This whole battery renting scheme is bad, that's pure greed.
<rambling>
I know it's more difficult (orders of magnitude harder) than in sw but we need new startups to emerge in the automobile industry, just like Tesla. I'm french and this is one of the things I worry the most because I think we're not a country where this is possible anymore, this is a shame.
The remote disabling sounds bad, but from an economic perspective renting batteries could be good for consumers and manufacturers at the same time.
A lot of this battery stuff is very new at the moment. You look at, say, a Panasonic NCR18650 [1] and it's very affordable, but it loses 20% of its capacity after just 300 charge cycles. It depends on temprature, charge rate, depth of discharge and so on, so designers can trade off longevity for upfront cost. There are alternative battery chemistries that last longer - some manufacturers claim more than 10,000 charge cycles [2] but how do you test a manufacturer's claims that a battery will last 30 years without waiting until the technology is 30 years old? Or maybe the future is batteries getting swapped at change stations, Tesla style, so you'll end up with a different battery every day.
We consumers aren't equipped to evaluate the longevity claims of the manufacturers, so why should we take on the risk when that 30-year battery might break after 3 years? On the other hand if we pay by the month or by the mile, if it needs replacement after 3 years that's the manufacturer's problem.
In other words, renting gives the manufacturer an incentive not to cut corners, and to make sure their products are long-lasting and low maintenance, because the longer the product lasts the better the profit. Sure beats the printer ink economic model, where the manufacturers have an incentive to make cheap products that don't last long because selling more replacements means more profit.
But what if said manufacturer decide your car is not 'supported' anymore?
You may not even be allowed to turn to alternative battery suppliers, because it might be forbidden by contract. Their are some user protection laws in some countries (say, France), but it won't be the case everywhere.
I was assuming the rental contracts would be long-term enough to guarantee pricing and availability for the life of the car, e.g. a 10 year fixed price contract with the option to renew at the same price for another 10 years.
It's a nascent industry at the moment - I'm not sure how it will play out. Presumably some day battery lives will be proven, manufacturer reputations will be established, and consumers and regulators will know what to look for, check and standardise. Once the technology risks and information asymmetries are reduced, passing the risks to manufacturers will be less appealing and we might all end up paying up front for our 30-year batteries.
From my experience, we get looked after well as consumers in Aus, and the US doesn't have near the protection we enjoy. Not sure if that's the case here, but I know it's true on the whole.
This whole battery renting scheme is bad, that's pure greed.
The battery renting thing is great! The relatively short life of batteries and the price of replacing them is one of the biggest problems with electric cars. Renting means that isn't your problems anymore.
I wonder when did the companies became so generous to pick the tab for all their customers. Maybe if you are in the market for short duration it might work but I don't see it begin cheaper for the customer in long run.
>We already knew that Tesla was doing this with its cars since the company’s very public spat with a journalist who reviewed one of their cars for the New York Times. Seeing the same thing in a mass market manufacturer like Renault makes clear just how dangerous this trend is.
Didn't know Tesla had a remote command to kill your car. This guy doesn't really know what he's talking about; Tesla has some kind of OnStar service going on but they have no way to physically turn your car off or have not been proven to be able to.
Sadly this is a general trend though. In the past we used to buy things, like software. Now everything is subscription based and that sucks for consumers. Look at Billings (invoicing app) for example. It used to be reasonably priced as a download, now you have to buy a monthly subscription which ends up being much more expensive than before AND they can cut you off from your own data.
This SaaS trend is good for businesses and bad for consumers (there are advantages). It is even more evil in 'real life' as Renault is doing.
For SaaS laws that force vendors to offer the ability to export (and delete) a user's data seem inevitable in the long run though.
Given that the EU has already started on the 'right to be forgotten' issue I'd be surprised if they don't start making an issue out of this in the next couple of years.
It'll be very interesting to see what kind of effects this will have on companies like Facebook in the long term.
You are right. But even when you can export, the issue remains that a mentality is developing in which consumers have to pay a lot of money to get something that you could just purchase once in the past.
If we continue along this route we'll slowly but surely have more and more barebone devices that can't do anything on their own, but require expensive subscriptions to do, what used to be, basic things. This also takes away our rights; the Renault example is very strong, you can't drive unless you pay. I'd maybe rather pay the price for the battery and replace it when it breaks, then having to continue to pay and then be stranded 2000km from home when I forgot/couldn't pay.
Automakers are trying hard to seize back the entitlements and perquisites they reluctantly gave up when the laws around mechanical ICE automobiles were standardized: the right to look under the hood, to maintain, to tinker, to repair, to modify, and so on. What automakers in these newer markets seem to want is something equivalent to what software corporations have: the ability not to sell cars but to issue a licence to use cars under strictly determined and enforced conditions.
Renault's remote lock is basically the same as Microsoft's Product Activation DRM, and even more nefarious because it applies to a physical manufactured product.
For a long time, cars were a symbol of freedom and independence
I actually never saw cars as a symbol of freedom and independence, rather of the opposite. Both the ownership as well as the use of those vehicles is spun in so many laws that any semblance of 'freedom' and 'independence' they give is no more than imagination.
It seems that with everything new technologies is going to allow in the future, we'll need a whole slew of new laws meant to stop abuses from both corporations and the government.
TL;DR: Renault has a clause in the contract that allows them to remotely stop their EV from charging
This is an interesting issue but the article overstates the case. "... [electric cars] collect reams of data on how you use them, and send this data off to the manufacturer without your knowledge". Without your knowledge? Really?
EVs are very new technology and none of them have shown to be profitable without government support. Buyers have choices and making the trade-offs between vendors clear is always worthwhile, but this piece is not helping the debate.
Dunno many people who buy cars having any idea of the privacy issues of driving the nice new shiny car. Most normal people are only just realising that their entire online activity is recorded in one way or another. Cars? People don't have a clue. And why would they? Are we given data collection statements before we decide which car to buy?
I really get tired of people knowledgeable in a certain area assuming that the general population know, or should know, what they know.
No, the average punter has no idea what data their new car is sending back to base. And frankly, even as both a techie and petrol head, I don't either. I know it can happen, I know it does happen, but I have zero idea what, when or where. Sorry and all that.
(Um, seems I went off on a tangent below. Im leaving it in 'cos of the sheer effort involved.....But, you know, do stop at this point if you have a life)
What distorts public thinking even more is that a while ago politicians (UK) floated the idea that all cars should have some sort of computer fitted that can track and some how govern car use. (Safety and insurance, you understand. No, nothing to do with tracking the plebs, no, not at all. How dare the dear reader be so cynical. Shame on you!!!) On the political side, that has gone quiet. But the on the business side, its all the rage. People in general can be forgiven for thinking that because the political debate went away, so did the issue. So, no creepy tracking by government. But, the corporations are quietly implementing the strategy instead. And if government agencies want that date, one twist of the law and its all theirs.
And now as I think about it, what a clever strategy to reduce freedoms by the back door. Commerce seems to be able to do what governments could never do. In fact the genius of it is that we are happy to pay for it as a feature.
And that just cars. Look at what smartphones actually do. Not only do they track and catalog us, but we actually spend hours every single day literally filling out time sheets in the form of twitter and facebook. Imagine of a government told us to carry personal trackers and to spend a mere half hour filling out a form that told them what we did every day in even minimal detail.
Renault cars have always suffered from poor quality electrics (source: my grateful local garage :-), so this will be unreliable as well. Another good reason to not buy another.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6731894 :
That's old enough that it's no longer possible to contribute, but there are some interesting comments there.Other contributions of the same story:
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6718341 :
====https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6723522 :
====https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6729800 :