New York could become first state with a ‘Right to Repair’ law
spectrumlocalnews.com
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Right To Repair sounds nice. It alliterates. But of course we have a right to repair our stuff. That goes without saying.
What's really at issue is a duty upon manufacturer's not to obstruct the four R's, to;
- refuse
- reuse
- repair
- recycle
Let's get specific, instead of a wishy "rights" formulation.
No technology must ever by soft-mandated or made a dependency so as to preclude an ethical, environmental or economic choice to not partake in its use, or to substitute other choices.
No technology should be encumbered with locks, licenses or mechanisms that affect the post-sale rights of its owner to repurpose or modify as they see fit (all other safety and contention (RF) issues can be dealt with at a another layer of legislation and enforcement.)
No impediment shall be made to the access, manufacture and distribution of spare parts or consumables, software updates, power supplies, connectors etc
Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components.
Right, but I don’t think that distinction is clear to most people.
The next step will be the software. Having hardware you can repair is great, but if you can’t own the software that can run ontop of it you have a dead brick.
Furthermore, if industry does dig their heels in and starts refusing to sell goods outright in favor of their retaining de jure ownership, then that is straight up anticompetitive and they should be prosecuted for it.
And, as the peer comment says, precluding re-sale.
This bill will be immediately killed by Microsoft's lobbyists. That's half their business strategy.
It can be very difficult to distinguish between effective design decision and mallicious manufacturing.
As it stands glueing the phone shut isn’t an issue for most consumers because they expect to throw away and buy a new phone every year or two.
Third party repair being allowed to thrive (e.g. being allowed to buy parts) is something totally different to restricting good engineering practices.
My whole point was that the solution is not to force phones to be more repairable, but to stop manufacturers from strangling the repair industry and give consumers actual choice.
Phones contain these adhesives to use less screws and to keep them water tight. Batteries are behind that glue seal.
This is an engineering necessity and not something done to make them hard to repair.
That's not entirely true. My Galaxy S8 has a user-removable SIM tray, and yet it's rated IP68.
Water has some viscosity, so it won't flow through tight gaps unless appropriate pressure is applied.
If you watch videos of people doing iPhone screen replacements, you can watch them peel it off easily and then replace it when they put the new screen on.
I am a bit surprised that someone would want to argue with a person who runs shops that do this for a living, but maybe this explanation will help other folks understand.
Also, I can’t reply to your other comment, but the iPhone 14 that is sold in the United States does not have a SIM tray.
It is a gasket with a sticky substance to keep the back from falling off. This sticky substance is, as far as I am aware called "glue".
I do not know what your point is. If you want to say "phone backs are secured by sticky gaskets" instead of "phone backs are glued down", be my guest. Who cares? Still, it is done for a particular purpose and shouldn't be legislated away.
>If you watch videos of people doing iPhone screen replacements, you can watch them peel it off easily and then replace it when they put the new screen on.
I am aware.
When you say "we do replace it when we do repairs", do you mean that you place the original gasket back into location, or that the original gasket is replaced with a new gasket?
I had to go back and look since my knowledge dates back to around the iPhone 4/4S (we've been running our shops since 2014.) Only the original iPhone was glued together. The gaskets started with the iPhone 6s, to my memory. The original gasket is peelable, so it typically gets destroyed when you open the phone, but they are cheap and pretty easy to replace. If you buy a DIY replacement iPhone screen, it will usually come with it.
By how many $ will this affect your 'living'? # serious question.
I haven't opened one myself since the 5S but that sticky substance that holds down the battery, while it might not be "glue" in a strict technical sense, adheres the battery to the case rather firmly. It's totally reasonable for someone to say that's "glue". This is especially true if they end up deforming the battery when removing it.
I think it all boils down to reparability. Just doing the basics (disassembly, and part replacement) with these assemblies take A LOT more practice and skill than the vast majority of people are generally prepared for.
Does it have to be this way? I think that's the key question. There's ultimately trade-offs between having something that's easy to work on vs something sleek and thin vs something that's affordable vs something that's performant. As consumers we are at the mercy of "genius designers" to decide those trade-off's for us. Personally, I don't mind having my phone be a nightmare to repair as long as it does the job I need it do and I can pay somebody to fix it if that's prudent. With other things, like appliances (that don't have borderline microscopic parts), I really want something that has a service manual.
Certain older MacBook batteries were glued down. But now, even on newer MacBooks, the batteries are held in by similar removable adhesive strips. All of this is a step in the right direction.
Believe me, Apple has done a lot of things to make third-party and independent repair more difficult. I'm not super thrilled with them. But saying Apple is gluing batteries or screens down when they're not is where I feel it's important to step in as a repair shop owner and explain what is actually going on.
Just as it is difficult to distinguish between effective design decisions and malicious manufacturing, I'd say that it is also difficult to distinguish between effective design goals and malicious smokescreens that hide malicious manufacturing.
I’m not sure that your conclusion follows from the observation. Sample size of one but I personally am quite happy for phones to be thinner precisely because I put a protective case on mine. A new iPhone with a case can be less than or as thick as the original iPhone was without a case.
So far I've opened all my smartphones just by heating them first. However, when they start using thermoset (rather than thermoplastic) glues I'll flip.
You'll have a completely custom replaceable band of plastic on the four thin sides, that is discarded upon any authorized repairs.
However, the trend these days seems to be glass backs and this necessitates rubber/silicone like glues to make the glass less likely to break when metal deforms on impact. I don't think there are any glues that are rubber like flexible and they resist heat. So at least until there are glass backs we're fine :-)
The issue comes in, when you lose all warranty on parts if someone opens up the phone. Which is unreasonable.... Imagine if your car warranty was contingent on you only using approved mugs inside the vehicle.
There are videos of new iPhones treating a replacement screen as not a genuine part... even though it was take off another iPhone right next to it.
I would hope that the text of the law would codify those requirements and ensure the longevity of our devices.
