[HN Gopher] Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15
___________________________________________________________________
Allow me to introduce, the Citroen C15
Author : colinprince
Score : 658 points
Date : 2026-01-10 11:12 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eupolicy.social)
(TXT) w3m dump (eupolicy.social)
| evilmonkey19 wrote:
| Best car ever! I have seen then running in Spain forever and
| still work as the first day. Easiest car to repair ever and never
| breaks!
| onion2k wrote:
| _Easiest car to repair ever and never breaks!_
|
| If it never breaks how do people know it's easy to repair?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Well, it never breaks as in: it will always get you to where
| you need to go because the engine just keeps running. Broken
| driveshaft? Stick a vice grip on it and keep rolling... And
| they're easy to repair because there isn't a lot in them to
| begin with, so you have a lot of room to work. Running gear
| wears and needs fixing but the core is nigh on
| indestructible. Same with the VW diesels from that era, the
| 1.9 mechanical.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's hilarious. The German version (VW Caddy) is similar.
| Citroen at some point had a van version of the 2CV and the Diane,
| this is the continuation of that tradition.
| jen20 wrote:
| Literally: the C15 was based on the Visa (clearly, when you
| look at it!), and was the first platform-shared vehicle between
| Citroen and Peugeot where it was basically a Peugeot warmed
| over with some additional eccentricity. Not bad, overall
| though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Exactly. And the Visa was an interesting little car all by
| itself.
| cpa wrote:
| Absolutely true. It's even the subject of many memes! search for
| "c15 memes".
| yread wrote:
| I love the Chad: "I love you!" c15: (oil and engine lights on)
| "Please let me die"
| nicbou wrote:
| These made my day and I barely understand Spanish
| blell wrote:
| He forgets the part where because of emissions requirements the
| C15 can't be driven in that scourge the people the author defends
| call "low emissions zones".
| pasc1878 wrote:
| Good so the car won't be killing people due to high noxious
| emissions.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Stick a petrol version of the engine in (Peugeot XU instead
| of XUD) and convert it to run on propane. There you go, now
| the exhaust is just water and carbon dioxide, and you don't
| die from breathing it in. No CO, no HC, and not really any
| more NOx that was in the air it sucked in.
|
| This is why forklifts run on gas, instead of petrol or
| diesel.
|
| We could have had incredibly clean air in our cities 25 years
| ago, if the government hadn't decided that pushing "scrappage
| schemes" to get people to buy "cleaner greener diesels" was
| cheaper.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://eupolicy.social/@jmaris/115860595509967609
| blell wrote:
| That does not matter. It only complies with Euro 3 emissions
| requirements.
| omnicognate wrote:
| Which will get you into London's Low Emission Zone (LEZ).
| Not the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), though.
|
| Besides, I think the point is really that we should be
| making and buying vehicles more like this (in the positive
| aspects) rather than that we should all drive 40 year old
| Citroens.
| blell wrote:
| If the EU cared about this so much they wouldn't have
| allowed all car makers to buy one another until all cars
| cost EUR25k for the base model. Maybe, maybe that's the
| issue that prevents people from updating their cars which
| emit a lot of stuff they don't like.
| omnicognate wrote:
| You seem to have an axe to grind about something
| completely unrelated to the article here. Since you
| brought it up, though, if you're going to be one of the
| thousands of people driving up the road outside my house
| every day then, as a member of a family with multiple
| generations of life-threatening asthma, the fact that
| you're required to do it in a car with strictly regulated
| emissions is an unalloyed positive as far as I'm
| concerned.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| 20 day old account and constantly hates against the EU.
| Probably a bot.
|
| Not worth engaging
| woodpanel wrote:
| This thing will be so old that the owner just needs to
| apply for a "historical" car license and then those eco-
| zones are irrelevant.
|
| But yeah, the author's wrong on so many things. Starting
| with putting his stuff on mastodon in the first place. Or
| not withstanding that the same people he cheers on, are
| outlawing diesel engines.
|
| Tbh though, a lot of the latter was fueled from US-
| industrial anti-diesel propaganda.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| CO2 is a bit of an outlier in the groups of pollutants
| emitted by a car. Modern cars will emit way less of the other
| pollutants that are directly unhealthy for humans to breathe
| (NOx, CO, particulate matter, etc.).
|
| I know the thread is mostly for fun, but only considering CO2
| is a bit misleading when accessing how environmentally
| (un)friendly a car is.
| piva00 wrote:
| If you want to live in polluted areas there are plenty of
| places available on Earth for that, I believe most people would
| rather not. Low emissions zones are mostly in very densely
| populated areas where the impact of pollution is higher, not
| sure why you consider that a scourge.
|
| Could you expand on why?
| blell wrote:
| I'm just poking a gigantic hole on the hypocrisy of the
| author. I am not interested in that discussion.
| piva00 wrote:
| > I am not interested in that discussion.
|
| Rather uncurious of you then, not sure why make a comment
| if you aren't willing to explore it further. Shouting into
| the void?
| jen20 wrote:
| > Could you expand on why?
|
| Perhaps I'm a plumber going to work on a house in a LEZ?
| Perhaps I need to deliver something? Perhaps deliver to the
| airport (!) inside the LEZ.
|
| There are all kinds of reasons why someone might need to take
| a van into an LEZ, if you think for more than about quarter a
| second.
|
| This is primarily a reason why you shouldn't drive a vehicle
| from the 1970s, as the article suggests, and why LEZs need
| practicality not to drive service inflation inside the area.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Every emission zone regulation I'm familiar with
| distinguishes between private and commercial vehicles for
| exactly this reason. The French zones for example divide
| vehicles into categories. Private vehicles are set a base
| category/range, and commercial restrictions are usually the
| next category looser.
| eloisant wrote:
| People who don't live in France may not know why low emission
| zones are so stupid: it's not about how much pollution your
| car emits, but how old it is.
|
| So you're not allowed to bring a 20 years old car even if
| it's small, light and as a result doesn't pollute that much
| (because of its low fuel consumption). However you're allowed
| to bring in your brand new SUV even if its emissions are much
| higher. In fact it doesn't matter how much your SUV pollutes,
| it's recent so it's "fine".
|
| Do you know you usually drive 20+ cars? Poor people. Do you
| know who loves restrictions on old cars? Car manufacturers.
| koterpillar wrote:
| Can't imagine producing and selling this under the current
| regulations (and not just the crash-worthiness). I with they and
| C15 move towards each other...
| epolanski wrote:
| Won't impress friends/chicks as an F150 or a Land Rover Discovery
| /s
|
| On a more serious note real (which is a minority) owners of
| bigger trucks need some serious torque for hauling.
| geremiiah wrote:
| Everyone is always hauling. Lol.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| I must have missed a memo, because every situation in which
| I've ever wanted to "impress a chick" has taken place indoors,
| or at least far from roads.
|
| And yet lots of guys seem to spend an extra $30k or more on
| their vehicle for no additional utility beyond that. Literally
| who is impressed?
|
| Then again, these are probably dudes who get their dating
| advice from the Tate brothers. /shrug
| wiseowise wrote:
| Closeted gays trying to impress other dudes, idk?
|
| It's like those huge bodybuilders: you're picturing being
| surrounded by chicks, while realistically it's other buff
| dudes miring your physique.
| bloqs wrote:
| the milquetoast attempts at casting poorly-targeted stones at the
| beginning of this article really bring it down. Plenty of rural
| brits share exactly the same mentality, this just stinks of lack
| of cultural experience.
|
| it's a great vehicle, and I applaud the french approach to cars.
| pygy_ wrote:
| Brits are usually pretty good at taking the piss...
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Truly rural Brits - Northumbria, the Devon uplands, Yorkshire
| Moors, the remoter parts of Scotland & Wales, sure.
|
| Thing with England is that, being a small, flat and largely
| well-connected country, there's lots of places that identify
| strongly as rural but are, economically and culturally, more
| like outer-suburbia in a US context. That's where you'll find
| the Defender and F-150 crowd.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel
| vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days.
|
| I still see these running in rural Spain and France, usually held
| together with wire and hope, clocking like what 400k+ km? The XUD
| diesel engines are practically unkillable. They have no ECU to
| brick, no adblue sensors to fail and put the car into limp mode
| and thankfully none of those DRM locked headlights.
|
| The argument for the countryside need of a modern SUV usually
| cites reliability and safety, and in 2026, modern complexity is
| the enemy of reliability. If your C15 breaks down in a field, you
| can fix it with a wrench. If your Range Rover breaks down in a
| field because a sensor in the air suspension noticed a voltage
| variance...you are stranded until a tow truck takes it to a
| dealer.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > If your Range Rover breaks down in a field because a sensor
| in the air suspension noticed a voltage variance...you are
| stranded until a tow truck takes it to a dealer.
|
| No, you just reset the ECU and get on with your day.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| With all due respect, you are confusing a software race
| condition with a hard fault in a safety critical system.
|
| Resetting the ECU only works if the error is a transient
| glitch in the code logic. If the failure is a physical sensor
| reading out of range?
|
| Furthermore, modern automotive architectures store permanent
| diagnostic trouble codes in non volatile memory specifically
| to prevent people from "just resetting it" to bypass
| emissions or safety checks. You cannot clear those with a
| battery pull. You would need a proprietary manufacturer tool
| to force a relearn or adaptation.
|
| But more importantly, your argument accepts a terrifying
| premise. That a 2.5 ton kinetic object moving at highway
| speeds should have the reliability profile of a consumer
| router. If I have to treat my vehicle like a frozen windows
| 98 desktop to get home, the automotive engineering has failed
| me. Physics doesn't need a reboot.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > If the failure is a physical sensor reading out of range?
|
| Then you buy a new sensor and put it in, just like you
| would any other failed part.
|
| > You would need a proprietary manufacturer tool to force a
| relearn or adaptation.
|
| You can do almost anything you need to do with a non-
| proprietary Autel tool.
|
| I mean, I get it, the manufacturers are absolutely doing
| their best these days to lock up repair and maintenance.
| But so many folks seem to throw their hands up and over-
| exaggerate the inability to fix modern cars. I've always
| worked on my own cars, from a 1960 Triumph TR3 to a 2025
| Audi A3, and everything in between. Maybe once every four
| or five years have I hit something where I needed to take
| the car to the dealer, and that was true in the 1980s as
| well as today. Repair information for newer cars can be
| somewhat difficult to obtain (looking squarely at you, BMW)
| but with a bit of sailing the high seas, you can get all
| the shop manuals.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Then you buy a new sensor and put it in, just like you
| would any other failed part.
|
| In the middle of nowhere?
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| If you're driving to the middle of nowhere you carry
| spares and tools.
|
| Source: live in Scotland, frequently drive to the middle
| of nowhere in a Range Rover.
| tazjin wrote:
| Haha, how far is the middle of nowhere from the nearest
| town in Scotland? A few dozen kilometres?
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Several hundred miles, depending where you go.
|
| From where I grew up, it's a four-hour drive to the
| nearest supermarket.
|
| If you're in the US, you're probably not used to driving
| long distances on roads that aren't basically perfectly
| straight and four times the width of your car. You
| wouldn't enjoy driving here.
| tazjin wrote:
| I'm not in the US.
|
| I spent some time on Google Maps, and the furthest spot I
| managed to find from a town was about 35km. Note that I
| didn't say anything about supermarkets - this is a thread
| about car reliability, so the context is how far you can
| be from a town where it's reasonable to expect that
| someone can help you with your car.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The Scottish highlands have a population density
| comparable to the Mountain West. As someone who grew up
| in the mountain west, the highlands have a very similar
| feel.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Until the sensor itself has a microcontroller and does a
| cryptographic handshake with the other side before it's
| allowed to work, for "security" reasons obviously.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| From experience if the air suspension ECU freaks out over
| a sensor reading out of range it's either water in one of
| the connectors, or the sensor is getting a bit worn and
| you've run it to the far end of its travel.
|
| Getting the vehicle four-square (possibly jacking up the
| corner with the faulty sensor so it sits about the right
| height) and resetting the EAS ECU with a diagnostics tool
| will solve the problem in the short term.
|
| The other thing of course is you can just get it to sit
| level or at least level-ish, then unplug the ECU, let it
| complain about some unspecified fault, and drive it
| without self-levelling until it can be repaired, probably
| when you're not knee-deep in mud.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Yet despite the appliance-ification of cars, they are, on
| the whole, much safer and quite a bit more reliable than
| they were decades years ago, despite being forced to work a
| lot harder for emissions compliance.
|
| It's true that you can't fix them with a spanner, paperclip
| and pair of tights any more, but it's so much more rare
| that you have to.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not cross-examine in HN comments? This is
| in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| We want friendly curious conversation, not questions
| designed to incriminate or insinuate. You're welcome, of
| course, to make your substantive points thoughtfully.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Resetting the ECU only works if the error is a transient
| glitch in the code logic. If the failure is a physical
| sensor reading out of range?
|
| In many ECUs I've worked on, most faults are treated as
| transient until they're seen across multiple cycles.
| Resetting often does genuinely help. Sensors _do_ see weird
| transients and physically impossible values for all sorts
| of reasons.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel
| vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days.
|
| I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of
| maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they
| instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure,
| fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental stuff).
| Like take the C15 and add 2-4 decades of manufacturing and
| safety improvements, while keeping it simple and utilitarian.
| amelius wrote:
| Well, it requires a different way of thinking but that's
| exactly how cars will be built if you'd use them via a
| subscription (fuel included).
| Fiveplus wrote:
| That would be the absolute dream engineering brief. If I
| actually sit down and design that vehicle, it would have
| something like this. List, off the top of my head.
|
| 1. You keep the modern metallurgy and the crumple zones. You
| keep ABS and basic traction control because they are solved
| problems that save lives without needing cloud connectivity.
|
| 2. Instead of a 2000 USD proprietary touchscreen that will be
| obsolete in 3 years, the dashboard could be just a double DIN
| slot and a heavy-duty, universal tablet mount with a 100W
| USB-C PD port. The car provides the power and the speakers
| and _my_ phone provides the maps and music. When the tech
| improves, you upgrade your phone, not your dashboard.
|
| 3. Nobs and buttons instead of touchscreens like VW has done
| recently, if my memory serves me right.
|
| The tragedy is that regulations in the EU and North America
| make this incredibly difficult to sell. The sane
| environmental stuff you mentioned has morphed into a
| requirement for deeply integrated electronic oversight. But I
| genuinely believe there is a massive, silent majority of
| drivers waiting for a car that promises nothing other than to
| start every morning and never ask for a software update.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > The sane environmental stuff you mentioned has morphed
| into a requirement for deeply integrated electronic
| oversight
|
| Decent catalytic converters require an array of sensors,
| ECU, and ability to fine control the engine inputs to work
| - without them most large cities would become smog ridden
| hells.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| This is why late 90s cars are objectively the greatest
| ever built. You had ECUs, cats, ABS, disc brakes,
| airbags, power steering, and conventional automatic
| transmissions. Everything that makes a modern car safe
| and reliable, but none of the high tech digital BS that
| has infused things nowadays.
| dgacmu wrote:
| ESC (electronic stability control) didn't become common
| until about 2010 to 2015. It makes a really big
| difference for safety -- EU estimates are that it's saved
| more than 15,000 lives. Let's backport that one too. :)
| Glawen wrote:
| It was available already on late 90s vehicles. That was
| the fix to solve Mercedes Class A failing Elk test: put
| ESP on all trims
| wrigby wrote:
| My 2004 RX-8 had decently solid ESC, but it was a "high-
| end" vehicle at the time. It's definitely something we
| want to keep in our idealized vehicle (but let's also
| keep the "disable ESC so I can have fun" button)
| 20after4 wrote:
| I was going to make this exact comment. The RX-8 had
| excellent stability control. Saved my ass at least once
| going too fast around a 90 degree corner. It also behaved
| really well on icy roads. It was pretty incredible for a
| rear wheel drive sports car, especially impressive at the
| time compared to every other car on the road back then.
| dizhn wrote:
| I bought my first real wheel drive car in 2014. Still
| have it. It's not a race car. About 170hp. It struggles
| at the smallest curves. Good thing it has traction
| control and esp. Except all the front wheel cars I had
| before, one even slightly more powerful and smaller,
| never needed any of that. Never ever buying a rwd again.
| (Enthusiast forums of the brand tell me I don't know how
| to drive RWD. Skill issue. :D)
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| You should look into different tires perhaps.
| dizhn wrote:
| I will grant that there might be a match issue but I
| don't think Michelin Pilot Sports are bad tires.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Rwd is definitely sketchier in certain circumstances,
| especially going uphill in low traction. Also pretty bad
| in the snow generally. but I've only had issues going
| around corners when it was very wet and I was driving
| faster that the speed limit. If you are running into
| traction issues driving normally (ie not flooring it) I
| would recommend having your tires and alignment checked,
| even with RWD that should not be happening in my
| experience.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| In reality many 90s cars are phenomenal rust buckets due
| to issues in the adoption of water-based paints, cars
| which actually still have tangible amounts of steel in
| their panels are basically golden samples.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| The solution to city air pollution is a different vehicle
| with a different drive train: an EV. The C15 is a
| workhorse for farmers and craftsmen not for shopping
| trips and driving the family to visit granny on the other
| side of town.
| writebetterc wrote:
| > The solution to city air pollution is a different
| vehicle with a different drive train: an EV.
|
| Priority list should basically be:
|
| 0. Bicycles 1. Metro 2. Buses 3. EVs
|
| (not counting emergency and service vehicles)
| kergonath wrote:
| > 0. Bicycles 1. Metro 2. Buses 3. EVs
|
| -1. Feet
| fpoling wrote:
| EVs are still heavier than ICE vehicles and will for the
| next 10-20 years unless one is OK with a tiny battery.
