[HN Gopher] Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for 'Right...
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       Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for 'Right to Repair'
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 231 points
       Date   : 2023-09-02 13:41 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
        
       | 1970-01-01 wrote:
       | >Among the auto blogs that covered the announcement, few pointed
       | out the hollowness...
       | 
       | Regurgitation via a Google news search link cites absolutely
       | nothing. Its the sloppiest journalism I have ever seen on any
       | tech website.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dundarious wrote:
         | What makes you think looking at that google news search was the
         | extent of the research they did to justify that assertion?
         | Journalists typically do not show _all_ their workings (though
         | they could always show more). To me, the link is obviously just
         | a moderately useful stepping stone /prompt for people to
         | research the point themselves.
        
       | marak830 wrote:
       | I'm sorry I have seen the thread leads, and I cannot agree with
       | them and think the replies do not get enough notice.
       | 
       | Right to repair _should be_ a full set of instructions for
       | "everything" are available.
       | 
       | That's it. Give the full specs for everything. If it's code
       | reliant(which wtf), what does it require to work?
       | 
       | That's. Fucking. It. We give you rules to say peeps cannot sell
       | what you made, you make it so we can repair it.
       | 
       | If you don't like it, sell fucking service.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | Remember the old days when you would open up an appliance and
         | there would be the full circuit diagram pasted on the inside of
         | the case? Unfortunately VLSI kinda killed this off, nowadays
         | everything is crammed into a single chip that you can't repair.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | candiddevmike wrote:
         | Right to repair eventually runs head first into security and
         | encryption--how do you allow right to repair and TLS,
         | encryption, secure computing, etc to coexist? Get rid of IoT
         | black boxes like Google Homes? Allow Linux on Xbox?
         | 
         | How do you create secure platforms while also giving consumers
         | the keys to their devices?
         | 
         | (FWIW I'm not advocating against right to repair, I actually
         | hope it helps to get rid of black box IoT devices. My device,
         | my keys, etc)
        
           | bonestamp2 wrote:
           | In automotive, we've had to conform to Right to Repair laws
           | for 10+ years. We handle encryption by facilitating access to
           | tools that allow users to encrypt/unencrypted the data so
           | they can make the repairs, but without exposing how the data
           | is encrypted/unencrypted.
        
           | gnfargbl wrote:
           | I don't see the conflict. If it important that the device can
           | prove its authenticity to some centralised service then yes,
           | it is likely that the consumer can't also modify that device.
           | 
           | But how many devices really _need_ that level of attestation?
           | Does a tractor need to be able to prove to John Deere that it
           | is a genuine unmolested vehicle, or does it just need to
           | prove to JD that an active subscription is in place for
           | whatever remote service is being used?
           | 
           | If just the latter, then we can still have encryption, no
           | problems. That's just username & password over TLS, same as
           | we have been doing for decades on untrusted endpoints.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | This is pretty simple to engineer.
           | 
           | With TLS it's just authing the server, accept any income
           | connections. Support basic authentication.
           | 
           | For home devices don't require TLS. I don't run TLS on my
           | home network. I'm remote, I get devices, I accept that risk.
           | TLS is not required for security.
           | 
           | For encryption just design so customers can swap out keys.
           | 
           | The biggest problem is designing cloud in the loop so they
           | can mine data. This needs to stop.
        
           | FloatArtifact wrote:
           | Think of it as like Android and unlocking the bootloader.
           | There's a warning that it's running on modified system.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | ceejayoz wrote:
             | Except this Android can mow down a farmers market full of
             | people if you get things wrong.
        
               | prasadjoglekar wrote:
               | For which we already have laws to deal with. Even without
               | modification, the car can be used to mow people down.
        
               | wizee wrote:
               | People have been repairing their own cars for a century,
               | and the world functioned just fine with it. This locking
               | down is a recent phenomenon. Your car is not going to mow
               | down people just because someone other than the dealer
               | serviced it.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | How many of those were capable of self-driving?
        
               | AnthonyMouse wrote:
               | Which is another reason right to repair is so important,
               | because carmakers can go out of business without all
               | their cars ceasing to to exist. Someone finds an
               | exploitable bug in a million cars after the only systems
               | with the documentation and signing keys have been wiped
               | and sold at auction, and what then?
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | That situation calls for an entirely separate set of
               | legislation.
        
               | AnthonyMouse wrote:
               | It calls for the ability of the general public to be able
               | to repair their vehicles, so that anyone with such a
               | vehicle can fix such problems.
               | 
               | What alternative would you even propose? The only entity
               | with the ability to feasibly fix the bug is defunct and
               | bankrupt, leaving them both judgment proof and with no
               | resources to develop a patch. The only people with the
               | incentive to spend resources fixing it are the people who
               | own the vehicles. So the owners need the ability to
               | repair their vehicles.
               | 
               | Which you can solve by just doing that to begin with,
               | requiring no separate legislation.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | I'd propose something like the FDIC. Every car sold pays
               | into an insurance fund that, if a company collapses,
               | takes over to maintain access to software updates for the
               | reasonable lifespan of the vehicles.
               | 
               | I don't think people should be _forced_ to self-manage
               | software updates on multi-ton machinery.
        
               | josefx wrote:
               | So can any vehicle that runs without software.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | Not at scale.
               | 
               | You could perform phone phreaking in the 1960s, but a
               | million phones in a botnet provides different challenges
               | even if both are technically just a compromised phone.
        
         | starbase wrote:
         | > Right to repair should be a full set of instructions for
         | "everything"
         | 
         | Tesla provides that (and more) for free:
         | 
         | * Service Manual, Parts Manual, and Body Repair
         | 
         | * Tooling Catalog and Wiring Diagrams
         | 
         | * Service Bulletins
         | 
         | * Labor Codes and Times
         | 
         | * Service Mode Diagnostic Software (on the touchscreen)
        
           | mozman wrote:
           | Does Tesla sell parts? If so, do you need a Tesla tool to
           | program/activate them?
           | 
           | Electronics fail more often than mechanical parts and even
           | today with independent auto shops having access to
           | manufacturers programming software you still have to go to
           | the dealer for some things
        
             | kelnos wrote:
             | Assuming they do, that's not enough. There needs to be a
             | market for non-Tesla-built parts that will nonetheless work
             | in the cars. We shouldn't allow manufacturers to lock
             | things down so that becomes impossible (or even illegal,
             | when the DMCA comes into play).
        
             | starbase wrote:
             | Yeah they sell parts at service centers or you can order
             | through the app.
             | 
             | Most parts pair automatically and can be calibrated by
             | putting the vehicle in Service Mode:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e1_xr81l38
             | 
             | Repair shops that buy high voltage batteries have to pass
             | safety training.
        
           | callalex wrote:
           | You can't even replace a smashed window on a Tesla without
           | Elon's personal blessing.
        
           | revscat wrote:
           | Where? I found press releases stating some of this, but none
           | of the actual docs/software.
        
             | starbase wrote:
             | go to service.tesla.com, sign in, then click the car model
             | at the top of the page
        
         | bagels wrote:
         | I think the biggest problem with Tesla is access to parts, much
         | of the process (minus the computer bits) are easy to reverse
         | engineer.
        