Perhaps you can expand your comment a bit , into a blog post and send it to policy makers ?
https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-...
I'm also not sure how you think we should refer to it?
This all happened after the fact- organic was in wide use before it was regulated, and meant a great many different things.
Here, right to repair (outside of NY) is not codified, and people are talking about it in many different ways, with different meanings. If we want to have it codified in a certain way, we cannot simply reduce what we are talking about to a catchphrase and hope that captures everything. We need to be specific in our lobbying of legislatures of what we want right to repair to mean.
Per the USDA, organic farming does not mean zero synthetic pesticides (though they must be used with approval first).
There are also different levels of organic:
"100% Organic" applies to everything but the salt and water contents of a food item
"Organic" means 95% of the non-salt and water ingredients must be organic
"Made with organic" means only the specified ingredients are organic.
If you don't want "Right to Repair" to mean that only 95% of your purchase is repairable, and touching the other 5% voids your warranty and lands you in jail for violating copyright, then now is the time to make 100% repairable be the definition while it is still not legally codified.
Yes codification is a nightmare. I'm no lawyer, but it's clearly a challenge that a lot of good minds need to sit down and think through.
At the end of the day, we can't keep trashing the planet for a little bit of extra corporate profit and consumer vanity. Making durable, repairable and reusable technology isn't rocket science. We managed it for centuries before the insanity of late capitalism took centre stage in the past 30 years or so.
FWIW, I did an interview with Gerry McGovern on World Wide Waste where we talked at length about some of the issues [1]. Hopefully these small efforts eventally get traction and visibility by those who make decisions.
[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/mu/podcast/andy-farnell-perils-of...
I have a Samsung fridge/freezer with a broken shelf because the parts of the shelf were held together with an insufficiently strong plastic clip. Imagine my surprise when upon research I discovered the fridge was discontinued and the shelf was unique to the fridge.
No other model had that shelf, it was like Samsung specifically used that particular plastic mold for this model purely to drive new appliance sales when it inevitably breaks.
I frequently need to repair some small plastic thing - the latest being making a new piston for my bike pump.
When it's a matter of 10 mins online and clicking print, it's great. But when I have to spend a few hours 3d modelling the exact shape, and then reprinting it 3 times because it's slightly wrong, the time-money tradeoff of just buying a new fridge isn't so good...
Regarding spending hours on design... yeah, that part is a drag. I've done this enough times now that I'm just a lot faster than I used to be, and I also have a pretty good idea of what tiny portions of a design to print to do fit checks. But getting there certainly took some practice.
I think it would be better to mandate manufacturers keep stock of replacement parts for X amount of years, and/or they must release design documentation for third parties to make parts.
Take, "Free Speech." It's a right. It has history, and has accumulated specific meanings, precedents and such over the years. It's true that The Right itself doesn't tell us what to do about modern medium monopolies and social media platforms... but it does give us a starting point. We agree that the right exists, just not what it is. That's not nothing.
Every possible approach has margins, edge cases, implementation difficulties, exceptions and mess. That's true for rights, duties and even minor legal codes, charters and ordinances. Even your examples...
"Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary ..."
Try turning that into an actively litigated something and you will find all the same problems. What about imports and trade agreement compatibility? What about competing standards. What about the ambiguity of "non-standard," "necessary" or "easy?" What counts and an impediment and how do these duties travel up the value chain?
I'm not saying it's all hopeless, just that nothing is clean. Rights, as opposed to duties, are a core part of our political basis (liberalism). They have a better track record of (a) sticking around and (b) maintaining a moral basis. Duties (eg reporting duty) don't tend to work as well. They're more prone to becoming bureaucratic rulesets than an abstract basis for laws and/or regulation.
For example, Louis Rossmann would not define R2R as containing "Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components." Also this definition is not legally possible anyway, as CPUs contain embedded fuses to contain unique security keys, serial number information, anti-rollback protections, prevent changing IMEI numbers (which would be fantastic for thieves), contain fixed radio calibration data, and so forth.
For him, R2R is the ability to buy parts and use them - but it does not implement design obligations. iFixit wants design obligations in their version of R2R - but this broadens the scope and reduces the likelihood of passage in my view (as does the broadening of the scope of any movement or law).
Meanwhile, you actually deal with another problem. The R2R movement loves to completely ignore the (very real) anti-theft and anti-counterfeiting benefits of part serialization. We are talking about a device with more counterfeit parts, more thefts, and more personal information at risk, than any other device ever created, which I think should count for something [1]. Also, while YouTube channels like Louis Rossmann gain my sympathy, they often completely ignore the widespread corruption within mobile phone repair stores, as has been documented elsewhere, somewhat misleading the audience into believing every store is as upright and honest as them when they broadly are not. As long as they keep ignoring that and pretending it is all about repair, instead of coming up with a compromise that promotes anti-theft and repairability, bills are going to be hamstrung.
[1] This is also why I think comparing smartphone repair versus, say, dishwasher repair is a little disingenuous on the R2R side. "Why can't I swap parts on my phone, like I can on an appliance?" Well... which one is stolen more, which one has more counterfeit parts available, which one has information that could destroy your life if compromised, particularly if you are a journalist or just take certain photos of yourself? Pick three. Should repairability, necessarily, be treated the same then? I think that's an open debate that's not so easily won as the R2R dishwasher strawman. I don't want my Face ID sensor swapped out by a hostile government with a fake sensor so they can unlock my phone at will, for example.
His bio [1] may be a little dated though.
Make sure you write your congressmen about this. That manufactures feel like they are liable if someone modifies their control software is one of the reasons they oppose right to repair. The EPA is really pushing hard to make it impossible to modify engine ECUs - no diesel as manufactured in the past 15 years has been even capable of "rolling coal", and for around 15 years before then it was difficult to make that happen. However there are still a lot of modified trucks out there spewing visible particulates, all because someone decided to modify the programming.
