[tyingq]

I have to wonder if this is one of those somewhat "implanted" stories to get support for moving towards John Deere style DRM on some of their parts. That is, not that it's made up, but that perhaps the scale is being exaggerated a bit.

Edit: Yes, I'm aware there's some DRM. So far, though, not as locked down as the example of John Deere, cryptographic control that requires phone-home, etc.

[KennyBlanken]

The article implies the control units are coded to the vehicle's VIN at least to some degree and mentions Freightliner asks people to look out for logged errors indicating someone attempted to use a control unit from a different VIN. There's also mention of a separate password function. However, if there's a market for these units, someone's likely developed a tool to "re code" the control units.

But: "Moving toward" to DRM? At least in the passenger car market this started happening a long, long time ago.

ECUs and dashes on most VAG (VW Audi Group) cars are coded to each other and have been for around two decades if not longer, though in a fair number of cases you can re-pair them with a non-VW scantool and don't need the dealer, but it's usually a complex and very specific process.

Volvo Cars started DRM'ing the fuck out of every single component that sits on the vehicle's data bus in the mid-2000's after they got bought up by Ford.

If you replaced any component that had a bus connection - which includes things like headlights - you would have to bring the car to a Volvo dealer, who might or might not humor you if they were not the source of the part and the ones to install it ("gosh, we're just fully booked up, going to be two weeks before we can get to it..." etc) The dealer would connect the car to their terminal, which would in turn request an encrypted firmware image for the component from Volvo servers in Sweden, specific to your car's VIN and that component's serial number. That encrypted image would then be sent back and written to the control module.

When that server gets shut off, hundreds of millions of Volvo cars and parts will rapidly become useless save for their scrap value. This isn't a trivial matter; at least in the US, the average age of vehicles on the road is the oldest it's ever been, and given the country's worsening economic inequality, that trend is likely to continue.

[Gordonjcp]

> ECUs and dashes on most VAG (VW Audi Group) cars are coded to each other and have been for around two decades if not longer

The mid-90s electronics in my Range Rover will cope with swapping dashboards by programming the mileage to be whichever is highest between the BECM and dash. It'll moan about "ODOMETER FAULT" for a bit but eventually it'll just give up telling you and set them to be the same. While it's possible to reprogram them it's extremely nontrivial, and no commercial units exist that can do it - and the poke-and-hope brigade that offer "mileage correction" will almost certainly leave you with more problems than you started with.

The electronics in them are very similar to late-80s BMW E32 7-series with a bizarre mix of Motorola, NEC and Intel parts.

[hattmall]

Shit like that should really be illegal.

[sokoloff]

The average age of vehicles is trending up because cars are more reliable and just last longer. It used to be an event to roll over a 5-digit odometer. Now, 250K miles is just getting broken in.

[Gordonjcp]

One 1998 Range Rover here with 130,000 miles on the clock, the other with 270,000 - and the latter did 100,000 miles in about six or seven years since I got it.

There's a guy on my forum with an ex-police Range Rover the same age as mine that is now considerably north of 400,000 miles.

[sokoloff]

Sure. Those are examples of cars that post-date many of the significant longevity improvements (galvanizing, better primers, electronic fuel injection, ABS) that are helping to drive up the average age. You can think of that 1998 Range Rover as offsetting one 2022 car to result in the average of just over 12 years.

Our 2005 CR-V and 2015 LEAF also offset each other to arrive at the average age.

Longevity improvements introduced 25 years ago pull the average age up far more strongly than improvements introduced only 10 years ago and an improvement introduced just last year has an effect indistinguishable from zero.

[b112]

What? You can repair parts that fail on cars. And I grew up driving 70s, 80s cars , and 100k was completely normal.

[pirate787]

No this is survivor bias, most cars in the 70s and 80s did not make it to 100k.

[b112]

Most rusted, or were discarded. They were forced to die.

There were loads of cars I, and my friends inherited, because the car was "old", a repair was $500, and the car was only worth $1k (this is the 80s, so 80s figures...), and the car had a tiny rust spot or two.

Yet that repair done at home, with a friend, could be done for 50 bucks and parts from a wrecker.

This is not survivor bias, these cars were in great shape, but instead for appearance sake, and "estimated value of the car" sake, people would throw it away.

Fix it vs throw away culture.

[sokoloff]

I think there is likely a more throw it away culture overall now than in the 70s.

Cars started to last significantly longer when body rust-proofing improved (mostly in the 80s for American cars), when electronic fuel injection reduced fuel wash in the engines, and when anti-collision tech reduced the number of write offs of lower value used cars (ABS being perhaps the single biggest one, which prevents a lot of $2000 accidents from taking a $2500 used car off the road).

