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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

> which will eventually be all cars

God I hope that day is long long in the future given the current ecosystem surrounding this crap. The last thing I want to add to my car is the multi-variant USB-C, thunderbolt, lightning adapter bullshit with accounts and subscriptions. It's the very worst of tech bro culture applied to critical infrastructure. What if the car makers owned and/or could strike deals with specific gas stations is an idea that only sounds good in a shareholder's mind.

Every day as car companies try to turn cars into toasters with subscription bread I'm happier with my ICE car / ebike setup. Gas used almost every day, 0. Range anxiety, 0. Using infrastructure that has been stable for longer than my parents have been alive, priceless.

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If ICE cars were invented today, every manufacturer would try to lock you in with their own shape of fuel tank opening. Have a toyota? Use the round fuel pumps. Ford? You need to find a pump with a notch on the end of the end so it's compatible with your tank. BMW? Two notches--find a different fuel station! Jeep? Square shaped pump! Or you need to keep a set of $100 dongle adapters in your trunk at all times. $400 for the California-approved dongles.

Oh I know, it's not a condemnation of EVs the technology. The actual technology is amazing. It's just that companies can't seem to get out of their own way and our government is completely inept at forcing everyone to be less shitty.

If cars were invented today, they'd never let us have them.

"It's like a horse and buggy, but much faster and heavier."

"But it'll know somehow how to avoid other vehicles and pedestrians and trees and houses and such?"

"No, the driver has to pay continuous attention or it'll veer wildly and hit whatever's in front of it."

"Shouldn't it run on rails? Or between protective barriers?"

"Painted lines."

You should have looked up what was really said about cars (both gas and electric!) when they were first invented. Some of them look much like your list, but others it looks like you made up something when reality already had an example.

That's a good and hilarious point.

In today's safety obsessed world, cars are a terribly unsafe anachronism. Somehow tech people are more afraid to run an non-sandboxed tab in a browser than drive a 3-ton vehicle 1 painted line away from similar vehicles going the other way with a speed differential of 100 miles per hour.

That fair, I guess, since physics aren't part of a JS-bootcamp.

You can plug in at home and use chargers very rarely. After a year or so, I’m yet to try use one.

I guess this very much depends on your driving patterns.

Anyone who has an ICE car will probably still prefer that for long trips. Most people are multiple car families and so will have that choice today.

Even if the EV was the choice, a lot of people will fly (or take a train) for longer trips and so never hit the limits.

The free standard autopilot on teslas makes highway driving much less taxing. I also have an ICE car, but will always take the Tesla on long road trips. Charging stops make the trip take maybe 10% longer, but that’s fine with me.

I have a Tesla with no subscription and a single plug I use when I go out. Not sure what you are on about.

Blaming collective action problems on techbro culture. History would like some of your time :)

Blaming cultural problems on culture -- yes that's correct.

Use whatever words you'd like if you don't like tech bro as the colloquium. But the intersection of this behavior of end-to-end control and things labeled "tech" and headed by "tech people" is very nearly a sphere.

For the people whose whole shtick is building autonomous systems we are remarkably bad at letting go and letting those systems be autonomous when it benefits the customer.

It's like we all watched Robocop, a film about how terrible it would be if an autonomous system created for the improvement of society at large was programmed to always obey the will of its creators for their personal gain and said, "That's a great idea, I could productize that."

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