| And heavy weight means more pollution from wheels that
| produce particles that ends up in lungs. Note brakes also
| pollutes with asbestos but EVs typically have
| regenerative braking so I think brakes pollutes roughly
| the same in a heavier EV as in ICE car.
| avidiax wrote:
| The tire pollution is true, but the brakes hardly get
| used on an EV. They are almost for emergency use only.
| Mine has a special mode to disable regeneration for a
| while so you can use the brake pads to clean the rotors.
| vincnetas wrote:
| My EV is lighter than your ICE. Volkswagen eUP. 1183kg.
| 250km range in summer conditions.
| torginus wrote:
| I love the idea of these tiny EVs. Apparently the EU's
| making some legislation for them so that they can go
| without much of the expensive 'safety' equipment such as
| driver tracking.
|
| Parking cars in cities not designed for them is a
| nightmare, but getting around with a car is so much
| faster than public transport, even if your city's is
| fairly decent.
| immibis wrote:
| tangential: people also underestimate the _convenience_
| of public transport being a one-way trip, meaning you can
| go from A >B>C>D>A and never have to go back to a
| previous spot to pick up a part of your luggage that you
| left behind.
| torginus wrote:
| Personally, when not being a tourist, almost all my trips
| are home to some place and back again.
|
| Public transport is great, but if you're going to a less
| good part of the city, or even just a place that's
| unfamiliar, and less frequented, it might be a bit more
| difficult to get around.
|
| And public transport travel distances can be patchy based
| on where the stops are, especially if you're going to the
| outskirts of your city.
|
| Also when having to be present in the office, that extra
| 15-25 mins (x2) it takes to get to and from the office
| adds up quickly.
| smaudet wrote:
| Hybrids are even better, super tiny batteries with an ICE
| on standby.
|
| If you scale size as well (like a motorcycle but e.g. as
| a tricycle for safety), you can realize some major
| efficiency improvements (doubling or tripling energy
| efficiency).
|
| Which is why, bicycles should be the focus of
| transportation improvement.
| rickydroll wrote:
| I compared the weights of EVs versus ICE, and they were
| surprisingly close. Most of time, the differences were in
| the 15% range, and then you find exceptions like the
| Hummer, which is 30% heavier. I'm sure it comes as no
| surprise That the heavier the vehicle, the bigger the
| difference in ICE versus EV weight.
|
| While I think lighter weight vehicles of all types would
| be a big win, I fear that ship has sailed. I think we
| have an opportunity to reset vehicle size both from a
| desire for cheaper and simpler vehicles. Look at cost and
| weight of the BYD EVs and the new pickup trucks from
| Slate and Telos.
|
| Overall, I find the slightly increased weight for an EV
| to be an acceptable trade-off. Brakes last longer, tires,
| depending on make, are about 10% shorter life at most and
| overall maintenance is much less. Since I keep my cars
| until the body goes toes up, I have a much lower carbon
| footprint. than the 3yr lease route
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| I had a 2010s Civic and moved to a Model 3. The curb
| weight difference was only ~3-400 lbs (about 10%), but
| the larger battery capacity, large SUV offerings are
| significantly heavier than ICE options (the F150
| Lightning is about _2,000 pounds_ heavier than an ICE
| F150, for example, 5,000 - > 7,000 lbs.).
| bee_rider wrote:
| If you give the difference in weight as a percentage, it
| is sort of surprising that the percentage is higher for
| heavier vehicles, right? Or at least I don't get it. I'd
| expect the EV to be a constant factor heavier, a total
| weight of combustion_vehicle*1.1 or something.
| kelnos wrote:
| I wonder if it's sorta like the rocket equation. A
| heavier vehicle requires larger batteries to move the
| extra weight with a comparable range as a smaller
| vehicle, but the batteries are heavy too, so you need
| even more battery to move the heavier batteries.
| 20after4 wrote:
| It's exactly that. Battery = heavy, heavy vehicle = short
| range. I wonder if ICE vehicle weight is calculated with
| a full fuel tank? Gas / Diesel is also pretty heavy and
| large vehicles have large empty spaces to be filled with
| fuel.
| nl wrote:
| Modern car brakes don't have asbestos.
|
| The difference in tyre wear is so marginal it's probably
| unmeasurable - less than the difference between running
| at the correct pressure and forgetting to check your tyre
| pressure.
|
| ICE vehicles also have exhaust pipes which pollute some
| too...
| maxerickson wrote:
| For gasoline engines, electronic fuel injection is far
| better than a carburetor, it isn't just the emissions
| systems.
|
| Sure, it's harder to work on. The trade off there is that
| you don't have to work on it.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| If you have an electric vehicle you need none of that
| everdrive wrote:
| And if people would make one that wasn't an iPad on
| wheels I'd be in line to buy.
| wrigby wrote:
| This is my exact same sentiment. I'm cautiously excited
| about the upcoming Slate Pickup[1] - I can see it being
| my go-to if I leave NYC, but it still won't hit like the
| XJ Cherokee I drove before I gave up cars for the city.
|
| 1: https://www.slate.auto/
| peatmoss wrote:
| I worry about the Slate truck being DOA with expiration
| of incentives for EVs. Someone please tell me I'm wrong,
| because if they do deliver as promised, I'll be excited
| to buy one.
|
| For me, I'm hoping it fills the mid-90s Isuzu Pup sized
| hole in my heart.
| soared wrote:
| I like the idea of a slate but the truck bed just makes
| no sense at that size. I don't understand why it's not
| defaulted to another row of seats or hatchback, with the
| option to convert to truck. 5 ft bed without extension is
| kind of pointless as a bed, but huge as a trunk.
| everdrive wrote:
| That's effectively what it is, but reverse. You buy it as
| a truck, and can buy seats & cap and turn it into an SUV.
| I see it as the closest thing you can get to a kei truck
| in the US without importing. Relatively cheap, good
| payload capacity, (better than a lot of trucks out there)
| effectively unable to tow, 5-foot bed, which is the same
| or larger than most mid-size trucks, and a tiny form
| factor.
|
| It's certainly a niche vehicle, but it looks exciting if
| it can fill you niche.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| I really want to like the slate but their speakers and
| tablet holder concept actually are awful. Just a super
| basic off the shelf din rail hole and aux in and slap the
| most basic touch screen with physical control stereo you
| can find in there that does air play and car play works
| for me.
|
| also stereo speakers in the glove box is...what
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Who cares. Literally every discussion of vehicles someone
| has to bring up infotainment systems. You know that
| getting your dopamine drip is not what a vehicle is _for_
| , right?
| klum wrote:
| Looks interesting, I wonder to what extent they really
| want to make cars DIY-able again (as they state). On the
| one hand, they mention servicing is "easy" -- just turn
| to their partner repair shop chain! On the other hand,
| there's Slate University and mention of repairability. I
| haven't followed development of this at all, so I'm
| genuinely curious. Hope it's not just "you can swap in
| and out our proprietary modules".
| nottorp wrote:
| For the price of that C15 (adjusted for inflation it
| seems) you may be able to buy a battery for an EV. Maybe.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| There's no reason technology has to be user-hostile. You
| can still have an ECU and screens and everything. When it
| breaks the screen can be used to tell you exactly which
| sensor input is out of range. There's no reason parts
| need to be serialized and learning a new part can only be
| done once.
|
| You _can_ build a modern vehicle that 's still
| repairable.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Modules need to be programmed for your vehicle specs and
| country because there are different laws and functions.
|
| For example rear taillights are different in Europe vs
| the US.
|
| Another is that higher trims of my car have a rear
| climate zone which has a different fan and actuators for
| air flow that the module needs to know exist.
| bri3d wrote:
| Sure, but the reasons programming requires proprietary
| software accessible only to the dealer via some kind of
| online access are depressing: laziness, greed, and crime.
|
| Making software that's usable by independent shops and
| consumers costs money, eliminates business lock-in to
| dealers, and boosts the gray/black market for broken or
| stolen parts, so the only reason manufacturers do it at
| all is when they are required to by regulation.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| > Modules need to be programmed for your vehicle specs
| and country because there are different laws and
| functions.
|
| So are different intervalls of oil change between
| Australia and Europe - and yet, even in the 90s, people
| were able to keep that in mind.
|
| We got taught to be helpless by the industry, so they can
| help us out. If that mindset would have existed in the
| 60s, 70s, then there would not be a "true to OEM"
| aftermarket available for car parts. We need to get back
| to that.
| notatoad wrote:
| We got taught to be helpless by the industry, so they can
| help us out.
|
| industry is pretty damn good at figuring out what
| customers actually want, instead of just what customer
| say they want and then don't actually buy.
|
| cars are the way they are because that's what the
| overwhelming majority of car buyers actually want. The
| average driver doesn't want their car spitting out error
| codes, they want a check engine light to tell them to
| take it to a mechanic, and any information beyond that is
| confusing.
| otikik wrote:
| That's just a bunch of "if"s. And they are already
| programmed. But instead of coming directly built in on
| the vehicle you need to purchase a very expensive tool
| that hooks on the port and then tells you what the
| vehicle should tell you in the first place.
| ambicapter wrote:
| What do the sensors do? There's not much you can change
| in the catalytic converter so I assume it's just reading
| temperature? So I assume it's changing the fuel/air
| combustion ratio according to the cat's temperature?
| immibis wrote:
| Not a motorhead but IIRC a combustion with too little
| oxygen produces soot (pollution) and one with too much
| oxygen produces NOx pollution, with a sweet spot in the
| middle. The exhaust oxygen sensor allows the ECU to
| adjust the air/fuel mix to hit the minimum pollution
| spot, instead of estimating it.
|
| There might also be a catalyst temperature sensor or
| something.
|
| It's not a "whole bunch" of sensors, it's a few sensors
| and it's not some inscrutable magic, it's somethijg
| someone could replicate in open-source if they had
| equipment and time. We really need to get away from the
| mindset that proprietary stuff contains inscrutable
| magic. It's often worse quality than the open thing.
| However, it does have the right connections to be allowed
| to be put in a car that drives on the road.
| Animats wrote:
| Engine control alone can be self-contained. The Ford EEC
| IV of the 1980s had its program permanently etched into
| the Intel 8061 CPU, and was designed to last 30 years. It
| did. I finally sold off my 40 year old Ford Bronco, which
| was still running on the original engine and CPU.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Maybe Framework could get into the car business.
| roland35 wrote:
| You should look into the slate truck! This is exactly what
| they are trying to do
| kaonwarb wrote:
| https://www.slate.auto
| everdrive wrote:
| How about an option just to have one of those old Ford
| radios with the huge buttons you can push with gloves on?
| And maybe an aux-in?
| nandomrumber wrote:
| So long as it also plays cassettes.
|
| My first car had the mechanical radio buttons and
| cassette player, I think you even had to turn the
| cassette over when one side ended.
| jfengel wrote:
| Incidentally, you're describing my 2020 Subaru Impreza.
| Under $20k for my dealer demo.
|
| I do wish it supported a later version of Android Auto so
| that I could run that via Bluetooth. (It does have regular
| Bluetooth but that's just audio.)
| crazysim wrote:
| Wireless Android Auto or Carplay generally use BT to
| setup but WiFi to send the bulk of the graphical data
| over.
|
| That said, there are adapters to make an existing Android
| Auto Wireless if you want it. I think some are sold on
| Amazon too so you could probably try and maybe return. I
| don't have any experience with them since I'm very happy
| with my car's built in wired Android Auto and the
| reliability of cabling but it is something you can try.
| jfengel wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it.
| cuu508 wrote:
| Were they sold with an option to have have no OEM
| infotainment? Just speakers and a phone mount?
| jfengel wrote:
| I don't think it has any OEM infotainment. I think there
| is some kind of software in there but I've never looked
| at it. It's not intrusive.
| cuu508 wrote:
| Looking at image search for "2020 impreza dash" there's a
| screen above climate controls in all images. I was asking
| if there was an option to have no sceen.
| acheron wrote:
| Backup cameras are required by regulation since the late
| 2010s. You can't sell a car with no screen.
| cuu508 wrote:
| In some countries.
| jfengel wrote:
| Oh, I see. I don't know. I doubt it. That wasn't
| something I was interested in; I use navigation very
| often. But it's my navigation tool, not theirs.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| We already had basically the solution you suggested with
| airplay/car play - USB charger with audio out that just is
| a display. when a phone isn't plugged in it shows super
| basic radio features like station and song name for AM and
| FM.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Had it and now most manufacturers are abandoning that for
| some proprietary crap that's much worse and requires a
| subscription for navigation and music streaming.
| ornornor wrote:
| > Instead of a 2000 USD proprietary touchscreen that will
| be obsolete in 3 years, the dashboard could be just a
| double DIN slot and a heavy-duty, universal tablet mount
| with a 100W USB-C PD port. The car provides the power and
| the speakers and my phone provides the maps and music. When
| the tech improves, you upgrade your phone, not your
| dashboard.
|
| Dacia does that. The base sandero comes with speakers and
| Bluetooth. The rest is up to you, there is no screen no
| radio.
| kergonath wrote:
| I am happy with Car Play as a decent middle ground. It's
| nice to have a large screen, and everything is still done
| on the phone and not on a shite computer whose components
| were cost-cut to an inch of their lives.
| klum wrote:
| I have a theory that these environmental regulations at
| least to some degree defeat themselves. They make engines
| more complicated, so more fragile and harder for an amateur
| (edit: or any professional who isn't their own brand repair
| shops) to service. They encourage smaller-block engines
| with turbos and compressors which makes the engine more
| short-lived. They produce stuff like throttle-hang and gear
| selection recommendations optimized for driving economy,
| not engine longevity (or driving experience, for that
| matter).
|
| On the whole, they seem to be contributing to this movement
| of taking power away from the end consumer and making your
| product more and more like a subscription (this goes
| further than the car industry, of course). I do realize
| that it's important to cut down on pollution! And maybe
| this kind of stuff _has_ been studied... although I imagine
| it would be very hard to do accurately.
|
| Imagine if a car manufacturer would provide service guides,
| easily-accessible part diagrams and competitively priced
| spare parts. Imagine if they optimized for longevity and if
| the handbook that came with the car had more technical
| details than it had warnings about how doing any kind of
| maintenance yourself will result in a) your death and b) a
| voided warranty. That would be pretty nice.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Did I hear right that some new vehicles are claiming
| 20,000km service intervals?
|
| I know I've seen 15,000 service intervals.
|
| This is the minimum to maintain the warranty for the
| first 3 / 5 / 7 seven years whatever.
|
| If you change the oil at every 5000k and never turn off a
| cold engine - all petrol engines have fuel wash down at
| ignition cut, but much worse when the engine is come -
| you should expect 500,000+ plus kilometres out of an
| engine barring any metallurgical problems or
| manufacturing defects.
|
| Petrol makes a poor lubricant for engines, and fucks
| engine oil. The less of it in engine oil the better.
|
| Modern engines and fully synthetic oils are way better
| than the their counterparts from my youth, but 15,000+
| kilometres service intervals are less about what engines
| need and more about what the folks over in marketing
| need.
|
| Edit: I did see a second hand commercial diesel van
| recently that had met all service requirements for the
| warranty period, x number of years or 90,000 kilometres.
|
| This meant it had logged exactly two oil changes since
| new, and the third had just been done at 90,000.
|
| 90,000k on two oil changes. Wild.
| schmuckonwheels wrote:
| >the dashboard could be just a double DIN slot and a heavy-
| duty, universal tablet mount with a 100W USB-C PD port. The
| car provides the power and the speakers and my phone
| provides the maps and music.
|
| Legally mandated backup cameras make your idea DOA.
|
| In fact, nearly everything terrible about cars in the last
| decade can be traced to regulations in some way.
|
| Wondering why transmissions are insanely complicated and
| unreliable now? Manufacturers were forced to eek out an
| extra couple MPG due to continually tightening
| environmental regulations. Something has to give.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| > In fact, nearly everything terrible about cars in the
| last decade can be traced to regulations in some way.
|
| I think the reason we even need backup cameras now is
| that visibility is so poor on modern vehicles. I think
| that in turn is due to increasing the height of the
| bottom of the windows for better airbags. I'm sure it's
| great in a crash, but visibility is also a safety
| concern.
|
| Not all of it is regulations though, but lot of common
| complaints.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| I can unlock my doors with my phone and monitor the cars
| location with my phone with cloud connectivity.
|
| This isn't required and was offered as a 5 year free plan
| with optional paid extensions after
|
| How is this bad?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Now the car company has a live feed of your location and
| the ability to unlock your car at will. That's probably
| fine unless they get hacked, at which point it abruptly
| becomes less fine.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35919133
| kasey_junk wrote:
| It's the ford transit connect. Car makers can't make money on
| them because a) for personal use they are uncomfortable and
| b) commercial buyers drive them a million miles before
| replacing them.
|
| The margin in cars is in the luxury. And for most personal
| buyers they'll get as much luxury as they can afford because
| they are contemplating their monthly cost over total price
| and leather seats cost $80 more per month on a $600 monthly,
| they'll splurge.
| HereBeBeasties wrote:
| Such a thing exists. It's called a Dacia Duster. Well,
| certainly for utility and to a lesser extent economy.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Fiat Panda 4x4 too.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| I had a Panda from the early 2010s and that was my exact
| thought reading this thread: sounds like a fiat panda.
| Surprised to see this downvoted. Did they change so much?
| testing22321 wrote:
| Downvoted because they're non-existent for north
| americans
| prmoustache wrote:
| Aren't the Fiat 500 and Panda the same car but with only
| a neo retro design on the former?
| klez wrote:
| Nope
|
| This is the original 500 https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/
| autocar.co.uk/files/images/c...
