BMW Ends ICE Production in Germany! Mercedes?

I think this is an area where it's possible that cars can do more to slow our vehicle related death rate.

It's not there yet - as the failed experiment in San Francisco (and some other places) has indicated.

But, the death rate of driving in the USA is too high to ignore. Our transportation board keeps finding increments in engineering cars and roads that do help. But ...

 

That is beside the point.

 

According to IIHS there are approximately 43,000 annual road deaths or 1.37 deaths per 100 million miles driven.

In a country where about 2.85 million people die every year, those numbers don't seem inordinately high.

 

I do not think we are there yet, and it does add some cost to the current cars as the development cost has to be paid

 

True. EV manufacturers could work to strip down the cars they have.

However, EVs are not the only cars that have defensive technology like radar controlled cruise control, lane keeping, etc. These are expected these days.

Tesla and others are working hard on reducing the cost of manufacturing as well as designing lower end cars that will sell for lower prices.

In the end, EVs will sell for less than equivalent ICEs. They have way fewer moving parts. Tesla and others are more vertical - that is, they don't have to share profits with parts vendors. Remember how Ford had to slow deliveries because the little oval "Ford" symbol was slowed by supply chain problems? And, they don't have to go through dealers who have so much control of car prices.

 

True.

I don't believe it's adding much cost for those who don't want the feature, though. My understanding is that all the cameras, etc., are wanted in the car for purposes that are NOT self driving. And, the nature of computer hardware and software is that stamping out more copies of a chip set is low cost.

The big ways Tesla has saved money is in their "gigapress" style of injection molding whole car bodies, doing pretty much everything in-house, and mechanizing assembly.

 

the corp still has to pay for the research and development, and that gets passed on to car buyers if they use it or not

and often the equipment is installed, even if not used

I would still like to see cars without all the "tech" as cheaper longer lasting options

 

True - Tesla does do AI work for both its cars and its robot direction.

There would be an expense to having two different chip sets for its cars. Plus, it would mean permanently labeling a car as being incapable of the features - requiring manufacturing and managing two separate kinds of cars.

I don't believe your "low tech" idea is going to be attractive to EV manufacturers. Everything they do in the car is electric.


My understanding is that the Tesla Cybertruck is likely to move to steering and brakes controlled by wire. Remember it has 4 wheel steering. There is another car (can't remember the name and not sure if currently delivered) that has wheels that turn perpendicular, so that parallel parking is a matter of "driving sideways" into the slot. It can also do a U-turn within the length of the car, simply by turning the back wheels perpendicular and turning the front wheels to the left (or right, which ever). Do people want that? I don't know. I mention it only because it shows the kind of flexibility engineers get when steering, etc., can be controlled by wire, not by rods and gears.

 

I agree, no corp wants to get rid of the tech and have a simple cheap car\truck like in the 80's-90's, but many consumers would love to buy one

will car makers offer security updates for the life of the cars, or will it be like cell phones?

 

Tesla has updated cars from several years back, even adding noticeable improvements without charge.

These are added over the internet. I know some owners have brought their Tesla in for some sort of work that can't be done on line. There are complaints about the term "recall", because it implies you have to schedule an appointment.

I don't know what their policy will be going forward.

Also, I don't know what other manufacturers are doing, but I'm pretty sure at least some of them have similar policies.

 

some dealers had free 3g for life, 3g went away, now they SOL

we will see if all car manufactures willing to update security patches on 10 or 20-year-old cars

 

I bet they do.

It's easier than carrying the hundreds of parts of ICE cars, for example.

 

they can charge for the old parts

the problem with patches is also they may run out of space, like old emaps that can no longer get updates

 

There is a point at which trying to maintain a complete set of old parts can't be justified. Machines used to make those parts are making something different now. Taking them off line to set up to produce some more spare parts for old cars would be a huge deal.

Tesla and others don't have to install patches. They can download replacements of what software they want to update. EVs have a LOT of spare memory. They can download movies, etc. They aren't going to scrimp to the point that they can't maintain their software.