           | naremu wrote:
           | Even the need to "reverse engineer" something that you paid
           | for and _ostensibly_ _own_ , though, is overwhelmingly
           | insulting and in some ways (though obviously not technically
           | legally, ethically) is basically directly challenging public
           | perception of property ownership.
           | 
           | It's not even like it's say, a watch that I might actually
           | need specialist equipment or knowledge to repair/maintain.
           | 
           | It's actually something I'm expected to at some point, be
           | required of me, but is tactically not provided to me as to
           | benefit a private entity.
           | 
           | And arguments can be made about who's ethical and economical
           | burden it is to make documentation, but the fact is it'd just
           | save an overall immense amount of societal time and
           | productivity for those who already have the potential to
           | provide documentation, to do so.
           | 
           | And so the expectation that we are left to our own devices on
           | various forums and social media websites that may or may not
           | be SEO'd by google to be brought to our attention with the
           | right combination of keywords.
           | 
           | Is kind of baffling, to be honest. If it's easy for us, it
           | should be even easier and quicker for them. Especially when
           | most in many countries are unfortunately reliant on such
           | things, many of them may not be reverse engineerers, or even
           | versed in google-fu.
        
             | charcircuit wrote:
             | >It's not even like it's say, a watch that I might actually
             | need specialist equipment or knowledge to repair/maintain.
             | 
             | If it doesn't need specialist knowledge then why are you
             | asking for people to release their knowledge on how it
             | works? Just use your general knowledge on how it works
             | then.
        
       | Transpire7487 wrote:
       | No normal person can repair a Tesla, it's basically a trade
       | secret. My brother is a mechanic and servicing Teslas are a non
       | starter due to the complexity. The notion that I can just
       | download a manual, buy some parts and DIY my own repairs is
       | absolutey ludicrous.
       | 
       | The only reason for Tesla to support right to repair is to
       | increase regulatory burden on competitors, stunt innovation and
       | raise costs for their competition. Shame on this anticompetitive
       | behaviour.
        
         | api wrote:
         | EVs could be a gigantic step down in complexity but that
         | doesn't benefit their manufacturers. It would risk making them
         | a commodity that can be assembled from parts like an old school
         | PC.
         | 
         | Instead the industry is looking at the EV transition as a way
         | to increase costs and decrease customer freedom. This is
         | absolutely artificial and in no way mandated by the technology.
         | 
         | A similar case in computing is what happened with mobile and
         | tablets where a change in form factor allowed lock down to be
         | smuggled in without people asking too many questions. A Mac is
         | now a big overgrown tablet in terms of its CPU and innards but
         | you can install your own OS on a Mac but not an iPad. Why? No
         | technical reason at all.
         | 
         | Right to repair is good but it's actually less than what we
         | need. We need a huge rebirth of DIY technology and less
         | centralized supplier ecosystems. This may require some
         | regulation but it also requires consumers to stop being so
         | passive and prioritizing shininess and laziness over every
         | single other thing. The "millennial minimalism" era needs to
         | end both as an aesthetic and a framework for consumer-producer
         | relations. (The two are related.)
        
           | AnthonyMouse wrote:
           | > EVs could be a gigantic step down in complexity but that
           | doesn't benefit their manufacturers. It would risk making
           | them a commodity that can be assembled from parts like an old
           | school PC.
           | 
           | But the step down in complexity also makes it easier to
           | become a manufacturer, and as battery costs come down this is
           | likely to happen.
           | 
           | At which point a startup with no other way to distinguish
           | themselves can start selling highly repairable electric cars.
           | Customers figure out that these have a lower ownership cost
           | (whether or not they do the repairs themselves) and start
           | preferring them. The incumbents then follow suit or lose the
           | market.
           | 
           | The main reason this doesn't happen for phones is that the
           | market is so consolidated. The main SoCs are made by only a
           | small handful of companies who don't publish documentation,
           | and producing a competitive one is capital-intensive because
           | of the constraints of the form factor. But even there it may
           | not be permanent -- what's going to happen to phones once
           | there is a fully-documented RISC-V SoC on the market that has
           | tolerable performance and power consumption?
        
           | morphle wrote:
           | When we transition to 4WD in-wheel motors the drivetrain and
           | the moving parts could become standard. The inverters could
           | become programmable. We designed programmable networks of
           | per-battery-cell (dis)charger computers that would take the
           | danger out of clusters of battery cells of unequal batteries.
           | When each battery is wired in parallel, not in series not
           | only can you go from 800 charge cycles to 20000 cycles
           | (lifetime nearly 50 years) but you would eliminate fires and
           | prevent short circuits in the power networks. It would thus
           | be possible to build cars completely from standard parts.
           | Mind you, not a single company has tried this yet, but there
           | is no economical or theoretical impediment to build from off-
           | the-shelf components in the next two decades. EV car kits
           | will be poossible and probably cheaper. After an amateur has
           | build one, for example the Dutch Government RDW would test
           | the car for safety for less than a thousand Euro's, like they
           | already do for car, truck and camper conversions. I remember
           | an Scientific American article in the 90's predicting single
           | mechanic African custom EVs as a future possibility.
        
             | api wrote:
             | We need a Framework for EVs perhaps to get this going.
             | 
             | The EV I want is a simple super reliable easily repairable
             | one.
             | 
             | I personally went for the Nissan Leaf in lieu of this
             | because it's basically a Nissan Versa with a motor and
             | batteries where the engine and gas tank go. Not good for
             | road trips but a nice city car and decently repairable. (I
             | have an older ICE for road trips that I don't drive much
             | otherwise.)
        
         | morphle wrote:
         | I do not agree. The parts of the mechanical drivetrain or the
         | molded plastics can be impossible to obtain before a large
         | number of Teslas have been scrapped and sold for parts. But the
         | battery and electronics can be understood and repaired without
         | schematics. The software reverse engineering is possible. I
         | agree that repairs can be far to time-consuming to be
         | economically viable, but given free labour it can be done.
        
         | brandonagr2 wrote:
         | Go to service.tesla.com, login with a free account, you can
         | access all repair information and service manuals for free. You
         | absolutely can download a manual, buy some parts, and DIY
         | 
         | https://service.tesla.com/user/vehicle-models/ModelS
        
         | rnk wrote:
         | There are a very few private tesla repair garages that do know
         | how to repair some things. They seem to be run by former tesla
         | repairmen. They have been able to salvage a lot of dead cars.
         | They seem to be mostly in california.
        
         | omgJustTest wrote:
         | No normal person can cast an ICE header.
         | 
         | Same logic.
        
           | esjeon wrote:
           | It's not the best example unfortunately. People do build
           | custom headers by cutting and welding various pipes using
           | off-the-shelf tools. Welp, ICE is an old tech (from 18c), so
           | it doesn't take dark magic to fix a whole ICE car
           | _mechanically_. The real deal breaker is electric controllers
           | w / proprietary software.
        
             | AnthonyMouse wrote:
             | That's assuming you need the controller to do the exact
             | same thing in the exact same way as the OEM one. But in
             | many cases people are replacing it because they want it to
             | do something different anyway.
             | 
             | And these functions are in many cases quite simple. You
             | replace the controller for the door locks. It operates a
             | solenoid that locks and unlocks the doors. Maybe they no
             | longer function by calling the call center to have them
             | unlock your car, but maybe you don't want that anyway. They
             | still function if you press a button on your key fob.
        
         | B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
         | > No normal person can repair
         | 
         | No, it takes two.
         | 
         | Seriously, I've read that some EV makers require that two
         | persons be present when working on the HV system, the second
         | one on watch with a pull-up hook in case the first one seizes
         | up touching some 400 or 800 V DC part.
        
       | photochemsyn wrote:
       | Repairability is like online security: if companies really cared
       | about it, they'd have built it into the product beginning at the
       | design stage. With most products these days, repairability is
       | actively discouraged at many different levels: components are
       | inaccessible, soldered or glued on, specifications are
       | unavailable, replacement parts are not sold direct to the public,
       | etc. This is all done to shorten product lifetimes such that
       | consumers have to purchase new products more frequently, that's
       | clear enough.
       | 
       | Some companies might realize that there's a market for repairable
       | products and shift tactics, there seem to be a few out there,
       | though not many.
        
         | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | omgJustTest wrote:
       | You can't even jump another car with your Tesla, let alone do
       | repairs.
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | > You can't even jump another car with your Tesla
         | 
         | That's pretty common for EVs (and hybrids), since they don't
         | have (or need) a traditional starter engine and only use the
         | 12V to boot up the car they downsize the 12V and / or switch to
         | lithium chemistries.
        
         | blamazon wrote:
         | Small nit: I can 'jump' (read: charge the battery of) other
         | cars with my model X, as long as the other car is an ICE car.
         | In the frunk there is a panel that pops off and underneath
         | there are (unlabeled) 12V and ground terminals that I can put
         | jumper cables on.
         | 
         | However, I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging
         | station before, I really deeply wish I could have received a
         | jump then.
        
           | thayne wrote:
           | > I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station
           | before
           | 
           | It really seems like EVs should have easily replaceable
           | batteries, so that in situations like that you can just have
           | roadside service bring you a charged battery and swap it out.
           | Or for that matter, charging stations could pre-charge
           | batteries, and you pay to swap your drained battery for a
           | charged one.
        
             | bonestamp2 wrote:
             | Tesla has talked about that. The main issue with swappable
             | batteries is that the whole battery has to be accessible
             | from the bottom or side of the car. This provides design
             | constraints on battery size. Most automakers don't want to
             | compromise on battery size, they want to pack as much
             | battery as possible in the space that's available.
             | 
             | The next biggest issue with swappable batteries is
             | responsibility. If all of the batteries are shared, who
             | pays for a new battery when a battery reaches its end of
             | life? This problem will have to be solved at some point
             | anyway since nobody likes paying $15K+ when their vehicle
             | battery reaches end of life. It would make much more sense
             | to amortize this cost over the life of the vehicle. It
             | would be easy to do that with higher fees of battery swaps,
             | but people don't normally like higher upfront costs even if
             | it works out to the same in the end.
        
             | diebeforei485 wrote:
             | This became very difficult when Tesla added the
             | undershield.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | In that case I was towing a U-haul trailer, which leads to
             | another thing that probably should exist: trailers with
             | supplemental EV batteries. Not sure if the extra capacity
             | is made up for by the extra weight though.
             | 
             | (For context my car uses maybe ~1.5 - 4.0 times as much
             | power when pulling the various sizes of U-haul cargo
             | trailers)
        
               | WaxProlix wrote:
               | Aerodynamics are at least as bad as weight when it comes
               | to trailers iirc. And there are at least leisure trailers
               | that come with battery packs in them. The Lightship and
               | Boulder come to mind for instance. I suspect it's a
               | matter of time for more utility trailers, if it's not
               | already a thing. Batteries are expensive though.
        
               | fbdab103 wrote:
               | Maybe it would be distasteful, but a trailer with an ICE
               | engine that could charge the battery while driving. Might
               | be a trick to make it so that the generator could supply
               | more energy than is consumed per minute.
        
             | foolfoolz wrote:
             | it's been done
             | 
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)
             | 
             | they were probably 25 years too early
        
               | blamazon wrote:
               | It's today a popular and I think ubiquitous thing in
               | Taiwan for scooters:
               | 
               | https://youtu.be/87T6okeKu3A
               | 
               | https://www.gogoro.com/
        
             | rnk wrote:
             | swapping been done and shipped on production vehicles that
             | are still around. The original tesla model s had this
             | capability. Tesla had a working station in california, it
             | took a couple of minutes to do the swap. It had basically
             | no demand.
             | 
             | Tesla stopped supporting it.
        
             | raisedbyninjas wrote:
             | I wish there was some standard to add short term battery
             | capacity for EVs and PHEVs. An e-scooter battery can get
             | most EVs 5 miles down the road. A standardized battery pack
             | and wiring harness in the trunk could allow roadside
             | assistance to get you unstrained or rent a bigger pack for
             | road trips.
             | 
             | I'm sure OEMs don't want to warranty 3rd party equipment
             | connecting to their vehicles and making charge/discharge,
             | cooling, securing heavy packs, etc. reliable.
        
           | omgJustTest wrote:
           | Have you tried it? My Tesla doesn't keep the terminals
           | charged unless the car has recently been in motion and shuts
           | down in a few minutes.
           | 
           | Also Tesla says not to do this, jumping in the conventional
           | sense is more as you describe, charging the other battery and
           | may require more than 20min to do it.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | Yes, I have an unfortunate habit of leaving the lights on
             | in my ICE vehicle, and I've used it to run an inverter many
             | times in a camping type of scenario. My memory is that
             | there's two 12v terminals in my frunk, one that turns off
             | and one that does not. My car is older though, pre
             | facelift.
        
           | rnk wrote:
           | Some AAA services carry a portable charger to recharge your
           | ev, with the goal to give it a small charge so it can go to a
           | nearby charging station for a full charge.
           | https://cleantechnica.com/2022/12/05/aaa-expanding-
           | service-n....
           | 
           | There's nothing magic about it, you have a regular j1772 plug
           | on the end of a generator, or a battery to provide it. Also a
           | few evs now have 120v or 220v AC outlets, that you could put
           | a j1772 into and give another car a charge. Sadly there
           | appear to be no direct DC charging systems available between
           | cars at this moment.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | That map is a lot more expansive than I expected, that's
             | awesome! AAA was the roadside assistance provider I called
             | in that instance I mentioned and they didn't offer this
             | service at that time. (Although the driver did an
             | incredible job dropping my car off in a difficultly placed
             | charging stall!)
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | That is the exact use case where solar roofs on EV's become
           | very useful. However you can "jump" EV's, supply power to
           | their 12v system and then charge off of another cars 120v
           | plug, or a portable generator etc.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | Similarly, I've always thought it's a no brainer for any
             | ICE car to have a solar roof. At a minimum it can keep a
             | 12v battery from dying over long parking durations or high
             | parasitic drain, and at best it could like, keep a
             | container refrigerated or something.
        
               | kec wrote:
               | Continental America averages on the order of
               | 4.5kWh/m^2/day total solar irradiance.
               | 
               | A clean, car roof sized solar panel in direct sunlight
               | all day would be good enough to offset parasitic drain
               | with maybe enough left over to charge a phone or two but
               | not much else. Not worth the cost (or the variance given
               | you're not always going to park in direct sunlight for 8+
               | hours).
        
               | pengaru wrote:
               | I once drove back to SF from Castle Lake with a dead
               | alternator by hanging an 85W portable solar panel over
               | the rear window of my mx-5, connected to the battery in
               | the trunk.
               | 
               | It supplied enough juice to run the car with no
               | accessories most of the way back, until a combination of
               | overcast sky and uncooperative route direction started
               | making the car hesitate at the slightest throttle input.
               | 
               | So it'd definitely give a little MPG boost by taking a
               | load off the alternator, in addition to keeping the
               | battery topped up like you said. I was tempted to epoxy a
               | cheap flexible one permanently on the trunk-lid. With the
               | trunk-mounted battery it'd be trivial.
        
               | blamazon wrote:
               | That story brings me great joy, thank you for sharing.
        
               | euroderf wrote:
               | or run a small ventilation fan in the summer.
        
               | runnerup wrote:
               | I'd rather pay $2,000 less for my Honda HR-V than get a
               | solar roof. But I agree it seems like a very nice option
               | for those willing to pay more for their vehicles.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | 2k is IMO a poor price point as it's too much for the
               | minimal utility but not enough for meaningful power. IMO
               | solar roofs are useful at the low end for ~400$ ICE cars
               | could top off their battery and run a solar fan to keep
               | the temperature down when parked in the sun. Not a huge
               | deal, but still a nice luxury feature.
               | 
               | Or a significantly more expensive solar roof could add
               | meaningful highway mileage per year. You both largely
               | offset its cost via less charging and have the option for
               | a low speed crawl to a charging station.
        
