5 ms·

The end of car culture can't come soon enough.

by andyl 13y ago

sowrong 13y ago
this article is wrongheaded in many, many ways. The crux of the problem is that cars are designed and produced ahead of what is actually wanted and desired without concern whether there is actually an impedence mismatch with what consumers want in a car. For example, modular design in cars no longer exists. You can't find a car anywhere that can be transformed with add-ons between a commuter car to a weekender car to a car for hauling things to a car for being sporty. The same is true with manual transmission, you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. For tinkerers, you can't get information about your car's computer chips or any kind of API that could serve a buyer's use, not someone elses. Not only that, you pay a lot of money for a car, and then find out that it's easily hackable, by anyone except the rightful owner. People love cars, and definitely prefer them to public transformation, which is unreliable at best, but there just aren't any cars on the market that match what consumers want.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  What? When was the last time a car could be converted from a sports car to a capable tow vehicle with an add-on? You can bolt a tow hitch on just about any car, but tow vehicle/sports car/commuter/weekender runs so much deeper than that- at least if you want it to be better than "poor" in all of the above categories. The same is true with manual transmission, you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. Patently false. Manual transmissions are not as common as automatics, and certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission, but they can still be found in many different vehicles.
  - sowrong 13y ago
    "certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission" Exactly right.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission Are you trying to tell me these two statements are equivalent?
    - sowrong 13y ago
      if the make and model of the car of your interest is not available at all in manual transmission, then yes, absolutely yes, it's simply not available anywhere. Henry Ford famously said "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" and that's the problem today. An entire market of buyers is being ignored. If you accept that only grey color cars are being made and wonder why people aren't buying grey cars, nothing can help you.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        Ah, ok. I see what we're doing here. We're retroactively re-interpreting your argument to try to close some of the holes. An entire market of buyers is being ignored If the entire market of buyers you speak of consists of 3 people, it should be ignored. I am a fan of manual transmissions, and nearly all of the vehicles I have ever owned are/have been manual. But I have no delusions- I realize & accept that the gross majority of Lexus customers, for example, have absolutely no desire for a manual transmission. As best I can tell, automakers are not campaigning against the manual transmission and trying to "shut it down", or any such bullshit. They are simply reacting to market demands. This is most apparent looking at trucks. Base model trucks with manual transmissions can be found with ease. Top-trim trucks of the same model are very difficult to find in manual. As the two examples are identical models (but different trim), they are directly comparable and we know both varieties of transmission are available. The market speaks, however; the buyers interested in the top-trim trucks want automatics. The buyers interested in the base model trucks want manual. This is clearly evident in the scarcity (but not absence) of manual transmissions in top-trim trucks.
      - sowrong 13y ago
        Manual transmission is but an example. The idea is that ownership rates declined before the downturn unrelated to the economy. What is declining, is the value proposition that the current set of new cars offers compared to older cars and, that many would-be car buyers just aren't finding what they want in a car. Imagine the cell phone market before the iPhone, that is the state of the car market today.
- dublinben 13y ago
  >there just aren't any cars on the market that match what consumers want I don't know about that. The Tesla Model S seems to be just that, according to every reviewer and customer I've heard. What other mainstream car has a waiting list?
  - sowrong 13y ago
    fair enough. should have stated "there just aren't enough cars on the market that match what consumers want". Some people want a car like the Model S, true enough. That's because Elon Musk has the vision to produce what (some) consumers want - an electric car. There's a market for the Model S. I'm sure there are lot of other types of cars that would have waiting lists, were they available. Give the owner back more control over options, add-ons, individuality, there's surely another tranche of people for that. others likely too.
- ttrx 13y ago
  DITTO on manual cars. I always thought that driving stick is so much more fun, but it's impossible to get a rental car with manual transmission. The entire fleet of Zipcars has no manual gear cars, for example. And I don't understand why... everybody is licensed driver, which means everybody can drive stick. Also manual transmission cars are cheaper. So what compels rental companies to have automatic transmission fleets?
  - mertd 13y ago
    > everybody is licensed driver, which means everybody can drive stick. You can take your driving test in an automatic in many states (US).
    - ttrx 13y ago
      Huh, I did not know that. Btw, are you Turkish?
      - mertd 13y ago
        yes
- Apocryphon 13y ago
  Can the same thing be said about desktop computers and laptops? That's a separate can of worms but I have to say, I really don't see those form factors disappearing because of tablets. I think it's more of a "modern technology and better performance leads to longer use before replacement"- which may also apply to modern cars.
- discodave 13y ago
  I think your argument is wrongheaded. People want cars to get them from A to B, that is all. Some people pay more for bigger cars because they have families, want presteige etc. Modular cars is so far down the list of things that people want/need. Even software is often hard to make modular, things in the physical world... even harder.
sowrong 13y ago
don't get hung up on this linked article alone (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/the-modular-car-is-a-radical-concept-a-vehicle-that-changes-its-form-as-you-change-your-needs-1595897.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/the-modular...) , but modular cars - cars as platform for add-ons based on need - should have arrived long ago. They haven't materialized yet.
forrestthewoods 13y ago
I think public transportation culture can't die soon enough. It's a ham-fisted solution to poorly designed cities. Even in "good" cities like New York and Vienna I think it's awful. I despise public transportation in almost every conceivable way. The good news is that the future is a fleet of self driving cars. Everybody wins in that world. Safe, efficient, clean, and fast. It's gonna be great.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Where did you get from "self-driving" to "safe, clean, efficient and fast"? Cars, unless we go with the monorail-pod-car concept, will always have particulate pollution due to tires (even EVs like the Tesla). Furthermore, all the self-driving cars right now are also gas-powered (hybrid, IIRC). It's not clear how the intersection of mass-market self-driving cars and human drivers will result, safety-wise, leaving alone pedestrians. I won't contest the "fast" claim you put out there, but given safety concerns, it's likely not going to be much faster than non-automated car results. Public transport is a poor solution, but it's simply the safest, most efficient that exists unless you're simply unconcerned with reality or don't care about scale. When Musk shows up with a working pod-car concept (he's hinted at it), then I'm on board. Until then, I'm a champion of least suck transport model that exists.