> Designs should not, by the use of adhesives, welding, non-standard fixings, unnecessary integration, traps, and fuses, prevent the easy disassembly and reuse of modular components.
Define a module in a rigorous way that I can apply. Seriously, parts have been welded together for ages, which turns two pieces of steel into one, were the two separate pieces a module before or not? With the right tools I can pull an IC apart and repair it - the labor is more than just making a new IC (assuming the original drawings still exist), but it is possible. Does that mean an IC is not a module? What about an IC soldered to a board that is then coated in a waterproof coating, screwed into a case - where is the module. This definition of module is critical to any debates on this, and I have no idea how you can objectively create a good definition that covers all cases.
Every time the machine has a minor breakdown (which happens once in a while) and the ECU detects that it isn't quite as efficient as it should be, it will immediately and completely mercilessly lock your vehicle to 35 miles per hour. Doesn't matter if you drove from Minnesota to California to pick up a heavy delivery in person - you are coming home at 35 MPH, the entire way, unless you stop at a shop on the way for potentially days to get it fixed.
And as for what could trigger that, it could be anything. Once a sensor went bad on the emissions filter. It was just one sensor of many - not the actual emissions system. It tripped the 35 MPH lock, and the only way to fix it was to replace the sensor, which required taking the entire freaking back axle off. It was almost an entire day's job for the diesel mechanic.
Imagine if you were a small business owner, multiple states away from home, when this happened. That is crushing and instills complete and utter contempt for emissions standards and those who make them very, very quickly. And then we wonder why some people hate EVs, love "rolling coal", and dispute climate change. If that happened to you, I could see very quickly why you'd join the haters club.
I'll also point to Illegal Tampering by Diesel Pickup Owners Is Worsening Pollution, E.P.A. Says https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/climate/diesel-trucks-air...
This gets to some of the "why" that the right to repair gets into trouble - that people will "repair" it to violate other laws either knowingly or unknowingly.
Note that the 1990 clean air act required that car makers provide this information to independent shops.
I furthermore, consider the "hate EVs" because of emissions standards for diesel vehicles to be completely irrational.
It's easy to waive your hands and call it irrational when it has never happened to you. If you want to experience the potential consequences for yourself, I dare you to drive from NY to LA (~2800 miles), while never exceeding 35 Miles Per Hour. Not once. Never. Enjoy the trip - you'll be almost entirely on backroads the whole way.
That is the potential consequence (taken to an extreme) that Diesel truck owners live with, every day, because of emissions. Irrational? I'd say completely rational - it's ridiculous to have that sword hanging over your head, that a sensor will just blow and you're stuck. If it happens to you, you want to rip the arms off any politician in the area.
Edit: As for the New York Times article, imagine if you are a business owner, delivering a product a few states away, or even just a few hundred miles. My dad, if it was not illegal, would have immediately went and did exactly as that article described, because that would guarantee that can't happen, which is important because he can't afford for that to happen. This isn't because my dad is heartless towards the environment - he'd pay $25 or $50 for a day-long emissions exemption (donated to, say, CO2 capture) to the 35MPH limit so he could rest assured that he has a quick way out if something goes wrong and he won't be trapped in the middle of nowhere.
> And then we wonder why some people hate EVs
I consider that irrational.
The issues with difficulty to repair the emissions systems on diesel vehicles should be something to complain to the vehicle manufacture - not the clean air act itself just as the ire of "can't fix a phone" should be focused on Apple rather than people who use a dumb phone or have a pine phone.
Imagine a legislature mandated that all smartphones must be watertight to 200 meters deep, no exceptions. They must also be no thicker than 1/4" of an inch, no exceptions. And then if, for example, all the smartphone makers used adhesive instead of screws to do that. Your argument is that the smartphone markers are to blame for the adhesive, not the legislature. I would argue that it really is the legislature's fault.
Edit @scratcheee:
I would first look over how much damage the vehicle actually causes the environment and whether the standards are reasonable. Look up Leaf Blowers vs Diesel emissions for example - it's really ugly how unfairly biased towards Leaf Blowers and other small engines the emissions standards are. They can have absolutely absurd emissions by comparison without any restriction. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-cali...) (This is another reason why, if your vehicle was shut down due to emissions, knowing that a leaf blower is doing more damage is even more infuriating and destroys credibility and faith in the standards.)
After that, assuming that the standards aren't moving downward, I would have a self-service daily exemption system. Basically, send $25 or so to some complaint CO2 capture or similar organization, get a code, punch code into truck, get exception for the whole day. Obviously this adds up ($500+ a month assuming normal weekdays), incentive enough to get it fixed soon. My dad would be the kind of person who would be greatly relieved - because modding your truck to ignore emissions is awfully tempting whenever planning a long road trip. Just knowing you wouldn't be stranded if something went wrong is enough to kill the temptation.
Edit @lcnPylGDnU4H9OF:
Neither myself, nor my dad, bear ill-will towards EVs. Any ill-will towards them is your misinterpretation of the argument. We are, however, arguing that the stringent and very flawed enforcement of emissions standards undermines the credibility of all emissions standards, as well as faith in EVs and other marketed-as-environmentally-friendly solutions. And that, therefore, blame can be shared both ways when we see people opposed to EVs and stricter emissions standards.
My best attempt: perhaps as long as systems to maintain emissions standards have failed, the vehicle could be made to pay a fine per X miles travelled that approximates the cost of correcting either the actual emissions of that engine or if such data is unavailable, a plausible worst case emissions of the engine. At a vague guess I could see that being $250 per 1000 miles or so (simplifying emissions to be "4x typical CO2 emissions of a van", which could be way off, and current best-case DAC costs to undo the damage ~$250 per tonne).
That's still a fairly steep fine, but at least it isn't artificially limiting the vehicle.
Emissions should be checked with a tailpipe sensor, as they used to do before they started to lazily rely on OBD2. Then digital restrictions on the emissions computers (etc) could then be narrowly scoped to reporting the last time the firmware was flashed. And if someone is still willing to swap that module out and back every year, then just let them. They could also just burn diesel in a 55 gallon drum in their back yard.
