Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive (Vol. 2)

Tesla and Uber Unlikely to Survive (Vol. 2)

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hyphen

26,262 posts

90 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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TeaNoSugar said:
I don’t understand this line of thinking. The government has set down the path of phasing out ICEs in favour of low/zero carbon emissions fuels. They won’t want any drift back to ICEs, so surely with the levers of taxation and legislation they have available, it’ll always be cheaper than running an ICE car - unless/until ICE cars are legislated off the roads.
Not saying it’ll always be basically free to run an EV like it can be now, but whatever increases in taxation are levied on BEVs, the corresponding taxes on ICE cars will be ratcheted up at a faster rate to ensure the incentive to run a BEV remains in place. In other words; EVs will gradually become expensive to run, but ICEs will become prohibitively expensive and eventually economically unfeasible in the same timeframe.
Ice will become more expensive.
Evs will cost same as ice today.

gangzoom

6,297 posts

215 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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Watch from about 6 minutes, I've not seen any other company demo AI path predicting like this in the real world. The 'beta' drivers are brave people though, I woudlnt be brave about letting the car get so close to trucks without been in control.

https://youtu.be/EEdkds5jNtk

Smiljan

10,838 posts

197 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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Some impressive and some pretty dodgy behavior in that clip. I'd love to see the whole trip as they seem to keep cutting out the footage all the time.

hyphen

26,262 posts

90 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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LimJim

2,274 posts

42 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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FSD subscriptions coming early 2021. Should be telling.

AstonZagato

12,700 posts

210 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202007101...

I suspect these will be collectible one day. But interesting to see that the battery pack needs replacing.

hyphen

26,262 posts

90 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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The Chinese are coming.

(Xpeng G3 launch in Europe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5FPcGWA12c&li...

Smiljan

10,838 posts

197 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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AstonZagato said:
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202007101...

I suspect these will be collectible one day. But interesting to see that the battery pack needs replacing.
There was some issue with the batteries where if allowed to completely discharge they would be scrap and unrecoverable.

hyphen

26,262 posts

90 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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Interesting to see battery needs replacing. Shocking to see the new aftermarket battery will cost 15,000 EUROs.



Edited by hyphen on Sunday 20th December 18:04

ZesPak

24,428 posts

196 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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hyphen said:
Interesting to see battery needs replacing. Shocking to see the new aftermarket battery will cost 15,000 EUROs.
Matter of time really. I can imagine that the first IC engines in a car would have been akin to unobtanium to replace and quantum physics to maintain.

Right now everyone is struggling to get enough batteries, and apparently for the "conversion" market the Tesla stuff is very sought after.
Prices are dropping as more and more comes available.

With the success of Model 3 and now some more mainstream brands, I can see a healthy parts market coming in the next couple of years.

Tuna

19,930 posts

284 months

Sunday 20th December 2020
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ZesPak said:
Matter of time really. I can imagine that the first IC engines in a car would have been akin to unobtanium to replace and quantum physics to maintain.
Anything before the 60's is pretty easy to replace and maintain - relatively sane combination of materials, and shapes and structures that could be machined. You'd be surprised how many original tools are still around, and modern CNC make it possible to reproduce remarkably complex items. We had a 1930's straight six crankshaft built from scratch for less than I've paid for a modern car to be serviced.

Electronics are an order of magnitude more difficult. Things like displays, (even early 80's LED displays), once they go out of production are almost impossible to replace and very hard to replicate. Control circuitry is often poorly documented, and therefore replicating it's behaviour and specs is extremely difficult.

Semiconductors, once they are out of mass production, are very hard to reproduce. As the technology rapidly advances, the complex tooling is pretty much discarded. It's worse where things are made in high volume, as often the equipment needed to build those devices cost hundreds of thousands if not millions, so once it's gone, it's simply uneconomic to reconstruct it.

Edited by Tuna on Sunday 20th December 20:34

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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Tuna said:
Electronics are an order of magnitude more difficult. Things like displays, (even early 80's LED displays), once they go out of production are almost impossible to replace and very hard to replicate. Control circuitry is often poorly documented, and therefore replicating it's behaviour and specs is extremely difficult.

Semiconductors, once they are out of mass production, are very hard to reproduce. As the technology rapidly advances, the complex tooling is pretty much discarded. It's worse where things are made in high volume, as often the equipment needed to build those devices cost hundreds of thousands if not millions, so once it's gone, it's simply uneconomic to reconstruct it.

Edited by Tuna on Sunday 20th December 20:34
You can replace those with a modern version. There really isn't anything you cant replicate the function of. It's possible to replicate what was mechanical with an electronic version that looks identical and still displays the mechanical needle jumps if you want that, there is a whole industry that does this.

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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ZesPak said:
Matter of time really. I can imagine that the first IC engines in a car would have been akin to unobtanium to replace and quantum physics to maintain.
Quite the opposite, your local blacksmith could knock up a replacement or do a local repair, they were very simply engineered, they didn't even have pumps, water cooling was done by convection currents with no assistance and fuel was supplied under air pressure by manually pressuring the fuel tank.