               | runnerup wrote:
               | I'd be surprised if solar panels in the roof were less
               | than $2,000. An android-auto enabled head unit is like
               | $500. Heated seats are often $1000 and that's "just"
               | resistive wire. A cover for your truck bed is like $700.
               | Premium carpet mats are $250. Unlocking your tailgate
               | using a remote beeper instead of a physical key costs
               | $300.
               | 
               | > IMO solar roofs are useful at the low end for ~400$
               | 
               | So I agree with this, but I don't believe that would be
               | an option, at least without some DIY aspect.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Car options are priced independently from what they
               | actually cost to manufacture. A cheap luxury car will
               | often include a host of features that cost quite a bit
               | when you added as features to a lower end car. And
               | sometimes it's the reverse where missing features in
               | luxury cars ends up being almost as expensive as the
               | cheap cars they come standard in.
               | 
               | It's a combination of price discrimination and the
               | overhead of having multiple different specs being
               | manufactured independently of whatever the actual
               | differences are.
               | 
               | > at least without some DIY aspect.
               | 
               | Solar car battery chargers already exist for less than
               | 30$. I'm assuming the overhead of including it into the
               | cars design and modifying body panels etc significantly
               | increases costs. But it's the kind of thing Subaru could
               | add to every car for diversification without
               | significantly impacting final price.
        
               | runnerup wrote:
               | Yep. So I'm expecting it to cost me $2,000 as the
               | consumer, and I wouldn't want to spend that. If costs
               | some trivial amount, I'd love to have a battery that
               | basically never dies.
        
               | blamazon wrote:
               | It's worth noting simple solar 'trickle chargers' can be
               | had for less than 100 bucks, today. They are awesome for
               | such things like additional confidence while overlanding
               | in a remote location, or for a trailer with a winch, or
               | an electric boat lift on a dock without shore power.
        
             | bdcravens wrote:
             | Solar roofs provide very little power, generating less than
             | 5 miles a day in charge.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | That's to do to the tiny amount of solar added to most
               | "solar" roofs.
               | 
               | It's a lot more interesting on the ~8m2 roof of a van /
               | full sized SUV than a ~1.5m2 center roof of a car which
               | excludes the trunk and hood segments.
               | 
               | That said, EV charging is at a premium. If you're saving
               | an average of say 1$/day which IMO is a reasonable goal
               | that's 9,000$ over the lifetime of the vehicle. IMO, it's
               | not an unreasonable threshold for a solar roof to aim for
               | especially at California energy prices.
        
           | amluto wrote:
           | I would be cautious doing that. The analogous (I think)
           | terminals hiding under the old Model S nosecone are not
           | particularly thick, and you might fry something. Also, if
           | they are fused (I don't know whether they are) and you blow
           | the fuse, then merely opening the doors of the car if
           | anything else goes wrong with the 12V system becomes quite
           | complicated.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | Oh yeah, I take caution, but believe me, I'm no stranger to
             | being locked out by an inoperable 12v system.
             | 
             | Regarding the topic of the original post, it is infuriating
             | to try to figure out which fuses do what in this car. It is
             | information that is simply not provided.
        
               | starbase wrote:
               | It is provided at service.tesla.com. Wiring diagrams,
               | service manual, etc. Sign in with your Tesla account to
               | get the documents that match your VIN. It's free.
        
               | blamazon wrote:
               | > free
               | 
               | Not for me, after signing in and prompting for my
               | country, takes me to a page asking for 165 dollars for a
               | one day access, 500 for a month, or 3,000 for a year.
               | 
               | Edit: oops, despite what I said above, after browsing
               | around I think I found what you're talking about? Nice!
               | TY! This is awesome! There are wiring diagrams!
        
           | jefftk wrote:
           | That's not normally what people mean by "jump": jumping an
           | ICE car is using the battery of one car to power the starter
           | motor of another to get it running (after which it doesn't
           | need a battery to keep running).
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | For me it means "no longer stranded" but I get the point.
             | To explain the semantic ambiguity in my head, I find that
             | ICE vehicles needing a jump often have a voltage so low (or
             | that the battery pack or donor vehicle I'm using is anemic
             | enough) that they need to be charged the same way, or the
             | dead battery disconnected to allow the other battery to
             | turn the starter motor.
        
             | shkkmo wrote:
             | That's being unnecessarily nitpicky. Anytime someone helps
             | you get started when your starter battery is dead is close
             | enough that people will call it a "jump".
             | 
             | Not having jumper cables, I've "jumped" several people by
             | hooking them up to my battery charger and getting enough
             | charge into their battery to start their engine.
        
           | lelanthran wrote:
           | > Small nit: I can 'jump' (read: charge the battery of) other
           | cars with my model X, as long as the other car is an ICE car.
           | In the frunk there is a panel that pops off and underneath
           | there are (unlabeled) 12V and ground terminals that I can put
           | jumper cables on.
           | 
           | "Jump" isn't the same as "charging the battery" of other
           | cars.
           | 
           | You can charge a 12v car battery with as little as 4A if
           | you're willing to wait. Jump starting requires between 45 and
           | 60A, minimum. For a larger car engine, you're looking at
           | 80A-100A, or even more.
           | 
           | I don't think that the EV 12v terminals are able to provide
           | that sort of current; I think those terminals are provided so
           | that normal camping equipment (lights, winch, things like
           | that) can be powered.
        
             | blamazon wrote:
             | Another commenter already pointed that out about the word
             | jump, you can reference that comment for my reply. On the
             | second point, I can comfortably pull 50-100 amps for an
             | inverter from those terminals. I believe the DC-DC is 2500W
             | on my car [1] - I have an early model X which is over
             | specified in many regards. It does not take long to charge
             | an ICE battery enough to be able to turn a starter.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.ebay.com/itm/403056555370
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | Taking this literally, it would be a massive publicity stunt.
         | Have a stock Model 3 jump 20 school buses, and then see how the
         | competition goes.
        
         | esjeon wrote:
         | Yeah, it's just a tiny compatibility issue, but it's really a
         | bummer that you're sitting on enough electricity to power a
         | house for days and can't even jump a car. It's gonna be great
         | if we can utilize all the juice in our cars...
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | Because they are apples and oranges and Tesla is using 48v!
         | Jumping a 12v lead acid battery with 48v is a fantastic way to
         | completely fry the ICE vehicle.
        
           | diebeforei485 wrote:
           | Tesla has future plans for 48V, but they're still on 12V
           | today.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | AFAIK Teslas use 12V like everyone else, do you have a source
           | for 48V?
           | 
           | However EVs (and hybrids) do tend to have pretty small 12V
           | batteries and I think some of them have switched off of lead-
           | acid: they only need the 12V to boot up the electronics, not
           | to power a starter engine.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | You can get a small jumper battery and leave it in the car. You
         | can easily charge it with the EV. It'll be smaller than a full
         | set of jumper cables, even.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | bad_alloc wrote:
         | Well, most EVs have weak 12V batteries to power computers,
         | lights etc. They are not designed to output the amps needed to
         | turn an engine. That makes sense for the EV since it saves a
         | lot of weight. And the main batteries are usually 400V to 800V,
         | which you can't use to jump another car (or you can use it
         | once, at most).
        
         | cj wrote:
         | Adding to that, you also can't jump start another Tesla with
         | your Tesla (according to the manual)
         | 
         | Edit: link to jumpstarting in manual:
         | https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_au/GUID-3567D5F...
        
