
The Car, Reinvented - spanktheuser
https://mondaynote.com/the-car-reinvented-from-scratch-4486564c086e
======
chris_va
> First, the skateboard and the upper body could be built separately. Maybe
> not at the same place (a handful of skateboards will fit perfectly in a
> shipping container for completion thousands of miles away).

I hate to be critical, but this really reminds me of a 1950s "visions of the
future" piece more than a practical design choice.

For example, the skateboard is not a new concept [1], and there are reasons
you don't see it. Modular design really only shines for low-volume production
(or a large combinatorial space). When you are doing 10s of millions of units
per year, as the auto industry does, modularity often gets thrown out in
deference to volume/cost.

Also, distributed manufacturing is a huge pain, why would you ever want that?
See Boeing's experience with the 737 supply chain. Just because you _can_
doesn't mean you _should_.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-
wire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Hy-wire)

~~~
mbreese
Not knowing anything about how a car is actually built... how does the
"skateboard" concept differ from what VW has in their modular platforms? For
example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_MEB_platform)

It is a difference of just how independent the "skateboard" is from the top?

~~~
csours
Think of MEB as a set of abstract parts with default implementations. If you
want to change the whole vehicle, you only have to change certain parts. Make
these pieces bigger, these pieces smaller, etc.

A true skateboard would be a static implementation of the frame and propulsion
system, with defined interfaces for the "top hat" (industry term for the body
of the vehicle).

------
LeonM
> That will require a major overhaul of technologies like the above-mentioned
> CAN-bus that is four decades old and employed in every car (including,
> believe it or not, in a Tesla).

I don't understand why the author keeps banging on about CAN bus being an old
standard. So what?

CAN bus is used in the automotive industry because of it reliability and low
wire count. Why should it be changed?

~~~
drcross
I always downgrade people in my estimations when I see they correlate old with
being bad without a good reason.

~~~
pandler
I agree, but I try to stick to downgrading the comment/argument instead of the
people themselves, because I’ve found it to be a pretty ubiquitous line of
thought since I started noticing it.

~~~
m463
I was listening to an episode of Joe Rogan, and the guest considered himself a
conservative.

Discussing the differences between a conservative and a liberal he used an
analogy of a fence, where a liberal would want to take it down and a
conservative would want to leave it up.

It got me thinking if this was true or not.

A little digging and I found this page:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence)

"Although the purpose of this fence is not obvious, there may be valid reasons
for its presence."

(I'd like to think I'm in the mindful middle somewhere)

------
egypturnash
_Ownership of the car won’t be necessary. As a passenger car sits idle 95
percent of the time, there are plenty of alternative options._

Every time I see someone say "all cars will be rentals in the future" I think
if all the people I know who have stuff kicking around in the trunk that they
use occasionally but rarely. The automotive version of "every-day carry". Some
of it's basic car maintenance stuff. Some of it's not.

And then I also think about the people I know whose passenger or back seat is
a giant pile of trash because there's no easy-to-empty integrated place for
trash and it all just ends up on the floor...

Also to quote this incredibly relevant point from fartaspoobutt [dead]: [1]

 _The car I really want is a network of fast, affordable, widely available
public transit._

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738780)

~~~
fortran77
My toothbrush sits idle 95% of the time. I don't want to rent it.

~~~
ajuc
It costs 3 orders of magnitude less and you put it in your mouth. Not a great
analogy.

My car sits idle for 99.9% of the time (I make less than 2000 km per year, and
vast majority of that in a few long trips each year). It would probably be
cheaper for me to rent a car for vacation trip and go by taxi the other 10
times a year I need it for city driving. But we already have a car and it's
been in the family since 1997 and it doesn't break so we keep it.

I would love to have a way to pay a reasonable yearly fee and have a good car
available when I need it without paying for the parking space, insurance,
maintanance, etc. But as it is renting a car is too much hassle.

------
martythemaniak
Number 3 is unbelievably wrong. I think he got his ideas from 90s GM concept
brochures and never bothered to dig deeper.

Yes, conceptually the "skateboard" makes sense, but you're not going to have
actual snap-in components like that. By Tesla's own admission, thinking of the
Model X as just another body on top of the Model S skateboard set them back a
long time. Whether you choose to go the traditional unibody design, or a more
unconventional exoskeleton design like the cybertruck, each body is
specifically made for each model type. While the Model Y is a "jacked up"
model 3, the body is a completely new and different thing.

------
winrid
The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying.

I had a truck with a hard to reproduce software bug where the electric
steering assist would just turn off. Imagine going down a canyon road towing
5000 lbs and the steering suddenly gets extremely hard and the wheel rips from
your hands. I had it happen. Luckily there is still a mechanical shaft going
to the steering rack.

~~~
na85
>The idea to make steering drive-by-wire is terrifying.

Indeed. I have zero confidence that the company who thought Catalina was ready
to ship can deliver a safe drive by wire system. That's not the kind of system
where you can just patch the bugs out later.