I guess the problem is how to encourage manufacturers to ensure their emissions functions remain high quality. If the _only_ feedback is customers eventually getting failed inspections and thus higher repair bills eventually, which presumably then leads to them complaining about the cost of the cars maintenance, that's a pretty weak feedback loop compared to direct punishment for producing products that fail emissions checks.
The problem is that once you punish manufacturers more directly they start installing these braindead systems in self defense, after all, if nobody can drive their cars when they're broken then they can't be punished for failing emissions checks.
I guess you could just forbid them from blocking customers at the same time as you punish them, but that's a little unsatisfying.
Maybe just require a way to detect modification or emissions override, and anyone who does that pays the fine if they fail inspection, and for anyone else the manufacturer pays. They'd presumably be begging people to install modifications so they can hand off any fines...
For passenger vehicles (including diesel pickup trucks but not diesel semi tractors), after you buy it, if you make modifications to it, you the owner are now responsible for it. Also note that the diesel pickup truck is classified as a passenger vehicle rather than a commercial vehicle and so needs to meet the standards of a passenger vehicle.
However... where it gets interesting is when you switch to commercial and industrial equipment. In these cases, the manufacture is always responsible unless they go out of their way to lock it down.
For example, if you made a farm tractor and could adjust the software to change the fuel air mixture to optimize it for certain altitudes (farming at 5000 feet has different tuning than farming at sea level) then if it was possible for the person using it to change that... you, the manufacture are still responsible for any things with emissions. For industrial equipment, you need to lock it down to the point where the person doing it is knowingly violating warranties and regulations.
... And then you've got John Deere with its DRM on the firmware to make sure that farmers don't modify them to go racing ( https://youtu.be/hK-WO9SzVcs ) and get the company in trouble (and the EPA is less of an issue than someone modifying the settings for a combine and getting killed).
https://www.biren.com/blog/2020/september/defective-machiner...
> Products claims over defective industrial machines are subject to many of the common defenses in products cases, including comparative fault of the user or a third party (CACI No. 1207A and 1207B), misuse or modification (CACI No. 1245), and more.
> These claims may also become a target for the sophisticated user defense, in which a Defendant accused of failing to warn argues they are not liable because the Plaintiff is a sophisticated user who, because of their position, training, experience, knowledge, and / or skill, knew or should have known about a product’s risk of harm (CACI No. 1244).
> Overcoming such a defense requires assessment of what a user knew or should have known at the time of an accident. More importantly, Plaintiffs’ attorneys should anticipate such a defense when bringing a products liability claim over a Defendant’s failure to warn, and explore other alternatives for proving defects based on defective design or manufacturing, if supported by the facts, and especially if a Plaintiff may qualify as a sophisticated user.
That misuse or modification part - https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1200/1245... its a two part test where both parts must hold
> 1. The [product] was [misused/ [or] modified] after it left [name of defendant]’s possession; and
> 2. The [misuse/ [or] modification] was so highly extraordinary that it was not reasonably foreseeable to [name of defendant], and therefore should be considered as the sole cause of [name of plaintiff]’s harm.
Can one claim that changing the fuel settings on a tractor is extraordinary that it can't be reasonably foreseen? If not, then John Deere is still responsible unless they take every possible action to prevent it from happening.
So if there is a safety interlock controlled by software, which the end user then disables by replacing the software, and then someone gets hurt - even though the manufacturer could have reasonably foreseen the modification, the manufacturer still isn't liable because their (removed) safety interlock code wasn't defective in the first place.
But regardless of the current state of the law, a new law that prohibited companies from prohibiting modifications to software on devices they sell would obviously affect that. The thing your citing is California jury instructions, that are presumably a distillation of case law. So rather than even needing to be amended by a legislature, they would be implicitly adjusted with the passage of a right to repair law.
I do agree that the current state of things sounds bad with the speed limiting, especially for the commercial owner who's more likely to be responsible with the truck, but certainly it's irrational to vaguely blame "EVs" for these problems. That sounds like an anti-EV dog-whistle more than an argument.
The 1% trips that need the truck are enough to use it as a daily driver. The fixed costs of owning a truck (for the 1% trip) and a second car for everything else are so much that almost nobody has enough income to afford that.
Every time I say the above someone says "but you can rent", but when I look into it I discover the hassles, cost, and restrictions on renting makes me decide I can't.
It sounds like I think it's irresponsible to take those trips if it means you choose to purchase a truck despite the lack of need for 99% of your use of it.
Indeed, you can rent and you choose not to for reasons you mentioned, which is a decision others can criticize.
> instills complete and utter contempt for emissions standards [and how they are enforced]
Why not hold contempt with the manufacturer who has a bad solution to meet the standards? What if the manufacturer wants the solution to be bad (malicious compliance)? What if they don't care? What if they do want to have a good solution and it's just otherwise bad? You could insist that their trucks do not meet your standards and the manufacturer needs to do a better job of both meeting emissions compliance requirements and not crippling the ability of the vehicle when they fail to.
> the only way to fix it was to replace the sensor, which required taking the entire freaking back axle off
This was a design decision made by the manufacturer and it is their fault that it's so difficult to fix. This has nothing to do with legislation except for that the sensor needs to exist; the legislation does not specify where that sensor needs to be, nor does it require that the sensor ever stops functioning (again, blame the manufacturer!). The manufacturer 1) doesn't need to stay in business and 2) needs to meet emissions standards. I don't see an argument against the emissions standards that doesn't start with the assumption that the vehicle manufacturer either will or should stay in business. It's only because the manufacturer shifts the blame that you're complaining about emissions standards rather than the decisions made by the manufacturer.
The ease of repairability isn't something that is legislated - but rather the "this is the minimum fuel efficiency and the emissions for a diesel vehicle". The placement of sensors and lack of redundancy is a choice from the company.
