Hacker News Reader

Comment by astrocat | Hacker News Reader

I doubt this is the case. If anything, the reasons you give boil down to: "the core of the car - the moving vehicle bit - will become commodity" and when this happens, cars will become "cars" like phones are now "phones," as in, they're not so much phones anymore as tiny computers that can also make calls. And this will definitely NOT increase their lifetime. If anything, it will decrease it... just like we replace our phones every 2 years.

View on HN

This is an interesting idea, but I'd be curious to know what kinds of innovations in car functionality are possible. Also, assuming that you're referring to a kind of planned obsolescence, how can a company convince you to replace the entire vehicle if the moving parts are working fine?

If the computer is broken, replace the computer. Update the self-driving software over the internet. Why would you need to replace the whole car?

Unless, of course, a company tries to integrate points of failure all throughout the body, so that "replacing the computer" of the car or what have you becomes impossible due to the delicate electronic parts. Call me an optimist but at the price of cars today I don't think anyone but the super rich are gullible or decadent enough to fall for something like that instead of a cheaper, more reliable modular alternative. Unless the price of a brand new car becomes similar to that of a new phone, I don't think that future is very likely.

If only it were so simple. You're assuming discrete components. And you're assuming consumer sanity.

"Every protocol the car uses is proprietary and protected under DCMA / etc. There are chips in every component that don't allow the car to start if any component isn't a first-party part."

We're already seeing this sort of thing. Look at the Tesla. Or the Lightning connector from Apple.

Cars have been like this for years. This forum post [1] from 2004 discusses VIN specific coding, so that phenomenon is at least ten years old.

[1]http://forum.roadfly.com/archive/index.php/t-8237302.html?s=...

as automation increases, cars will likely become more computers than cars. And at that point I imagine the advances in computation and sensing will drive product refreshes. Even battery tech. Which all sound familiar...

Sure some of it can be over-the-air as Tesla has already shown, but the same happens on our current tech yet we still update the hardware pretty frequently. A new, better autopilot may not be able to run on a 3 year old car processor. Could you swap out the cars brains? Sure. Would that be lucrative for the car manufacturer? maybe not.

I think the biggest argument against what I'm proposing is that computers/phones have huge form-factor constraints that favor tightly integrated components - it's why RAM is no longer user replaceable in new, thinner macs. Cars, given their physical size, will likely never face that constraint making the modular approach you suggest much more feasible.

Most car parts are already commodities anyway though. Example: Toyota and Lexus share almost every single part of the power train, its only the finishings that are different. And most car parts are made by a small number of OEM providers who sell to all the major car companies. Bosch, Denso, and Magna make most of the parts in your car.

The reason Toyota and Lexus share most things is because Lexus is a Toyota-car (just another name/brand).

You know how you swap the powertrain on a Model S? You pull the motor (~70 lbs) and you drop the battery pack. 10 minutes tops.

Sure, you could argue the interior will wear. Big deal. You'll have interiors you can swap on the power sled (battery + suspension + electric motor). Those sleds should last forever.

Why did you list the lbs for the motor and not the battery pack? =P

Because battery swap stations or other machinery would do the heavy lifting

As opposed to an engine crane?

You going to put the Model S on its top to use an engine crane on the battery pack mounted to the bottom of the chassis?

This only happens with phones because of rapidly increasing performance.

The same thing happened with desktop computers, but eventually the performance increases leveled off and people stopped purchasing a new computer ever 2 years.

While that's certainly part of the dynamic, the overall picture is more nuanced. New tech became available - smartphones and tablets as well as much more performant laptops - that replaced desktop purchases. Every two years a new laptop/tablet/smartphone is purchased, if not less.

Also, for phones, size and weight are very important, making modularity more difficult. Similarly, more people build their own desktop PCs than laptops.

It's hard for me to see how the car industry will go. Even today, there are people who keep cars running longer by replacing engines, etc., but most people want to replace the whole care before the drive-train gives out. My wife is ready to replace her 10-year old Honda Accord, not because of any drive-train problems, but because the upholstery is worn out, the AC sometimes blows hot air (I think it's some intermittent problem with the blend door, but it's hard to replicate the problem), it has some little dents and scratches, it makes funny sounds, and she's ready for something new. I can't think how any of those things will change with an electric drive-train.

Bear in mind though the phones are 100x cheaper than cars. If the car prices don't come down drastically, they can certainly not become commoditized like that.

People replace smart phones mainly because they are slow or have become slow, or they want some new feature that isn't available on their current model. As smart phone mature this becomes less common, the technology will get to good enough level, speed, battery life, camera, and people will not feel compelled to replace their smart phones every year.

Hell I bought my Nexus 5 on release and don't feel the need to replace it yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com