The end of car culture can't come soon enough.

by andyl 13y ago

The end of car culture can't come soon enough.

this article is wrongheaded in many, many ways. The crux of the problem is that cars are designed and produced ahead of what is actually wanted and desired without concern whether there is actually an impedence mismatch with what consumers want in a car. For example, modular design in cars no longer exists. You can't find a car anywhere that can be transformed with add-ons between a commuter car to a weekender car to a car for hauling things to a car for being sporty. The same is true with manual transmission, you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. For tinkerers, you can't get information about your car's computer chips or any kind of API that could serve a buyer's use, not someone elses. Not only that, you pay a lot of money for a car, and then find out that it's easily hackable, by anyone except the rightful owner. People love cars, and definitely prefer them to public transformation, which is unreliable at best, but there just aren't any cars on the market that match what consumers want.

sliverstorm 13y ago
What? When was the last time a car could be converted from a sports car to a capable tow vehicle with an add-on? You can bolt a tow hitch on just about any car, but tow vehicle/sports car/commuter/weekender runs so much deeper than that- at least if you want it to be better than "poor" in all of the above categories. The same is true with manual transmission, you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. Patently false. Manual transmissions are not as common as automatics, and certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission, but they can still be found in many different vehicles.
- sowrong 13y ago
  "certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission" Exactly right.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    you can't find it on the market ANYWHERE. certain vehicles no longer offer a manual transmission Are you trying to tell me these two statements are equivalent?
  - sowrong 13y ago
    if the make and model of the car of your interest is not available at all in manual transmission, then yes, absolutely yes, it's simply not available anywhere. Henry Ford famously said "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" and that's the problem today. An entire market of buyers is being ignored. If you accept that only grey color cars are being made and wonder why people aren't buying grey cars, nothing can help you.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Ah, ok. I see what we're doing here. We're retroactively re-interpreting your argument to try to close some of the holes. An entire market of buyers is being ignored If the entire market of buyers you speak of consists of 3 people, it should be ignored. I am a fan of manual transmissions, and nearly all of the vehicles I have ever owned are/have been manual. But I have no delusions- I realize & accept that the gross majority of Lexus customers, for example, have absolutely no desire for a manual transmission. As best I can tell, automakers are not campaigning against the manual transmission and trying to "shut it down", or any such bullshit. They are simply reacting to market demands. This is most apparent looking at trucks. Base model trucks with manual transmissions can be found with ease. Top-trim trucks of the same model are very difficult to find in manual. As the two examples are identical models (but different trim), they are directly comparable and we know both varieties of transmission are available. The market speaks, however; the buyers interested in the top-trim trucks want automatics. The buyers interested in the base model trucks want manual. This is clearly evident in the scarcity (but not absence) of manual transmissions in top-trim trucks.
    - sowrong 13y ago
      Manual transmission is but an example. The idea is that ownership rates declined before the downturn unrelated to the economy. What is declining, is the value proposition that the current set of new cars offers compared to older cars and, that many would-be car buyers just aren't finding what they want in a car. Imagine the cell phone market before the iPhone, that is the state of the car market today.
