
Carmakers fret their industry is on the brink of huge disruption - nopinsight
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21685459-carmakers-increasingly-fret-their-industry-brink-huge-disruption
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rhino369
Does anyone have solid figures regarding automobile lifespan and what
variables affect it. I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main
variable.

I wonder if driver-less automobiles will really reduce the need for cars.
Sure, you can have a car run 3 different commutes a day instead of 1 typically
done now. But that will produce 3X the wear and tear on the car.

In New York, taxis are used for 3-5 years.

Plus, with driveless cars we may end up driving much more and further. Instead
of a bus, I may just have a car drive me to work. In fact, Uber already lets
me commute by car instead of public transit 4/5 days a week.

Uber has already caused me to drive more, not less. I wonder what the end
result is.

But they are right to be worried. Any major change in technology brings in
winners and losers.

~~~
ars
> I've always been told that mileage--not time--is the main variable.

And my experience is exactly the opposite. I have never had a car die from
mileage. I've had several die from time.

In my experience cars last about 10 year, 15 if you are careful. How many
miles you drive during that time is mostly irrelevant.

Personally I think cars should track hours when turned on, not miles.

~~~
pravda
>In my experience cars last about 10 year, 15 if you are careful.

Huh? How can 'time' kill a car?

My car celebrated her 30th birthday. Under 200K miles. Time does not kill
cars, and neither does mileage.

It just gets to a point where it is cheaper to replace then to repair.

~~~
acdha
There are huge regional variations: someone who lives in an area where the
roads are salted in the winter or near an ocean coast with salty air will have
a very different experience with this than someone who lives in a desert.
There's a reason why classic cars are so much more common in the Southwest
than New England, Florida, etc..

~~~
pravda
That is absolutely correct. I did not account for rust. Rust can eat away a
car in 10-15 years, at least at latitudes that use salt on the roads. My car
is galvanized, which I think was unusual for the 1980s. So I have not had rust
problems.

I remember seeing a lot more rusted-out cars on the roads back in 80s and 90s.
But not so much anymore. I __think __most manufacturers started using
galvanized steel by the 90s.

Ok, this is from the "Steel Market Development Institute":

"In the 1970s, automotive sheet steel was simply cold rolled, primed, painted,
and put on the road. Corrosion resistance wasn’t very good. By the early
1980s, however, carmakers decided it was time to eliminate rust failures in
their vehicles. Ten years later, steelmakers had installed continuous electro
and hot-dip galvanizing lines, and carmakers switched to two-sided galvanized
steel for cars and light trucks. These steps improved the corrosion resistance
of steel bodies so much that companies began offering corrosion-perforation
warranties."

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wrong_variable
@disruption @threat

The economist really likes to paint everything as a gloomy picture.

The way I see it - the modern internal combustion engine is a threat to
civilization.

Car Makers especially americans ones have a lot of blood on their hand.
Everything from helping redesign cities to make it impossible to not afford
buying their product.

To making walking a crime ( jay walking ).

"Young city-dwellers are turning their backs on owning a costly asset that
sits largely unused and loses value the moment it is first driven."

Good - we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars.

~~~
monk_e_boy
"we really cannot have 7 billion people drive cars" ... I think we will have
to... for a while.

Education is the best way of reducing population. Cars (or any type of
personal transport) is crucial, moving the effort from humans to machines,
leaving the human with more time and options. This leads to education and
caring about the environment, politics etc.

So for a while we'll have to have 7 billion people using cars (or at least
that's what the goal should be) then this will drop to 6 billion, then 5 then
4 etc.

We can power cars using solar. Terrestrial or orbital.

~~~
smhg
> _Education is the best way of reducing population._

Going slightly off topic. Overpopulation can be solved in 2 ways: reducing
population or expanding our habitat. Education contributes to both, but the
second sounds like a more feasible path to take.

~~~
merpnderp
There are around ~400k people born every single day. If we expand our habitat
to other planets, we'd need the capability to launch a million people a day to
have even the remotest impact on population in the near future. Unless anti-
gravity or some new weird physics is invented, this isn't ever going to
happen.

~~~
smhg
Does that mean you assume reducing population to be easy/easier?

Increasing our habitat isn't simple. But it at least is likely to get more
feasible over time. While reducing population seems to be the opposite of our
'nature' (not that we aren't able to go against that) and it requires the
cooperation of basically everyone. Which isn't required by the former.
Cooperation seems to get [insert mathematical function] harder when more
people are involved.

Sidenote: expansion would of course not exclude taking care of existing
habitats.

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sandworm101
Carmakers always fret. SUVs, the decline of suburbs, gas prices, hybrids, in-
dash entertainment ... there is always something just around the corner that
is to revolutionize everything. That's business.

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wmeredith
...And consumers are licking their chops. Car buying and repair is a racket
from top to bottom. This is in no small part the fault of the manufacturers
from design to actively campaigning for policy that's bad for customers and
good for car makers/sellers. I hope they rot.

~~~
merpnderp
I see this exact sentiment all the time. Even people who have a favorite brand
will gripe angrily about getting ripped off on the purchase and how repairs
are so needlessly expensive.

~~~
mikeash
I think this is one reason why car makers (except that one that always shows
up on the front page here) love having dealers. The maker gets all the love
for a great machine, and the dealers get all the hate for dishonest sales
practices and ripoff repairs.

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danjoc
This article seems to overlook the obvious. Self driving cars are still cars.
Someone has to make them. Car makers are not going out of business in that
scenario.

~~~
shakethemonkey
Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary, and,
as the article notes, limit the ability of manufacturers to upsell features.
If the fleet of cars on the road were largely self-driving, there is no way it
would support the present variety of car manufacturers. I would hazard that
most would go bankrupt.

~~~
danjoc
>Self-driving cars drastically reduce the total number of cars necessary

The fact that the cars drive themselves really changes nothing. Car pooling
reduces the total number of cars necessary. Public transportation reduces the
total number of cars necessary. You might try to argue that car pooling will
increase as a result of the change, but I don't think that is a given. You'd
need to explain away surge pricing to convince me otherwise.

But certainly, if you'd like to sell me your Tesla shares now at half price
and get to safety, I'll be a friend and take them off your hands for you :)

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TYPE_FASTER
Disruption all around...1.8l gas engine that gets over 35mpg and produces
170hp on regular gas, cars that are reliable ten years later, fully electric
cars, self driving cars...it's awesome.