|
| This is the new 500 https://www.actualidadmotor.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/02/F...
|
| I'll ignore the 500X and 500L because, to me, they are
| completely different cars.
|
| This is the original Panda from the 80s
| https://www.hagerty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/The-
| ori...
|
| This is the Panda from the early 2000s (the one I used to
| practice for my driving license) https://upload.wikimedia
| .org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/2004_Fia...
|
| This is the more recent model https://www.motornet.it/img
| /modelli/auto/FIA/PANDA%202021_1....
|
| The Panda is a completely different design.
| prmoustache wrote:
| ok I am referring to the early 2000's design, I believe
| Fiat was using the same platform and engine and I doubt
| they would do differently now.
| klez wrote:
| Oh, ok, now I see what you mean.
| Earw0rm wrote:
| Citroen Berlingo is basically that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Modularity would be great too. Standardized connectors and
| outer dimensions for engines even between brands. Medium,
| large, small. You don't need 100 different types. Meanwhile,
| all this has been overtaken by the need to get away from
| fossil fuels as soon as we practically can. Oil should not be
| valued based on the cost of pumping it out of the ground but
| based on the cost of creating a liter of it from raw
| materials (CO2, lots of energy).
| ultratalk wrote:
| > Modularity would be great too.
|
| Unfortunately, that wouldn't pad the car companies'
| margins. What's best for th consumer is generally worse for
| the company.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Cars are highly modular. Parts are shared across as many
| models as possible. Engine series are designed to last
| 10-15 years.
|
| The car makers _increase their margins_ by keeping their
| cars modular.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Standardized connectors and outer dimensions for engines
| even between brands. Medium, large, small. You don't need
| 100 different types.
|
| There aren't 100 different types of engines. At any given
| time each auto manufacturer only has a couple different
| engines in production. Different models can get different
| variations for performance or use targets, but auto
| manufacturers are very good at standardizing within their
| company.
|
| Look at the list of Honda engines:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_engines
|
| Notice how they're grouped by series? All of the engines in
| each series share a common platform with minor changes from
| year to year. In many cases you can swap parts between
| engines within the same series. An engine series lasts
| 10-15 years. Some times the parts even carry over to the
| next series.
|
| Swapping between brands is a pipe dream, though. Forcing
| everyone to fit their engineering into a bounding box that
| has to be agreed upon by all auto manufacturers around the
| world would only lead to either unnecessarily large
| vehicles with wasted space (to leave room for future
| engineering needs) or unnecessarily complicated engineering
| to fit everything into the pre-defined allowable engine
| envelope. All to accommodate engine swaps between
| manufacturers which is never necessary for consumer cars.
| jacquesm wrote:
| We can do just that in lots of other industries.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Why don't we start with computers and software first?
| Let's eliminate all these different laptop options and
| force every manufacturer to use 3 government-mandated
| chassis sizes: Small, medium, and large. Make parts
| interchangeable with standard connectors and power
| budgets. Nobody is allowed to innovate or customize
| because we must be standardized.
|
| Where do you think we'd be now? Typing on our highly
| optimized MacBook Pros, or working on a clunky box with
| the fans whirring like a hair dryer because everyone had
| to fit a standard lowest common denominator design and
| changing it required years of regulatory work?
|
| Or how about software and operating systems? We allow two
| OS types: Server and Desktop and they all have to work
| together within standardized interfaces. Nobody is
| allowed to innovate unless it's within the regulated
| specs.
|
| Doesn't sound so good when it's applied to topics we're
| most familiar with.
|
| In any industry with high performance machines like CNC
| machines, pick and place, or precision equipment you will
| find that the parts are not modular or interchangeable
| across manufacturers either.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You do this by standardizing interconnection at both the
| physical and protocol levels, and leave everything else
| alone. Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate
| (maybe 10 years for the physical interconnects, maybe
| less for protocol since back compat is much easier
| there).
|
| This leaves people free to tweak form factors, energy
| efficiency, system capacities etc. etc.
|
| We don't need to care about the final results ("small
| medium large"), we need to care that you can connect
| things together (which also means "replace one component
| with another"). Same for automobiles and most other
| consumer technology products.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate
| (maybe 10 years
|
| Automakers already get 10-15 years or more out of their
| platforms. The same series of engines will be used across
| the their lineup for a very long time. Transmissions are
| shared across car makers, and so on.
|
| That's not a problem. The request above was for all auto
| manufacturers to have to fit into a standardized format.
|
| It would be like telling Intel, AMD and Apple that they
| all had to use the same CPU socket for 5 years and they
| all had to be interchangeable.
|
| Do you think we'd have MacBook Pros with all day battery
| life that also have 500MB/s of memory bandwidth if the
| company was forced to use a standard CPU socket that all
| manufacturers agreed on? Definitely would not. Some other
| country without such requirements would be enjoying them,
| though.
|
| It's a demand that makes less sense the closer you are to
| the subject matter.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Despite 36+ years as a programmer at more or less every
| level of computing, I don't know that much about CPU
| sockets. However, my impression is that we'd not be
| particularly limited by a requirement that a given
| physical CPU socket design (size, pinouts, power supply)
| was used for 10 years. As a self-builder, and thus
| periodic (re)purchaser of motherboards and cpus, my sense
| is that the majority of the changes to CPU socket specs
| are gratuitous and unnecessary.
|
| I could be wrong.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are purposefully obtuse and I'm not sure what joy you
| derive from it but just to take your silly strawmen:
|
| Laptops for the most part are put together from
| standardized parts and you can exchange the major ones
| (CPU, RAM, storage and often even the displays) from one
| brand to another and it will work. And if you go to
| desktop computers the range of parts that can be swapped
| out between manufacturers increases even further (power
| supplies, graphics cards, etc).
|
| The 'highly optimized MacBook Pro' is as closed as apple
| can make it because they are trying to emulate car
| manufacturers, including 'model years'.
|
| As for OS types, we have a basic common denominator, the
| boot environment and some abstractions which allow us to
| run a wide variety of operating systems on the same
| hardware.
|
| And on that hardware you can run applications, which
| either talk to the OS directly using a standardized
| interface and there usually are a number of emulation
| options and VMs that allow you to run other operating
| systems and/or their applications, usually with some
| penalty but for the most part it works.
|
| CNC machines use a lot of standardized tooling (I had a
| machine shop at some point, founded a CNC machine
| company, and I think I'm still in touch enough with this
| domain to be able to do it again if I want to today).
| Sure, you can't pull a board from one machine and stick
| it in another, but the G-code they use is for the most
| part backwards compatible to 1966 or so and it isn't rare
| at all to see a machine upgraded to the latest
| controllers and motors but keeping the frame, tooling and
| such.
|
| Cars are over optimized to the point that the cost to
| society (in terms of landfill and recycling) is immense,
| there is most likely a point where a better balance
| between up front profits and cost to society can be
| found.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I'm not being obtuse nor making strawman
| arguments. I'm trying to explain an industry I'm familiar
| with. If you're going to start with personal attacks or
| calling my input "silly" I don't know why I bother, but
| here goes:
|
| > Laptops for the most part are put together from
| standardized parts and you can exchange the major ones
| (CPU, RAM, storage and often even the displays) from one
| brand to another and it will work. And if you go to
| desktop computers the range of parts that can be swapped
| out between manufacturers increases even further (power
| supplies, graphics cards, etc).
|
| You cannot swap CPUs between laptops, obviously, unless
| you get the exact same generation CPU with the same
| footprint. This fact helps basically nobody. It is true
| that some laptops are built around the same CPUs from a
| common vendor, but the same thing happens in cars too!
|
| Major parts like transmissions are shared across many
| vehicles and vendors. The popular ZF 8HP transmission can
| be found in cars from Dodge, Audi, Jaguar, BMW, Porsche,
| Land Rover, Jeep, Volkswagen, and others for example.
|
| This patterns repeats across many major components like
| Bosch ECUs. Automakers aren't dumb. They're not custom
| making every part for no good reason.
|
| Many of the sensors and small pieces used in cars are
| generic and interchangeable. They're also available
| across a range of generic vendors.
|
| Common parts like wheels and tires are standardized with
| small variations, much like the different RAM speeds in
| computers. Windshield wipers are generic. Cars take
| generic fuel and oil.
|
| The point is: There _are_ a lot of shared and common
| parts in the automative world already. Like your CNC
| example, there are some common parts where it makes
| sense, but you can 't take the motor controller board out
| of a Haas and drop it into Mazak. You're familiar with
| this industry so I think you can see why demanding that
| all CNC vendors standardize their motor controllers and
| everything else would be a silly proposition. Likewise,
| I'm familiar with the automotive world and I'm trying to
| explain that cars _do share a lot of parts already_ , but
| demanding that everyone conform to a single set of
| standards is a silly proposition.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You say that 'there are not 100's of different engines'
| -> but there are 100's of different engines, even within
| the same manufacturer and in spite of the core being the
| same it is often extremely hard to swap an engine of the
| same basic geometry because of the different sensors,
| bolt patterns and so on. It would be trivial to require
| those bolt patterns to be standardized and for ECUs to be
| standardized to the point that they could be swapped
| between vehicles. It is the - in my opinion ridiculous -
| differentiation that leads to vendor lock-in resulting in
| the fact that even though the underlying component is
| supplied by Bosch and it is absolutely identical you
| still can't move it from one vehicle to another because
| they spliced a different plug onto it and other lock-in
| increasing tricks.
|
| The automotive world is full of such bullshit and given
| that there is no need for it (wouldn't it be nice to be
| able to swap an engine from any brand into any other
| based on a generic form factor and standardized
| interface) it is clearly all about protecting the
| profits.
|
| When you go to a VAG garage with an Audi the exact same
| part from Bosch will be 1.5 times as expensive (as will
| the mechanic that puts it in) as when you go there with a
| VW. And if you go there with a Porsche the difference
| will be even larger. And of course there will be tricks
| to make sure that the cheap parts don't fit the more
| expensive model. And that's within what is essentially
| one company, once you go outside of that your ability to
| swap parts without access to a machine shop drastically
| diminishes.
|
| That transmission you mention is a great example: you
| _could_ swap it out in theory, but in practice the
| manufacturers have made it impossible to do so, parts
| have their own identity, talk to the ECU using custom
| protocols and so on.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Yeah, but how do poor VCs make money then?
| nolok wrote:
| Definitely not with a car sold for relatively cheap that
| has a engine who refuses to die...
| Aurornis wrote:
| You think VCs fund the world's largest auto makers?
| _3u10 wrote:
| But whatever you want Toyota has a 10k truck and a jimmy is
| 15k, if you need a car a vitz can be had for 12k
| wrigby wrote:
| This comment shines a spotlight on my issues with the US
| auto market. None of these vehicles are sold in the US, for
| a variety of reasons - both economic and regulatory. I hate
| knowing that the vehicles I want to buy both exist and are
| affordable, but I just can't have them. Meanwhile, the cars
| sold in my market are all egregiously enormous, have giant
| screens inside, etc.
|
| This is the very definition of a "first world problem," but
| it sure is frustrating.
| _3u10 wrote:
| One of the many reasons I choose not to live in "the
| west".
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I wonder how differently cars would be built, if instead of
| maximizing for value extraction and crap nobody needs, they
| instead were optimized for utility and maintenance (and sure,
| fuel economy, aerodynamics and some sane environmental
| stuff).
|
| Auto manufacturers already have stripped-down base models of
| their entry-level vehicles. Many have commercial versions of
| their vehicles, especially trucks and vans, that are stripped
| down.
|
| The stripped down base models don't sell well.
|
| Remember how the internet was clamoring for an iPhone Mini?
| Whenever there were complaints about modern cell phones, you
| could find what looked like unanimous agreement that a
| smaller iPhone would be the golden ticket. Then Apple made an
| iPhone Mini, and it did not sell well.
|
| The same happens with vehicles. Whenever you find threads
| complaining about modern vehicles it seems unanimous that
| modern vehicles have too many things consumers don't want and
| we'd be better off with simple base models. Yet simple base
| models _do exist already_ and they don 't sell well. Real
| consumers look at their $20,000 Nissan Versa and realize that
| spending an extra $1-2K on amenities isn't going to change
| their monthly payment much.
|
| There is a lot of precedent for this. The Tata Nano was an
| Indian micro car that was small, low-power, and had bare
| minimum amenities. It was under $5K USD in inflation-adjusted
| dollars.
|
| It was discontinued due to low demand because sales declined
| steadily year over year. Nobody wanted it.
| soared wrote:
| Agreed - check out for example a Toyota rav4 le. This is
| the base model with effectively zero modern "subscription-
| esque" fancy features. It's got a touchscreen and power
| windows, but otherwise it's all the reliability/etc of
| Toyota and that's it. About half the price of what most
| rav4s are listed at and $20k+ cheaper than a 4Runner.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Oh no, across the line Toyota still tries to sell you a
| subscription service that's required for things like
| remote start.
| Aurornis wrote:
| So? Why would people buying the cheapest possible model
| care?
|
| Remote start is a luxury feature. Just ignore the
| subscription offer like a luxury trim option.
| nottorp wrote:
| It depends. What else is included in that subscription?
| Mirror and seat heating by any chance?
|
| Can you buy a Toyota that isn't always online? Because
| having remote start available, subscription or not,
| sounds like you can't.
| soared wrote:
| My point was you can buy a car that is primarily
| safety+capability and not luxury+subscription. My rav4
| has a touchscreen and power windows but that's literally
| it as far as convenience/luxury. ~28k a couple years ago,
| no subscription.
|
| Anything heated, remote, touch to start, etc is in the
| luxury category what gp was asking about avoiding.
| nottorp wrote:
| Depending on the weather, heated mirrors may be a safety
| feature. I'd very much like that for rain/foggy days for
| example.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This comment section went from "I don't understand why
| car makers don't sell a cheap stripped down car without
| luxuries" to "Heated mirrors and seats are very
| important" very quickly.
|
| HN comments discovering in real time why the stripped-
| down base model vehicles don't actually sell. People like
| those luxury features and they choose to pay extra for
| them.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Same procedure as every year, James.
| nottorp wrote:
| But which ones are luxury? I don't want a fucking
| infotainment system that has the fucking a/c controls on
| the fucking touch screen for example.
|
| And I'm not willing to pay 30% extra for electric and
| then wonder if it's safe to rent a cabin in the woods for
| the new year's.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It depends. What else is included in that subscription?
| Mirror and seat heating by any chance?
|
| Are you saying it is? Or is this a rhetorical question?
|
| Either way, those are again luxury features. If someone
| is in the market for those features they're not really
| looking for the base model any more.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Are you saying it is? Or is this a rhetorical question?
|
| i don't know. I'm not in the market for a new car atm.
| And considering how enthittified new cars are, I
| shouldn't be at all.
| jacobbudin wrote:
| In the United States (USD, MSRP):
|
| * 2026 Toyota RAV4 LE (base trim) - $31,900
|
| * 2026 Toyota RAV4 Limited (top trim) - $43,300
|
| * 2026 Toyota 4Runner SR5 (base trim) - $41,570
| M95D wrote:
| It has a Data Communication Module - it spies on you. If
| you try to remove that, you lose audio in the front right
| speaker.
| jfengel wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is due to dealers, who want to
| upsell. Do they even keep the base model in stock, or does
| it have to be special ordered (or today, we can give you a
| "discount" on the fancy model that still has a higher
| profit margin for us).
|
| I'm just speculating; the same reasoning wouldn't apply to
| the iPhone mini. But car dealers have a lot of incentive to
| skew the results. It takes a fair bit of willpower to say
| "I am buying this specific car I want and will go elsewhere
| if I can't have it."
| Aurornis wrote:
| Anecdotally: I helped someone look for a cheap car
| recently and the base models are everywhere on my local
| lots. YMMV and I'm sure someone will respond that their
| area doesn't have any, but in my recent experience it
| wasn't hard to find a base model at all.
|
| It's driven by consumer demand: If you can pay $30/month
| on your 5-year loan and get heated seats and a nicer
| navigation system, that's $1/day for 5 years and then you
| own it. It's easy to talk yourself into stepping up to
| something nicer that you're going to use every day.
| graemep wrote:
| I suspect you are right that this is linked to how much
| time people spend in their cars.
|
| I am quite happy with a cheap car because I do not use it
| everyday, and even when I do the majority of my journeys
| are short ones (15 to 20 min).
| jfengel wrote:
| I really wish there were an even cheaper car for that use
| case. Perhaps billed as a second car for families, where
| one is used just for commuting and errands, and the other
| is the general purpose one with a longer range. Say, with
| an 80 mile battery, two seats, and under $10k.
|
| I gather that they exist in China and might be allowed
| into the US. I'd buy one.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| I was hoping secondhand Nisan Leaf's would fit those
| criteria by now.
|
| The Nissan Leaf's biggest problem is it's the only
| vehicle in its class worth considering, or available at
| all, so secondhand ones are sold at whatever the market
| will bear.
|
| There's the Prius, but whoever is responsible for its
| styling will be the first against the wall when the
| revolution comes.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| Just as an anecdote - When I was buying my last car I
| went in and asked for just the base model with nothing
| added onto it, ie not even the "eXtra Special"
| designations, and the dealership said they probably won't
| have any for a long time and if I'd like to pay 50% more
| for one with some features added on.
|
| I declined and kept looking at the inventory of the 4-5
| dealerships nearest to me. For six months they never had
| a single base model.
|
| I started looking at another maker and they seemed to
| have base models that just wouldn't sell, stuck on lots
| for that same time period.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > and the dealership said they probably won't have any
| for a long time
|
| In my case, I told the dealerships I was okay with
| waiting up to two years to get the exact trim I wanted. I
| told them whichever dealership could get me an allocation
| first got the sale. Then I literally stood up to leave.
