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Comment by jpindar | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if at some point there is going to be a market for fully built kit cars - that is, newly built cars, but without electronics that phone home.

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They're called "hot rods", and there's always been a small market for them. Depending on where you live the legal requirements to get one licensed vary from "easy" to "impossible", but it won't be cheap.

It is only expensive if you make it expensive, car mechanics are not that complicated. It is only expensive if you either buy expensive parts or have somebody else do it for you because it takes time and they are taking on the liability of any modifications they did along with licensing requirements to do such things commercially.

Home built vehicles can be registered just about anywhere as long as they have headlights, taillights, and a license plate light.

No engineer's certificate?

Friend and I are fairly obsessed with "older" Dodge diesel trucks.

By older, I mean early 90s. They have tripled in value in the last decade.

Very minimal electronics (has an ECU, cruise control, power doorlocks and windows), and easy to work on.

You can also buy salvaged Tesla parts and make your own vehicle...

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a30305/this-...

>Friend and I are fairly obsessed with "older" Dodge diesel trucks.

So you hate getting a value for your money almost as much as the Toyota guys then?

How are those cute miniature ball joints holding up? Frame splice rusted out yet?

> They have tripled in value in the last decade.

I think you mean that the 1000lb dowel eating turd with a stupidly stupidly thin cylinder head casting that occupies the space under the hood has tripled in value in the last decade. The trucks themselves are sub par. The increase in value is because all the ones that don't have a Cummins have long since been scrapped so the ones remaining are kinda, sorta worth a couple bucks.

Regardless, Cummins 12v (and 24v) engines are so expensive that unless you can't read a wiring diagram or need weight up front for a pulling truck you're probably better served with a 6.0 LS

(Yes I'm being intentionally contrarian here but you know there's a grain of truth in what I'm saying)

Neither of you are wrong.

Aah, yes, the pre-DEF diesel trucks. Quite possibly the one class of vehicle I'd be more than happy to see removed from the road with whatever legislative overreach required.

Yeah, I'm kind of fed up with trucks spewing columns of foul-smelling black soot out of their tailpipes right at my car. Sorry if that makes me rude.

If a 90s diesel is spewing foul-smelling black soot then it's 1. poorly maintained 2. illegally modified (those guys are pricks).

Also DEF, urea, is a NOx control mechanism and does nothing for the particulate matter.

Ironically, NOx emissions legislation must increase particulate emissions and worsen mpg (Less NOx needs lower T, lower T means more incomplete combustion, poorer combustion means particulates).

So DEF is an attempt by engine manufacturers to meet NOx emissions without increasing particular matter and destroying mpg.

But you'd use gov't overreach and not solve anything directly (obviously, indirectly, you'd get rid of ill-maintained and illegally modified trucks... but that's poor legislation)

Running on WVO?

I doubt there'd be a demand. We are the vocal minority here on HN. I think it's more likely people like us will buy older cars with non 4G/cell based head units.

We won't be able to buy such cars also in next 10-20 years as by then every manufacturer would have included partial or complete data gathering on their units. If they are doing it so should I so I can stay in business is the concept being followed. This can only be controlled through strict laws, and that is a sorry state of affairs anyway. :(

Low volume manufacturers are exempt from a lot of regulations from what I know. So there'll probably always be a space for someone to make a low-tech car, just not to sell it by the hundreds of thousands.

I see 30 year old cars on the road - daily drivers - reasonably often. They are probably maintained by the owner who now knows it inside and out.

The average millionaire drives a 15 year old car that they bought new (According to "The millionaire next door"). If you actually maintain your car you will discover that they last a lot longer than most people give them credit for. Some years you put more than the car is worth into it, but other years just an oil change.

Right, its not about if the repair is more expensive than the car. Its whether the repair is cheaper than the payments on an equivalent but newer car.

Of course we all like a new car. But is it worth the extra money. Folks have a different threshold where they'll give up on ol Barney.

This concern, "chipped cars" is going to be played over and over. It all goes to some variation on "(chipped) people are too X to have that responsibility aka write access to their chips".

The closed hidden operating systems hiding in every baseband and major CPU are winning their war on general purpose computing. It's a problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027736

By the 3x the cost of the same car - but with the source code (Linux 2.6.1 with binary blobs) for washer and wipers.

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