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Comment by fizzynut | Hacker News Reader

Intel basically made the same CPU for about 6 years straight because of 10nm process issues.

They had to keep pretending the next gen "Lake" CPU was substantially different from the last, so they just took last gen product, made some minor tweaks to break compatibility and called it a new generation

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Same goes for most cars. No real revolution, tweaks or changes due to regulatory demands, but nothing groundbreaking.

Still, when you’re due for a new car and look for the newest of the newest, would you go with manufacturer A, who released their latest car 8 years ago, or manufacturer B, who released it 1 year ago?

Incremental upgrades get so much hate around the internet (mostly about phones) by people having the version before it. Saying things like “ah they changed almost nothing! Why would I upgrade?!” While for instance me, only on my 3rd smartphone EVER, would love all the incremental updates over the years when I finally decide I need a new one, because I always get the latest and greatest. If a company then doesn’t release anything for a few years, I’d go somewhere else.

In the case of cars and CPUs its not that people mind incremental upgrades, it is that they mind incremental upgrades sold as big upgrades.

For phones the mindset of people who upgrade when they have to and/or buy cheaper phones is very different from those who regularly upgrade to the latest flagship phone.

Case in point: A new car released 8 years ago, but with incremental upgrades (i.e. Mitsubishi RVR in NA), still won’t have the same fundamental design considerations around safety or fuel efficiency as a more recent model.

The one with a reliability data for the past 8 years.

It's surprising to me that people would want to make a major financial decision like a car without knowing about its reliability history.

8 years of the same parts, repair knowledge, and continued software support?

Sign me up immediately.

> continued software support

Unfortunately due to the extremely minimal software rights that exist (see: proprietary software) this is pretty much nonexistent in cars AFAIK.

I would rather get a car that is old enough to not be limited by software constraints. Which is pretty disappointing, because I actually really like electric cars. I think they would work well for my needs. But they are all so intentionally kneecapped, I have no interest in any particular model that's available.

I would love a super bare bones electric car. One that functions the same as any late 90s/early 2000s era car would, except with an electric power train and maybe cruise control.

2011-2013? Nissan Leaf fits the bill.

This.

It's so thoroughly reverse engineered that if you decided you wanted to reconfigure the software so it would only drive at prime numbered miles per hour, you could.

Those cars are essentially illegal to sell in many countries.

What if the reliability is like "these bearings are known to fail every 10k miles or so, but we have no product refresh planned for at least 3 years so the problem will remain unresolved?"

This is what incremental improvements are supposed to be. Well that and discovering that the vehicle can last till the end of the warranty period with one less bolt in that spot, so you can eliminate it.

You are wrong and right. Wrong because continuous improvement is not about making a vehicle only survive a 3-5 year warranty period. Right because the master of continuous improvement have a 10 year warranty (20000 km, 12500 miles) where I live if you do service at a dealership or authorised service centre and I think this extended warranty influence the decisions about what minimum level of quality the manufacturer will accept.

> It's surprising to me that people would want to make a major financial decision like a car without knowing about its reliability history.

Some people will always be surprising, but it is pretty clear that the pickup truck is the most purchased type of vehicle (in North America) exactly because they have a much better reliability track record as compared to most cars. This idea doesn't escape the typical buyer.

> it is pretty clear that the pickup truck is the most purchased type of vehicle (in North America) exactly because they have a much better reliability track record as compared to most cars

The pickup truck is also deeply engrained in American culture as masculine, even if the owner does nothing that requires it.

Yes, it seems most products that gain a reputation for reliability end up taking on a "masculine persona", of sorts. Which I guess stands to reason as in popular culture reliability is what defines the "manly man".

Buying first gen models is always a crapshoot. Often same for last gen if they try to squeeze new capabilities into a platform it wasn’t intended for.

Tesla is particularly terrible but this has been true for every manufacturer.

You want a couple years for them to work out the kinks.

Car buyers aren't always so dumb. When we bought our car, I was fully aware that major updates to models happen only so often. We bought used (of course), and the "major update" was our major criteria, more so than the specific year release date. (We bought a 2014 model in 2018; the year they released significant safety improvements compared to the 2013 model.)

Honestly, from a reliability standpoint, the ideal new car is one that had a major refresh ~2 years ago. By then most of the kinks should be worked out.

Or just pay attention to the warranty. If they guarantee it for 10 years, they probably expect it to run for 10+ years.

New models every year are fine if they're honestly labeled and have technologically reasonable compatibility.

Cars and phones meet those criteria a lot better than Intel CPUs. The problem isn't releasing things, it's the way they pretend every release is a big advance and the way they make the motherboards almost never able to upgrade.

For sure A. I would never buy a car that is the first model year of a revamp. I would give them at least a year to work out the bugs.

Luckily it’s not common to need to replace your garage every time you get a new car.

In this analogy, Intel sells the parts to make garages too

I mean I can't speak to ICE cars, but electric cars ranges seem to scale pretty dramatically with how new they are.

There hasn't been significant combustion engine efficiency changes in a long time. My scrapbox from 2007 still goes 550 miles on a tank of diesel, about the same as my 1997 car did before it.

I guess the only question is if you include hybrids in ICE cars. I'd personally never buy a strict ICE again, with the high quality of hybrids.

This is arguably exactly what most people actually need in a vehicle that you are spending thousands of dollars on: accumulated refinements seamlessly incorporated over time.

Year over year this typically results in good outcomes on a purely practical basis. However it just inherently makes for very boring publicity/promotional material.

Edit to add: it can also admittedly result in older solutions getting baked in which prevent larger beneficial changes. (Toyota's North American 4Runner and Tacoma models might be good real world examples of this approach resulting in generally high reliability but also larger, "riskier" changes being seemingly eventually necessary.)

Cars don't get a new model every year. They are even called "facelifts" to make it clear that it is essentially the same with minor modifications and upgrades.

Also there isn't much "groundbreaking" you can do in a car, except for the EV switch, the industry has existed on many small upgrades over time. (Like many other industries)

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