|
| And like magic, they went to the computer and found the
| exact trim I wanted and got my allocation a month out. I
| was extremely picky on color and options, though. If I
| had been flexible on color it would have been sooner.
|
| The sales people at dealerships will pressure you into
| upsells. They're not going to turn down an easy sale if
| you demonstrate that you know what you're doing. They
| were trying to upsell you.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| >> When I was buying my last car I went in and _asked_
|
| > In my case, I _told_
|
| Exactly.
|
| When you're paying, you don't ask, you _tell_.
|
| This is what I want, and this is what I'll pay.
|
| Don't get me started on fucking real estate agents
| either. Parasites. Real estate sells itself. Conveyancers
| / Solicitors do all the real work, and typically charge a
| set fee. Real estate agents typically charge a percentage
| and they literally _don't do anything_.
|
| The sales folk at a car dealership aren't there to help
| _you_.
|
| There is literally no situation bad enough that a car
| sales agent or real estate agent can't make worse.
| Incapacitated pilot? Fucking useless. Need a dental
| cavity filled? Fucking useless. Got a problem with your
| Goggomobil? fucking useless.
|
| Packing peanuts are more effective at their claimed
| benefits than car sales agents and real estate agents are
| at theirs.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Sometimes real estate agents do a lot. Anecdote of
| course, but my real estate agent spent a few hours
| basically every weekend with us for like 2-3 months as we
| toured 25 houses, went over ~10 inspection reports, and
| made 3-4 offers. And he and his team got roughly 20k. In
| a better housing market I think they do a lot less, but I
| know ours did a lot of work.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| That seems unlikely as I literally left and did not buy a
| car with more options and stayed in contact afterwards
| but I have seen that technique before where they suddenly
| "find" one in inventory after they realize you aren't
| going to take the option that gives them more comission.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| And yet I personally know more people who own iPhone minis
| (myself included) now in 2026 than that own pixel phones of
| any model. I think the data is distorted by the fact that
| most people who want things like that also don't typically
| buy new (especially with cars). I did buy my iPhone 13 mini
| from Apple directly, but I bought it after the 14 line had
| already been released.
| Aurornis wrote:
| HN commenters and their friends are an extremely biased
| sample set.
|
| The sales numbers don't lie about the global demand
| though.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| I loved the iPhone 4 format factor, but prefer more
| recent and larger editions for battery life and battery
| longevity.
|
| My only gripe with the 6.7 inch form factor would be
| solved if someone would just sell me a bigger hand. I
| can't hold it one handed _and_ reach the far corner of
| the screen without some obnoxious accessory like a
| Popsocket bolted to the back thereby making it impossible
| to use on a flat surface or fit in a pocket.
|
| Come to think of it, Zaphod might have been on to
| something with that third arm.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I am aware. My point was basically that the people who
| wanted them weren't lying, they really love them, and are
| willing to keep them for years even though they are
| getting slightly old now. I'm imagining this doesn't show
| up in first year sales numbers in a similar way to how
| the things people say they want in cars typically drive
| used market buying not new market purchases.
|
| I've tried to validate this hypothesis, but run into
| problems finding the data. Do you know where to find
| currently active numbers by model? I'm think something
| like browser market share charts. I've only been able to
| find numbers from the year they were released, and even
| that was as a percentage of total sales, not raw numbers.
|
| My hypothesis is that minis (13 mini and 12 mini) are
| over represented in active phones compared to other
| models of that generation.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Econo shitboxes also have very stiff competition from used
| low-end cars. The economics of them are often rather
| dubious.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| You would get the toyota hilux champ which is not purchasable
| in rich countries.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Companies would make less money because consumers just buy a
| product and keep it for generations if the product quality is
| THAT good.
|
| When companies make less money, there's less jobs. When
| there's less jobs people have less money to spend on things
| like Rent.
| ghurtado wrote:
| By now, we would have reached a quality standard of vehicles
| that are regularly passed down across several generations
| before they stop being useful.
|
| You can quickly see what a mortal sin this would be against
| our Lord and Savior, Capitalism.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Not easy I would say.
|
| Safety improvement means larger crumple zones, reinforcement,
| etc... Which mean a bigger and heavier vehicle if you want to
| keep the same capacity. That in turn means a more powerful
| engine, brakes, wheels and tyres, etc... further increasing
| the size and weight of the vehicle. This is an exponential
| factor.
|
| Fuel economy and environmental stuff (which are linked) come
| with tighter engine control for better combustion and cleaner
| exhaust. It means tighter tolerances so simple tools may be
| less appropriate, and electronics.
|
| And there are comfort elements that are hard to pass
| nowadays: A/C, power steering, door lock and windows.
| Mandatory safety equipment like airbags and ABS. Even simple
| cars like what Dacia makes are still bigger, heavier and more
| complex than older cars like the C15, they don't really have
| a choice.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I wonder what it would take to convert a modern diesel (e.g. an
| EA288 TDI) to mechanical injection.
|
| You'd have to fit a mechanical injection pump, which has a
| different sized pulley, for a start. And injectors and lines
| adapted to fit.
|
| Pretty much infeasible, I suppose.
| spwa4 wrote:
| This article is comparing a C15 new in 1984 vs a secondhand one
| today. Really, the C15 represents a time when taxes were ~20%
| lower and there was a workable steel industry in Europe (which
| destroyed certain environments, especially around the
| Ruhrgebiet, whether the exact location was in France, Belgium
| or Germany). Oh and one major problem the C15 does have is that
| despite those stats, it is considered to NOT meet emission
| standards (due to age), and so you cannot enter many cities in
| one. You can enter with a Berlingo.
|
| There is still a "C15" by the way. It's even less ugly. It's
| called the Berlingo [1]. Cheapest version is 24000euro + tax,
| or 35000 + tax for the hybrid version. Let's say in practice
| it'll run you 30000 euro.
|
| In other words, after tax and counting inflation, let's
| summarize that since 1984, European cars have about doubled in
| price. Wages in the EU have gone up about 2x, after inflation.
|
| You have to work 30000/2600 (avg wage per month, euros, in
| France) = just shy of an entire year of work if you invested
| 100% of your wage into the car. So let's say 2 years of work.
|
| (due to the EU strongly opposing equal wages across the EU,
| there is a very large difference between average wage in France
| and, say, Greece. VERY large, more than 100%)
|
| In 1977, you would have 4900FF average wage in France (in
| French Francs), and the C15 cost 62000FF. So, just about 12
| months at 100% average wage, or let's say 2 years or work,
| saving up.
|
| So, it even costs about the same.
|
| And, sadly, one is forced to admit that when it comes to
| European cars, this is a pretty damn good result for that
| company. Most EU brands have done far worse.
|
| [1] https://www.citroen.fr/vehicules/utility/Berlingo-Van.html
| pantalaimon wrote:
| > Oh and one major problem the C15 does have is that despite
| those stats, it is considered to NOT meet emission standards
| (due to age), and so you cannot enter many cities in one.
|
| At least in Germany, due to it's age it would classify as a
| historic vehicle (number plate with an H) and be exempt from
| emission standards.
| forinti wrote:
| What really makes me mad is how bumpers were made to protect
| the car and now they are these expressions of design that you
| have to protect at all costs from scratches even.
| globalise83 wrote:
| You don't HAVE to. In a no fault case you can just take the
| insurance payout and live with the damage.
| danans wrote:
| > What really makes me mad is how bumpers were made to
| protect the car and now they are these expressions of design
| that you have to protect
|
| Bumpers today are made to protect the car's occupants, not
| the car.
|
| They are the start of the crumple zone, whose purpose is to
| absorb and release most of the energy transfer of the crash
| by deforming, rather than transferring it to the passenger
| compartment.
| egeozcan wrote:
| My driving skills are probably below average. I really like
| that my car warns me of zebra crossings and can follow the car
| in front of me with a safe distance.
|
| Many of the modern car features are just useless marketing
| fluff, but there is some really good progress too.
| SenHeng wrote:
| I've got two cars that I drive regularly, a modern day BMW
| with all the bells and whistles, and an almost 20 year old
| Honda Acty Van. It's 660cc, doesn't have rear seat belts, or
| a radio, it does have power windows though.
|
| I enjoy driving both for different purposes, but I have to
| agree with you. On long distance driving (>200km), the BMW is
| safer. Cruise control, lane keeping, auto distance. It really
| makes long, multi hour drives less tiring.
|
| I wouldn't drive my Acty to the next town.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Century of the Self. Products aren't life-improving tools
| anymore they're a way to express yourself.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > If your C15 breaks down in a field, you can fix it with a
| wrench.
|
| I could. My wife couldn't.
|
| Also, let's not forget the creature comforts of modern cars...
| rear seats, airbags, sound insulation, power steering,
| automatic transmissions, 4wd.
|
| Living in the country, tool-vehicles are very useful. This is
| typically a beat up old 2wd pickup truck (lower is easier to
| load) with an 8-ft bed (so you can load full sheets of plywood)
| and a single cab (so you can get an 8-ft bed). My buddy down
| the street has one and I borrow it all the time. But you'd
| never take the family anywhere with this thing. It basically
| spends its entire life going back and forth to Lowes.
| well_ackshually wrote:
| >I could. My wife couldn't.
|
| Because she doesn't drive a C15. Believe me, rural french
| women _will_ fix a C15. There's nothing to break down
| anyways, the engine is happy to run on distilled corn and
| melted rubber for oil, the suspension is what suspension,
| three tires ought to be enough for everyone.
|
| > rear seats,
|
| There's rear benches for you whole family and space for your
| kids to play around in the back while you're driving, what
| more do you want ?
|
| >airbags
|
| Useless if you don't crash.
|
| >sound insulation
|
| What do you need to hear except the beautiful sound of the
| X-Type engine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA-Renault_X-
| Type_engine) ?
|
| >power steering
|
| Grab a phase 3, it has power steering. Or get stronger arms.
| Or stop trying to steer while you're not moving forward.
|
| > automatic transmissions
|
| You don't need automatic transmissions, you need to learn how
| to drive stick. The C15 has the added benefit that you don't
| really have a proper range to change gears, it'll just go in.
| Actually you don't even need to clutch, just jam the thing.
|
| >4wd
|
| Absolutely useless for 100% of the usages the average
| american makes of it. If it can drive through mud while
| carrying cows, it will handle anything you have to throw at
| it. 4WD sure is a nice thing to make you pay for more gas
| though.
|
| >Living in the country, it's very useful to own a tool-
| vehicle. This is typically a beat up old 2wd pickup truck
| (lower is easier to load) with an 8-ft bed (so you can load
| full sheets of plywood) and a single cab (so you can get an
| 8-ft bed). My buddy down the street has one and I borrow it
| all the time. But you'd never take the family anywhere with
| this thing. It basically spends its entire life going back
| and forth to Lowes.
|
| Alright, all kidding aside though: the US is literally the
| only country in the world that considers pickup trucks as a
| good utility vehicle _: they are the most dogshit type of
| vehicle you could own for anything, and that includes your
| sheets of plywood. Pickup trucks are not used by anyone
| serious anywhere else in the world. Need to carry a bunch of
| crap ? Buy a busted Renault Master
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Master) and it has the
| added benefit of you being able to buy your plywood in crazy
| situations like the tiniest bits of rain.
|
| The US's obsession for pickup trucks is the sign of a deeply
| unserious society.
|
| _ The Toyota Hilux makes for a good vehicle to mount weapons
| in the back, but please see a lawyer about the legality of
| mounting an M60 at the back of your car if you're not living
| in Afghanistan
| jijijijij wrote:
| > Pickup trucks are not used by anyone serious anywhere
| else in the world.
|
| Excuse me?! Pickup trucks are the sole foundation of
| motorized defense in some regions!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)
| well_ackshually wrote:
| I did mention it at the end! That said, I believe most
| legal systems in the world frown on such behaviour, and
| more crucially, they're not used for carrying your
| groceries or 2x4's. clearly Americans lack the courage to
| mount up a DShK at the back of their F150, the cowards.
| jijijijij wrote:
| Oh snap, you are right! My bad, I prematurely got overly
| excited for comedic release and then forgot to read the
| rest.
|
| But yeah, what's the point of an F150, if you don't even
| flex some heavy weaponry at Walmart? Timber and concrete
| fits the C15 just fine, it's artillery and air defense
| extensibility where it's lacking. Tho, fingers crossed,
| we may see F150 technicals by the end of the year.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Many of the things are also there because of regulation.
|
| eg:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/edgarsten/2024/07/01/mandated-a...
|
| You have cameras, sensors, gps, maps, that need to be
| updated... and all that would easily be solved by a few
| policemen with radar guns and writing fines.
| mihaaly wrote:
| > If your Range Rover breaks down in a field
|
| Do they go there?
|
| I mostly see those in parking lots occupying two spaces (a
| white one 4, once) or cruising slowly in narrow high streets.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool. I feel
| vehicles want to turn into a subscription service these days.
|
| The same cancer that turned technology from a tool to an ad
| delivery machine is affecting vehicles.
| jijijijij wrote:
| Because of the growth imperative. With essential things like
| ICE cars, phones and personal computing, we long satisfied
| need, those core business products are simply essentially
| finished/perfected. It's market, and therefore regulatory,
| failure to have gigantic corporations in positions enabling
| rent seeking and market shaping, instead of pushing true
| innovation. If Apple can't come up with something innovative,
| they need to be forced to downscale instead of creating
| artificial demand for essentially the same phone 5 years in a
| row. If VW repeatedly missed the chance to get off their
| obsolete engine platform, they need to fail.
|
| I think, Cory Doctorow's idea for regaining digital
| resilience, by "simply" opening up artificial software
| restrictions through regulation, is widely applicable and
| would also push for adequate downscaling and actual
| innovation: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/
| verisimi wrote:
| I can't believe we're still waiting for an open source car!
|
| The open source washing machine and printer still aren't here
| either... :(
| jijijijij wrote:
| I think chances are vastly better now with EVs, you probably
| could reuse the crowdfunded opensource washing machine.
| Combustion engines are simply way, way too complex. Although
| I presume the real showstopper is control electronics and
| regulatory approval for ICEs and EVs alike.
| conductr wrote:
| This. I think the entire argument and comparison is a fallacy
| because you can't just compare vehicles on utilitarian factors
| when many (most?) people are buying primarily based on
| fashion/aesthetics. Through my American eyes that C15 is dog
| shit ugly and I don't even care to read through how it measures
| up on utility because it's style is already a dealbreaker.
|
| Personally-I know I don't need a big truck, and don't have
| farm/ranch/heavy duty requirements, but SUVs are quite useful
| for normal city life in most of the US. Several times a month I
| am fully loaded for some reason or another. May as well be
| fashionable and handle well too since this is also the vehicle
| I commute in and valet at a fancy restaurant occasionally.
| nine_k wrote:
| I noticed that people often treat cars as they treat clothes.
| It's their largest and most expensive costumes.
|
| This means that fashion and looks start to play a major role,
| utility be damned. This also means that relatively minor
| details, like the exact shape of headlights, become a major
| stylistic and thus market niche differentiator.
|
| I don't think it's a new problem with cars. But it maybe
| relatively new in the utility / light truck space.
| loeg wrote:
| Modern cars break down less than older cars -- they are _more_
| reliable, not less. They generate more power, with better
| emissions. They have a wealth of creature comforts and features
| beyond what 1980s cars had.
| testing22321 wrote:
| They're also vastly safer
| jijijijij wrote:
| * For the driver.
|
| Large cars/SUVs are vastly more dangerous for everyone
| else. Visibility in modern cars is also much worse,
| regardless of size.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Sorry to go against the C15 French circle jerk, but a
| good modern SUV is safer for everyone despite being
| heavier, and a SUV.
|
| First, a good SUV is an electric SUV. Whoever had the
| experience to be behind a C15 without HEPA filters,
| something you can find in a good SUV, knows that the C15
| will kill you with its air pollution.
|
| It's worse if you are doing sport on a bike or running.
| And trail running may not save you from those C15, as
| they are pretty capable off road vehicles and are used by
| hunters and farmers.
|
| Also, the C15 has no ABS and ESP. Pierre is a lot less
| likely to crash into you with a modern SUV than a C15.
|
| Finally, the C15 has no active security. It will drive
| full speed into toddlers playing on the road while a good
| modern SUV will stop automatically. Same for cyclists and
| other vehicles.
|
| Visibility is indeed worse because the industry decided
| that a solid A pilar was more important.
| nosianu wrote:
| I'm not sure how useful it is to argue based on
| comparisons of that ancient car and new ones. Yes yes I
| know that's how it started, but I think it is obvious
| that a useful discussion is about looking at the
| principles behind that old car, and then to apply "what
| if" to modern ones.
|
| I'm making this assumption based on how utterly useless
| it is to try to have a serious discussion that's really
| about that old car vs. a new one. I mean, would anyone
| even think about producing those same old cars with their
| old technology? Obviously not.
|
| I think, in my discussions, not just this one, it would
| help us all A LOT if we didn't try to win an argument and
| limit ourselves to interpret the other people's comments
| in the most restricting way. Let's assume we are here to
| learn something other than finding ways to be
| "technically correct".
| speedgoose wrote:
| Sorry, the statement that a shitty C15 is safer than a
| modern SUV is too hard to ignore. Overall, my statement
| isn't to take very seriously though.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not quite. The statement was that the C15 is safer for
| people outside of the car than the modern SUV.
|
| If I had to get hit by a car, I'd much rather it be the
| C15 than the modern SUV. I'm much less likely to survive
| the SUV hitting me.