The existence of an electric vehicle has no bearing on using a pickup truck to do long haul loads.
That the company is making it difficult for 3rd parties to repair is exactly the issue of right to repair and intentionally making it hard for 3rd parties to fix even though they are in compliance with the requirements (by the Clean Air Act) to provide this information and parts.
(I will also point out that this sort of intentional tampering and violation of laws is what makes it harder to argue for a right to repair for other things.)
One's ire shouldn't be directed at the EPA but rather Ford and Chevy for making their trucks harder to fix and lacking redundancy in the systems to avoid the situation where it breaks and you're limited to 35mph.
Furthermore, as a working truck, it is probably necessary to have it tuned up more frequently than its passenger vehicle time schedule would suggest.
The solution to this is not to make tampering hard or illegal, but instead to simply have random spot checks and hefty fines for those caught doing it.
It would work like this:
* The truck detects tampering has occurred, and pops up a warning (repeated once a month) saying "Warning: Your emissions system may have a fault, and should be checked by a professional. Driving a vehicle that does not meet emissions laws could incur a fine of $10k."
* Each state trains a few police officers on use of a rolling road and emissions checking equipment. They pull vehicles over at random and test them. They issue large fines to those who don't pass the test (with a big discount for those where the emissions failure appears to be due to neglect rather than deliberate tampering).
* Publish in local media stories of those caught, include figures of how many people air pollution has killed in the state. Make sure you get some quotes from the mother of a trucker who has died from lung cancer, etc.
Soon far fewer people will be modding their trucks...
This is impossible. Anyone who can figure out how to modify ECU programming (this isn't trivial) can figure out how to turn off that notice.
Any garage doing this for their customers will also have a harder time in court when they try to explain to the jury that they deliberately hid a message intended to notify their customer of illegal emissions.
Besides most of the above emissions changes are specifically about changing the programming of the ECU. While you can make mechanical changes, they typically only have a small effect and so you wouldn't notice. However if you change the ECU programming you can get a lot more power out of the engine - at the expense of engine life and emissions. Which is why I say that the only people doing this to their cars will just turn off the code that turns that light on: they are already changing the code of the ECU.
I own a small sports car. This car is designed to only run on 93 octane gas, and has three stages of catalytic converters due to emissions standards, as well as related sensors. Many parts of the US do not have 93 octane gas, only 91 octane gas, which is possible to run in the vehicle but causes it to run worse than it otherwise would and isn't great long-term. Additionally, it is extremely underpowered given its engine specifications due to the emissions controls.
If I were to illegally remove the catalytic converters and instead run resonators (for sound tuning and volume reduction) and program the ECU with a module to support using ethanol fuels, I would actually reduce the emissions output while ensuring I have effectively higher octane fuel and produce 30-40 more horsepower at the wheels. Yes, removing emissions devices can actually make a car /more/ efficient and reduce emissions if done correctly. Unfortunately, the EPA has decided that people that want to do this are horrendous criminals and any shop assisting them or importing parts is doing crimes, and has made it their mission to shut it down.
So the EPA and our stupid legislation ensures my car is less efficient, undergoes more wear, and sounds worse, in order to abide by emissions standards.
People under 60 have no idea how crappy the air quality was in the late 1960 through 1980. And it really didn't improve much until the mid 1990s, when most if the old cars finally aged out and left the road.
There's been multiple studies on this. From an environmental impact perspective, biofuels are generally considered worse than gasoline due to land-use, however at the point of use, when burned, they are massively cleaner than gasoline and don't produce the same quantity and types of byproducts. In point of fact, burning high ethanol biofuels without catalytic converters produces cleaner emissions than burning gasoline with catalytic converters. Also, my parent comment was not an argument against catalytic converters, it was an argument against the encryption of ECUs, banning of tuning components, etc. by the EPA in the name of emissions, when these things are necessary to convert a car that runs on gasoline to run on high-ethanol biofuels, which are better from an emissions perspective at point of use. You can use downstream high-flow catalytic converters with ethanol fuels for final cleaning, such as in the mid-pipe of the exhaust, but you cannot use them in the exhaust header itself as the temperature of the exhaust gas is significantly higher with high-ethanol fuels, which is part of why their byproducts are less emitting.
EVs have less moving parts, than any ICE vehicle. And brushless motor control isn't a complex issue at all(if your EV has brushless motors, that is). If your EV had traditional brushed motor(s) - then it's even easier.
The opposition to EV is beyond stupid at this point.
In independent towing tests, a fully-loaded F150 Lightning Platinum with maxed-out towing capacity, which is inferior to the 3500 by a few hundred pounds, could not even go 100 miles. It also takes 1.5 hours to charge at 440V, 14 hours to charge at 220V. At best, you would spend equal amounts of time charging as towing, which would be absurd (assuming you can always find a 440V charger).
I rest my case. It's like saying you don't need a Core i7 for rendering because you can survive with a Core i3. Sometimes you need a Core i7 - and you'd like your Core i7 to not randomly go slower than a Pentium if it detects its drawing too much power, right?
Edit: Removed 7700 F-150 Lightning limit, that was base model.
But OTOH, probably 90% of the miles on it are driving around "to the mall" or work.
Could I rent a truck every time I needed one? Probably, but it would probably cost me another $1k+ a year or so, be massively inconvenient, etc.
OTOH, a lot can probably be done to improve the efficiency of normal trucks being used in commuter situations. Hybrid/etc style vehicles are probably just fine for my use case, since I already have the baby motor in it. Is it a bit slower/etc when I'm towing, sure, but it gets the job done.
The R1T can, the upcoming Silverado will be about 100 lbs short.
Note that these are still first generation products, there’s every reason to believe that subsequent generations will see significant gains over this.
> It also takes 1.5 hours to charge at 440V
It is well understood that charging at high voltages is a variable curve. So, if you are looking to maximize speeds you aren’t going to charge to 100%. More realistically you’d drive for and hour and charge for 30 mins.
