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Comment by dclowd9901 | Hacker News Reader

I'm with you here. I have an 89 BMW (which is old enough to have an actual servo motor attached to the intake manifold for cruise control) and an 83 Land Cruiser (whose most advanced feature is that it controls its emissions using vacuum controlled pneumatic circuitry).

I'm very glad I've put in the time to learn how to work on cars because I have zero interest in the tech direction of modern vehicles.

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I love older cars and drove an early 80s Volvo until 2010 or so, but I also love side impact airbags, antilock brakes, and a car that mostly just “works”.

When I was younger I loved having an 84 Chevy Scottsdale. It was a cool looking truck and was easy to work on. I used to love getting under the hood to chase down problems and find solutions.

Now my knees hurt when it's cold outside, so crawling around on the ground to fix the fucking u-joint AGAIN isn't that fun, and I also like knowing that my children might survive if we get in a crash; something that's genuinely up for question in old vehicles.

I would pay a premium for a new car without an "infotainment" system, cameras (except backup camera), gps, or any form of touchscreen.

I was really hoping to see am EV startup go after the niche of barebones vehicles. I would absolutely have an EV if it was a safe chassis with good range, a powerful enough motor, and none of the infotainment bells and whistles.

I want to be able to diagnose my car if it has issues, but I don't want a system complex enough that it requires over the air updates.

My bet is, once the car companies fully understand the lifetime value of the data, there will be an option to opt out by paying that monetary value up front. My guess is it’ll be an expensive “executive” model used mostly by governments and criminals.

Unless some serious privacy examples get reported and it scares the politicians in California and California puts in place special laws to force “non tracking” to be a legal option.

One final weird option would be. I wonder if you could put children in your car and sue the car company in California because the car company is collecting data on minors without your consent? Do the car terms and condition handle data associated with minors correctly?

I had a Honda that I loved with a backup camera but no infotainment- it showed a little picture-in-picture on the left hand side of the backup mirror. It was pretty slick.

I wonder if the Franework model will ever apply to cars with modern safety. Probably not but one can dream.

I want an electric car. I also wish it was feasible to work on it.

An electric vehicle and "feasible to work on" (presumably in a home garage and/or driveway) do seem mutually exclusive.

The Volvo 940 had all of those modern safety features, but was still more or less the same car as the older RWD 740.

Mercedes also had that stuff early- I had a 1987 Mercedes diesel that had front air bags, ABS, and was basically modern car reliable.

I do have one newer Toyota Tacoma for the purpose of "just working" and it does a great job of fulfilling that role, but includes a host of features and such that I really have no interest in. But if you have project cars, you really just need a very stable "normal" vehicle for day to day.

For Volvo, I know that the 850s were the first to have airbags built into the seats for side impact, and I think they had anti lock brakes in those as well.

87 BMW here. I believe my servo is controlling the throttle cable itself. When the cruise control commands the vehicle to accelerate, the pedal physically moves.

It's not my daily driver, but I would absolutely love to one day get another one as a project car - one that's not in such good condition that I'd feel bad removing the engine - and drop an electric motor in it. That likely _would_ become my daily driver. The car's incredibly well made, and a joy to drive.

I'm not knocking anyone, but i bet there were people who showed the same level of scepticism to a electric motor being attached to the throttle cable as people do today to electric cars

Yep, you explained it better than I did! It's a really charming setup.

Isn't this the standard way to implement cruise control in the decades before drive by wire throttles?

Right there myself.

One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive.

Front wheel can remain gas with transmission. Add more generating current capacity, and have that dumped into the rear drive system batteries.

With my current car, the V6 gets very good economy at speed, and poor economy in town or in traffic.

An assist from the rear can tackle the poor economy cases nicely, leaving the rest to the gas engine.

Depending on battery capacity, I suppose it could do most in town driving at say 40 and below.

This is exactly how Toyota's AWD works in the Sienna these days.

It gets 35mpg city and highway, 1mpg less than the front wheel drive Sienna (which, to be fair, is also a hybrid)

Good to know. Does it have EV only range, or just assist?

> One conversion I want to attempt, but am unfortunately unlikely to, is an electric rear wheel drive. Front wheel can remain gas with transmission.