|
| Now you can make the argument that other modern safety
| features make it less likely that the modern SUV would
| even hit you in the first place (given automatic
| emergency braking, etc.), and I suspect you might even be
| right, but I think that requires some data to back it up.
| speedgoose wrote:
| When I wrote everyone, I meant people inside and outside.
|
| The statement wasn't specific to collisions but you are
| free to prefer being hit by a C15. As for myself as a
| pedestrian, I am not sure. The modern SUV is bigger but
| modern cars have improve safety for pedestrians. Mostly
| much softer and taller bumpers. It's not perfect but from
| the ncap YouTube videos, I may prefer the modern SUV.
|
| If we go with empirical data, I suggest test crashing all
| those C15.
| testing22321 wrote:
| ABS, traction control, lane assist, crumple zones and
| many more things benefit everyone on the road.
|
| Of course the emissions from that old diesel are a major
| health hazard. I'd rather not have that drive past my
| yard where my toddler is playing.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Both are true. New vehicles are more reliable and safer. New
| vehicles are vastly harder to maintain by a home auto
| mechanic.
|
| I don't know enough to say whether realizability requires
| lower DIYability.
| Paianni wrote:
| Modern engines are generally more reliable, yes. And
| galvanised steel and aluminium has helped chassis' and bodies
| last longer too. I think the 'sweet spot' has passed for most
| car categories though, the last being city cars when they got
| mandatory infotainment systems towards the end of the 2010s.
| ghurtado wrote:
| The reliability of a vehicle isn't just the frequency of
| breakdowns.
|
| It's the frequency of breakdowns times how fucked you are
| when it does break down.
|
| So the actual math also depends on your means and where you
| live.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Declining service revenue has been a problem for car
| dealerships for a long time. EVs are only making it even
| harder as their maintenance needs are reduced further.
|
| This is another topic where people look back on the past with
| rose colored glasses. At the risk of downvotes, this happens
| a lot on HN like in threads where people speak about their
| pre-SSD era computers as being faster and snappier than
| modern machines. I recently found my old laptop in storage
| and booted it up. I remember loving how fast it was at the
| time and being glad I spent extra for the fastest model at
| the time, but oh boy was it _slow_ relative to anything I use
| today.
| torginus wrote:
| EVs are not more reliable in general, at least not
| according to the stats. And a lot of them haven't been on
| the road for long enough to know how their running costs
| will look like when they are a decade or two old.
|
| There's just been an article here on HN, that BMW installed
| a crash safety fuse that triggered on a minor fender-bender
| and killed the battery. It was WELDED in, and even after
| getting to it with a torch and installing a new one, the
| ICU needed to be hacked to accept the new part.
|
| They're also full of proprietary parts, basically you have
| entire car functions integrated to the same PCB, which are
| essentially unrepairable.
|
| I hope I'm wrong, but I guess there'll be a major
| disillusionment with EVs once these cars get to 10-15 years
| and people find out in mass, that it's no longer economical
| to fix them.
|
| I'm not an EV hater, I'm more of a pessimist - when it
| comes to manufacturers, I'm kinda 'pricing in' the worst
| behavior.
| Aurornis wrote:
| EVs aren't immune to design problem or recalls.
|
| However they don't have as much routine maintenance
| overhead as ICE engines. No oil changes, regenerative
| braking reduces brake pad and rotor wear, etc
| torginus wrote:
| In practice however, most manufacturers mandate a yearly
| inspection when the car is in warranty, and after it's
| not, usually the state requires you to do one at least
| every other year.
|
| During these the mechanic will do the routine
| maintenance. I'm a casual driver, I drove like 100k km in
| 6 years, and my first set of brake pads still haven't
| worn down.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I didn't claim they were maintenance-free. They still
| have moving parts and some fluids.
|
| They do not have the same level of moving parts, wear
| items, and fluids as an ICE engine though.
| everdrive wrote:
| > They have a wealth of creature comforts and features beyond
| what 1980s cars had.
|
| I don't want these, I don't want to pay for them. They raise
| the cost and they're unavoidable. This is a NEGATIVE, not a
| positive.
| kelnos wrote:
| For you. Everyone's tastes are different. I remember riding
| around in cars in the 80s, and I much prefer the comfort of
| my current modern car, enough to make some trade offs
| around the annoying computerization of it.
|
| I suspect that there are more people around with my tastes
| than yours, and that's a driver of sales.
| jijijijij wrote:
| > The C15 represents a time when a vehicle was a tool.
|
| I don't think that's true, the car as mere tool is romantic
| anachronism. Back then, cars were central _identitarian_
| elements to the post-war, western promise of salvation. Whole
| cities were torn down and rebuild to fit the car. The car had
| ideological significance. I think, identitarian attachment to
| the car is actually less today, but due to the historic
| importance and focus, cars have become unconditional
| necessities in many places.
|
| I think the reason, you frequently see "old cars as tools" in
| southern Europe still, is the fact most regions there only
| started industrialization after 1970 and were/are still greatly
| underdeveloped/relatively poor, compared to eg. early
| industrialized nations like Germany, which are super car-
| centric. They suffered less car adaptation at the time and as a
| consequence e.g. SUVs would be rather impractical in some
| places with extremely narrow streets. Additionally, (remaining)
| farmers in e.g. Germany are almost exclusively rather rich
| entrepreneurs managing industrialized food production on flat,
| boring lands, than "poor peasants" caring for traditional farms
| in remote villages living off tourism somewhere pretty.
|
| Probably less due to zeitgeist/mentality, but rather geography,
| historic economic abilities and availability.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Can you give an example of a European city that was "torn
| down and rebuilt to fit the car?"
|
| In my experience, even cities that suffered a lot of war time
| damage (Hamburg, Dresden) were rebuilt with every street in
| exactly the same place with the same narrow width.
| jijijijij wrote:
| It's a bit hyperbole, of course, and I was speaking to the
| sentiment of the time. In Germany Cologne would be an
| example of heavy car-centric development, coming to mind,
| but pretty much any city in West-Germany suffered this fate
| to some extent. I think there are far more drastic examples
| in America, but I am not knowledgeable about that.
|
| > Das Konzept der autogerechten Stadt wurde in West-
| Deutschland beim Wiederaufbau der im Krieg zerstorten
| Stadte umgesetzt, beispielsweise in Hannover (durch den
| damaligen Stadtbaurat Rudolf Hillebrecht), Dortmund, Koln
| und Kassel, aber auch in kleineren Stadten wie Minden und
| Giessen. _Dabei wurde in grossem Umfang auch erhaltene
| Bausubstanz abgerissen._ Vielfach wurden Stadtteile ohne
| Berucksichtigung soziookonomischer und kultureller Faktoren
| zur Anlage von Durchgangsstrassen zerschnitten.
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogerechte_Stadt
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| C2V ?
| jancsika wrote:
| > modern complexity is the enemy of reliability
|
| There are years-long threads dozens of pages long on
| priuschat.com with data files posted by wizards just to figure
| out the 12v charging pattern.
|
| The vehicle itself will probably stop running before any of
| these wizards ever figure that out, or even understand the
| algorithm it uses to occasionally run the engine in EV mode.
|
| And yet, I speculate the total runtime of any year of that
| vehicle will match what you see for the much simpler Citroen
| C15-- essentially, bounded only by however long the wizard
| wants to drive it.
|
| Edit: preemptively-- the Prius driver can drive their Prius _on
| roads appropriate for that type of vehicle_ for as long as they
| want. Citroen obviously can go more places-- my upshot is just
| that the glaring complexity of a Prius doesn 't seem to have
| gotten in the way of its reliability as the author assumes it
| should have.
| immibis wrote:
| It's not just vehicles. It's everything, as it's caused by
| changes that happened to the highest-level command structures
| of our economy.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >They have no ECU to brick, no adblue sensors to fail and put
| the car into limp mode
|
| Which means they are some of the most polluting and wasteful
| cars available. ECUs are _good_. They make cars safer, more
| reliable and more efficient. Car manufacturers had to be
| dragged kicking and screaming to add adblue, because the Diesel
| engines are pretty toxic otherwise.
|
| The apologia for old cars is just insane, they are not what you
| think they are.
|
| >If your C15 breaks down in a field, you can fix it with a
| wrench.
|
| This is just delusional.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| A 1984 Ford Ranger with a bed cap would compare favorably to
| the C15.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| The Peugeot XUD engine that powers the Citroen C15 (and a whole
| bunch of other European cars of similar vintage) is what most of
| the small Ford diesels were based on, right until they got into
| the "wet belt" nonsense.
|
| I have "repaired" one that was used to power a small fishing boat
| (it came out of a Xantia, and the hydraulic pump was used to
| operate the shooting gear). The boat sank and the engine
| compartment was flooded with sea water for about a week. It
| started up and ran quite happily after draining what was
| approximately a 50/50 mix of sea water and sludgy engine oil and
| putting fresh in, then removing the injectors and cranking it to
| blow the water out of the cylinders.
|
| It never quite ran right after that and was hard to start, and
| five or six years later the boat's owner replaced it with another
| Xantia engine, this time the turbocharged version.
| eloisant wrote:
| He's mixing US/UK vs France and 1985 vs 2025.
|
| Today, Citroen's equivalent offering is the Berlingo. Starts at
| 26k, not as much of a tank as the other cars but still way more
| massive than the C15.
| geremiiah wrote:
| There's the Citroen Nemo. It's a more compact version and I
| believe closer in size to the older panel vans. The new
| Berlingos are wider and taller than they used to be.
| msk-lywenn wrote:
| The C15 was produced up until 2006.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Good luck fitting a full palette in a berlingo though
|
| https://images.caradisiac.com/images/0/9/8/4/190984/S0-route...
| khnov wrote:
| The berlingo, especially up to 2014, are tankier, ther're known
| with the name B9 (vin starts with that) diesel 1.6 hdi has
| proven resilience)
| haspok wrote:
| Today's C15 is called... the Dacia... Dokker?
|
| Dacia takes "obsolete" Renault technologies and sells them for
| dirt cheap.
|
| Good news everyone, the Dacia Sandero might have been a laugh
| 20 years ago, but today Dacia are doing really well.
| giorgioz wrote:
| In Italy we had similar memes for the (old) Fiat Panda 4x4
| melenaboija wrote:
| Best car on snow ever. Like next one does not come even close.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed, light and 4x4 is the best combo. I think the Citroen
| 2CV was pretty impressive as well and they did have that dual
| engine version (though it was never sold to the public).
| ryukoposting wrote:
| There's practically a whole meme genre for the first-gen
| Renault Twingo.
| riffraff wrote:
| the Amazon's Grand Tour episode which compared the Jeep
| Wrangler, a Chevrolet Silverado, and Panda 4x4 as jungle cars
| was highly satisfying.
| pards wrote:
| A 1980s Toyota Hilux would give it a run for its money
|
| https://youtu.be/Yl1FNX08HFc
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Toyota Hilux are in their own category. They are literally
| combat proven.
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/42/42/93424282cbcafce0ad81...
| layer8 wrote:
| It doesn't look like it would fit three cows.
| tmilard wrote:
| Lovely. Of only they could make some in todays's world of new
| cars....
| mog_dev wrote:
| My dad got rid of his C15 after driving 1 million kilometers with
| it (rural France) The engine was fine surprisingly, the body was
| rusted to the bone though
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's fairly typical. I had a diesel from that era and it
| ended up in a boat when it already had 750K on it... it is
| still going as far as I know.
| delichon wrote:
| Can you fit an 8'x4' sheet of plywood in it? My pickup truck
| wants to know. But it doesn't have to worry, because my other
| main use for it is as a large gas powered wheel barrow for
| carrying yard waste, and the little enclosed C15 can't compete.
|
| In fact it looks like the love child my Ford F350 and a Citroen
| C2. But it can't be because I had the Ford fixed.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Can you fit an 8'x4' sheet of plywood in it?
|
| If you keep the rear doors open, the cargo platform is 1644 by
| 1540 (mm), 8x4 would be 2438 by 1219.
|
| Most likely you'd just put sheet goods on the roof (and yes
| roof racks for panel vans were common, still are).
|
| > my other main use for it is as a large gas powered wheel
| barrow for carrying yard waste, and the little enclosed C15
| can't compete.
|
| You can certainly put yard waste in a C15, though people
| usually use a trailer for that (unless there's little enough of
| it it fits in a large builder / garden bag).
| mrweasel wrote:
| Someone pointed out that a lot of US builders will drive
| pickups truck, and that it's kinda doesn't make sense, why
| don't they drive a van? Depending on the trade and location
| builders and contractors here will drive something like a VW
| Transporter, Mercedes Sprinter, Toyota HiAce or a Peugeot
| Partner. The Sprinter will fit e.g. your plywood, others will
| have mounts on the side or roof to transport material.
|
| They won't act as a large wheelbarrow though, not well at
| least.
| delichon wrote:
| None will tow my 30' fifth wheel very far.
| kube-system wrote:
| Tradespeople in the US often have both vans and trucks,
| depending on how they want to use them. Both are very common.
| sgt wrote:
| There's not enough room in a van. You need a F350 super duty
| to properly haul stuff.
| criddell wrote:
| When my kids were small, we bought a minivan and it was pretty
| awesome. I really hadn't thought much about it until...
|
| A couple of years ago, I rented one to help my kids move into
| college. It was a Chrysler of some kind and now I'm kind of
| tempted to buy one. The seats disappear into the floor and then
| you can carry full sheets of plywood. It's front wheel drive
| and drives like a car. Super comfortable, super configurable,
| good visibility, lots of cup holders, climate controls, power
| outlets, and reasonably fuel efficient (for what it is). But
| it's just sooooo dorky.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Most people who live in rural Britain today are still getting
| around in hatchbacks or estates (station wagons, to use the
| American term). The enormous SUVs are almost entirely driven by
| people who've used their money to buy into the countryside
| aesthetic.
| lbreakjai wrote:
| That's why those big SUV are nicknamed "Chelsea tractors"
| bubbasugga wrote:
| This thread is so sad. A population in decline.
| talkingtab wrote:
| I'm sold. Where can I buy one!
| Padriac wrote:
| I have the Ford Ranger with the 2 litre biturbo diesel engine in
| Australia. It is so good it's hard to conceive that a better
| vehicle could be possible.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| If that's the one with the wet timing belt, then I can think of
| one way to make it better!
| nicbou wrote:
| I had a Renault Kangoo and was similarly militant about its
| supremacy. It was a cheap, reliable thing and people carrier. It
| could fit five people, or two people, two bicycles and plenty of
| camping gear. It was cheap and ugly enough to shrug about
| cosmetic damage, so I never worried about kicking the doors shut
| or sitting on the roof. It was also tiny and easy to drive and
| park. It was mechanically simple and reliable.
|
| It broke down recently at 18 years of age and I can't justify
| maintaining a car in Berlin, but I loved that car to bits.
| indiantinker wrote:
| Designed in the era of Use-maxing vs Status-maxing. I think
| modern cars are taking a lot of car experience out and putting in
| the phone experience in. My Maruti Suzuki 800 was such a fun car
| to drive. Easy to repair. Decently efficient. Repair manual was
| understandable.
|
| The new electrics are great. But they are less of a car and more
| of a transportation technology.
| finghin wrote:
| It's incredibly grating to get into my mom's car and see a FYP
| on her dashboard with podcast recs. It makes me feel like I
| woke up on the moon. It just makes no sense and it's clearly
| harder (for her, and in general) to use than an old-school car
| radio.
|
| It doesn't help (but still besides the point) that they
| typically give the impression of being a stripped back Moto G4
| a couple years out of updates.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| fourgonnette! Thanks to this post now i know where the spanish
| version of the word comes from! Furgoneta!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| "This Mastodon server is a friendly and respectful discussion
| space for people working in areas related to EU policy."
|
| "The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the
| US.
|
| A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run over
| toddlers without even noticing."
|
| Lovely people as always. Would you like to live neighbours with
| this person, or share communal facilities with him?