I do think you have a point, though. As cars age, maintaining them does become harder, especially in this age of incredibly complex ICE engines and the required manufacturer specific diagnostic equipment. EVs dodge some of that, but the issue is still present to some extent.

 

agree, but 3rd parties make parts and also the cost of new means a loan and higher insurance vs just liability

I have owned my Truck over 20+ years

 

I don't know how parts supply will work out if there is actually an imposed end date on new ICEs. I doubt that there will be a sudden change in parts for existing cars.

i haven't watched insurance rates for EVs and I don't know insurance. But, insurance companies are seriously risk averse. They may still charge more based on not knowing enough about repair bills, etc.

 

yeah, I am not referring to end dates on ICE, just having a car that last 20+ years, and in the case of cloud based ones, getting security patches for all that time, those could be ICE or EV

I do not think future ICE or EV will last 20+ years

 

Yes, bad news on that.

Today it is certainly not the 20+ years you want before having to replace the battery to get the mileage per charge as advertised.

Data shows that the lifetime you are getting today is WAY over the average of how long ICE owners keep new cars they buy - more like 8 years.

Just about everything in EVs is improving. For example, the price of batteries that EV manufacturers buy is coming down - suggested to be by 40% over this year. I have NO idea how the cost of replacements will work, as every model seems to have a significantly different battery shape, etc.

I think the largest pressure on EV manufacturers is on price, range per charge and charging time - not so much on years of battery life. But, batteries are a HUGE deal and improvement keeps coming.

 

wasn't even referring to batteries, I mean sensors, digital chips, stuff both EV and ICE use for this new stuff

but batteries is a good question, will they be use replaceable or restricted like cell phones - remember the bigger batter replaced in the Tesla and Tesla restricted the owner from using the full battery unless they paid $4500.00 for them to remove the digital lock on how much of the new battery could be accessed

https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/14p8zno/teslas_trying_to_charge_me_4500_plus_tax_to_use/

I agree with this comment

"Putting artificial limits on stuff for the sake of charging more is where capitalism took a wrong turn."

again, this is not a bash on EV's, this is about the new digital\cloud direction many products are taking, including ICE vehicles

 

I'll point out that if you by the normal range vehicle and decide that was a mistake, you don't have to buy a different car - you can just buy the upgrade. In other words, I don't believe this is all bad.

I don't know if Tesla is still doing this.

Tesla keeps pretty quiet about what batteries are in any specific car. I hate that, because some EV batteries still have cobalt - child labor, Congo, etc. Tesla is moving to LFP, but I don't know if the move is complete yet.

There are other EVs that use batteries with Cobalt.

 

but as you saw, they got a bigger battery and had to pay Tesla to allow the car to use the extra battery or Tesla would block the car from accessing more then it was sold with originally

that would be like finding out the new battery in your phone could last twice as long, but they are restricting you from actually using it so you give them more money or buy a new car with more battery life

 

I don't like it either. They probably should just sell cars with two different sizes of batteries. If the customer needs more range, then tough luck - they just bought the wrong car.

I disagree with your cell phone analogy. If you buy the wrong cell phone, that is nowhere near the cost of having bought the wrong car.

 

why not allow the customer to upgrade the battery without them locking the battery and not letting them use all their new battery - sucky way to get money out of people

that applies to both cell phones and EV's - stop locking out battery upgrades

 

Battery changes are really expensive - a major percent of the cost of a new car. This is one reason that the universal forecasts of lower battery prices from battery companies are important. Cars can be manufactured for less if that happens.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on disliking the "unlock" idea in certain circumstances. I'm not worried about features like "on star", which does require hardware, but nothing as heavy as an unused portion of a battery pack!.

I've been searching for cases of Tesla's cars today having such unlocking of batteries and can't find any. Maybe this is something they tried and stopped doing. Or, maybe I just didn't find it.

If you hear of a Tesla (or other EV) that does do this, I'd like to know which model and year.

 

as long as the on-star is not on and connected to the net regardless and hackers able to control your car remotely - if that is the case they should be liable to provide security updates for life of the car, 20+ years