A carbureted, unprotected mild-steel car built in 1959, 1969, or 1979 was much less likely to be on the road 23 years later than a fuel-injected, galvanized steel 1999 model is to be on the road today.

[throwaway0a5e]

Cost of replacing like for like is a huge factor.

[userbinator]

When that server gets shut off

If the vehicles are popular enough, the aftermarket will probably find a way around it, if it hasn't already done so.

[UncleEntity]

They have to be mostly open because someone getting a truck repaired is pretty likely to be in the middle of bumfuck Kansas and needs the truck moving right now so they don’t take a claim on a multi-$100k load.

I’m sitting in one of our terminals right now and there a lot more trucks than usual that are (maybe) waiting on parts to get back on the road. A lot of money tied up in those things not generating revenue parked in the yard.

[maxerickson]

The article makes it sound like they are VIN locked already (the control software will in any case need to be for the actual powertrain components).

[donw]

Didn't think of that angle, but perhaps!

Pretty much everything in transportation is being pushed in the direction of centralized control; hence, the focus on EVs and the push against biofuels.

The marketing is all "climate change", but the reality is that biofuel-based vehicles can, in theory, be manufactured locally with machine tools, and the fuel can be grown locally as well. I'd bet money that they're better for the environment, too. And no, not interested in some "study" from Harvard funded by people that have a deeply-vested interest in EVs.

Modern battery tech is complicated. Manufacturing has to be much more centralized. And has plenty of places to insert remotely-operated control mechanisms linking to cellular networks.

[tialaramex]

> biofuel-based vehicles can, in theory, be manufactured locally with machine tools

The excellent thing about electricity is that it's fungible. Electricity from a wind farm in the North Sea, a nuclear plant in the South of France or a Texan solar panel is identical as far as the electric vehicle is concerned. In contrast with bio-fuels if you can't make the right chemical soup for this specific model of engine well too bad, buy a new engine or undertake expensive conversion.

There are immediate practical advantages (many EV owners never spend any time putting "fuel" into their vehicle, unlike with ICE, since just charging it whenever it's sat around doing nothing is easy with electricity) but there are also large strategic advantages in terms of energy independence.

To get even the poor efficiency of modern internal combustion engines took a lot of careful engineering which would be undone by your "local machine tools" approach, so that makes the bargain even worse. In contrast it's easy to build high efficiency electric motors, and we've been doing that in many applications for years.

To the extent the answer isn't EVs that's because the answer is less car culture.

[cesarb]

> In contrast it's easy to build high efficiency electric motors, and we've been doing that in many applications for years.

Playing devil's advocate: in the case of EVs, the hard part is not the motor, it's the battery. If it were easy to build high efficiency and high capacity batteries which are also small and light enough to be used on a vehicle, we'd have EVs everywhere long ago. (A second hard part is the power semiconductors, to convert the DC from the battery to variable frequency AC which can be used by these high efficiency electric motors.)

[userbinator]

In contrast with bio-fuels if you can't make the right chemical soup for this specific model of engine well too bad, buy a new engine or undertake expensive conversion

Something like biodiesel is almost entirely a drop-in replacement, and diesel engines will burn a wide range of flammable liquids. Gasoline engines can be fairly easily converted to burn a bunch of other fuels too.

[tialaramex]

> diesel engines will burn a wide range of flammable liquids

Rudolf Diesel's engine will indeed burn lots of things to produce power. But the diesel engine in your 2022 car isn't just Mr Diesel's machine with nicer bodywork, it has been carefully fine-tuned for efficiency, ride, emissions and other considerations, including by using self-lubricating fuel injectors. If you use the wrong fuel on a good day you destroy those benefits and on a bad day you're also destroying the expensive engine itself.

[bluGill]

Sure, but the biofuel is a lot more energy dense. People do buy large tanks of fuel so they can drive long distances where there are no gas stations. Think trips across Alaska, or Northern Yukon. Most of us live in range of a gas station and so just stopping for gas every few hundred miles is more reasonable than a large tank (which has issues), but you can do that. You cannot get nearly as much range out of a battery, no matter how large the trailer is.

[tialaramex]

It is true that if you need energy density then you want to carry fuel and not use batteries, although whether biofuel makes a good choice I'm dubious about.

'course if you're just driving a hundred miles to see Aunt Tilly, and then fifty more to see Grandma, and then a hundred more to see your old friend from high school, well, those people all got electricity, and as we saw the EV doesn't care that it's not that premium Supercharger electricity, it's all the same if you can wait. So stay the night.

