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Modularity would be great too. Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different

by jacquesm 10mo ago

Modularity would be great too. Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different types. Meanwhile, all this has been overtaken by the need to get away from fossil fuels as soon as we practically can. Oil should not be valued based on the cost of pumping it out of the ground but based on the cost of creating a liter of it from raw materials (CO2, lots of energy).

ultratalk 10mo ago
> Modularity would be great too. Unfortunately, that wouldn't pad the car companies' margins. What's best for th consumer is generally worse for the company.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  Cars are highly modular. Parts are shared across as many models as possible. Engine series are designed to last 10-15 years. The car makers increase their margins by keeping their cars modular.
  - alextingle 10mo ago
    You are talking about modularity of design, not aftermarket repairability.
Aurornis 10mo ago
> Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different types. There aren't 100 different types of engines. At any given time each auto manufacturer only has a couple different engines in production. Different models can get different variations for performance or use targets, but auto manufacturers are very good at standardizing within their company. Look at the list of Honda engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines Notice how they're grouped by series? All of the engines in each series share a common platform with minor changes from year to year. In many cases you can swap parts between engines within the same series. An engine series lasts 10-15 years. Some times the parts even carry over to the next series. Swapping between brands is a pipe dream, though. Forcing everyone to fit their engineering into a bounding box that has to be agreed upon by all auto manufacturers around the world would only lead to either unnecessarily large vehicles with wasted space (to leave room for future engineering needs) or unnecessarily complicated engineering to fit everything into the pre-defined allowable engine envelope. All to accommodate engine swaps between manufacturers which is never necessary for consumer cars.
- jacquesm 10mo ago
  We can do just that in lots of other industries.
  - Aurornis 10mo ago
    Why don’t we start with computers and software first? Let’s eliminate all these different laptop options and force every manufacturer to use 3 government-mandated chassis sizes: Small, medium, and large. Make parts interchangeable with standard connectors and power budgets. Nobody is allowed to innovate or customize because we must be standardized. Where do you think we’d be now? Typing on our highly optimized MacBook Pros, or working on a clunky box with the fans whirring like a hair dryer because everyone had to fit a standard lowest common denominator design and changing it required years of regulatory work? Or how about software and operating systems? We allow two OS types: Server and Desktop and they all have to work together within standardized interfaces. Nobody is allowed to innovate unless it’s within the regulated specs. Doesn’t sound so good when it’s applied to topics we’re most familiar with. In any industry with high performance machines like CNC machines, pick and place, or precision equipment you will find that the parts are not modular or interchangeable across manufacturers either.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 10mo ago
      You do this by standardizing interconnection at both the physical and protocol levels, and leave everything else alone. Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years for the physical interconnects, maybe less for protocol since back compat is much easier there). This leaves people free to tweak form factors, energy efficiency, system capacities etc. etc. We don't need to care about the final results ("small medium large"), we need to care that you can connect things together (which also means "replace one component with another"). Same for automobiles and most other consumer technology products.
      - Aurornis 10mo ago
        > Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years Automakers already get 10-15 years or more out of their platforms. The same series of engines will be used across the their lineup for a very long time. Transmissions are shared across car makers, and so on. That’s not a problem. The request above was for all auto manufacturers to have to fit into a standardized format. It would be like telling Intel, AMD and Apple that they all had to use the same CPU socket for 5 years and they all had to be interchangeable. Do you think we’d have MacBook Pros with all day battery life that also have 500MB/s of memory bandwidth if the company was forced to use a standard CPU socket that all manufacturers agreed on? Definitely would not. Some other country without such requirements would be enjoying them, though. It’s a demand that makes less sense the closer you are to the subject matter.

ultratalk 10mo ago

> Modularity would be great too. Unfortunately, that wouldn't pad the car companies' margins. What's best for th consumer is generally worse for the company.

Aurornis 10mo ago
Cars are highly modular. Parts are shared across as many models as possible. Engine series are designed to last 10-15 years. The car makers increase their margins by keeping their cars modular.
- alextingle 10mo ago
  You are talking about modularity of design, not aftermarket repairability.

Aurornis 10mo ago

> Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need 100 different types. There aren't 100 different types of engines. At any given time each auto manufacturer only has a couple different engines in production. Different models can get different variations for performance or use targets, but auto manufacturers are very good at standardizing within their company. Look at the list of Honda engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines Notice how they're grouped by series? All of the engines in each series share a common platform with minor changes from year to year. In many cases you can swap parts between engines within the same series. An engine series lasts 10-15 years. Some times the parts even carry over to the next series. Swapping between brands is a pipe dream, though. Forcing everyone to fit their engineering into a bounding box that has to be agreed upon by all auto manufacturers around the world would only lead to either unnecessarily large vehicles with wasted space (to leave room for future engineering needs) or unnecessarily complicated engineering to fit everything into the pre-defined allowable engine envelope. All to accommodate engine swaps between manufacturers which is never necessary for consumer cars.

jacquesm 10mo ago
We can do just that in lots of other industries.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  Why don’t we start with computers and software first? Let’s eliminate all these different laptop options and force every manufacturer to use 3 government-mandated chassis sizes: Small, medium, and large. Make parts interchangeable with standard connectors and power budgets. Nobody is allowed to innovate or customize because we must be standardized. Where do you think we’d be now? Typing on our highly optimized MacBook Pros, or working on a clunky box with the fans whirring like a hair dryer because everyone had to fit a standard lowest common denominator design and changing it required years of regulatory work? Or how about software and operating systems? We allow two OS types: Server and Desktop and they all have to work together within standardized interfaces. Nobody is allowed to innovate unless it’s within the regulated specs. Doesn’t sound so good when it’s applied to topics we’re most familiar with. In any industry with high performance machines like CNC machines, pick and place, or precision equipment you will find that the parts are not modular or interchangeable across manufacturers either.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 10mo ago
    You do this by standardizing interconnection at both the physical and protocol levels, and leave everything else alone. Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years for the physical interconnects, maybe less for protocol since back compat is much easier there). This leaves people free to tweak form factors, energy efficiency, system capacities etc. etc. We don't need to care about the final results ("small medium large"), we need to care that you can connect things together (which also means "replace one component with another"). Same for automobiles and most other consumer technology products.
    - Aurornis 10mo ago
      > Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years Automakers already get 10-15 years or more out of their platforms. The same series of engines will be used across the their lineup for a very long time. Transmissions are shared across car makers, and so on. That’s not a problem. The request above was for all auto manufacturers to have to fit into a standardized format. It would be like telling Intel, AMD and Apple that they all had to use the same CPU socket for 5 years and they all had to be interchangeable. Do you think we’d have MacBook Pros with all day battery life that also have 500MB/s of memory bandwidth if the company was forced to use a standard CPU socket that all manufacturers agreed on? Definitely would not. Some other country without such requirements would be enjoying them, though. It’s a demand that makes less sense the closer you are to the subject matter.