           | fipar wrote:
           | Question out of ignorance: what does it mean to jump start an
           | EV?
           | 
           | I know what it is for an ICE (and I have a jump-starter-
           | battery always in the trunk, with usb ports it doubles as a
           | phone charger if you're somewhere without power), but for an
           | EV, I'd guess you either have enough battery charge for it to
           | run, or you need to charge, right?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | giancarlostoro wrote:
             | If you need to jump start an EV you need to charge it
             | basically. I cant think of a case where it would be needed
             | with an otherwise filled battery.
        
               | raisedbyninjas wrote:
               | I just learned that my ICE vehicle can drain the 12v
               | battery overnight if it fails to turn off the accessories
               | circuit. No lights or infotainment etc. were left on. In
               | my case, it was the switch on the park gear flaked out. I
               | imagine a variety of similar faults could cause the same
               | issue in an EV.
        
               | cj wrote:
               | Reminds me of renting a zipcar for a few days and parking
               | it in an underground parking lot.
               | 
               | When I went to use the car after a couple days, the
               | battery was drained. This happened on multiple occasions
               | with different vehicles parked in the same garage.
               | 
               | My best guess is Zipcar has cellular comms to phone home,
               | which enter some weird "always trying to connect" state
               | when cut off from cellular signal underground.
               | 
               | Zipcar's response was to ban me from renting on their
               | platform ever again for too many disabled vehicles.
        
               | zerocrates wrote:
               | My car (a hybrid) has a long-standing bug in the radio
               | system that can make it "freeze" and stay on forever.
               | Only way out once it's frozen is to pull the right fuse
               | (or wait for it to drain your battery all the way).
        
             | falcolas wrote:
             | An EV has two power systems, 12V (typically) for the car
             | accessories, and 120V for the drive motors.
             | 
             | And if the 12V system is down, you can't drive the car
             | (can't close the contactor that connects the 120V batteries
             | to the system).
             | 
             | So, in theory, you could jump the 12V system so you can
             | engage the 120V system.
        
               | scotty79 wrote:
               | The design that allows 12V to completely discharge while
               | there's charge in high voltage batteries is idiotic. I
               | ran into that in Toyota hybrid. Why there's no manual
               | override that enables charging of 12V battery? It could
               | be under the hood and turn off automatically when the
               | voltage in 12V battery is high enough.
        
               | sgerenser wrote:
               | Some Hyundai hybrids and PHEVs have this (I saw it in the
               | original Ioniq). It's a button you press that temporarily
               | charges the 12V battery through the high-voltage system
               | rather than being always enabled, but it seems like a
               | great idea.
        
               | rnk wrote:
               | This same problem happens in evs where due to some
               | problem the 12v discharges. When everything is working
               | the 12v is charged up from the main battery bank.
               | 
               | Tesla in the early days sometimes ran down the 12v and it
               | wasn't that uncommon, there were problems with runs of
               | batteries yielding poor ones; I think they had messed up
               | software that wasn't charging the 12v enough, but they
               | made changes to address that long ago. On my second ev, a
               | rivian, I just had to have my 12 battery replaced. They
               | said sometimes the 12v batteries just die on them.
        
           | anaganisk wrote:
           | Jump start? Pfft. The stupid car, got stuck with AC stuck on
           | full heat, with a blacked out screen. Unresponsive to resets.
           | I couldn't even open the damm frunk to remove the fuses, yeah
           | okay I don't carry a 12v battery around with me to jump the
           | frunk.(how difficult is it to give damm manual overrides for
           | critical stuff) It was a rental so no access to Tesla app.
           | Tesla Customer service refused to help, since it's a rental
           | 
           | Tesla is a smart phone with wheels that can't make calls.
           | It's great while it works but it is as dangerous as it can be
           | once things go wrong. This car must be banned. It scarred me
           | enough to keep me away from other EVs too which put all the
           | controls in a screen. There is no excuse for EVs to have
           | everything electrically controlled.
        
             | rnk wrote:
             | I agree these situations can be dangerous and frustrating.
             | There is a manual trunk release on the tesla, here's a
             | video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1bJ0F3R0Nc.
             | 
             | I have a rivian and the 12v battery died on it while I had
             | it plugged in charging at home. In the manual I found the
             | emergency trunk release (access from underneath the car),
             | and then there was a manual release for the charging port
             | inside the frunk.
             | 
             | My gas cars have died with some electrical problem before,
             | out in the boonies where there was no one to help. But that
             | was back when all my cars had a key, so I could at least
             | open the door with physical key.
        
               | bdcravens wrote:
               | Many EVs still have a physical key to open the car (my
               | EV6 and my wife's ID.4 both do for example)
        
               | rnk wrote:
               | Well that's great, my Tesla and my rivian do not have
               | physical keys, and I wish they did.
        
       | javajosh wrote:
       | Rather than us fighting for the right to repair, shouldn't
       | manufacturers be fighting for the right to limit our ability to
       | repair? Isn't "right to repair" the default state? The right to
       | repair, modify, disassemble, recombine your own property is a key
       | component of capitalism, is it not?
        
         | MoreSEMI wrote:
         | Agree, the language is problematic. But unfortunately companies
         | sometimes use the law to take away that right. Additionally,
         | right to repair sometimes means going beyond the default state
         | and requiring companies to go the extra mile, so that is where
         | the langauge may also stem from.
        
         | mypastself wrote:
         | To my understanding, you do have the right to repair a device
         | or a piece of equipment yourself, but you don't have the right
         | to force the manufacturer to make it easier or to keep your
         | warranty.
         | 
         | If you use the former definition, it's already the default
         | state. If you use the latter, "right to repair" becomes a
         | reasonable-sounding term for a concept that's not quite as
         | reasonable.
        
         | SenAnder wrote:
         | In addition to all the legal restrictions on "reverse
         | engineering" (i.e. examining how stuff works) and circumventing
         | DRM, as technology advances, using technical means to restrict
         | otherwise legal end-user activities is becoming a big problem.
         | 
         | That you're legally allowed to repair your tractor doesn't help
         | much if the on-board secure TPM chip flags your replacement
         | parts as counterfeit, locks the engine, and reports you to the
         | manufacturer so they refuse to sell you parts in the future.
        
           | MostlyStable wrote:
           | This is something I've wondered about. For cars there is a
           | bunch of regulatory stuff that might preven you from doing
           | this, but I believe the regulatory burden on tractors is much
           | less. Why has no one just built a full on control system swap
           | for tractors? Yeah, the OEM control board won't recognize
           | your replacement part. Or it won't tell you whats actually
           | wrong. Etc. Etc. But if you just replace it with an entirely
           | OSS control system, that problem goes away.
           | 
           | I know that this probably not a trivial task, but, given the
           | amount of money at stake, it feels worthwhile, but maybe I'm
           | just underestimating the degree of integration of the current
           | control system into the parts. If everything down the
           | internal engine sensors is running priprietary, encrypted
           | software and you basically have to tear it down and replace
           | every single electronic component on the tractor, then yeah
           | it probably won't ever make sense.
        
             | chmod600 wrote:
             | That sounds like a fun project if you are a bitcoin
             | millionaire that moved to a ranch. Rip the components out
             | and try to re-engineer all of the control systems.
             | 
             | Given the number of sensors, it could also be a great way
             | to collect open data for farming innovation, environmental
             | data, etc.
        
         | forinti wrote:
         | Manufacturers make things difficult to repair, use nonstandard
         | components and tools that you can't get from a third party,
         | they glue things together in such a way that you have to have
         | break it to get inside, they take away your warranty if you do
         | anything they don't want you to do, and so on.
         | 
         | This dispute is all about not letting manufacturers use such
         | tactics. I see it also as an ecological issue, because
         | unrepairable and upgradeable stuff means more garbage.
        