dublinben 13y ago
>there just aren't any cars on the market that match what consumers want I don't know about that. The Tesla Model S seems to be just that, according to every reviewer and customer I've heard. What other mainstream car has a waiting list?
- sowrong 13y ago
  fair enough. should have stated "there just aren't enough cars on the market that match what consumers want". Some people want a car like the Model S, true enough. That's because Elon Musk has the vision to produce what (some) consumers want - an electric car. There's a market for the Model S. I'm sure there are lot of other types of cars that would have waiting lists, were they available. Give the owner back more control over options, add-ons, individuality, there's surely another tranche of people for that. others likely too.
ttrx 13y ago
DITTO on manual cars. I always thought that driving stick is so much more fun, but it's impossible to get a rental car with manual transmission. The entire fleet of Zipcars has no manual gear cars, for example. And I don't understand why... everybody is licensed driver, which means everybody can drive stick. Also manual transmission cars are cheaper. So what compels rental companies to have automatic transmission fleets?
- mertd 13y ago
  > everybody is licensed driver, which means everybody can drive stick. You can take your driving test in an automatic in many states (US).
  - ttrx 13y ago
    Huh, I did not know that. Btw, are you Turkish?
    - mertd 13y ago
      yes
Apocryphon 13y ago
Can the same thing be said about desktop computers and laptops? That's a separate can of worms but I have to say, I really don't see those form factors disappearing because of tablets. I think it's more of a "modern technology and better performance leads to longer use before replacement"- which may also apply to modern cars.
discodave 13y ago
I think your argument is wrongheaded. People want cars to get them from A to B, that is all. Some people pay more for bigger cars because they have families, want presteige etc. Modular cars is so far down the list of things that people want/need. Even software is often hard to make modular, things in the physical world... even harder.

sowrong 13y ago

don't get hung up on this linked article alone (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/the-modular-car-is-a-radical-concept-a-vehicle-that-changes-its-form-as-you-change-your-needs-1595897.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/the-modular...) , but modular cars - cars as platform for add-ons based on need - should have arrived long ago. They haven't materialized yet.

forrestthewoods 13y ago

I think public transportation culture can't die soon enough. It's a ham-fisted solution to poorly designed cities. Even in "good" cities like New York and Vienna I think it's awful. I despise public transportation in almost every conceivable way. The good news is that the future is a fleet of self driving cars. Everybody wins in that world. Safe, efficient, clean, and fast. It's gonna be great.

r00fus 13y ago
Where did you get from "self-driving" to "safe, clean, efficient and fast"? Cars, unless we go with the monorail-pod-car concept, will always have particulate pollution due to tires (even EVs like the Tesla). Furthermore, all the self-driving cars right now are also gas-powered (hybrid, IIRC). It's not clear how the intersection of mass-market self-driving cars and human drivers will result, safety-wise, leaving alone pedestrians. I won't contest the "fast" claim you put out there, but given safety concerns, it's likely not going to be much faster than non-automated car results. Public transport is a poor solution, but it's simply the safest, most efficient that exists unless you're simply unconcerned with reality or don't care about scale. When Musk shows up with a working pod-car concept (he's hinted at it), then I'm on board. Until then, I'm a champion of least suck transport model that exists.