that has bunch of driving aids which are largely useless in such circumstances. > I've had her (try) to park a car without electric power steering and with a carburetor Parking a vehicle isn't that difficult and you should have learned to do it properly by the time you take your test. If you wife can't park a vehicle without driving aids than she shouldn't be driving that vehicle.
    - phoronixrly 1y ago
      Look, I'll agree with you that driving should be made less accessible to the general public, and that everyone should have go through a driving test each 5 years where they among other things, get to drive an old manual car with no electronics, no power steering or electronic throttle control, or any assists, on shit roads with deep ditches, and show that they can park it, and while at it that they can exchange its fluids and change its tyres... I'm pretty sure that the upheaval against any government that takes such a position is going to be a thing to behold, which is why the general approach in the EU has been working around shit drivers with technology to achieve net less deaths and emissions, while making walking, public transport, and biking more attractive. As opposed to making driving less accessible, so that only good drivers are left on the road, while no convenient alternatives exist for the rest.

pabs3 1y ago

Convert an old ICE to EV with the open source Zombiverter project. Looks like folks in the EU have gotten those approved, although it is a lot of work and in some places not cheap. https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/Legalities https://openinverter.org/wiki/Legalities