Sorry I'm late, my car had a 500 error | Hacker News Reader

Sorry I'm late, my car had a 500 error

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42 pointssigna1115 comments

I always had visions of hurtling down the motorway at high speed, and my passenger breaking out a terminal and typing

``` renice -n -15 `ps -a | grep brakesd | awk '{ print $1 }'` ```

It's just stuff a shame that in 2021, Tesla cars still don't have Vim keybindings. It really takes away from the CLI experience.

Tesla aside, do you know what I miss?

An actual physical key that I have to turn to start the engine. There's something very affirmative about it, and it's been replaced with a rather sterile "brake-push-start" sequence. I realize that behind the scenes it's all the same thing (no flick of the wrist will crank an engine, of course), but I still like the analog aspect of the key. Maybe that makes me a hipster.

My remote chews through the tiny CR2032 battery every couple months, and when that happens, the car (a Mazda, fwiw) no longer detects the key and refuses to start until I bring the key within close proximity of the ignition.

A physical key would sidestep the problem altogether, although I imagine there are HN commenters now ready to reply that a key-ignition car is easier to steal, or something.

> There's something very affirmative about it

My girlfriend has a similar but more questionable opinion that cars were more fun to drive pre power steering.

This is probably a less unusual opinion than you'd think - power steering, especially modern power steering, insulates you from the feel of the road. The argument is usually hydraulic power steering vs electric power steering these days, but there are plenty of people who have weekend cars with no power steering to optimize road feel. How reasonable it is to drive without power steering depends a lot on the car, so you'll see this more commonly with something like a Miata where even without power steering it's not that hard to turn the wheel.

I loved my 90' Honda Civic because it didn't have Power Steering. You could practically drive it blindfolded because of how much road feel it had.

I agree.

And fuel injection too - carburettors meant that every car had its own 'personality' and you had to get used to how it wanted you to drive it.

There's a huge part of me that wants to buy something like a Triumph Stag, Triumph Spitfire, or MG MGB for this reason. Yes they're practically hygroscopic, they're Biblically unreliable in every possible way (particularly the few rudimentary electronic components they have), they have a safety profile more akin to motorbikes than modern cars, they universally need either the valve seats replacing or constant fuel additives because they were built for leaded petrol, and on top of that pretty much anyone with a screwdriver can steal them but come on - look at it! [1]. There's literally nothing between you and the road either, almost everything is mechanical and unassisted.

In a world where most ordinary cars are bland appliances like washing machines or dishwashers it'd be a breath of fresh air.

[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pwm9E2bP1K8/maxresdefault.jpg

I had an MGF and an MGTF (late 90s and early 2000s) - so they had an ECU but it was all 80s technology in there (the MGs were basically Austin Metros with the engine replacing the rear seats and the roof cut off).

Both died when the electrics got wet after a heavy rainfall, but they were the best things to drive.

A lot of those "start buttons" will pop out, leaving a 'keyhole' for your remote to fit into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SMcElAwtE

There's no 'brake-push-start' in Teslas, It's just 'on' when you enter the car. Set it in drive and off you go! I love it :)

And as a side note the key (phone) can be used without tesla's servers, it's just if you want to unlock remotely using the app or api that you're dependant on that

This is the most unheralded feature of Tesla cars, get in and drive, get out and walk away (). It is brilliant and freeing.

- just keep your phone on you which most of us do anyways.

We do need to have the key fob inside, at least for S/X. But one never notices this because it’s enough if you’ve got it inside your jacket or whatever.

How did I know it was a tesla before I even opened the link

This is literally fake news.

The mobile key pairs via bluetooth in all Tesla vehicles built after 2018 so you don't need the server side to be working in order to unlock and/or drive.

This temporary outage merely meant you couldn't remotely turn on climate or remotely unlock the car. Guess what? No other cars can do that at the best of times.

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