------
pi-err
This is missing something on the larger dynamics at play to reinvent the car.
It’s one of the biggest addictions inherited from the 20th century (with
disposable plastics and cigarettes).

This is not only about engineering and sales. Current car culture is rooted in
post-WW2 values: masculinity, personal freedom, power and control. Even Tesla
plays that book with the SpaceX halo and the insistance on performance.

I wonder how Apple will approach this change of “soul” in car culture. It’s a
shift not unlike what they brought to computing in the 80s, though they
transformed the design then. Can Apple build a personal, shareable, fully
automated electric pod? I can’t imagine them selling a vehicle with a wheel
for instance.

All in all, doubtful we ever see the outcome of the Titan project.

------
S_A_P
There is another reason that the auto industry is on a whole slow to change.
Suppliers. With the exception of the ICE most other major systems in vehicles
today comes from a handful of suppliers. To make electric vehicles, you have
to take on much more of the manufacturing process yourself or subcontract it
out. You lose economy of scale when that happens to some degree. Sure the
suppliers could start making the parts for evs, and they are starting to but
there is a lot of standardization that needs to happen as well.

------
fortytw2
The third point is extremely close to how trucks have always been built. Body-
on-frame construction has been prevalent in the automotive industry for a very
long time.

Ever see a crazy classic car body dropped on top of a truck frame, i.e. a 4x4
60s mustang on a bronco frame?

~~~
Someone
It’s also what large car companies already do. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_platform)
(has nice series of photos that show how different cars on a single platform
can look.

------
rwmj
_> Hybrid was interesting in its time (the Toyota Prius is a great car), but
it is… well, hybrid, i.e. torn between the ancient and the new world,
therefore a bad solution._

But can be refilled in 5 minutes and driven for 300 miles, which I don't see
happening with electric cars any time soon.

~~~
speedgoose
True, but do you need that feature often? When you drive 600km, it's okay to
take a break to charge the car.

Also Toyota hybrids are not very responsive and fast. And they smell.

~~~
rwmj
Actually plug-in hybrids seem to be the sweet spot, if only I could afford
one. I'd probably use it as an EV 95% of the time, charging overnight and
driving under 30 miles each day, but still not lose the ability to drive to my
family (200+ miles) without long stops for charging.

> And they smell.

Erm?

~~~
speedgoose
Eventually I think you will probably prefer an EV with a large battery that
can charge fast. An ICE engine is expensive to buy and maintain, and heavy.
The reliability is also not perfect when you almost never use it.

If you bike or drive behind a Toyota, you can notice the smoke and the smell.
Especially during winter.

------
LoSboccacc
> We will be talking exclusively about electric cars.

he compared cost, performance, regulations, but I didn't see him tackle the
issue of range and recharge times not even in passing.

> It is the only way forward.

with claims like these, skipping the two major drawbacks seems quite
intellectually dishonest.

~~~
supportlocal4h
This was the point I started to lose interest.

"Let's completely reimagine from scratch. But we all know there's really only
one option so let's ignore any other ideas."

~~~
LoSboccacc
exactly, this "re-imagined" car just looks a lot like a tesla, but with
proprietary connectors instead of the industry standards, I wonder why, surely
it isn't to curb stomp the accessories and replacement parts market. (heck,
bet they even want even to remove the obd port)

------
axus
I didn't realize that Apple would be getting into the car rental business, I
hadn't been paying attention. The Tesla model seems more palatable, where in
theory you are allowed to "hack" your car because you own it.

~~~
geewee
I definitely don't want people to "hack" their cars and drive on the same road
as me.