         | praptak wrote:
         | We found out that this is no longer the case since hardware can
         | contain software which just prevents the "owner" from replacing
         | a part. On top of this manufacturers abuse copyright laws to
         | prevent "owners" from tinkering with said software.
         | 
         | That's why we need specific laws to protect the freedom which
         | should be the default.
        
           | AnthonyMouse wrote:
           | No, I think there's a point here.
           | 
           | Part of the solution isn't just laws that require something
           | to be reparable, but _getting rid of_ the laws that constrain
           | it. DMCA 1201 is used for _this_ more than it 's used for its
           | ostensible purpose, and should have a general purpose
           | exemption for any case where the circumvention or tool is
           | necessary for any reason other than actual non-fair use
           | copyright infringement.
        
         | sinistersnare wrote:
         | No, we no longer have that right. We don't live under
         | capitalism but 'necrocapitalism' that only gives rights to
         | those in the in-group.
         | 
         | We must fight for our rights now, they have been alienated from
         | us.
        
           | andersrs wrote:
           | Capitalism is like a game of Fishy
           | https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/81219
           | 
           | The big fish eat the small fish and the game becomes easier
           | the bigger you get.
        
           | forgottenlogin9 wrote:
           | Where do your rights begin and another's end? If they wish to
           | build a product in a way that you dislike, does it not impede
           | their rights for you to inflict your will on them against
           | their wishes?
        
             | circuit10 wrote:
             | There should be limits to what companies are allowed to do
             | in order to stop user hostile behaviour. It's reasonable to
             | say that if you want to sell things as a company you should
             | have to take some basic steps like this
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | >Where do your rights begin and another's end?
             | 
             | This idea of a nice binary black and white cutoff for
             | rights does not, and has not ever existed. This really is
             | an absurdist American viewpoint. Let's make an example
             | 
             | "it's my legal right to pour a cup of water out on my
             | property"
             | 
             | And, no one would really disagree with that.
             | 
             | "So I'm going to do it with a million cups of water all at
             | once"
             | 
             | In which a flood happens destroying others property...,
             | then we would see that the measure of ones actions is the
             | consequences to others. If you make a car for yourself, go
             | ahead and build it how you want. If you are making a mass
             | produced product it's no longer about you or your rights.
             | It's a superposition of your rights, the buyers rights, and
             | the 'publics' rights as you dispose of that product.
        
               | forgottenlogin9 wrote:
               | The concept of rights is not binary, but at a certain
               | point there cannot be multiple conflicting "rights" -- 1
               | must get preference.
               | 
               | The maker starts with a right to make a product as they
               | see best. The buyer has a right to purchase or not. The
               | "public's" rights are an interesting concept.
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | >The maker starts with a right to make a product as they
               | see best.
               | 
               | I'm pretty sure we're not even on the same planet at this
               | point. If you think this is true, go produce some
               | products as 'you see best' and see how long before you
               | end up in criminal/civil court. There are myriads of
               | regulations on what you can and cannot put in products
               | that are sold to others. To think otherwise is a level
               | disillusionment that only the most staunch libertarians
               | reach.
               | 
               | The public has rights, the market is not a free for all
               | do to whatever you'd like.
        
             | c-cube wrote:
             | Rights to impose your will about something, should end at
             | the point where you sell this thing to someone else. That's
             | how it should be. Sadly a lot of companies are trying to
             | rent rather than sell (see: ebooks, anything as a service,
             | etc.) because this way they don't lose control.
        
               | forgottenlogin9 wrote:
               | What if a buyer wants to lease the product under the
               | seller's terms. Should it not be their right to enter
               | that agreement?
        
               | c-cube wrote:
               | That's called renting, not buying. There's no buyer in
               | that case. And that's exactly the rent-seeking trend I
               | talk about. Most virtual "purchases" are actually just
               | rent because you don't actually own the thing.
        
             | michaelmrose wrote:
             | This is easier than you think. If more people are apt to be
             | disadvantaged by your actions than not why shouldn't they
             | simply vote your rights away?
             | 
             | As a business person in any industry this is already true
             | in 1000 mostly reasonable ways that mostly derive from
             | outrageous behavior of prior actors in your space. In that
             | context it seems ridiculous to argue against 1001 on
             | principle unless the specific regulation is itself ill
             | advised. The only justification it needs is for it to be a
             | net positive.
             | 
             | Basically why do 338 million people give a fuck if a
             | handful of people want to do user hostile things. Do them
             | somewhere else.
        
               | forgottenlogin9 wrote:
               | You are advocating for "mob rule". History is replete
               | with examples of this being a bad idea.
        
               | michaelmrose wrote:
               | mob rule /,mab 'ro[?]ol/ noun noun: mob rule
               | control of a political situation by those outside the
               | conventional or lawful realm, typically involving
               | violence and intimidation.
               | 
               | I'm advocating for regulating industry for the greater
               | benefit of the overwhelming majority of society as is
               | already practiced in every developed nation on earth. You
               | already can't build a house or sell a sandwich without
               | following half a hundred regulations which are written in
               | the ashes if a million poor fuckers who were maimed,
               | killed, or fucked prior to yourself. If you exist in the
               | modern business landscape you have internalized this and
               | accepted it as the cost of doing business. Nobody gives
               | every a little fuck if for instance you think your
               | sandwich shop doesn't need health inspections or your
               | workers don't need food handlers cards or if you would
               | like to sell houses that don't meet building codes.
               | 
               | If we mutually understand that is literally how the world
               | works everywhere then going back and pretending that
               | society needs to justify "taking away Elon's rights to
               | sell consumer hostile cars" then we are being
               | intellectually dishonest. The same way you are being
               | intellectually dishonest by denigrating simple democracy
               | as "mob rule".
        
         | DrFlipper wrote:
         | Freedom is the key component of capitalism, in the purist
         | sense. Including the freedom to trade the "right to repair" for
         | other benefits, such as a superior vehicle due to higher
         | integration, reliability and peace of mind knowing that any
         | work will have been done by authorised repairers, lower up-
         | front cost afforded by vendor lock-in, etc.
         | 
         | If people wish to voluntarily trade vehicles without the "right
         | to repair", that's their choice, that's capitalism. The state
         | intervening in transactions one way or the other is a violation
         | of the capitalist ideal.
        
           | javajosh wrote:
           | I think this ignores the complexity cost on the consumer. If
           | every product has a different set of rules, the consumer will
           | not be able to know them or follow them. This is already a
           | big problem with long and unique EULAs for software. This is
           | a market failure due to an inherent information asymmetry
           | between supplier and consumer, favoring the supplier. A
           | similar effect is present in the healthcare industry. It
           | harms consumers and makes the market less efficient. It makes
           | sense to regulate against this effect for that reason.
           | Standardization efforts have yielded a great deal of value
           | for society.
        
           | sangnoir wrote:
           | > Freedom is the key component of capitalism, in the purist
           | sense.
           | 
           | Competitive markets and price information are also key
           | components of capitalism - and the "right to repair" enhances
           | both. Empirically, manufactures don't like competing for
           | repairs, and they also obfuscate the cost of those repairs so
           | customers would never know the total cost of ownership ahead
           | of time.
           | 
           | State intervention does not violate capitalist ideals when it
           | enhances competition, I'll go further and say coercive
           | monopolies are anti-capitalist. Just because I bought a
           | widget from you shouldn't force me to have it solely fixed by
           | you at a price of your choosing.
        
         | softfalcon wrote:
         | Have a look at Louis Rossmann's car repair videos.
         | 
         | There is a war going on between government and car
         | manufacturers because they succeeded in side stepping most of
         | the right to repair requirements.
         | 
         | Currently, most new car's OBD2 ports are somewhat useless
         | because they now use a proprietary wireless communicator to
         | transmit error codes. Apparently, the old right to repair laws
         | didn't say anything about "wireless communication" so they took
         | the loophole and ran with it.
         | 
         | The days of buying a reasonably affordable scanner and
         | diagnosing and repairing your own vehicle are over. We're back
         | to square one of forcing them to give us right to repair again.
         | It's actually really really bad.
        