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Would you like to live neighbours with this person, or share
| communal facilities with him?
|
| Sure why not? Because they made that comment? It's not that
| they buy trucks because they are much taller than a short
| person but they still are. I'd rather not live next to the
| person with the dangerous truck.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If you can read people, you know a person like this is going
| to be constantly invading your privacy, inventing conflicts
| and complaining. Probably trying to make you join in his
| vendetta against some neighbour, and if you decline he will
| make a vendetta behind your back against you.
|
| These kind of people are so easy to spot once you have some
| experience.
| bilkow wrote:
| Are you saying that the author engaging in online activism
| and presenting very common criticisms of SUVs in a
| sarcastic way somehow implies they're bad neighbors?
| Hamuko wrote:
| I'd rather live next to that guy than a guy with a big-ass
| truck, since I walk around my neighbourhood quite a lot.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| the neighbour with a big-ass truck will help you shovel your
| drive-way, and invite you to a barbecue. This guy will leave
| an angry note on your door because you forgot your porch
| light on, or infringed on his laundry time.
| jacekm wrote:
| > Would you like to live neighbours with this person
|
| Sure, because he has a sense of humor.
| bubbasugga wrote:
| Their cynicism is cope. They are witnessing their own decline
| every single day. It's honestly so sad. On the other side of
| the globe there is Tesla [1]. Even if you don't like the idea
| of cars, this is the pinnacle of a utilitarian product. Also
| one of the most popular vehicles (globally) as opposed to the
| (incorrect) example used in the thread.
|
| Modern cars are great for the most parts. More comfortable,
| more safe, more autonomous, bigger, better and faster. Of
| course not all cars are created equal.
|
| Cars are a resilient mode of transport. Even if road
| maintenance stops for 30 years due to some kind of crisis, a
| society with cars will be way more functional than one that was
| solely reliant on a centralized transportation system. And this
| is not an unrealistic scenario, people are just used to the
| last 80 years of peace due to rapid economic growth and
| globalization.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ve_ttBEPw
| wkoszek wrote:
| In Poland it was Polonez Caro:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Polonez
| quotemstr wrote:
| What a hideous hunk of sheet metal
| jcpst wrote:
| First off, I agree with the point made, though I think a more
| reasonable comparison would be something like a subaru. The
| people I know who have to deal with excessive snow or mud on
| country roads commonly opt for that. Of course there's the "men"
| who compensate for their lack of buldge with 350s, dualies, etc.
| If you don't work a farm, those whips are dummm.
|
| That was a good perspective though- I grew up hearing Citroen
| makes garbage.
|
| Side note- The vast majority of pollution is from industry. By a
| lot. That is where the finger needs to be pointing. Pointing the
| finger at SUV drivers distracts from the real issue and keeps us
| blaming each other.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| > I think a more reasonable comparison would be something like
| a subaru
|
| Yeah, I get this is tongue-in-cheek but if you're going to try
| to convince Americans of this idea, you need to use units we
| understand, and a car we've heard of.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Maybe that's why Subarus are stereotyped as a lesbian car in
| the US. Instead of grandstanding, they "get the job done" (as
| the Chappell Roan song goes).
| otterley wrote:
| Unless you're in the Pacific Northwest, in which case, they
| are issued to every new resident (myself included). Traded in
| my Ford Explorer for a Subaru Outback and could not be
| happier.
| loeg wrote:
| AWD has regulatory advantage in Washington state (you're
| allowed to go over the mountain passes without snow chains
| in most conditions, even though a RWD or FWD vehicle with
| snow tires would be just fine in the same conditions), and
| Subarus are all AWD. I think that's part of it.
|
| When I bought a new car last year, I made sure to get AWD
| -- not because I have any specific need for AWD
| performance, but because of this stupid special treatment
| in Washington law.
| otterley wrote:
| FWIW I bought a couple pairs of traction control cables
| for the Outback, just in case. I don't know that I'll
| ever need them, but better to have them and not need them
| than need them and not have them.
|
| I've used them on 2WD vehicles in the past and they're
| way easier to install than old-school chains, since
| they're self-tensioning. Super Z cables, if anyone is
| interested.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Genuine question: what about the NOx?
|
| I remember in Belgium when the laws pushed for lower CO2, and you
| got an influx of all these diesel engines, as you couldn't get
| that low with gasoline engines (that had some power).
|
| But a few years later people came to the realization that CO2 is
| the least bad of the global warming gasses, and those diesel
| engines emitted a lot of NOx.
|
| Every year there was a distance that you'd have to drive before
| diesel made sense (as you get more miles out of a gallon, and it
| was cheaper per gallon).
|
| That number kept on creeping up due to new diesel taxes, and the
| fact that diesel is no longer cheaper per unit than gas.
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| Don't forget pm2.5 ! Especially since this doesn't have an
| DPF(diesel particulate filter).
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Off topic: That comma in the title really grates on me. It's
| supposed to be "dramatic pause" or something, but it can also be
| read as "pause while I check my notes to remember what the name
| of this thing actually is".
|
| Hat tip to Joel Garreau, from whom I stole this reading of that
| kind of comma.
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| How casually people here are ignoring NOx and especially PM2.5.
| It has no DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter). You are emitting more
| than 200 times the amount of pm2.5 than a modern diesel.
| source:https://www.nanoparticles.ch/archive/2011_May_PR.pdf
| https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-20-02-oa-0081
|
| Also this car has only has 60hp.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > Also this car has only has 60hp.
|
| And it weighs less than half of the other two (less than a
| ton), so less power is needed.
|
| I agree though, the C15 is slower than the other two, but less
| than you'd perhaps think.
|
| I own a Citroen 2CV. It has some of the same qualities: super
| robust, incredibly off-roady, simple mechanically, but I take
| my "regular car" (2017) for road trips > 100km...
|
| I've done numerous long road trips in the 2CV though, before I
| got the other car. Some longer than 1000km.
|
| I agree with the TFA, that many overestimate their needs, but
| older cars are also less luxurious - obviously!
|
| The post is a hot take, slightly tongue-in-cheek, isn't it? :)
| seabrookmx wrote:
| It's also unsafe. He's comparing it to a modern Ranger, not the
| Ranger of the same year as the C15 (which was much smaller and
| got better fuel economy), and he completely ignores the fact
| that the Citroen wasn't sold in North America.
|
| He seems to imply there would be no appetite for one here but I
| disagree. In western Canada I see imported Kei trucks
| everywhere and these fill a similar niche!
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Safety is relative.
|
| Ranger crashes into C15: Ranger wins, C15 passengers dead.
| Ranger crashes into human: Ranger wins, human dead.
|
| C15 crashes into C15: Tossup. C15 crashes into human: C15
| wins, but human is less dead.
|
| The whole concept of car upsizing all the time is about that:
| If you crash into another moving object, you want to be the
| winner.
|
| Understood. Buy a tank.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| That's fair if you only account for usage emission. The
| compared tanks weight 2/3x as much (more ressources to extract,
| manufacture, transport...) and are made of intricate polymers,
| composites, wires & electronics... event the metal alloys are
| very technical (saving them to weight even more) and can't be
| recycled into newer car. Old cars are mainly... steel.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Mine had the HDi engine with DPF and 70hp.
|
| Citroen were the first to make DPF standard.
|
| Also, I would like to kindly remind you of the concept of
| "time". This was 25 year ago. The alternatives would have been
| worse. These days a C15 would be electric.
|
| Obviously the OP is tounge-in-cheek, so keep it lightly.
|
| But it does have merit: If you wish to measure your
| environmental footprint, you must look at the total lifetime of
| car, most importantly the manufacturing part. There is a
| difference between 900 KG of parts for a C15 vs 1,900 - 2400 KG
| for a Ford Ranger. These days most PM come from braking.
| Stopping 2000 KG will obviously cause more emissions from the
| brakes than stopping 1000 KG.
|
| All in all, the point really is: The ratio between weight/size
| of the car itself and what is inside (people and/or server
| racks) has gotten completely out of hand. No, you do not need a
| 2,000 KG tank to move your 50-100 KG of flesh around. It's
| insanity, no matter if your care about the planet or not.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| The French seem to be very thoughtful people who solved multiple
| pesky problems permanently:
|
| 1) Guillotine for the super rich
|
| 2) Nuclear to power >70%
|
| 3) C15 for people, cows, craftsmen, mini house
|
| 4) TGV
|
| 5) french fries for the fastest carbohydrate delivery, handily
| beating rice
|
| I wish they bring back the first 3 and do some shorts, market
| them to the world. Fries are doing fine.
| eeeficus wrote:
| French fries is not a french invention AFAIK but belgian!
| jfengel wrote:
| There is considerable argument over it.
| isodev wrote:
| Yup, French fries are Belgian. Also - it's important to cook
| them twice, otherwise it's just McDonalds and not real French
| fries.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Tbf McDonalds is also double fried, just the first time
| happens before they are flash frozen and sent to the
| restaurant.
| isodev wrote:
| Okay, I didn't want to elaborate the entire recipe :)...
| was just a way of making a small joke by making it sound
| like the Champagne wine region.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Sysco does or used to sell a french fry that was
| indistinguishable from McDonald's when cooked similarly.
| They had a catalog that visualized lined up individual
| representative french fries.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| That's how my grandfather made them using peanut oil.
| Blanch and then fry, with a thermometer in the oil.
| boobsbr wrote:
| Met ossenwit.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Also the French have the great Antoine-Augustin Parmentier,
| early and famous potato proponent. Do they even want credit
| for such a basic dish?
| speedgoose wrote:
| That's not true.
|
| https://www.rtbf.be/article/cuisine-la-frite-vient-elle-
| de-f...
|
| https://www.news.uliege.be/cms/c_10630394/fr/les-grands-
| myth...
| Arodex wrote:
| The guillotine wasn't for the super rich, but for the
| privileged by birth. The equivalent would be to guillotine the
| nepo babies (and the Ivy League administrators who rubber stamp
| their admission).
|
| Or fix inheritance. And by fix I mean tax as hell.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Most guillotined were commoners [0] - not the wealthy nor the
| intelligentsia.
|
| > Or fix inheritance. And by fix I mean tax as hell
|
| If France can't fix it [1] after politically powerful
| billionaires stymied it [2], neither can the US
|
| [0] - https://theconversation.com/the-french-revolution-
| executed-r...
|
| [1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2025/10/31/fre
| nch-l...
|
| [2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-
| lvmhs-arna...
| vdupras wrote:
| The statistics cited in the article you cite talks about
| the Nobility/Clergy/Other classification. There is no
| wealth-related statistic. It's entirely possible that a
| good fraction of the "Others" category were wealthy
| bourgeois.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Even in the height of the revolution, the nobility
| largely retained it's control [0]. And at the end of the
| day, le Directorate, the Napoleon regime, the Louis
| Phillips regime, and the Napoleon III regime continued to
| maintain the power of the bourgeois.
|
| If the bourgeois had been completely purged in the French
| Revolution, then the crackdown of the 1848 Revolution
| (and the subsequent exodus of French republicans and
| socialists), 18 Bumaire, the Bourbon Restoration, and
| other successful power grabs by the bourgeois following
| the French Revolution wouldn't have happened.
|
| Heck, much of the Council of 500 were themselves either
| mid-level aristocrats or the children of ancien regime
| enforcers as was seen with Talleyrand, Barras, Duke of
| Parma, Lebrun, and the Bonaparte family, along with
| members of the Directorate like Carnot, Barras, and
| Merlin.
|
| There's a reason Marx termed the French Revolution as a
| "bourgeois revolution", why Max Scheler classes the
| French Revolution as a revolution driven by
| _ressentiment_ (the Nietzchean concept that underlies
| elite overproduction), and how Bourdieu came to his
| thesis on "cultural capital" (which can also help
| explain the contemporary rise of left- and right-leaning
| populism).
|
| In essence, who is more elite - an L6 at Google earning
| $600K TC who graduated from UC Irvine and whose parents
| were union employees, a Senior Editor at the NYT earning
| $130K TC who graduated from Yale and whose parents were
| lawyers, or a Congressional Chief of Staff who graduated
| from UChicago and whose parents immigrated from Taiwan on
| an H1B to work at Intel?
|
| The answer is they are _all_ members of the elite. It was
| the exact same with the leadership of the French
| Revolution, and the subsequent regimes.
|
| It's the same reason why Mao's dad was a rural landlord,
| why Lenin's dad was a State Councillor, why Ho Chi Minh's
| father was a Confucian scholar, why Pol Pot's father was
| a rural landlord with ties to nobility, and Che Guevara's
| father an Argentine engineer who immigrated from Ireland.
|
| [0] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/650023
| vdupras wrote:
| You're being beside the point. All I'm saying is: don't
| conflate "nobility" and "bourgeois" in your statistics
| and analysis. In the context of the French revolution,
| they're not the same.
|
| Of course the bourgeois weren't purged in the revolution.
| It's them who took power through that revolution.
|
| > The answer is they are all members of the elite. It was
| the exact same with the leadership of the French
| Revolution, and the subsequent regimes.
|
| _no_. Bourgeois, prior to the revolution, were _not_
| part of the elite. It 's difficult to imagine, but there
| was a time where there wasn't such a direct correlation
| as today between wealth and power.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > don't conflate "nobility" and "bourgeois" in your
| statistics and analysis
|
| Yet it was mid-level aristocrats that were
| overrepresented in the Directorate and the Council of
| 500.
|
| > no. Bourgeois, prior to the revolution, were not part
| of the elite. It's difficult to imagine, but there was a
| time where there wasn't such a direct correlation as
| today between wealth and power
|
| Yes. I know, but the initial conversation is based on
| correcting the a revisionist meme that the French
| Revolution was a quasi-communist revolution, when in
| reality it was just a form of inter-elite fratricide -
| especially between mid-level aristocrats and the church
| and a subset of royalists.
|
| All the revolution did was cleave the bourgeois from the
| third estate, and merge them along with the second and
| first estates.
| vdupras wrote:
| > meme that the French Revolution was a quasi-communist
| revolution
|
| It's not a meme. There's clearly a collectivist movement
| within the revolution, it's just that this force failed
| to take power. The "revolution de Fevrier", in 1848 was
| precisely this: Paris going full collectivist, abolishing
| property and all, then small land owner from the
| provinces freaking out and all come to Paris to whoop
| them.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > There's clearly a collectivist movement within the
| revolution, it's just that this force failed to take
| power
|
| And there was a much more powerful core of leaders who
| were the children of the various types of elites within
| the ancien regime.
|
| Almost the entire history of France the century after the
| revolution was authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian rule
| with the collaboration of intellectual, economic, and
| religious elites.
|
| And this is why Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, and
| other flavors of Communists take a dim view of the French
| Revolution.
|
| If a revolution between the cultural elite and the
| capital elite just led to the pre-eminence of the capital
| elite and their co-opting of the cultural elite, that
| means the revolution basically had no positive impact for
| the overwhelming majority of the French subaltern of the
| 19th century.
|
| And don't get me or my extended family started about
| French colonialism.
| vdupras wrote:
| It's weird, I feel like we're arguing over saying the
| same thing. Sure, I agree, but please don't say it's a
| meme.
|
| Sure, it didn't take power, sure, the bourgeois were
| stronger, but they still managed to overthrow the forces
| of Louis-Phillipe. Internet wasn't invented yet, memes
| couldn't depose kings.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Guillotine for the super rich
|
| You know modern France has the exact same problem of
| billionaire lobbying and media consolidation that the US has
| right?
|
| Arnault (LVMH) [0], Trappier (Dassault) [1], Niel (Illiad) [2],
| Lagardere (Lagardere SA) [3], Bollore (Bollore Group) [4] and a
| couple others have an inordinate amount of control over French
| politics. It's also why whenever a country like China, the US,
| India, or others wants to hold the EU by the balls, they end up
| tariffing Congac, because Arnault's LVMH has a near monopoly on
| Congac production in France, so he almost always pressures
| Macron into acquiesing because otherwise he would threaten to
| back the RN.
|
| Both France and the US are similarly ranked flawed democracies
| [5] with similar dysfunctions.
|
| Also, immediately following the revolution, the guillotiners
| ended up doing it _for_ the rich [6], as the French Revolution
| ended up leading to the re-establishment of authoritarian rule
| with le Directoire, Napoleon, Napoleon III, and others. The
| only thing you learn from the French Revolution is the same
| thing you learn from Tahrir Square - the house always wins,
| which in political science is modeled via _Selectorate Theory_
| [7] and _Veto Players_ [8].
|
| Sadly, it's the same reason why despite mass protest after mass
| protest, the Iranian regime hasn't fallen - the primary
| political and economic veto players in Iran (Army, IRGC, Basij,
| Police, Clergy, Business leadership, SoE leadership, Bonyad
| leadership) haven't defected because they have more to lose
| than gain if a revolution succeeded. The moment a handful of
| these interests think they can expand their presence under a
| new regime is when you would see Khamenei fall, but the
| leadership would end up being the same ba***rds anyhow, just
| like how the Islamic Republic ended up co-opting and
| rehabilitating army officers and business leadership from the
| Shah's regime during the Iran-Iraq War and after the cultural
| revolution.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be...
|
| [1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-
| defense/frances-d...
|
| [2] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-
| decodeurs/article/2022/07/10/u...
|
| [3] - https://www.reuters.com/article/world/macron-and-the-
| moguls-...
|
| [4] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-
| idees/dossier/la...
|
| [5] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
|
| [6] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/650023
|
| [7] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/4092374
|
| [8] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rvv7
| mihaaly wrote:
| No. 5) is Belgian.
|
| I believe both nation would be offended about the confusion of
| origins.
|
| Americans simply thought they are in France in WWII when they
| ate it.
|
| ; )
| speedgoose wrote:
| Here are some Belgian articles about the French origin :
|
| https://www.rtbf.be/article/cuisine-la-frite-vient-elle-
| de-f...
|
| https://www.news.uliege.be/cms/c_10630394/fr/les-grands-
| myth...
| ttoinou wrote:
| Right now french people are obsessed with ecology and
| egalitarianism. Those who don't are not well seen in society,
| or left the country already.
|
| So the best thing I'd see them excelling at in this century, if
| they can drive their ideology in the right direction, would be
| producing low-tech solutions solving 90% of problems with 20%
| of the costs, with open-source like tools / materials / methods
| everyone can replicate easily. A bit like this article about
| this old car.
| jijijijij wrote:
| > Right now french people are obsessed with ecology and
| egalitarianism.
|
| Do you have anything to read up on that? This got me a little
| excited, but I also doubt it due to the rise of right wing
| populism everywhere else. Man, if France actually got the
| rare attitude to get shit done in these times, I may move
| there and help.
| ttoinou wrote:
| It's just my general sentiment when I see my french peers.
| It'd be interesting to try to turn this into data for sure,
| but "right wing" in France has a different meaning /
| reality than in others countries, not sure the raw stats
| would explain this difference.
|
| If you like those kind of ideas you should def move in
| France and start building with others there little
| communist enclaves. Just be ready that in France we do
| think a lot before deciding to act, we don't have the same
| "get shit done" attitude like in the anglosphere world
| emtel wrote:
| > Guillotine for the super rich
|
| Can we not glorify mass executions on HN please? Bluesky is
| available if that's your thing.
| weli wrote:
| When did hacker news become so right wing that saying the
| French revolution was a good societal movement is seen as
| "glorifying mass executions"? lmao
| bboozzoo wrote:
| Liberty Leading the People would probably be flagged as
| highly NSFW too.