~~~
frosted-flakes
"Hacking" of cars has been always extremely popular, and you share the roads
with people who modify their cars every time you drive. Why should that change
now?

~~~
kanox
The status quo in car safety is pretty bad. A big hope for autonomous vehicles
is that they could dramatically reduce accidents.

------
csours
> "No industry is pulled down more by the burden of the past than the
> automotive industry. Also, no industry is slower at adapting its practices —
> design, manufacturing, marketing. The main reasons are an ossified culture
> and the amount of capital required to launch a new model"

I think this is fair, but incomplete. (Disclaimer, I work for General Motors,
these are my opinions alone).

It is hard to make things work. It is harder to make things work consistently.
It is even harder to make things that will work consistently when you don't
have control of the thing and users can use and abuse it in unforeseen ways.

Everyone who has spent more than a little time in a car has something they can
complain about, regardless of the brand. Now think about how many parts are
implicated in that defect. Now think about how many parts are in a car. A very
very small number of defective or under-designed or mis-designed parts can
lead to a bad experience.

Think about testing. Many people on HN are programmers or otherwise involved
in software development. Think about writing tests for your code. How many
end-to-end integration tests do you have? How many unit tests? What happens
when you change platforms or update middleware? Tests in the real world are
EXPENSIVE! When you test a new car, you're not testing 1 cheap part from a run
of 1,000,000 parts; you're testing 1 expensive prototype part from a run of 10
parts.

The article touches on the dealership experience. For legacy automakers, there
are laws in place that prevent them from ditching their dealers.

Legacy automakers also have agreements with labor unions. Adopting new work
processes takes patience and understanding in the best of times. Re-arranging
work can quickly become confrontational and not collaborative.

The other major partner for OEMs are suppliers. Suppliers do much of the
design work, based on specifications from OEMs. Suppliers can sell the same or
substantially similar parts, made from the same sub-components to many
different OEMs; but the further down the sub-component tree you go, the
smaller the profits. Also, if you want to do something crazy like ditch CANbus
or upgrade your 12 volt architecture to 48 volts, you'll have to do a lot of
work with your supplier base.

Cars aren't judged on the things that work well, they're judged by the things
that don't. The car design and manufacturing process is all about limiting and
eliminating those things. Uncontrolled changes can cause a huge spill of
defects.

\----

Edit: My main point here is that, Yes, the industry is ossified and slow
moving, but you can't just speed up. You have to address the reasons why it is
slow moving, and you have to do it WITHOUT RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!

------
Theodores
Why from scratch?

If it was a racing series then you could supply the tyres and insist no parts
came from existing cars with everything scratch built. That would make for an
interesting race series.

But cars are about how they are made, so final assembly and the supply chain.
Having the capital to reinvent that is way too capital intensive for where we
are.

Might as well build a web browser in a computer where you have to build your
own CPU working back from the HTML specs.

------
vsskanth
The biggest reinvention going on right now in cars is in software. Traditional
automakers are not seup to do this well because suppliers have their own stack
and all the controllers are pretty much fixed outside a firmware flash.

Tesla doesn't follow this approach. Their software is pretty unified and they
can update everything including their controllers OTA.

------
annoyingnoob
Perpetual payments are interesting, but not something I want in a vehicle.
There are lots of reasons to own, but I don't want a perpetual payment. If the
car is more reliable and needs less maintenance then I can expect it to last
longer and be a better value to own.

------
bttrfl
If we could start from scratch, shouldn't cars be made of plastic to reduce
weight?

~~~
GuB-42
Fiberglass car bodies used to be a thing. But they mostly came back to steel
now. Fiberglass and I guess plastic isn't good enough for structural parts
with the current safety standards. And if you have to support your plastic
parts with steel, you lose the weight benefits.

~~~
bttrfl
Wouldn't the safety standards change if all cars would weight X% of current
mass?

According to quick googling cars got heavier: "The average new car weighed
3,221 pounds [1461 kg] in 1987 but 4,009 pounds [1818kg] in 2010." [1]. The
weight of a trabant, which was probably a very badly engineered car, was about
600 kg [2] - 1/3 of a modern car.

I imagine we could make cars today even lighter and if weight of all cars
would be similar than the safety standards would be much different.

[1] [https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-
getting...](https://slate.com/business/2011/06/american-cars-are-getting-
heavier-and-heavier-is-that-dangerous.html) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant)

~~~
GuB-42
It will only matter on car vs car collisions. Fully loaded trucks and ground
obstacles will still be a problem.

Also I am not a mechanical engineer but it looks like steel is really good at
absorbing energy from impacts. Plastics tend to shatter when the impact force
is too great. I actually experienced a minor accident in a fiberglass car. No
one was hurt because the chassis held everything in place but the body was
completely broken.

------
ape4
Since I'm a programmer I'd make the car-o-future modular. A kernel and
different replaceable hardware and software modules. It bugs me how hard it is
to customize a car now and the high cost of it.

~~~
kazen44
the reason for this is obvious.

Having a modular car with a high degree of customization would be a huge
hassle in keeping cars safe.

~~~
LoSboccacc
car safety come mostly from the chassis, an engine swap shouldn't really
impact safety, unless it goes to fill crumple zones, but then it's not
swapping engines per se that impact safety, the issue comes from putting too
big of an engine.

the real issue would be making the thing actually reliable. matings and
fittings off the production line aren't the same you can get post assembly on
a workshop, and that will affect component durability big time

~~~
mhh__
Crash testing isn't the be all and end all. If you put a new engine in and it
cuts out on the motorway, for example. The verification process takes a lot of
time, even for a racing car let alone a road car that has to pass crash tests
as well.

~~~
LoSboccacc
the assumption would be that modularization would come with standard
interfaces, cutting down the need for verification

------
Ericson2314
Hearing car companies talk about sharing and renting is always suspicious,
because it means on the surface they sell far less. This is what ought to
happen: cars loose glamor and become a cheaper low-maintaince rental appliance
without such huge a industry behind it, but they companies will go do kicking
and screaming before that happens.

Let the batteries get cheaper, let there be more public transportation
(classic variety and municipal bike sharing including cargo wagons, etc.), and
hopefully the industry implodes on itself as described above.

And screw all this wall-e-esque infotainment stuff.

------
starchild_3001
I see a lot of critique. I would like to thank the author for opening up my
mind. There's plenty of well organized, food-for-thought here.

------
codegladiator
Apple doesn't just make things, they invent it. Reinvent just because its been
done before.