           | creeble wrote:
           | I think new cars are still required to report engine codes
           | (ones that cause the CEL to trigger) on the OBD port. That's
           | still a large percentage of engine problems, and in
           | particular, the ones that prevent you from getting
           | registration renewed in many US states.
        
             | softfalcon wrote:
             | There are now Audi, Peugot, and Volvo vehicles sold in the
             | US that don't have an OBD port. You can't pull an engine
             | code from a port that doesn't exist on the vehicle.
             | 
             | Toyota, Ford, and Chevrolet are also rumoured to be
             | removing the OBD2 port with their 2025 line-up. They're
             | just testing how much they can get away with before
             | committing to it.
             | 
             | It's going to become very hard to repair or even diagnose
             | our vehicles if we don't start fighting back.
        
         | arlort wrote:
         | > Isn't "right to repair" the default state?
         | 
         | There's no such thing as a default state, only status quo.
         | 
         | And the status quo is that right to repair is not really a
         | thing all that much
        
         | xg15 wrote:
         | I think in the current flavor of capitalism, the key component
         | is "fuck you, I got mine".
        
         | circuit10 wrote:
         | Right to repair is about making sure manufacturers can't
         | intentionally block repair. Also there have been some cases of
         | people getting into legal trouble for doing things like using
         | aftermarket ("counterfeit") parts, I remember hearing about a
         | repair shop having to destroy iPhone screens
        
         | YeBanKo wrote:
         | Would you support a ballot measure(if this is an option in your
         | jurisdiction) that enacts a strong right to repair? I don't see
         | how we can make it a default way otherwise. Lobby makes any
         | attempted bill toothless.
        
       | echelon wrote:
       | Since EVs are mechanically simpler, I'd really like to see a
       | return to kit cars.
       | 
       | Perhaps you could buy the preassembled chassis and modify the
       | rest of the car as you'd like.
       | 
       | Maybe you could tear down the whole thing and rebuild it.
       | 
       | In theory this should be super accessible. You might see a whole
       | community spring up over it. It's potentially a huge market
       | ranging from teenagers to retirees. Lots of people love cars and
       | modifying them.
       | 
       | There might be lots of companies that get in on the action and
       | build a full ecosystem of compatible parts.
       | 
       | It'd be really neat.
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | Love it. Want it. In the USA, the manufacturers would probably
         | be sued out of existence when someone got killed or maimed in
         | one, no matter whose fault it was.
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | Yet, in aviation, we have the "experimental, amateur built"
           | (or, E/AB) category of homebuilt aircraft which is going
           | strong and honestly I'd say that most of the technical
           | innovation happening in light aircraft is happening in the
           | E/AB category. There are thousands of homebuilt kit aircraft
           | safely flying in the sky above you right now.
           | 
           | The difference, of course, is that for obvious reasons,
           | aviation has developed a pervasive culture of safety and
           | rigorous root-cause analysis whenever an accident happens,
           | and deadly crashes frequently result in regulatory corrective
           | action. If car accidents were as rare as aircraft accidents,
           | the NTSB brought a team of investigators whenever one
           | happened, and the results of that investigation led to
           | stricter laws and enforcement, we'd probably be OK with kit
           | cars, too.
           | 
           | The sad truth about automotive is that crashes are so routine
           | that police won't even get out of bed unless there are
           | injuries. And, there is basically no penalty for negligence
           | that leads to a car "accident". It's almost impossible in the
           | USA to lose your driver's license, even after dozens of
           | repeated DUIs. Totally different cultures.
        
             | tomcam wrote:
             | I thought of that. But happened to the scores of aviation
             | manufacturers here in the 1950s?
        
         | adolph wrote:
         | Framework car
        
           | nrp wrote:
           | We have a few other categories to fix first.
        
             | adolph wrote:
             | Who's to say what comes first? Even if one thinks other
             | things as being more important to fix, fixing less
             | important things builds the ability to fix other thing.
        
         | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
         | Don't they call the drivetrain of an EV "The Skateboard"?
        
         | softfalcon wrote:
         | I think this is a great idea and would massively improve
         | repair-ability and possibly even affordability of EVs for
         | everyone.
         | 
         | I also think that most car manufacturers will hate this idea
         | since it directly competes with and shows how incredibly un-
         | repair-able current vehicles are. They don't want to change.
         | They just want to pretend to change.
        
         | more_corn wrote:
         | Problem is the battery packs. These kits need batteries and the
         | best and cheapest batteries come out of wrecked teslas. If
         | Tesla is allowed to continue locking down their batteries
         | behind proprietary battery controllers the parts aren't parts
         | they're intellectual property which Tesla can turn off at their
         | convenience. And it's super convenient for them to render parts
         | unusable in the secondary market.
        
           | snovv_crash wrote:
           | The cells are just normal cells. The proprietary bits are the
           | management systems which you could theoretically just bypass.
        
         | bdcravens wrote:
         | It's a thing.
         | 
         | A hobby project I've wanted to do is to convert older cars to
         | electric. The more iconic, the better, for troll value :-)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | saintkaye wrote:
           | I'm begging for a 1969 SL180 converted to electric. How do we
           | do it?
        
             | qbrass wrote:
             | https://everrati.com/works/mercedes-280sl-pagoda/
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | Please, please, please don't. Any of those beauties should
             | simply be restored or used to help others to be restored.
             | There are so few of them left.
        
         | serf wrote:
         | It would be great, but personally I think that modern chain-of-
         | liability concerns would probably make the premise very
         | difficult to work out.
         | 
         | An EV burns down. The chassis maker points its fingers at what
         | they claim were low quality electronics used, the electronics
         | manufacturer points its fingers at the sharp edges left on the
         | chassis that could create chafe points.
         | 
         | Technical interoperability too aside from standards; in a
         | collision it's difficult to model/simulate/test a car that may
         | have 20 different motor options, placement options, dozens of
         | batteries, etc. They'll all fail differently, how do we
         | regulate that kind of safety? I'd love for it to work.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | It's already legal in the US to build your own car from
           | scratch. There are certain minimum safety requirements
           | (headlights, windshields, seatbelts, bumpers), but less than
           | you may think (e.g. doors are not required, the steering
           | wheel doesn't have to be on the left). The NHTSA isn't going
           | to ask you to prove your car's crash-safety, all you need to
           | do is pass inspection in your state.
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | It's legal to build it, but at least in Texas it's not
             | legal to drive it on the highway as you won't be able to
             | get registration.
             | 
             | https://ftp.txdmv.gov/pub/txdot-
             | info/vtr/title_manual_book_4...
             | 
             | >On page 376, under 'Eligibility for Title' it says
             | "Homemade vehicles are not eligible for title or
             | registration. Homemade vehicles are described as vehicles
             | that were not previously manufactured by a NHTSA approved
             | manufacturer..."
        
               | echelon wrote:
               | Georgia is extremely friendly with it, and I know lots of
               | people with garage projects. You'll frequently see these
               | cars on the road.
               | 
               | (I also know people building planes in their garage. I
               | think Georgia just has a lot of this.)
               | 
               | https://dor.georgia.gov/assembled-and-unconventional-
               | vehicle...
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | Texas was till recently. I have family that works at the
               | registration office and needless to say there are a lot
               | of people with custom vehicles that are surprised
        
         | petabytes wrote:
         | https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/ sells bolt in kits for
         | classic cars
        
           | abakker wrote:
           | And evwest.com also stocks a lot of parts. There literally
           | thousands of videos on YouTube about conversions, and
           | companies all over who are dedicated to doing them.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tegmark wrote:
         | this is the ignorance that drives these silly headlines.
         | building these things is very hard. theres all kinds of crazy
         | solvents and adhesives. the pack is structural. the product
         | that tesla builds is fundamentally not well suited to repair or
         | modification and tesla isnt under any obligation, on any level,
         | to prioritize people who like to imagine they could repair or
         | build a tesla over building the most excellent and
         | sophisticated product possible. tesla is singlehandedly
         | responsible for the EV explosion and they have earned the right
         | to do what they want.
        