I’m not going to pretend that is acceptable, mind you, but again, there is a lot of room for improvement in charging speeds. There are already vehicles on the market that charge significantly faster than that.
You really ought to consider why before calling it stupid. EVs are basically a non-starter if you need to tow or drive long distances quickly for reasons such as children and trucking.
Net result is probably worse.
And despite the people claiming they will last longer than ICE, I can't remember ever replacing a car because the drive train was to expensive to fix. They get replaced because they are old/ugly and the interiors/exteriors are worn out.
OTOH, I don't really know anyone who is against EV's, but myself I find them slightly annoying because where i live they are basically being subsidized by everyone not driving one. Which isn't fair because the people driving them tend to be in the upper income/wealth brackets. Its basically a smug regressive tax, that doesn't do shit for the environment given ~50% of the power in the city I live in comes from a coal plant, and averages about 80% CO2 emitting sources after the wind+nukes are added to the picture. (And actual consumer vehicular CO2 output works out to something like 8% of the CO2 emissions).
That software may be more mature than EV's software, but not necessarily so.
[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apples-wozniak-toyota-has-softw...
It does not seem possible to own most modern vehicles.
" And then we wonder why some people hate EVs, love "rolling coal", and dispute climate change. If that happened to you, I could see very quickly why you'd join the haters club."
1.If this is a form of protest it's not working because when environmentists see a truck rolling coal they only want more regulation and enforcement. If it's a protest it's not clear because an alternative explanation could be that the people driving lifted trucks and rolling coal just want to be dicks/annoy people. It's like if I was angry at a bank so i littered at their branches
2. EVs have the same issues with right to repair so why would you hate them? Again similar issues as 1
3. Climate change is occurring and disputing it because you are upset about "limp mode" also doesn't make sense. Who is going to connect these two situations.
> It's like if I was angry at a bank so i littered at their branches
Sometimes, if you are angry enough, you protest in the only way that you know of, regardless of how rational it is. No policymaker is going to listen to your concerns, valid though they may be. What else are you going to do? Shut up and take it? I would hope that when we see people who oppose EVs, and "roll coal," that would be a sign for us to ask how they got there, instead of assuming they are idiots.
The limp mode is not specifically tied to environmental controls. It also happens for high temperature in diffs, transmissions, etc. It protects components.
As to a rolling coal protest, people do this to also just be jerks. Basically inflammatory behavior never works as a protest. Politicians are already aware that people don't care about the environment and or hate emissions devices on vehicles.
Rolling coal is such an immature junvinile behavior, especially when people target vehicles. Imagine if someone has breathing issues and their car interior is flooded with poorly combusted diesel fumes. It's why whenever I see a lifted truck I just assume the person is an asshole.
Should I go up and ask them? What do you think would happen? They would think I'm attacking and judging them and I'm sure their response wouldn't be useful
That’s what they say is the reason. But I don’t believe that for a second.
It's possible that's one reason and another is to force people to buy new products more often or pay for repair services. When asked however, they claim it's the first reason because it makes them look better than if it was both.
This is an extremely common manipulation tactic
This is the problem I have with "right to repair" legislation. It turns into "right for bureaucrats to tell engineers how to do their jobs".
My phone uses LOCA glue to secure the glass to the display. Does this violate "right to repair"?
My phone is held together, not with screws, but adhesives. How about this?
Or, GOOD GRIEF! The story in this thread about the ECU in a truck that cripples it for environmental reasons, and requires expensive repairs. Is that covered by "right to repair"? Or does that not apply here?
I don't see the consensus by activists in this field as people that are saying "don't use adhesives," "all hardware must be modular," or "compromise design for repairability."
I see right to repair activists asking for things like:
- Making spare parts available to purchase
- Making internal service manuals available with reasonable terms
- Forbidding certain types of digital protection on spare parts and firmware that are in place to enforce a market power imbalance (e.g., to force you to buy OEM spare parts without a defensible safety or security reason)
- Forbidding anti-competitive parts inventory practices that disadvantage independent third party repair providers (e.g., Apple, who makes third-party repair shops wait until a customer brings in a phone before they can order a common part like a screen...imagine if your car mechanic had to wait until you brought your car in before they could buy brakes, you'd always take the car to the official dealer to get it done faster.)
Experienced and even amateur repair technicians have no problems with things like adhesives. Instead, they have problems with companies actively fighting against self-repair.
This would forbid production of security tokens (like Yubikey) which are designed to be hard to disassemble and peek inside.
Non-standard whatever is how innovation happens. Non-standard fasteners, etc are fine as long as tools to work with them are available (not patented and kept from circulation).
The welding and adhesives clause is also problematic. Is a welded car body unnecessarily welded, preventing reuse of its individual metal parts? If so, how are glued-together components of a phone not the same deal? A part of the car body likely costs more than an electronic part of a phone.
Otherwise, I'm with you.
Opposition from unnamed companies to legislation that has already passed? How often do bills end up in limbo like this?
2017, "Apple Spends Big to Thwart Right to Repair in New York", https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/05/apple-spends-big-thw...
June 2021, NY Senate bill passed (200 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27472083
June 2022, NY Assembly bill passed, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31614055
> Today, the New York State legislature passed an electronics Right to Repair bill: As of mid 2023, manufacturers who sell “digital electronic products” in New York will have to make parts, tools, information, and software available to consumers and independent repair shops. We still await a final signing by the governor, but advocates don’t expect a challenge.
Full text of legislation: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S4104
Any service you decide to run on the device, should be possible (without explicit approval of the manufacturer) to be provided by any company. The current situation is like you bought a TV and you can only watch the TV-network of the manufacturer.
Needless to say, within this law it should be allowed for any company to perform repairs too, or provide hardware extensions, etc.
Or a service provider like a mobile carrier or cable company.
And the other parts you're describing are true right now, you can run any software on any device you own, and anyone is allowed to do repairs, the oem is just allowed to make it hard and not help you.