It can be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2agCqW6ntc

> 89 BMW ... and an 83 Land Cruiser

I'm with you. Our daily drivers are 2011 Mitsu, 96 Toyota, 92 Buick and a 63 Dart. Also a 61 Sunliner for when it's not-summer.

The Mitsu is unfortunately drive-by-wire; I mostly avoid it.

The Cybertruck is the only vehicle on the market that has drive-by wire. There was previously an Infiniti model that was partially drive by wire.

I'm guessing that car is "drive-by-wire" via the throttle, which has not been an actual cable in most cars for decades at this point. Steer-by-wire is indeed just the cybertruck at this point afaik.

electronic throttle body controls are extremely common, yes. but they don’t have any downside to driving feel, so i don’t think it would fit what the GP was referring to.

Parent nailed it. I feel lag every time I hit the pedal and it messes with me.

It's cables for me but I'll settle for linkage.

Almost every early electronic throttle like that drives like pure ass, and newer ones are hit or miss at best. Toyota seems have done a decent job with it, but everyone else kind of keeps pooching it.

That falls in with a lot of stuff that felt like it might have made sense on race cars that I don't understand why people keep asking for on street vehicles (drive by wire throttle, CVTs, huge wheels with rubber band tires, certain kinds of traction and stability control, viscous coupled or electronic "all wheel drive" (not 4WD), along with the Subaru boxer 4 people get Stockholm syndrome over); all I can figure is that people are just OK driving stuff that drives and behaves like total shit.

How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?

People who have many cars usually don't do it because of necessity, but because they love tinkering with the old automobiles.

At peak teenager/young adult time my family owned six cars. That's for two adults and three driving-age kids. The sixth car was something my dad, who was an old-school motor head of the sort who grew up using feeler gauges, just kept around for no obvious reason but to tinker now and then.

Bingo.

> How large is your family? Why do you need so many cars?

I live with my 5 adult sons.

We also buy cars when deals show up. The Toyota had 41k for $500 and the Buick had 31k for $1300.

We're working on a cheap 88 Dodge P/U; my son converted it to points and carburetor.

We also have a 69 XL that seriously needs to go away. It does 130 at what feels like high idle.

This makes me wonder what the cost is to convert a vehicle over to biodiesel so it can be ran on used oil.

Still green, unlike gas, but restricts the surface area of issues related to modern cars

Most injection systems are rated for 20% bio aka b20 without voiding the warrantee. Bio beyond that doesn't have enough lubrication so you have to supplement it with a splash of something like 2-stroke oil. It can run for a long time like that without hurting the pump but manufacturers don't support it. Some gas stations sell b20. If you're talking straight veg you need a certain type of injection system for reliability, and even there you're decreasing the life of the pump. Old mechanical pumps work great, first gen cummins, vw 1.6, mercedes om617 machines can run on straight heated veg for a long time with no issues. Electronically controlled mechanical systems like the vw 1.9 tdi can run on it too but might be a bit more finicky about what you're injecting.

Assuming you want to make your own bio you'd have to set up a transesterification process where you convert the trans fats out of the oil, that process uses lye so it needs a decent container and is best automated. If you're trying to recover the solvent, which is probably methanol, you'd need a still as well, and decent ventilation. Fully automated with raspi or arduino components is a couple grand or more, prefab units run something like 10k.

If rather than bio you're talking straight grease, it is cheaper to clean but more expensive to set up the car. You'd need a second fuel tank, preferably heated depending on climate, some solenoid valves, and a heated fuel filter. And a pile of hoses and wires to connect it all. Maybe a grand or so to set it up depending on driving conditions, kits run 1-2, some are better designed than others.

Either way you'd also want some big drums for holding tanks at home where you can let the fluid layers separate and a pump to move them around. Most car washes give away polyethylene 50gal barrels.

Most expensive thing in my opinion, is your time and the cost of the oil. You can get something like 5-50gal per week per restaurant, tho most overuse the oil. Best places don't cook meats in there at all. Chain and large restaurants want a schedule. Cost of the oil varies, used to be paid to take it, somewhere around 2010 that inverted and now you pay for the oil.

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