[HN Gopher] Chevrolet Blazer EV Left Me Stranded in Rural Virginia
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Chevrolet Blazer EV Left Me Stranded in Rural Virginia
Author : dakna
Score : 21 points
Date : 2023-12-20 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (insideevs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (insideevs.com)
| bwanab wrote:
| One more "I bought something other than a Tesla and was surprised
| to find that trips with it were a nightmare because of the lack
| of charging infrastructure even though I've read that was true in
| countless previous articles" article.
|
| True, there was a bit of a twist in that it broke down
| completely, but the gist was still the charging nightmare that
| might soon be partially over when GM and Ford cars can charge at
| Tesla chargers starting in February, 2024.
| thisarticle wrote:
| Did you even read the article? This has nothing to do with
| charging infrastructure. The vehicle itself had a fault. He
| also didn't buy the vehicle, he was reviewing it.
| dmsayer wrote:
| not only that, it had multiple faults in multiple systems one
| of which was not even related to charging.
| rnk wrote:
| The endless series of failures by legacy auto keeps
| convincing me that they are doomed to lose most of their
| market share. Because they are incompetent and not trying
| to build evs with all their might - they don't recognize
| them as the existential threat they are to ICE
| manufacturers.
|
| First tesla is taking their market share, even tiny new
| startups like rivian are outselling many major automakers
| in the us. US EV sales are up 50% plus year over year. Max
| ICE auto sales were in 2017! No one seems to have noticed
| where the growth went. 1 million ev sales this year.
|
| But the second wave is just starting, which is cheap and
| quite capable chinese EVs. They are starting to take the
| growth from Tesla in China, Tesla is having to work hard
| there. The 1-2 punch of first Tesla and then China will
| degrade us auto.
| sterlind wrote:
| I'm sure GM's lobbyists will keep Chinese EVs out of the
| US market with steep tariffs. I'm amazed they didn't
| succeed at locking Toyota out in the '80s.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I'm amazed they didn't succeed at locking Toyota out
| in the '80s._
|
| Because Toyota(and every other major car company) built
| factories in the US to bypass tarrifs?
| pornel wrote:
| Like nearly all legacy auto makers, they're institutionally
| incapable of writing decent software.
| joshribakoff wrote:
| Whats an example of a "non legacy" manufacturer that has
| perfect software?
|
| Im currently in the process of selling my Tesla ("non legacy
| manufacturer") back under lemon law because of constant
| hardware and software issues like windows intermittently
| refusing to roll up (despite 6+ service center visits),
| windshield wipers not working, random alerts about "faults"
| they allegedly can't locate in their logs, getting alerts on my
| phone that windows are left open when they're not, lane
| departure warnings when the setting is turned off and i am not
| departing a lane, loud popping noises on speakers followed by
| infotainment "crashes", etc.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| A lot of that almost sounds like something is shorted in the
| wiring in the car, and the software doesn't understand that
| something is physically wrong.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| So there is an unexpected input which will cause whole
| module to crash and reset. That sounds awful lot like a
| crap software writing.
|
| Imagine if you would press too many keys at once on your
| keyboard causing Windows to BSOD and restart....
| rnk wrote:
| That's a lemon. That's unacceptable of course. We do know
| from millions of teslas sold that they work fine over the
| mass of cars. They are made by people, they'll have problems,
| they will break. But the sum of experiences is good outcome.
| The opposite seems to be the case with the ultium cars.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Lots of hardware companies (not just auto makers) don't
| understand software. They treat it like just another line item
| on the BOM, like a bolt, a windshield wiper blade or a door
| panel. The purchasing guy finds some 'software' that barely
| meets the minimum written requirements at the cheapest price,
| they scoop it onto the product somewhere on the assembly line,
| and then never think about it again. This is how we get things
| like our TV's (pre-Google/Apple) on-screen menus and our
| printer's setup UI.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Calling printer setup interfaces a "UI" is being kind, imo.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| So Rivian is now legacy automaker, bricking it's infotainment
| via update - https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/14/a-software-
| update-bricked-...
| rnk wrote:
| That was an epic screw up. Hopefully the only one that ever
| happens to them. New auto (tesla, rivian, ?) have generally
| avoided them.
|
| Some of the details that got out about what happened at
| Rivian:
|
| Problem cause #1: to push an update, you had to cut and paste
| various version numbers together onto a command line. Someone
| messed that up, oops, meant to say this instead of that.
|
| Problem cause #2: bad test strategy. The dev tested it before
| he pushed it, so no worries? Except the dev test vehicle was
| a "special test car" that had extra security tokens on it. So
| the installed worked and test passed. But regular cars didn't
| have those certs.
|
| So lots of obvious things to fix there. No command line
| mucking about to push a real production release! And test the
| final thing on a regular fucking car with no special dev
| stuff.
|
| Tesla has multiple hardware versions, and their main panel of
| the original S has a v1 and v2 main console hardware. They
| pushed a release once that broke things in the map for the
| original version that caused it to use an excessive amount of
| cpu. I got this one, seems like it just made everything
| really really slow and some things failed. It took them like
| a 6 weeks or more because they got around to undoing the fix.
| I think part of that was all of them had the updated cpu so
| they didn't see it. It was still driveable, just degraded
| infotainment ui.
|
| VW has had software updates that they would not push over the
| air because they took so long the 12v battery could run out
| before it finished, they bricking the car (main battery
| couldn't charge the 12v during os update). Solution, bring
| your car to the dealer to do the update. Apparently also
| considered giving everyone a better 12v battery.
| confd wrote:
| This sounds like a rough experience. Tangentially, I'm curious
| about what the future of cities will look like as EVs become more
| common and charging infrastructure expands. In what ways will
| cities change the areas surrounding these charging stations to
| make the duration of the vehicle's charge more pleasant?
| hedora wrote:
| Many charging stations are located inside parks or near nice
| sit down restaurants.
|
| I think this makes long term sense. You mays well enjoy the
| 30-60 minutes it will take the car to charge.
| whycome wrote:
| Canada just announced that it want no gas cars (hybrid fine i
| think?) by 2035 with yearly percentage requirements for
| manufacturers (eg, 40% of vehicles to be EV, etc).
|
| That seems like a pretty insane timeline if they're not
| actually driving the work for the charging infrastructure.
| There are way too many homes/places that would have to be
| retrofitted.
| amluto wrote:
| I'm still amazed that companies build EVs that will fail in a way
| that requires service if they don't like a charger. A friend's
| early Audi e-Tron would fail and require extensive service if
| connected to a J1772 charger that advertised more current
| capacity than the car could handle. (That is really pathetic BTW.
| It seemed like the car's onboard charger would draw excessive
| current and dry itself if given permission to do so.)
|
| Or maybe the Blazer wasn't breaking so much as charging in a
| highly degraded mode because it didn't like the charger's output?
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(page generated 2023-12-20 23:02 UTC)