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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hyphen said:
Interesting to see battery needs replacing. Shocking to see the new aftermarket battery will cost 15,000 EUROs.



Edited by hyphen on Sunday 20th December 18:04
With that mileage the engine would barely be broken in on an Elise.

ZesPak

24,428 posts

196 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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jsf said:
ZesPak said:
Matter of time really. I can imagine that the first IC engines in a car would have been akin to unobtanium to replace and quantum physics to maintain.
Quite the opposite, your local blacksmith could knock up a replacement or do a local repair, they were very simply engineered, they didn't even have pumps, water cooling was done by convection currents with no assistance and fuel was supplied under air pressure by manually pressuring the fuel tank.
Must be a misunderstanding here, the operating word in my statement was "would have been".
When the first IC engines where made, your local blacksmith was mainly doing horseshoes and cart repairs.


Repairing electronics is indeed not that easy, but in general replacing batteries and electric engines is. Batteries are just very expensive at this moment but rapidly coming down in price.

Smiljan

10,838 posts

197 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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I get what you’re saying, takes a while for new tech to be readily repairable. It’s true, there’s always someone who’ll pop up and open a business or adapt their business.

EV manufacturers just need to spend a bit of time and effort making their tech repairable rather than disposable. I used to repair Genie high lift equipment on the side and they were sods for making bespoke ECUs then covering the boards and internals with resin making them next to impossible to fix. They always said it was for waterproofing but you can easily seal an ECU case from water without doing that to the boards. New ECUs came only from them or on the 2nd hand market and were often £1200+.

I hope Tesla don’t go down the same route with the structural battery and single piece rear frames etc... at the moment most of their components are repairable even the electronics but this could change as they improve and adapt their manufacturing techniques, Often savings of time and speed in manufacturing and assembly lead to components that are very difficult to repair, Currently a lot of the Tesla’s that are written off are actually repairable, just Tesla specify and gouges or dents to the battery mean it’s scrap and the price of replacement often drives insurers into economic write offs.

I wonder how many are driving around right now with dents in them where the local tyre place has jacked up the car using the battery case?

There is at least one company in California doing battery repairs but they’re limited to failures rather than damage and mostly they do the Roadster ones. I wonder how long it’ll take for a UK or Euro firm to start doing repairs for Tesla components?

This is a good example for the Zoe of a company that is doing repairs and from Renault who've actually made components replaceable.

https://youtu.be/yjYdZyRG4H4

Edited by Smiljan on Monday 21st December 08:35

Tuna

19,930 posts

284 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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jsf said:
You can replace those with a modern version. There really isn't anything you cant replicate the function of. It's possible to replicate what was mechanical with an electronic version that looks identical and still displays the mechanical needle jumps if you want that, there is a whole industry that does this.
Replicate the function of.. maybe. The little blobs of integrated circuits doing general logic are a pig to replicate - whilst the reverse engineering community do remarkable work, it's not an easy task. Some "simple" kit can take six months to a year to fully replicate and debug. If your market is a dozen of them in a year, it's just not economically viable.

Fine for hobby projects, but not so much for commercial work.

Replicating the look and feel remains challenging. Displays were often manufactured to fit in very specific locations, to very specific tolerances. It's amusing that people are finding it very hard to replicate the infamous DeLorean Time Circuit from Back to the Future, because seven segment LED displays have subtly changed their geometry over the years. And that's just an LED display.

Mikehig

741 posts

61 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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ZesPak said:
Must be a misunderstanding here, the operating word in my statement was "would have been".
When the first IC engines where made, your local blacksmith was mainly doing horseshoes and cart repairs.


Repairing electronics is indeed not that easy, but in general replacing batteries and electric engines is. Batteries are just very expensive at this moment but rapidly coming down in price.
Wasn't one of the claims to fame of the Model T that it could be fixed by the local blacksmith?
(Although I rather suspect they meant bits of the structure, springs, etc..)

ZesPak

24,428 posts

196 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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Mikehig said:
Wasn't one of the claims to fame of the Model T that it could be fixed by the local blacksmith?
(Although I rather suspect they meant bits of the structure, springs, etc..)
smile So all the stuff my local independent can still fix on my EV then.

That said, my "guy" is following several courses now to learn how to service EV's and their electronics, which is promising.
He's barely 30 so he's got reasons to stay relevant if he wants to do anything else than classic cars by the time he\s 45.

Tuna

19,930 posts

284 months

Monday 21st December 2020
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ZesPak said:
smile So all the stuff my local independent can still fix on my EV then.

That said, my "guy" is following several courses now to learn how to service EV's and their electronics, which is promising.
He's barely 30 so he's got reasons to stay relevant if he wants to do anything else than classic cars by the time he\s 45.
The issue is largely having the diagnostic tools and parts, not the experience. If you've ever tried to have an old boiler fixed, you swiftly get to the point where the plumber sucks their teeth, tells you they can't get a replacement PCB, and that you'll be better off scrapping it.
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