I don't the law as you've proposed would ever pass because we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions. I think "right to flash" where the oem has to leave open the ability to replace the software on the device might get somewhere especially as an environmental play with 3rd parties adopting old hardware.
I'm not so sure. People like to own the stuff they paid for.
> the oem is just allowed to make it hard
This is exactly the point which the suggested law addresses.
When you buy a product and the vendor disappears from the face of the Earth (whether after 10 years or 10 days), you should still be able to use the product as advertised.
> we really don't like laws that make companies take positive actions.
What do you mean by positive actions?
Encrypting a Wireless tire pressure monitor gauge that locks out your security system if not detected forcing you to bring it to a shop for repair so they can electronically code the 20$ part is outright hostile maintenance practice to the consumer. Tesla is one of the worst cars for hobbyist with how the owner is practically locked out of repairing anything. I think there is alot to be learned from Tesla And John Deere hobbyists in what lessons they learned and tools they actually needes that can be applied to repairing electronic devices.
This let's you peform maintenance, code modules, read codes including manufacturer codes, etc
They even allow unlocking module protection and work with vw
P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Some technical solutions, in your terminology, might be seen by others as a “lazy short cut for profit” and we can have that debate if you like. With our regulatory bodies, and rules, unfettered freedom in electronics is stupid for consumers and you know it. I think more effort isn’t a bad thing in the long run.
Also, it’s natural for it to cascade down. Just like car tech. Just like how that’s how companies start - get away with it where you can. It went from consumers UP to John Deere, not the other way around.
Feel more like a democratic decision made by the majority, after all, the users are the majority and the makers are the minority.
But I think we can at least agree that customers should have same access to parts and tools as dedicated service centers. But I would like that manufacturers retain the right to choose technical solutions that might sacrifice repairability unless it can be reasonably shown that the only reason for that feature is planned obsolescence.
not bad, for the same reason we prevent car manufacturers from manufacturing and selling rolling coal 120dB cars. There are things you shouldnt be able to sell because they harm society.
This sounds like you want to create an exemption just for Apple products, so that they don't have to ship standard connectors :-/
In any case, if you put this exemption in then any other "right" is moot: All the manufacturer has to do is make non-standard parts that can't be worked on by anyone else because the chosen technical solution has "trade secrets" in proprietary software that can't be disclosed.
> P.S. It upsets me how the industry has succeeded in redirecting the Right to Repair activism from domains where it is actually bitterly needed (like specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances) to consumer electronics.
Why? If the right to repair applies (and has any teeth in law), the specialised equipment, agricultural machinery and home appliances don't get exemptions from it.
If I as a consumer at least could easily tell while I'm shopping, then I could make an informed choice. In aggregate that might apply some market pressure.
For example, I have a subwoofer from Samsung, part of a soundbar package. It died a couple of years back. I'm 99% confident it's the power supply which is integrated. As far as I can see there's no way to non-destructively disassemble the unit to replace the power supply.
Had the power supply been external, then it would be an easy swap. Had it been easy to disassemble the case, it would probably be an easy swap. But thanks to the integral power supply, and no service manual available showing how to disassemble it and no clear way how, it's effectively junk.
Why are the needs of commerce so much greater than then needs of people who use consumer electronics? If we're trying to reduce ewaste caused by planned obsolescence, isn't the vast majority of it consumer electronics?
To clarify, I think that there are different classes of devices with different kinds of technical requirements. There is no good reason why a dishwasher pump or a washing machine/food processor motor are not easily replaceable: after all they are housed in large, bulky mechanical machines that could function for decades with proper maintenance. But a smartphone or a laptop are extremely complicated devices that rely on minituarization and tight integration to provide features like energy efficiency, weather protection, data security etc. You can’t treat a smartphone the same way as a dishwasher. It’s a very different device.
There are over 17 lawsuits filed by R2R advocates against John Deere around the country.
This is not just a fight for consumer electronics.
I hope this trend continues with software, if a manufacturer decides to no longer support a version of software that was released, the consumers have the right to repair it as well. I know some believe Software Freedom and Open Source are supposed to solve this but that's not always a viable option.
What I'm getting at is: if the battery isn't glued inside the iPhone, but is held some other way, then the iPhone is still really hard to get into to get to the battery.
While not Lego-easy, there’s nothing complex or particularly difficult about it.
Flagship smartphones used to have easily removable batteries too. Like the Samsung Galaxy S3.
The glue must be there for other reasons and probably you should not swim with your phone.
As someone who has replaced several batteries, I take pains to make sure I put new glue/sticky gaskets back in place when I do it and I do that for waterproofing not to protect Apple’s business.
What will you define as "valid"?
Using logic I can only conclude that glue is not used or is not effective for water proofing OR there are as you called "other business decision" involved here.
Your alternative means that glue works but Apple uses the water detection stickers to refuse warranty in bad faith, the battery exploded because it was a bad batch => the water sticker is red, sorry no warranty for you!
Anyway the phones are not in reality water proof,so this excuse should not be used by fanbous, let Apple lawyers use it, they are actually paid for it and might even know the reason it is used.
I don't see it as an indictment for Apple to put the pink stickers inside devices. I had a battery replacement warranty denied on my Macbook; said there was water intrusion. I was initially outraged until I recalled the time that I did actually get the laptop significantly wet (partially submerged) and quickly drained and dried it out and felt relief that "Oh, phew! It still works..." And it did still work and only several months later I noticed an unusual battery drain.
I don't know what the truth is, I just disagree with your conclusion based on the logic you present.
What I can prove is that "glue helps you swim with your iPhone is bullshit". In fact logic would tell us that glue is created for sticking things together, if you want water proofing you would use something designed for that purpose.
I linked above an Apple link, and you can find examples where iPhones will get refused warranty because of water damage. This proves that GLUE is less then 1oo% effective.
q.e.d
Prop2 Monkey shit might be better then glue.