| emtel wrote:
| I'm not sure you have to be terribly right wing to say that
| a "societal movement" which includes something called "The
| Reign of Terror", in which tens of thousands of people were
| executed, was a bad thing. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F
| rench_Revolution#Reign_of_Ter...)
| labcomputer wrote:
| You... might want to read more about what happened during
| the French Revolution, after they killed all the royalty.
| aweiher wrote:
| The guillotine remark resonates in today reality because
| people feel this scam. Tone-policing the symptom while
| ignoring the cause is naive.
|
| The C15 thread shows exactly why: It beats modern trucks in
| pure utility. Today we are paying more for less value.
|
| It is exactly the wealth extraction Ray Dalio describes in
| Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (Stage 5
| of the debt cycle), resulting in internal conflict.
| Lio wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the current range of French Renault electric
| cars.
|
| The 5, 4, Megan and Scenic are just excellent.
|
| I think the Scenic is probably the one I'd buy right now based
| on the range, 380 miles but the 5 and the 4 have so much
| character they're probably the first really iconic electric car
| designs IMHO.
| bgnn wrote:
| This! Especially 5!
| thinkindie wrote:
| This is basically the equivalent to the FIAT Panda 4x4 in small
| villages in Italy
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The Ranger is now a midsize truck. A better comparison is the
| hybrid Maverick.
| metalman wrote:
| I do get heat for my truck. I call it the truckasourus, it does
| take up a lot of room, I pulled out the rear seat and installed a
| three level shelf that fills the whole back of the cab, tools,
| grocieries, more tools, laundry, more food, and room on the top
| shelf to sleep if nessesary, then a 8 foot box, that will get
| replaced with a 9' flat deck, and front, middle and rear racks so
| I can move 24'steel, 4x8 sheets, welding gas, and whatever else,
| when I am not moving round bales or fire wood, other large heavy
| clumsy stuff. funny thing is that I have a car just for more
| civilised things, that costs me almost as much to sit there, as
| my truck costs to drive. I flashed the eprom in the truck so it
| gets significantly better fuel milage, and has forgotten how to
| go into limp mode, though the messages in the dash are dire. I
| could build a smaller rig, but it would fail in 1/3 of the tasks
| required, so it is impossible to come out ahead with running two,
| or hireing moving services. So the article, while funny, is
| narrow and snippy. Sometimes I consider a bumper sticker that
| would say, "Thanks for driving a Prius, I need the fuel!"
| kube-system wrote:
| > The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the
| US. A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run
| over toddlers without even noticing.
|
| The craziest thing about this criticism is that it is phrased as
| hyperbole but the reality is that this is seen as a small truck
| in the US.
|
| The Ford Ranger actually is the best selling pickup truck in
| Europe for 10 straight years, but doesn't sell as much in the US.
| The larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude
| more in the US.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| The best part about the F-150 is that it isn't even toddlers at
| that point. The most common F-150 variant I see in my area's
| hood goes up to my shoulder and I'm 2 meters tall.
|
| You often see the very important people driving these working
| their way through crowded parking lots and places that are
| primarily foot traffic with a "Wtach out for ME!" driving
| style.
| rconti wrote:
| Yep, the hoods are higher than my wife's head.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| My wife: 5'5": https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D
|
| Not to mention the amount of stones they kick up. In AZ if
| your truck has a suspension lift, you're supposed to have
| mudflaps. But that law (and many other vehicle laws) is not
| enforced.
| Rendello wrote:
| Being from rural Canada, I prefer the truck and
| snowmobile sizes of the 90s (but not their emissions,
| it's hard to breath when they drive by). All the options
| are so big now.
|
| Also, you may be married to Medjed:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed#/media/File:Medjed.s
| vg
| OptionOfT wrote:
| I am not married to an Egyptian deity! But never the
| less, she's amazing.
|
| Since you're from Canada, what do you think about this
| one:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/0pxeXVF
|
| Same wife (maybe even same shoes?) / Egyptian deity.
| Rendello wrote:
| > I am not married to an Egyptian deity!
|
| I'm sure you know her better than me, but I'm not
| convinced it's not a Clark Kent-esque disguise. He takes
| his glasses off and he's obviously Superman, have you
| ever _seen_ her in heavy Egyptian eyeliner? It might
| clear things up. Also, if she ever smites things by
| "shooting with her eyes", that's a pretty good tell.
|
| As for that vehicle, it strikes awe and fear into me.
| Like it wants to eat me. A less threatening but equally
| whimsical vehicle is the Bombardier B12 from the 40s:
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/1949-
| Bom...
| tavavex wrote:
| It's so funny that when people design vehicles that actually
| have a need to be big - big buses, commercial vans, fire
| trucks - one of their common features is that visibility is
| treated as something important, and often these types of
| vehicles have either a nearly flat, uniform front side, or
| they try to minimize the engine compartment hump as much as
| possible and make the windshield huge. But when we talk about
| cars that are made for the consumer, all sanity goes out the
| window, we get these near-caricatures that would be hilarious
| if they weren't real. The craziness can only be somewhat
| tamed by government restrictions, depending on where you
| live, but the peak of this design results in huge, elevated
| flat boxes for engine compartments, mounted as high as
| possible. It doesn't matter that the driver has a blind spot
| in every direction, what matters is showing off how HUGE your
| 18L V32 engine must surely be under that hood, how powerful
| it must be to draw air through that chrome grille that's half
| a person's height, and most importantly, how much of an
| imposing heroic warrior one must be to own that tank.
| kubb wrote:
| I think the F-150 is the most popular. I know many people don't
| care about other's subjective experiences, but it's always such
| a mindfuck to my EU mind when I see trucks of this size.
|
| Like my brain expects the car to finish, but there's more car.
| Then it happens again and again in a quick succession. It
| confuses me, I shake it off. I look at the car again. The bed
| is empty, there's one person in it.
|
| Then I think ,,what's the point"? And then I remember we grew
| up in different environments and have different expectations
| about how things should look like. And I still don't fully get
| it.
| hn8726 wrote:
| From my experience, these trucks make much more sense on a
| road in the US. European roads are fairly small so these
| trucks look _even bigger_, whereas in the US everything is
| massive so the cars fit. Still, having to look _up_ to see
| the windshield is crazy and I hope it won't be normalized in
| the EU
| drunner wrote:
| They make little sense on any road though.
| beezle wrote:
| The f-150 is a bit smaller than its big brothers the f-250
| and f-350 dually!
| loeg wrote:
| Almost any large car will fit almost anywhere in the US, so
| you might as well get the car that serves even your most
| marginal use cases. Fuel costs are much lower than Europe,
| and Americans are relatively richer anyway.
| hn8726 wrote:
| > The Ford Ranger actually sells better in Europe than it does
| in the US. And the larger F series trucks sell more than an
| order of magnitude more.
|
| Do you have any sources for this? I looked online and found a
| couple of charts, none of them support this claim. The Ford
| Ranger sales in Europe vs US are similar (who buys more varies
| by year) but the F series seems to be mostly bought in US
| benregenspan wrote:
| I think they meant it has much larger % share of pickup
| market in Europe vs US, not necessarily higher absolute
| number of sales (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu
| /en/news/2025/02...)
| kube-system wrote:
| For the most recent year numbers were published it also had
| better raw numbers.
| hn8726 wrote:
| Thank you, that makes sense. But in that case it doesn't do
| much for the op's argument, which seems to be that Europe
| _prefers massive cars_. US still has much more of obscenely
| big cars, and Ford F having less % pickup market share
| shows that there's much bigger market for these cars, if
| anything
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Surely the hilux would be more popular than the ranger, but
| maybe Toyota just sends those to the developing world and
| Australia?
| sparrish wrote:
| I'd love to buy a Hilux in the US but they aren't
| available. Drove them in South America for years and
| they're great vehicles.
| loeg wrote:
| The Hilux is the second best selling truck in Europe, as
| far as I can tell.
|
| The similar (but not identical) US model is the Tacoma.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The Tacoma is gussied up and not Spartan/repairable as
| the Hilux. I guess it's more comparable to the current
| ranger than the hilux is, I wonder if ford makes a
| stripped down ranger for the developing world? Are there
| any Ranger Jeepneys? Maybe the T6?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_(T6)
|
| Oddly enough, it says this was developed in Australia but
| might be the ranger selling in the USA/Europe now (the
| same one we are talking about). But the P703 is the model
| (a T6 variant) sold internationally now. It doesn't
| surprise me that the current ranger was designed abroad.
| What I really don't get is that ford doesn't make cars in
| Australia anymore but they still design them there?
| testing22321 wrote:
| > _The similar (but not identical) US model is the
| Tacoma._
|
| This is a very common misconception.
|
| At no point have the hilux and Tacoma shared any parts.
| Not engines, transmissions, frames, breaks, axles, wiring
| or anything interior.
|
| The hilux is a small efficient turbo diesel with plenty
| of torque. The Tacoma is an anemic gas V6 that gets
| horrible mileages.
|
| The Tacoma is significantly larger, and has a lower
| payload.
|
| The hilux is an actual utility work vehicle, the Tacoma
| cosplays as one.
|
| I've lived in Australia and Canada for 20 years each,
| driven many models of each many tens of thousands of
| kilometres.
| dandellion wrote:
| Where in Europe is that? Because in southern Europe pickups
| are very rare, but maybe they're more common in the north.
| jeron wrote:
| I'm probably one of the few people in this thread who are
| actually truck shopping right now
|
| The ranger is a great option for most people but one of my
| capabilities for the truck is to bring my bike to motorcycle
| track days. Usually I'd only take a single motorcycle, however
| track days are more fun with friends. to fit two motorcycles in
| the back of the Ranger, you need to adjust the angle of the
| handlebars awkwardly to fit both on the bed.[0]
|
| that leaves only the bigger 1500 class trucks as options for
| me, and why I'm going with an F150
|
| [0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q
| k4rli wrote:
| Trailers do exist and there is no good reason to drive a
| commercial vehicle every day for simple trips. It is also
| less expensive to use a trailer.
| acheron wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure that guy made the comment so he could get
| advice from HN's top minds about how he doesn't actually
| know what his requirements are.
| dpark wrote:
| Clearly he made the comment to justify to strangers on
| the internet why he needs to buy a bigger truck. Truly
| the need to "adjust the angle of the handlebars
| awkwardly" is a great burden.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| It is fine if one of your key requirements is to
| compensate for something ;)
|
| Fellow motorbike trailer owner here.
| c22 wrote:
| This is a great solution. I have a small utility trailer I
| use to move my dirtbike (and lots of other stuff!) I tow it
| with a CR-V.
|
| Since I don't need the hauling capacity every day, or even
| every week, it's great to leave the trailer at home and
| park in more places.
| hn8726 wrote:
| > to fit two motorcycles in the back of the Ranger, you need
| to adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly to fit both
| on the bed.
|
| can't you position one bike facing forward and one facing
| back, so the handlebars don't collide? Either way, going with
| an absurdly big and dangerous car to avoid _awkwardly
| positioning_ some cargo is pretty American thing to do
| loeg wrote:
| It's much easier to load motorcycles pointing forwards,
| just because you have to get them up a ramp into the bed.
| In the forward direction, you can use their engine to get
| up the hill.
| overfeed wrote:
| It does checkout that people buy bro-dozers to avoid
| being _slightly_ inconvenienced. Sucke for everyone else
| who unfortunately have to deal with their rearview
| mirrors perfectly line up with those headlight beams,
| unless they also buy a 'dozer.
| jeron wrote:
| Look, my other car is a 1993 Mazda Miata. I know how much
| it sucks to be the small car in the sea of brodozers
|
| I'm buying a used work truck. It's a pretty far cry from
| the "brodozer" you imagine
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| Or, hear me out, just get _a trailer_ which is what I do to
| tow my motorcycle with a sedan.
| tabiv wrote:
| I prefer small trailers for this but if you don't have the
| space for a trailer, F150 it is.
| jijijijij wrote:
| You can probably fit a normal sized car and trailer in the
| space of an F150. Stupid argument. Or, you know, rent a
| trailer. It's utterly idiotic to carry around the weight
| and size of the F150 when you don't need the loading space.
| I hope American gas prices adjust to reality and people
| start considering efficiency, cause this mentality is not
| sustainable and hurts everyone on the planet.
| kstrauser wrote:
| So, the normal size truck actually carries the things you
| want to transport, if you move their handlebars.
|
| You'd pay an extra $7000 because... you don't like to pack?
| big_toast wrote:
| Isn't that generally the case, convenience? 20% to 50%
| extra in price to handle edge cases and unknown unknowns
| seems pretty cheap. That's like, $100/month to $200/month
| for a lot of extra flexibility in the US.
|
| As someone unsympathetic to big vehicles in urban areas,
| and probably most suburban areas, the challenge as always
| is figuring out how to re-internalize externalized costs.
|
| Or I guess reduce externalized costs. (Additional safety
| features? Increased road wear tax? Vehicle size class
| limitations on certain roads or lots?)
| jeron wrote:
| Buying secondhand, the F150 is actually cheaper. I
| neglected to mention this but there's a lot more used F150s
| than Rangers on the market
| kstrauser wrote:
| Ah, I could see that point.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This is dumb, I've lost count of how many times I've hauled
| multiple motorcycles somewhere and you know how I do it? A
| trailer. It's easier and safer to load and unload, which is
| why almost everyone else does that as well.
|
| If you want an 'image' purchase just own up to it. Your post
| hoc justifications don't really hold water.
| beezle wrote:
| Don't know why you are down voted. People just assume that
| you have a place to store a trailer (and truck and
| motorcycle).
|
| As to your choice of the Ford,as a rural late model (2018)
| F-150 owner, I'd encourage you to consider something else. A
| used Tundra V8 or one of the GMC/Chevy's. My mechanic is
| thumbs down on the Rams longer term.
|
| I've had nothing but stupidity with this F-150 and all I do
| is personal plowing and a few loads of gravel or dirt each
| year. Granted, my steep dirt road can be very rough in mud
| season. But I've now spent about 8K in non-maintenance
| repairs.
|
| I say this as a past owner of multiple mustangs and rangers -
| I'm done with Ford.
| jeron wrote:
| I've done my research pretty thoroughly, I found a 2022
| with the 3rd gen 3.5 eco boost, so the cam phasers are
| fixed. The only thing I have to look out for is the 10R80
| 10 speed. During the test drive the shifts were smooth and
| minimal gear hunting so hopefully it's alright
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Get a trailer. Way more flexibility that way and easier
| loading/unloading.
| loeg wrote:
| A lot of commenters saying you "need" a trailer (instead of
| an F150), but another option would be one bike in the bed and
| the second bike (if needed) on a hitch-mounted rack. A hitch
| rack takes less space to store when you're not using it than
| a full trailer. It would probably be more annoying to load
| and unload than just putting two bikes in the bed.
|
| Anyway, if you want an F150, get it -- I don't really care.
| neves wrote:
| When I see a Ford car in Geoguessr I always know I'm in USA.
| Just Americans but these terrible cars.
| testing22321 wrote:
| My wife walked past an F350 the other day with our toddler, and
| the hood was above her head.
|
| My wife, that is. She's 5'10".
