
Ford Says Its AVs Wil Last Just Four Years - WMCRUN
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/26/ford-says-its-autonomous-cars-will-last-just-four-years/
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nostrademons
If you assume a ridesharing model for AVs, this makes a fair bit of sense.
Your typical family car gets maybe 2-3 hours of driving a day, if you live in
a long-commute area. An autonomous vehicle will probably get 12-14 hours of
driving each day. If you assume it's traveling at an average of 20 mph for
12.5 hours/day, that's 250 miles/day, or 90,000 miles/year, about 5-9x the
mileage a typical family car gets. A 4-year lifespan is fairly generous under
those conditions.

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roland35
One thing I was surprised out with robot lawn mowers vs normal lawn mowers and
robot vacuums vs normal vacuums is how many hours they are used for. I am sure
cars are the same way.

My non-autonomous is 10 years old and has 140,000 miles, so 4,000 hours (at
average 35 MPH) or 400 hours per year (about 5% of a year). An autonomous car
could be driving for much longer, even bumping up to a 15% utilization would
now mean my 140,000 miles/4,000 hours would be hit at 3 years!

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slg
Using years as a comparison point between the lifespan of autonomous vehicles
and manually driven vehicles doesn't make sense. Autonomous vehicles will be
on the road most of the day while manually driven vehicles generally sit
parked most of the day. We should be talking about miles driven as a point of
comparison since use is the primary factor that wears out a vehicle rather
than simply the passage of time. Whatever that number is for autonomous cars,
it will certainly be more in line with what we expect from manual cars than
the 4 year comparison.

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mc32
Right but they compared that to taxicabs which take a beating and those on ave
are 3.8 years old. (Some are rather old some just off the dealer lot). So if
the ave is going to be roughly 2years (recycled at 4years of service) that
seems comparatively low.

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ehnto
> It’s more surprising compared with the nearly 12 years that the average U.S.
> car owner hangs on to a vehicle. In fact, Americans are maintaining their
> cars longer in part because the technology used to make and operate them has
> advanced meaningfully

Was this a mistype? Wouldn't it make more sense to suggest people hang on to
their cars for longer, because cars have -not- made meaningful advancements?

Unless they mean that the cars are lasting longer because of technological
advancements in manufacturing making them more durable? They're definitely not
easier to maintain for the layperson, so I'm certain it's not the Automotive
industry choosing to empower consumers into keeping their cars longer...

> Today’s vehicles spend most of the day parked. To develop a profitable,
> viable business model for [autonomous vehicles], they need to be running
> almost the entire day.

This is making sense. If you're running the vehicles like they're commercial
vehicles, you're going to induce wear that a consumer would never come close
to. Four years lines up pretty well with other commercial vehicle turnover,
like delivery vans, utility company vehicles and so on. The article mentions
the median lifecycle for taxis is pretty similar, at 3.8 years.

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wil421
No they are talking about reliability and longevity. I’d say most cars in this
century are generally very reliable. Toyota started it in the 80s with their
superior manufacturing techniques and defect controls.

You’re talking about features like Bluetooth, hands free, and driving
assistance.

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ehnto
I was thinking of core vehicle usefulness, as in cars haven't made any great
leaps in usefulness outside of safety improvements, so perhaps people were
holding onto them for longer. People were very excited for power steering, air
conditioning, all wheel drive and safety features. Most cars are really great
at being cars now, any from the last 12 years would do the trick so long as
it's still running.

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mdorazio
There are so many questionable statements in this article. First is the 4-year
scrap cycle, which seems to be based on nothing. Then there's the claim that
running on-board tech and climate control will cut battery life in half, which
might make sense if your battery is ridiculously small (Nvidia's full Drive
system fits in a 500 watt TDP). And the cherry on top is the claim of no
charging infrastructure (dubious, but even if true, why not build some for a
few million of investment?) combined with the claim that fast charging
degrades battery life (better not tell Tesla).

I had to look up John Rich on LinkedIn. He's a Ford lifer with no actual
electric or software experience as far as I can tell. I'm disappointed.

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kwhitefoot
50 % of range used up by on board tech!?

does that mean that if I switch off the radio in my Model S I'll get ~600 km
instead of ~300 km range?

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ianai
It’s the AC that eats up power.

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kwhitefoot
I think the maximum is about 6 kW in my Model S so if it were running flat out
I think I would use about 25% more than if the climate control were switched
off. My care typically uses between 180 and 220 Wh per kilometer, say 18 to 22
kW at 100 km/h.

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bryanlarsen
The linked article says that the "average age" of a car is 11.6 years. This
implies to me that the typical lifespan of a car is almost double that. The
average will be skewed by people who have plates on 100 year old cars.

