Comment by lgleason | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lgleason | Hacker News Reader

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A car that sells new for the price of the Chery is not going to have good safety measures and will be a death trap in an accident. Cars today can last a long time if you take care of them. New they cost a lot, but after about 10 years most are in a much more affordable price range. Sure you may have to spend a little more on maintenance, but still.

The key with all of this is spending the time to maintain them mechanically and physically. I have always done that which is why I am still driving a 20 and 17 year old cars (along with a newer Chevy Volt). Most people think they look close to being like new.

Sure it takes some time to wash them myself, add protective sealants/polishes to the outside, protectant in the inside, leather preservers to the seats, keep up on the repairs etc., but the reduced insurance costs and overall running costs make it an easy thing to do.

In the US most people do not take care of their cars, mechanically and physically they often start to look really bad after about 10-15 years (even in the milder southern and western climates) and people just junk them and buy new. In some other countries people take care of them and you see the net result of people with cars over 20 years old in good condition still being driven.

That's the story, but it doesn't hold up in the general case. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21167942

My car (at 200,000+ miles at the time of the accident) was exactly such a case of "take care of it, and all will be well", which is why I was able to avoid dealing with the nightmare that is the auto industry today. (It's also why I still think of that one as "my car," while the others I own today do not.) Again, being well-aware of the worth of a car that is well taken care of by experiencing it firsthand and having spent some time looking for something that would allow me to replicate the previous 10+ years of car ownership, you're not really teaching me anything. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to the affordances offered to you by the market, and the market deals in junk.

I don't know what you are expecting. A 200k mile car that lasted ten years before an accident is something I would consider as "well built".

How many miles do you drive each year? What kind of car did you expect to get, and how many miles+years would you expect it to operate at to be considered "well built".

You have misunderstood something. Yes, that car was worth the price. It is the benchmark against which I am measuring newer cars. "Cars today", which is what we are talking about, give an experience that is unlike that one. (Including the Chevy Bolt @ $14k that you mention in your other comment, which is more like a Walmart car than a Costco car, and nowhere close to the price point I mentioned or the cost/value ratio of the reference car.) That that car lasted 200k, and would have been on its way to last another 100k at least, underscores my point, not undermines it.

For the reason above, the question is not "What kind of car did you expect?" It's "What kind of car do you expect to get?" And the answer is, "Considering the opportunity we have had to make technological progress, I would expect that I should be able to find a car today that is at least as good as that one. I should definitely not expect to be disappointed to find that as a general rule what's available is so much worse."

> How many miles do you drive each year?

Maybe the OP bought it with 190k on the clock, but surely the answer is going to be close to 200k/10?

> My car (at 200,000+ miles at the time of the accident) was exactly such a case of "take care of it, and all will be well"

Bargain priced domestic-market cars in China have a reputation for needing major repairs within the first couple years of ownership.

We had vehicles like this in the US in the 70s -- it is possible to build vehicles very cheaply with the use of cheap materials. But today, even the cheapest cars in the US make extensive use of anticorrosive coatings, ultra-high-strength steel, and have extensive active and passive safety systems.

It doesn't have to be a car. Give me a viable ebike that doesnt' cost at least $1000. It doesn't exist in the market right now.

That car would be a death trap in the U.S. because most Americans feel the need to choose their personal vehicle as if it's some sort of urban tank. It would get crushed by even a small SUV or truck.

I'd love to live in a world where it's safe to be on the road driving a scooter, moped, smartcar, etc., without worrying if Karen in her Humvee is going to flatten me because she literally can't see the street within 20ft of her bumper.

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