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I have a Ford F-150 (14 gen) and the front is so huge I need to
| step on the front grill guard to reach anything inside the
| engine compartment. It is all around an unreasonably sized
| vehicle. My excuse is that (a) I do use it for home improvement
| stuff and for hauling stuff around and (b) I work from home so
| no commute. But for most people who do not work construction
| this is an insane daily driver.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| > I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling
| stuff around
|
| I don't understand this argument, as they seem incredibly
| impractical for that. There is very little space for 'stuff',
| there is only the uncovered bed which is relatively small.
| The bed is also at an awkward height so very impractical to
| get stuff in or out. Since the bed is open, you always have
| to take all your 'stuff' out, you can't leave tools in there
| or anything of value or it will get stolen. If you put a hard
| cover on. it leaves even less space. And since a large part
| of the vehicle has no roof you cannot have a roof rack.
|
| You do not see these used by people in construction or other
| trades here in Europe. They use vans. An (extended) van has
| an ungodly amount of lockable storage space, easily
| accessible with side and back doors, with a floor at a
| reasonable height and if that isn't enough you with a roof
| rack you can strap a lot to the roof as well.
|
| I really don't see how something like an F-150 is more
| practical for 'hauling stuff' than something like a Mercedes
| Sprinter.
|
| I did look up some numbers (used the most capable
| configuration I could find for each of the vehicles):
|
| Max bed length for an F-150: 247cm Max cargo space length for
| a Sprinter: 481cm
|
| Bed/cargo width: F-150: 126cm, Sprinter 178cm Bed/cargo
| height: F-150: 54cm, Sprinter: 200cm
|
| Max. payload capacity: F-150 : 1106kg, Sprinter 1477kg for
| the extra-long version, 2447kg for the long version.
| bluedino wrote:
| You can fit a full size dresser in the rear sat compartment
| in the crew cab models (the most popular model)
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Have you ever loaded drywall into a van? It is not fun. A
| truck bed is sized to load it perfectly. Strapping down
| lumber is also simpler. Lastly with nothing above the truck
| bed you can carry much taller things than in a van.
|
| It isn't the only way but yes a truck is very practical.
| That's why they are used so much in the US. The difference
| between the US and the EU isn't just arbitrary either. In
| the US gas (sorry, petrol) is a lot cheaper, roads are
| bigger, wider, longer, and sometimes you need to tow a
| large trailer. I tower a 3 ton excavator with my truck to
| build my home office.
| blackguardx wrote:
| Loading drywall into my minivan is a lot easier than a
| truck. I can fit whole sheets and close the back gate so
| I don't need to strap them down and they are protected
| from the elements.
| bluedino wrote:
| The even smaller Ford Maverick sells twice as many as the
| Ranger
| hartator wrote:
| > CAPACITY: C15: 2.6m3 Ranger: 1.8m3 Discovery: 0.8m3
|
| I mean this is excluding beds. C15 doesn't have one.
| wazoox wrote:
| Notice that one of the pictures isn't actually a C15, but a
| Renault Express, which is equally indestructible though slightly
| smaller inside.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| This song is not about C15, but is quite appropriate:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzDg-1lEaD8
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Similar to Nissan / Datsun 620, 720, and D21 trucks in the US.
| They ran forever, especially for folks who were mechanics and
| kept a stash of parts.
| kfarr wrote:
| You know all those dark patterns in software? What if we applied
| the same concepts to gigantic mechanical devices, taking
| advantage of human psychological faults, and generate a profit
| margin on those? Sure seems what seems to have happened with
| motor vehicles
| jadbox wrote:
| Unrelated to the article: What I find frustrating about mastodon
| is how I click a link and then cannot favorite a post as there's
| no unified login between federated servers.
| nico_h wrote:
| I've been a passenger in the front and the back of a C15 and they
| are pure utility vehicule. You get heating in winter and
| ventilation in summer. The windows are manual, front seat are
| okay, and I don't know if they have updated models with aircon
| before stopping the production.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| I can confirm all of the findings.
|
| My first car I got in Germany was a C15. I used it to transport
| server racks, but also had a mattress in the back and had my
| first sex on it. On muddy festivals where others cars got stuck,
| I was able to get out easily. Repairs were dirt cheap. It also
| had a tow bar, and was able to pull a 1.5 metric ton trailer to
| get equipment to a computer party.
|
| And I still was able to do 160 km/h (100 MPH) with it on the
| Autobahn. With or without server racks, with or without sex.
|
| Best car I ever had.
|
| It is really insane that these days cars on average weigh 25-40
| times of their load. Human stupidity never ceases to amaze me.
| haspok wrote:
| My first car was a rusty 20 year old Renault 5, in which I
| barely fit myself, so no sex in the car for me.
|
| (But my grandma had a flat that she did not live in during the
| summer months... hmm... sweet memories... excuse me, what were
| we talking about again?)
| JohnLocke4 wrote:
| At first I wanted to write a comment about how cars and sex
| are apparently very well linked. Upon thinking it over once
| more, it appears that the real link to sex is privacy, which
| is of course obvious. Thinking over it once more, we're
| brought back to the real selling point of cars: total
| privacy. Public transport is on paper really good, but it is
| totally devoid of privacy - which means that it is bad in
| reality. In other more provocative words, public
| transportation is bad because you can't have sex on the bus
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Public transport porn is actually a big thing in the Czech
| Republic, at least according to my bookmark collection.
| jijijijij wrote:
| > what were we talking about again?
|
| I think, you were just about to tell us about your first time
| with your grandma.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >Best car I ever had.
|
| You were doing 160 in a death trap with minimal safety
| features, which was literally making the air unbreathable.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Citroen were the first to make diesel filters standard. And
| my C15 had the HDi engine with diesel filters. And unlike
| others, they did not cheat and were not part of the Diesel
| scandal.
|
| Also, I survived.
|
| And when it comes to security features, more important than
| not having side airbags would have been not to combine
| smoking weed and fellatio while doing 160.
|
| I am not saying that any of this would be a good idea if
| keeping your life is a priority.
|
| But even with maniacs like myself on the road, Germany has
| deaths from fatal car crashes of 3-4 per 100,000, while the
| US has 12-13.
|
| But again, I am not a lawyer, not a doctor, and this is not
| health advise, just a true story of what I did 25 years ago
| that may or may not entertain readers.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >Citroen were the first to make diesel filters standard.
| And my C15 had the HDi engine with diesel filters.
|
| Modern Diesel Engines have gotten so much better in every
| single area.
|
| >And unlike others, they did not cheat and were not part of
| the Diesel scandal.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/dutch-court-says-
| dies...
|
| Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py37TT6PxW4 to see
| just how common cheating was. Also have a look at the graph
| at 17:47 .
| Fischgericht wrote:
| "From 2009."
|
| The concept of "software in motors" did not exist in the
| age of the C15.
| constantcrying wrote:
| This is just a lie you just made up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_control_unit
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Please: Chill. All good. This is just light
| entertainment.
|
| Still: Under the definitions I work with, an ECU is
| Hardware. Rule of thumb: If it does not run Doom, it's
| probably hardware :)
| constantcrying wrote:
| >Still: Under the definitions I work with, an ECU is
| Hardware.
|
| What a silly definition.
| Rendello wrote:
| Reminds me of the 1973 Toyota RV-2 concept car, with the back
| of the car being a giant sexy shag carpet. Look at this amazing
| (nude) ad in Penthouse:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180408023557/https://members.i...
| Raed667 wrote:
| My favorite C15 story is with my childhood friend who got it as a
| hand-me-down first car, we used to put plastic lawn chairs in the
| back and head to the beach...
|
| The gas meter was broken, so my friend had to guesstimate when he
| needed a refill.
|
| At one point it was stolen, but then found a week later on the
| side of the highway,out of gas..
| vedmakk wrote:
| missed a chance to use "gastimate"
| kstrauser wrote:
| When we lived in a more rural area, and I drove my kids to school
| each morning (in a normal-sized sedan), I taught them to notice
| the contents of the SUVs they saw. The common pattern, like 90%
| of the time in the morning, was a lady driver in a spotless SUV
| with a kid in the very back row of seats.
|
| And the demographics made sense: you'd expect to see more moms
| dropping off kids, at least in redder parts of the country, and
| the back row is supposed safest (as long as you only plan on
| getting into head-on collisions). Still, the common theme of a
| ridiculous vehicle with exactly 2 occupants sitting in the
| farthest possible positions from each other came to be funny to
| us.
|
| Those ludicrous pavement princess pieces of junk are status
| symbols of conspicuous consumption, and that's it.
|
| Now, a pickup with tool racks or lumber in the back, or covered
| with drywall dust, or bearing a ranch sticker? Fine. Those make
| perfect sense. Anything short of that is just bragging about how
| much you love donating to Exxon, like an NRA sticker but dumber.
| rngfnby wrote:
| The ranger has a tow rating of 7500 lb.
|
| The gross vehicle weight (ie the max vehicle weight with the
| heifers, obviously stuffies) of the C15 is 1500 kg (hence the
| name) or 3300 lb.
|
| Uhaul rents a car tow trailer rated for 5000 lb that weighs 2200
| lb [1].
|
| The Ranger, then, can tow the C-15 + the heifers = 5500 lb and
| have 2000 lb left over to put two real heifers, and do this
| legally at 70mph.
|
| Citroen makes great vehicles though. Amazing off roaders.
|
| [1] https://www.uhaul.com/Trailers/Auto-Transport-Rental/AT/
| FpUser wrote:
| >"I call bullshit ..."
|
| Does anyone give a fuck? People can and do have plenty of reasons
| not to stick to a single model of car
| blitz_skull wrote:
| [flagged]
| hk__2 wrote:
| Where did you see angriness in this thread?
| haspok wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar,
| regardless of how provocative another comment is or you feel
| it is. It only makes things worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mike31fr wrote:
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
| guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. It's
| the last thing we need here. (Well, tied for last.)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: your account has unfortunately been breaking the site
| guidelines quite a bit and repeatedly crossing into personal
| attack:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46526454
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493104
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46422571
|
| Can you please stop doing that? It destroys what HN is for so
| we end up banning such accounts.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the
| intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
| ozim wrote:
| Typical technically correct content.
|
| If you are person that doesn't give a fuck about keeping up with
| Jones's you just buy whatever does the job.
|
| I could drive much better car but I don't have to impress my
| neighbors.
|
| Still with non-impressive car I get pushed around on the road by
| guys in big and impressive cars. But also I drive on defense
| anyway so I get them to go far away from me by letting them pass.
|
| I am quite fit though not super big or anything and car I drive
| is attributable to old geezers or ladies. Once guy jumped out of
| the car to shout at me he took his tone two notches down quickly.
|
| So technically you might be right but still there is whole human
| experience to deal with.
| tavavex wrote:
| I think you've hit the nail on the head, but not in the same
| way as what I was thinking. It's not about impressiveness - as
| in, a show of wealth or status. It's all about size. This is a
| relatively small car, but as far as I can tell, back in the day
| all of them were considerably smaller, even the ones that were
| pricey and designed to look cool or expensive. Nowadays, the
| most obnoxious and dangerous car drivers have united with the
| most hands-off governments and manufacturers willing to pander
| to them exclusively to create an arms race of building the
| biggest megatank that can fit within a lane and only occupy six
| parking spots at once.
| blauditore wrote:
| It's a global pandemic of oversized cars. People love SUVs
| because it makes them feel powerful and successful. Explanations
| why they need them are generally along the lines of "because we
| have kids" (but SUVs don't actually have that much space), or
| "because heavier means safer" (well yes, at the cost of others).
| haunter wrote:
| >prove that men who buy SUVs and Pick-Ups are, with very few
| exceptions, compensating for something ;)
|
| What does that mean? The thread just repeating this compensating
| thing but not sure what does it try to say really.
|
| Also most women I know drive SUVs or family vans not compact
| cars. Are they compensating for something?
| beezle wrote:
| I don't know if it is some much 'compensating' as it is a "look
| at my toy" showing off type of thing which isn't really
| directed at women. When I drive around metro areas it is pretty
| clear that the large majority of trucks are "house" trucks -
| they are never used for truck things. They are washed, waxed
| with nice shiny black tires.
|
| Don't get me wrong - if you got the dough, by all means drive
| what you want. But most truck owners could get by with
| something else just as well.
| jijijijij wrote:
| > Also most women I know drive SUVs or family vans not compact
| cars. Are they compensating for something?
|
| Freud: Duh?!
| mattlondon wrote:
| I know it's a joke, but if you clip a curb or even a slightly
| chunky branch at 15mph in one of these _EVERYONE DIES_ (...only
| partially joking)
|
| In a crash it'll fold up like the tin can it is, even against a
| car of a similar vintage and size (no comment on the cows). Up
| against even a modern supermini and you're literal mince meat,
| let alone a modern SUV. At least you won't suffer long.
|
| So if you are off roading or on a snowy road, hopefully you won't
| slip into a tree or roll over. Modern cars - even "small" ones
| -are heavier partly because they are _substantially_ safer. A
| crash that would have had to have you cut out of the wreckage by
| the fire brigade (potentially losing a limb or two in the
| process) is now the sort of thing you can walk away from. Yes
| even in "small" modern cars (you do not need a SUV for safety).
|
| It's night and day really - just go look at the archive on
| EuroNCAP.. In the crash tests that left 90s and early 2000s cars
| as unrecognisable mounds of broken and twisted metal (e.g.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9a8PTeFDaYU which was a car that
| was probably 10 years more advanced than the c15 in terms of
| safety...) now barely even break the windscreen of modern super-
| mini cars (e.g.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NaWVepTJTGw&t=1s&pp=2AEBkAIB).
| Amazing.
| krautburglar wrote:
| This person is a living caricature. If Ford wanted to sell more
| F350s, their best advertisers could do no better than this
| (man's?) mastodon.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| To be fair to the SUV they weren't really a thing in France
| before 2 decades after the C15. To be fair to the C15 the main
| buyers of SUV at the beginning were urban and suburban moms that
| wanted to show they had money and we're feeling better in big and
| tall cars
| Zopieux wrote:
| It's funny (and depressing) because it's actually true despite
| the hyperbole.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| Modern cars have crumple zones.
|
| That's the entire difference.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I love small cars, in fact I owned a Fiat 500 for a number of
| years and a number of small VWs. With that said, it really grinds
| my gears (Pun intended) when Europeans want to lecture Americans
| about large cars.
|
| Our roads are bigger, gas is dirt cheap, parking is plentiful and
| spacious outside dense metros, and the RAM 1500 I own is 100x
| more useful no mater how you want to try and spin the facts. I
| can tow a large trailer with my Jeep on it, a large RV, boats,
| etc. It is highly capable off roading on technical terrain here
| in Utah. It's also insanely comfortable and luxurious on road
| trips and has enough room to lay on the rear bench seat as if it
| were a bed. I truly use all of the capabilities in a niche that
| almost no other vehicle besides a standard size truck occupies.
| everdrive wrote:
| This is pretty tiresome, however the article is mostly correct.
| If I could get one of these and own it and drive it in the US, I
| would. I certainly don't want an over-expensive, over-weight,
| over-featured monstrosity, but that's all anyone sells in the US.
| torginus wrote:
| Sorry for going counter to the narrative, but I had a friend who
| had an early 2000s Citroen which was made around the time when
| French cars had the worst reputation - and I tell you, by the
| stories he told, they deserved it.
|
| There was no part on this which didn't get replaced during the
| scant few years he owned it, and it left him stranded like half a
| dozen times.
|
| He contemplated setting it on fire rather than selling it, not
| wanting the next lucky owner to go through the same stuff he did.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > made around the time when French cars had the worst
| reputation
|
| A reputation well earned IMO...
|
| > There was no part on this which didn't get replaced during
| the scant few years he owned it, and it left him stranded like
| half a dozen times
|
| French cars have a philosophy of more maintenance than German
| cars. On the other hand, Frenchy spare parts are often cheaper
| and easier to replace.
|
| E.g. a timing belt replacement on PSA HDI takes just a few
| hours and costs EUR2-300. On a VAG TDI, the same procedure is
| almost a full day at a (competent) workshop and costs ~5-10x as
| much.
|
| Horses for courses I think.
|
| My daily driver is a 10yo VAG, for the record.
| oxag3n wrote:
| My family hired https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izh_2715 in eastern
| Europe to move furniture few times. It was usually referred as
| "Pirojok", which can be translated as stuffed bun.
| znpy wrote:
| I get the same feelings when i see a suv driven by a single
| person, and i think of the good old fiat panda...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| My parents had 3 kids and a 2CV as our single family car for a
| while. We managed just fine, something that is supposedly
| "impossible" these days.
| Lio wrote:
| Brits are no strangers to the Citroen C15 as the article seems to
| imply. We liked them.
|
| It was the basis of a successful line of British built micro-
| campers from Romahome.
|
| https://www.practicalmotorhome.com/advice/used-romahome-on-c...
|
| I remember looking at one as a surf-van back in the day.
| theodric wrote:
| I always had BMWs, like I only ever bought reasonably high-end
| BMWs, but when we bought our place in Ireland, I needed a vehicle
| on Swiss plates and insurance (for legal reasons) to use there
| when car rental in Ireland was running crazy money. I had a look
| on the Swiss classifieds sites for anything "rechtslenker"
| (right-hand drive) and found two Rolls Royces, a clapped out MG,
| and about 15 yellow ex-Swiss Post Renault Kangoo 2-seat car-based
| cargo vans. (I guess they wanted their mailmen to be able to step
| out onto the curb, hence RHD in a LHD country?) I bought the van.
| Weird config: right hand drive, but configured for right-hand
| traffic, meaning I had to replace the headlights and fog light
| and get it re-aligned to fit in. Automatic transmission, 1.6L
| petrol engine, no airbag, no wheel lock, no AC, knobs and
| switches, glass all around like the MPV version, but a cargo
| floor. It's insanely simple, the parts are practically free from
| the perspective of a BMW fanatic, and it's actually a hoot to
| drive. When we moved, I imported it with our stuff, and it's our
| only car now. Hauls firewood like you wouldn't believe, and tows
| a large 2.5m x 1.25m x 1.2m single-axle box trailer without
| complaints, meaning I can (and have done) shift all the sheets of
| plywood and drywall I need without buying a pickup. We live way
| out in the countryside, where the roads have grass up the middle
| and potholes down both sides, but the Kangoo's ground clearance
| is enough (especially when empty) that it's never been an issue.
| I hardly miss the BMW. A little French van is all you need.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| My government did everything to not allow people use old cars.
| Great monuments like Citroen C15 are not allowed in the whole
| city of Krakow.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Just to be clear: I was a kid at that time and although the
| Citroen 2CV was a cool looking car the C15 was just as fugly back
| then as it is today. A fucking fuglier than fugly piece of ugly
| shit that was, already back then, making the world uglier for
| everybody.
|
| I don't dispute that it was useful and reliable: I remember the
| milkman and plumbers and electricians having these. Note that
| some had a 2CV and would just cut off the roof (don't tell me it
| wasn't a thing: I've got pictures of me as a kid in a 2CV whose
| roof was cut).
|
| Only the french have the "taste" to create such uglyness as the
| C15. It's hard to understand how a country can both produce the
| Concorde and the C15.
|
| Even the russian and their Lada brand never managed to create
| something as fugly as the 4L or the C15.
|
| Now you'll excuse me but I've got to take a look at what nature
| produces:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-of-paradise
|
| Because that C15 brings back memories from a traumatizing time
| where uglyness was ruling the world.
|
| P.S: I owned a Citroen VISA: it's hard to tell if it was only the
| 2nd ugliest Citroen ever after the C15 (indisputably the fugliest
| of them all) because Citroen produced soooo many turds.
| amunozo wrote:
| Asking seriously, what is holding us from creating these
| masterpieces again?
| anotheryou wrote:
| what's a modern equivalent? (and maybe a 4 seater)
| petters wrote:
| > But what if you're an environmentally conscious mother who
| needs to drive the 5 minute walk to your kids' school? Surely, a
| modern car must be less polluting?
|
| > CO2 emissions/km:
|
| No, you have already compared fuel consumption. This is
| equivalent.
| fattybob wrote:
| Now I want one....
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