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Comment by Gravityloss | Hacker News Reader

Porsche had a research program about a very reliable car in the 70s. It has some odd technical choices from today's perspective. https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/when-porsch...

One would assume taxi companies etc would be willing to pay for cars that have high uptime and reliability. But I think they drive mostly the same stuff as regular people. At least one would assume they could get beefier suspension and transmission and high displacement downtuned engines.

In general new cars are still vastly better than old ones. 90:s cars rusted from everywhere after ~8 years while most cars nowadays have zinc coating and more plastic and are still mostly fine after 15 years.

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I don't think it's a coincidence that an enormous number of rideshare/delivery drivers drive priuses though. Reliable, not too expensive, low maintenance, and high mpg is kind of exactly what you'd expect them to look for.

Not enough people know how cool the Prius hybrid system is. One would think having EV + gas would add complexity, but it actually allows them to delete a lot of parts. There is no clutch, no belts, no starter, there's practically nothing that can break. Not knowing how the regen affects braking I brought my Prius in for 80k service and asked for new brake pads and mechanic asked me why I want to replace them, they look good as new.

Only downside is the flimsy high efficiency tires, I've spent more money on tows and tires than I saved on gas.

Isn't there even less in a proper BEV? You lose the benefit of being able to pay the gas tax though.

You also lose the ability to pull over virtually anywhere and refill your tank in five minutes, as well as the maintenance benefits that come from a decades-old design versus whatever software horrors are lurking in your car.

To top that all off, in parts of CA electricity is now 50c/kWh, which makes it roughly equally expensive to charge an EV as it is to buy a tank of gas.

I love electric cars, but there is a gap between what they COULD be and what they are.

The only reason to think an ICE vehicle doesn't have software horrors is if the vehicle in question is itself decades old. Practically every software horror of an EV is going to be found in modern ICE vehicles as well. In fact some of them have more horrors than some EVs. Subscription seat warmers anyone?

If you buy a BMW, maybe. I have a new Honda and it's perfectly fine.

> To top that all off, in parts of CA electricity is now 50c/kWh

It's trending up to $0.90-1.00/kWh in places now.

The only slight pain in those priuses is removing the windshield wiper assembly to get to the spark plugs closest to the firewall. It's not like they didn't have enough room in the engine bay to the left to better engineer this. But it's something that you rarely have to do. Maybe 2-3 times for the life of the car if it reaches 300k+ miles.

Engineers hate mechanics. How can they feel your wrath unless you specifically design a giant “fuck you” into every vehicle shipped?

Being a total mechanics noob I watched a youtube video guide and did it myself to my Prius V in roughly 30 minutes. It is actually pretty easy to do. Just unscrew a couple of 10mm and 14mm bolts. I really like my prius V. it requires less maintenance that ICEs. And all the scheduled maintainance is pretty much DIY.

Also, I no longer consider any EU car brands at all. I think they wasted all their prior brand value and now buying them is simply not a smart decision.

Not to mention still roomy!

> while most cars nowadays have zinc coating and more plastic and are still mostly fine after 15 years.

In your part of the world, maybe. I live in the middle of the salt belt in the US and we get about 10 years out of most cars. That's when you start seeing rust holes in the fenders around the wheels, when most of the frame has flaked away and the floor pans become involuntary structural elements.

If you're a car nut who spends extra time and money on preventive maintenance and rustproofing, you can get a few more years. But the rust comes for your car at some point anyway.

Car manufacturers know how to make the frames and bodies last longer, this is not an unsolvable manufacturing and design challenge. It's just that nobody is getting a raise for going to their boss and saying, "I know how to make the company sell slightly fewer cars..."

I have a 2009 Civic that has no noticeable body rust, despite being in Michigan. Two times I've had to get minor body work done (not rust-related), the bodyshop owner commented that he never sees them this clean anymore. I chalk it up to being diligent with car washes, especially in the winter. Purists will cringe at this, but I'm fine with sacrificing some surface appearance (the paint doesn't look too bad, considering how many carwashes it's seen) in exchange for longevity.

Which part of Michigan are you in? I know some people that live up in northern Michigan where they don't bother salting the roads in the winter and just put down sand instead which I would imagine contributes to better longevity

I'm in Grand Rapids. We use tons of salt here.

I live up North (capital N) from you, where we have ~4 months of calcium spread on our roads to manage the accumulating ice every winter. A well-maintained car has the chance to live long enough to succumb to rust from that.

Rustproofing is still a good treatment to get done to delay and minimize damage, but it's a thorough and slightly expensive job.

People who have a hobby car usually retire it in a garage from November to April-May instead.

Just look at what's on the road today, there are many more older cars still running than in the past. Even in the salt belt.

> One would assume taxi companies etc would be willing to pay for cars that have high uptime and reliability. But I think they drive mostly the same stuff as regular people. At least one would assume they could get beefier suspension and transmission and high displacement downtuned engines.

Here in the UK until recently it was all Skoda Octavias, nice simple comfortable cars with a reliable diesel engine. Prior to that, it was all Citroën Xantias - again, nice simple comfortable (really comfortable with their hydraulic suspension) cars with a big reliable diesel engine.

It's not uncommon to see them hit well over half a million miles, often in less than five years.

Galvanised bodyshells and panels has been a thing since the 80s, or indeed the 70s for Volvo and Saab.

How do modern Volvos stack up on longevity? Reputation seems mixed here in the States.

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