Long distance wilderness trips are both (a) not something most people ever do, so we are not talking about a mass market product here and (b) not well suited to the typical private motor vehicle of today. Who is maintaining roads across the wilderness that so few people use there's no gas station ?

I didn't ask who built them 'cos that'll be the US Government or a State Government, both huge fans of building sexy new projects. But to drive on it a decade later it needs maintenance, which isn't sexy new infrastructure and I'm guessing if there's no gas stations there's no road repair budget. Which means now you need an off-roader, maybe a pretty serious one, or running out of fuel will be the very least of your problems.

[bluGill]

Those 1% trips just outside a EV range are a problem. Liquid fuels are everywhere and fast. Charging infrastructure is still lacking, though if you plan at least most trips are possible. The time to charge is still ... though realistically you should take those breaks anyway most people don't

[DennisP]

On the other hand, any electric car can be charged from solar panels on your roof.

Then there's Aptera, which can charge itself from the sun if you're in a reasonably sunny area, and which has a strong commitment to right-to-repair: https://aptera.us/right-to-repair-commitment-feat-rich-rebui...

They also make their own battery packs, despite not exactly being a large operation. https://aptera.us/battery-update/

[b112]

Solar panels on my car roof might be good to charge my laptop. Or, keep a car from losing charge while idle.

I think you'd have to leave the car in the sun for days, just to drive to the 5 minutes away store and back.

[DennisP]

Well that depends on the car. Solar race cars cross the country on sunlight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_car_racing

Aptera is less extreme than that, but still a lot more efficient than a normal car, mainly due to aerodynamics, plus light weight and three wheels. Take a glance at aptera.us and you'll see how far they took the aerodynamics.

They claim up to 40 miles of range collected per day, if you're someplace like southern California, and max out their panel options. The car is pretty flat and wide, which also helps.

If you don't have much sun available, you can plug into a regular wall outlet and add range reasonably quickly.

[gambiting]

It just doesn't make any sense if you know anything about physics. Sun provides about 1kW of power per square meter.....at noon, at the equator, with no clouds.

Automotive solar panels like they use are about 20% efficient. Your average car roof is....let's be super forgiving and say 2sqm. So in the middle of the day, at the equator, you are generating about 400W of power.

The average EV battery is 50kWh. So you'd need 125 hours in full sun to recharge it fully. During a regular sunny day you'd get maybe.....2-3kWh back into your battery? So yeah, about enough to cover ~10 miles in a regular EV.

Sure it's better than nothing, but remember that this is in ideal conditions. In less than ideal conditions you are talking yeah, enough energy to cover a mile or two per day of charging. It's just silly.

[Gordonjcp]

Bear in mind too in winter the days are shorter, sunlight is weaker, and you're using *aaaaaaall* of the electrical goodies.

Even down south here at 56°N there's about five hours of sunlight in winter and as you get further north it just gets shorter. That's about enough charge to get the length of a supermarket car park.

[mitjam]

This illustrates how inefficient cars are for individual transportation. An eBike takes between 10 and 20 Wh per mile. Gas is so inexpensive and energy dense that we just got unware how ridiculous it is to drive by car even on short distances.

[DennisP]

And the Aptera is a lot more efficient than a normal car. Glance at their home page and you'll see why. https://aptera.us/

[Gordonjcp]

eBikes are extremely slow. What's the point of them? Just ride a normal bike.

[prmoustache]

You seem to forget that bar exceptions (people working on the road all day), most passenger cars are staying parked 99% of the time and use for small errands.

The aptera is also built to provide up to 1000miles in its highest spec out of one complete charge.

[gambiting]

Right and how long does it take to charge that 1000 mile range in an average British city? A full year?

And I'm not forgetting it - I'm just saying that the overall gain doesn't seem to be worth it. The cost of solar panels integrated into the car would pay for a lot of electricity from the grid instead.

[maxerickson]

The first poster is clearly talking about local power generation when they say roof, so a building, not the freaking vehicle.

[DennisP]

I started by talking about solar collection on the roof of a building, which applies to any electric vehicle.

But Aptera actually has panels on the car. That would be useless on a Tesla, but the Aptera is far more aerodynamic and only has three wheels. They don't claim to fully recharge in a day, just to get enough extra range in a day to cover many people's typical driving needs.

[gambiting]

I'm literally replying to a comment that is talking about solar panels on a car, did you reply to the wrong person maybe?

[telchar]

Color me surprised to see that name again! I thought Aptera was dead and gone. I hope they fare better this time. The solar car route could be an interesting niche.

[DennisP]

Yep. Car looks pretty much the same as the old version. Sandy Munro, the engineer famous for taking Teslas apart, has been advising them.