| The computers and vast onboard networks, and mostly the screens, are definitely an issue. What I'm talking about is far more subtle and hidden and insidious. Engine tolerances and pressures have been maxed out. They throw on a turbo charger or two after that. Then they add automatic start/stop. All of this combined makes these engine systems very needy. For instance, you must use a certain type of synthetic oil and change it often. Most people are going to take thier car to a quick lube and choose a value grade of oil, the wrong one for their engine. Those who have been doing their own oil changes will likely choose the wrong oil based on their experience and, now outdated, knowledge. When this happens, or you let the oil change interval go too long, it causes severe component wear. Cam phasers get clogged and starve the rest of the engine for oil as the engine begins to eat itself with exponentially increasing wear. That is one thing. The start stop "feature" causes a dry start many times during each trip. Not only is that $1000 starter getting worn out, the timing chain is digging into the guide each time the engine fires back up (the special oil for the turbo charged 12:1 compression ratio engine with extremely tight tolerances is so thin it doesn't provide enough residual lubrication on surface areas to prevent excessive wear like guide gouging). This nessesitates the timing change maintenance interval. A service that will set you back $2000-3000 every 100k miles because the job takes two days by a senior-senior technician. Not something you and cousin Chad want to tackle on a Saturday over a few beers. I could go on and on. But there is a waterfall of this shit balling up in our economy that is going to bite a lot of unsuspecting people. All of this because the manufacturers are being paid to yield CAFE standards and they engineer it all so that the costs are passed silently to the consumer. The limit on the balance of affordability, MPG, emmissions and maintainability was reached and then greedily exceeded in a way where one was substituted for another. With the way people are accustomed to maintaining their vehicles, these are not going to last. More environmental impact. Ultimately being caused by government regulations and industry coziness (like Boeing) that has outlived its usefulness. |
HN crowd of course is interested in all the computer-on-wheels aspect, but the basic hardware is being stretched to the limit because gasoline has a finite energy density and a practical limit on combustion efficiency. So it’s just pushing the costs under the rug. And there is most definitely a corrupt relationship with the whole “fleet average” thing.