Since glue <100% and I used the word "might" then there is a chance that monkey shiot after a monkey eats a special food is better.
q.e.d.
My point is that is a terrible excuse if you demand me to prove that glue is exactly 0% effective, I don't have the lab to prove it but A[ple that has the lab decided not to offer you water proof warranty, so either you are happy with
1 glue , is not effective enough for Apple to offer a warranty
2 glue is effective enough but Apple has some sinister business reason to reject your warranty if their water sticker turns on.
Why are they doing it?
When Samsung or Google phones have issue I never see such fantasies beeing created to defend a giant company that has payed people to do that.
If the glue isn't effective (your premise), I'd expect the phones to behave broadly similarly and you win the bet.
If the glue is effective, I'd expect the 5 no-glue phones to experience more water intrusion and I win the bet.
How about $50K each, plus $5K each for phones, plus $5K each on top to be donated to the FSF? If there is no difference (or if the no-gasket phones outperform), you keep all 10 phones, my $50K, and are out $5K for phones and $5K to FSF. If the glued phones outperform, I keep the 10 phones, your $50K, and am out $5K for phones and $5K to FSF. Either way, the FSF gets $10K. (If you dislike the FSF, pick another remotely reasonable charity and if you win, both of us donate $5K to that charity.)
I'm sure we can find some tech YouTuber to help us film and broadcast the outcome publicly.
You in?
It is Apple fans that ppretend that glue is used for water proofing while Apple claims the phone is not water proof. So this fanboys need to prove the woprld and to Apple that glue purpose is to let you swim with your phone.
This wager seems like an easy $40K, $10K to the charity of your choice, plus uncountable value in internet points if that's right.
Why are you invested in this to contradict Apple documentation ? search this link for "swiming" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043 , seems there is damage in many cases, maybe is not imediate so guys like you that change their phones often d not see the consequences.
You have no idea how often I change phones, but the fact that I'm well-experienced with changing batteries on family phones that I own may give you some hints as to the frequency thereof. (I use an XS Max from 2018.)
I even successfully applied warranty few times (Sony and Samsung) when a phone got fucked this way, since the glue wasn't applied properly. New phone for me, yay.
I don't see why there can't just be a separate market segment for people who are willing to sacrifice some ease of repair for ruggedness.
Unregulated free markets are widely accepted to be a bad idea. E-waste is a serious problem that the free market can't solve on its own. Regulation is necessary.
I believe the PinePhone prioritizes repairability but it's obviously not as popular as the iPhone.
> Unregulated free markets are widely accepted to be a bad idea. E-waste is a serious problem that the free market can't solve on its own. Regulation is necessary.
Why is e-waste a serious problem (as opposed to other types of waste)? Couldn't this problem be solved by improving e-waste disposal processes?
Improved? Yes. Solved? Not really. Recycling is not a perfect process by any stretch. Producing less E-waste is just as important because global consumption of the resources that go into it is currently very unsustainable. E-waste management right now is not just unideal, it's more or less a joke. In 2021 less than 20% of E-waste in Europe was being collected and recycled. Recycling is hard. It requires changes at almost all levels of society. Designing repairable electronics on the other hand is essentially a solved problem that the industry has done less and less due to cost. Because the free market ultimately is best at optimising for lowering cost, and not other things like sustainability, safety, and so on. That's where regulations and taxes come in.
And third, if we're sharing anecdotes, i also talk to a lot of people who ended up switching phones due to a dead jack or USB port, and have drawers full of fully functioning phones except for a single, cheap, broken component.
There's no need for glue to ensure water resistance. With a repairable(easily opened, non-soldered parts) phone it would be much easier to repair water damage anyway if you accidentally dropped it into water or something. Most people have no need for keeping their device on them while swimming.
Note that there is a significant difference between "water resistance" and "waterproofness".
A few companies have business/military phones that still have most of the features people were used to. They are a little bigger, but you don't need a case.
Rugged 2-way radios, not just waterproof, but designed to float and to turn on the lights when dropped into water. Perfectly replaceable battery pack, interchangeable with the regular NiMH batteries. All it takes is literally rubber inserts that you need to pop off to access the screws.
If your car can be turned off remotely or rendered unusable because the company that made it goes out of business, it's a problem. The same is true for things that you "purchase" through Amazon and other services. If you are buying (not renting) you should be able to download and access offline forever.
Makes sense -- part of being "green" is not buying new stuff every year.
When I went off to college, you could order the laptop from Apple, then order the RAM from Newegg, pop out the battery, and upgrade the ram yourself (the slots were behind where the battery went in.)
This was before Bitcoin, but I remember how some folks were pissed I told all the moms you don't need a GPU to do computer security since you'll be able to SSH into big iron if you actually need that kind of thing.
Anyways, you'd go onto Craiglist and sell the ram for cash, to avoid the chance some asshole will do a Paypal dispute after you sent them the ram you no longer have a use for so they can get it for free.
And then when the laptop started getting older, you could at least just buy a new battery for about two hundred.
I think, during that period, I may have gotten hit with some malware from a keygen? It's been an arms race since I was 12 between "that's a CFAA violation" and "you shouldn't have been on that website" versus "a lot of the rhetoric around CFAA violations assumes I can't walk out of my apartment and pour a bottle of water onto your computer then claim stand your ground."
(Rest in power John McAfee. At least you made people laugh, even if you did murder a fellow Greg.)
- Greg
Patents? Copyright? Brands? Standards? Product Safety?
Here (Canada) our nuclear power plants produce tritium as a byproduct.
This can be used to "boost" nuclear weapons. Should Ontario Hydro be allowed to sell this in the open market? It goes for ~$30,000/gram so Hydro would LOVE to be able to sell it.
What about poisons? They have no real use besides killing others, should they be available in your local walmart?
DDT, should we bring this back?
You see the point?
There is no "right to sell whatever you want" and there never will be one.
And Walmart has dozens of poisons in stock. You should be able to find bromethalin, a neurotoxin, in any one of them.