           | lantry wrote:
           | > building these things is very hard
           | 
           | people buying a kit aren't building a tesla, they're building
           | a kit car. When you buy a kit, you're not expecting the same
           | thing you get from a dealership. You're expecting something
           | you can build yourself, which is fundamentally different
        
           | callalex wrote:
           | Take it easy on the paint fumes there bud. You are aware that
           | other electric vehicles exist and work just fine, right?
        
           | kelnos wrote:
           | Being responsible for making EVs popular does not give them
           | the right to do whatever they want.
           | 
           | Tesla didn't push EVs out of the goodness of their hearts.
           | They did so because they thought they could build a
           | profitable company. Tesla's execs and shareholders are being
           | compensated quite well already for their investment of
           | money/time/work. No need to give them a blank check to do
           | anything we (as a society) don't want them to do.
        
           | michaelmrose wrote:
           | What does earned the right to do what they want even mean.
           | Why ought a society with pragmatic concerns ever concede
           | those concerns based on a defective moral model where a party
           | by doing some good somehow earns the right for society to
           | somehow to put aside the needs of 338 million for the benefit
           | of a dozen assholes in a boardroom.
           | 
           | This is a privilege that in a decent society ought not be
           | available at any price.
           | 
           | It's silly to say that they are under no obligation when what
           | we are talking about with right to repair is literally
           | whether we ought to create such an obligation.
           | 
           | If you disagree you must explain why such an obligation is a
           | net negative for the millions not the few.
           | 
           | I await your argument to that effect.
        
         | extraduder_ire wrote:
         | Would be nice, but the economics would be kinda wack with how
         | much of the cost is in the battery pack. Especially when
         | companies like tesla put the same pack in all their cars and
         | determine your "capacity" in software.
         | 
         | I'd imagine that would either change, or people would start
         | buying up the lowest-cost EVs just to pull the battery out of
         | them (like "shucking" external drives) and resell all the other
         | parts.
        
           | djbusby wrote:
           | Or just buying batteries directly from the Kit company or
           | compatible suppliers.
        
             | kibwen wrote:
             | Reminder that, at the end of the day, Teslas are just
             | running on ordinary standardized li-ion 18650 cells
             | packaged up in a proprietary housing.
        
           | softfalcon wrote:
           | My thought would be buying modular battery packs so you can
           | start small, save some money, buy more, then just keep adding
           | them in month-after-month.
           | 
           | Start with 50 km range at beginning, end up with 500 km range
           | by the end of the year.
           | 
           | Would also enforce positive replacement and recycling
           | procedures by creating a standard modular power unit.
           | 
           | Arguably doable, but I doubt any manufacturer or EV will ever
           | tolerate such easy mod-ability or repair-ability. They live
           | to destroy any attempts by the consumer knowing how to
           | service their own property.
        
           | giobox wrote:
           | > Especially when companies like tesla put the same pack in
           | all their cars and determine your "capacity" in software.
           | 
           | This is an _enormously_ exaggerated statement, bordering on
           | entirely false. Yes, the company has done this from time to
           | time, including on some current Model S /X models, but the
           | vast, vast majority of Tesla cars sold (the 3/Y) almost
           | always have a different sized battery pack in reality, not
           | just in software (~50kwh or ~75kwh - there is genuinely ~1/3
           | less cells in the 50kwh cars almost always).
           | 
           | The Model S/X sell in very tiny volumes, relative to the 3/Y
           | too. There absolutely is not the same pack in "all their
           | cars". Even the type of cells used varies between model
           | packs, typically 2170/4680 in the 3 or Y, 18650s in the S/X.
           | I think there are even some BYD blade batteries in some
           | European Y variants, but I'm not as familiar with the German
           | or China made cars.
        
             | extraduder_ire wrote:
             | Good to know. I must be mistaken from the other incorrect
             | coverage I've seen around the web.
             | 
             | I have no experience with electric cars, much less
             | disassembling/repairing them.
        
             | shoelessone wrote:
             | This is very interesting, I held the same general belief as
             | the person you're responding to.
             | 
             | Any chance you have a source for this info?
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | > or people would start buying up the lowest-cost EVs just to
           | pull the battery out of them (like "shucking" external
           | drives) and resell all the other parts.
           | 
           | That sounds amazing.
        
             | YeBanKo wrote:
             | What would be the point of it? The battery is the most
             | expensive part of the vehicle.
        
               | hgsgm wrote:
               | Same as a hard drive.
               | 
               | Business models and soft vendor lockouts cause price
               | drift.
        
         | Fluorescence wrote:
         | I found the JerryRigEverything project converting an ex-
         | military hummer to an EV interesting despite not really being
         | into cars/evs.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxkPuEmIX4U&list=PL0vZL9uwyf...
         | 
         | Despite the untold expense and full on car workshop... it felt
         | very accessible and possible. Ridiculous hubris on my part
         | obviously hah! I doubt I could change a tire on humvee without
         | help.
        
           | anvuong wrote:
           | I'm not sure how this is accessible, the drive-shaft is
           | entirely customly designed and customly built to handle the
           | torque. That's not even mentioning the 3D design software and
           | laser cutting for the motor mount. This feels simple because
           | he already has everything planned very well and it's a year
           | long endeavour compactified into short youtube videos.
        
             | Fluorescence wrote:
             | Heh, of course, I'm just taking the mickey out of myself.
             | It avoids the car things that make me I'm know out of my
             | depth: carburettors, gearboxes, firing patterns and such.
             | Those come from a mysterious world I have no experience
             | with.
             | 
             | If imagining a kit car then you won't be worrying about the
             | custom designed elements you highlight.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | The first time you mess up with a 90Ah pack and a serious
               | electric motor will make you wish for carburettors.
        
             | seabird wrote:
             | I don't see why 3D design software and getting parts
             | fabricated (if you don't have the equipment to do it
             | yourself) is all that inaccessible. It may cost more than
             | getting into computer software, but just about everything
             | is. It may not go very quick but there's nothing stopping
             | you from doing this.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | There is also Aging Wheels' ongoing conversion of a Ford
           | Escape to a 900HP EV: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P
           | LzV2uljPvyAc7dEH2EeTP...
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | For those that know they will be interested and not
           | disappointed by this tease of a video, here's the playlist to
           | all of the videos of the conversion
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jnhh1P86vQ&list=PL0vZL9uwyf.
           | ..
        
             | Fluorescence wrote:
             | This might be a youtube thing... but as far as I can tell,
             | I linked to the first video in the playlist and you have
             | linked to the last. It looks like the playlist is in the
             | reverse order? i.e. it will play newest to oldest. God I
             | hate yt.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | After starting to watch the link I found, I realized it
               | was reversed too. Even though it says "in order" from his
               | profile's page. I've never really used YT for anything
               | other than one off videos, and only recently started
               | trying to watch some content in a more consumerist
               | manner. I'm not liking it at all, and wonder why people
               | put up with it, and don't just stop like I'm already
               | considering
        
       | subhro wrote:
       | In the other news, BMW has "stopped" selling service manuals for
       | motorcycles showing a damn middle finger to everyone including
       | law makers (in Europe even). That is absolutely rubbish, but
       | somehow they can do it legally.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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