TL:DR: Poor scale and awareness due to being a niche brand, overly large aluminum body panels requiring either massive replacements or complicated welding, small shops guessing that it must be even more exotic and expensive than the CEO claims, and insurers shrugging and moving on because the volumes aren’t hitting their financials hard enough for them to care.
welding aluminum requires TIG. It’s harder and more specialized.
welding mild steel body panels are simple with equipment any body shop will have.
Hell any home 120v wire welder can do mild steel. It is the cutting and shaping part that is hard.
No, that’s easy as well. It’s the not breaking to pieces and looking like shit part that is hard.
Well hell, I’ve never welded anything and I struggle with those things in my daily life anyway.
welding aluminum requires TIG. It’s harder and more specialized.
You can weld aluminium with MIG just fine. It is indeed way more difficult than normal steel and not every car shop has skills nor equipment for it.
‘can,’ maybe, huge pain in the ass more likely. I’m far from an expert, but I’ve had much more success with AC. That oxide layer rebuilds itself pretty quick…
You need a suitable welder for that with pulse feed so that it kinda-sorta acts like square wave AC. With your average hobbyist garage welder it’s going to be a real pain in the ass.
TIG is neither expensive nor difficult any more. Laser welders are now cheap and trivial to use for aluminum.
insurers shrugging and moving on because the volumes aren’t hitting their financials hard enough for them to care.
No insurance company works like that.
The cost to insurance comes out of premiums. Rivians and Teslas cost a fortune to insure.
Fair enough, I may have inferred a bit too much, so here is what the CEO said:
And so third parties, the reason you saw some of these really high numbers, is we’re like, ‘A Rivian? And what’s a Rivian?’ So they they don’t know the car, and they quote an enormously high number, the insurance company agrees to it, and then that happens.”
The market is ripe for the equivalent of a wileys jeep ev. Cheap to buy, repair and capable with no frills.
Make the software foss too and i’m in
I would die for a FOSS car. The main barrier for that is airbags, people could just disable them, which wouldn’t be good or fair to their passengers or future owners. I also worry about other dumb stuff people would do with a foss car. Of course, I still want one.
You can already do that though. Basically any truck just has a control on the dash to disable the passenger side airbag in case you neet to put a car seat there. You can also just remove the airbags in any existing vehicle as is. It really isn’t hard to do. People are just hesitant to do so because if you screw up then you can set the airbag off.
More importantly though why would the software being foss effect the airbags? The airbags shouldn’t be interacting with the vehicle software at all.
People have been doing dumb things with their cars since the invention of cars. Making them harder to repair via locked down software isn’t the fix for that.
Airbags are definitely a part of the can bus these days, they trigger based off of a number of inputs like the gyro, speed, acceleration, etc. I suppose they could just put in a seperate, secure system for the airbags that cannot be tampered with.
If those sensors give the values thru a server port and the airbag reads them as a client there is no need for more interaction than what the 90s browsers had with the web servers.
Most modern vehicles have a weight sensor that disables airbags below a certain weight.
This has been common for 20 years.
Theoretically there are ways to deal with modifications in that scenario.
Prusa for instance had a trace on the PCB of the mk3 that you had to cut to be able to flash a unsigned binary iirc. You voided the warranty or at least the parts that were affected by modifications.
Imagine something like this for a car. Not a binary blob but something signed or otherwise secured through a chain of trust for components the law decides to regulate. Driving data recorder in case of crash and airbags and such. All the other non safety components can be changed and nobody but you controls your data and your ability to repair. And if you decide to change said components you loose some rights regarding insurance, not warranty for the car itself.
Yes please.
Slate… though who knows if it will ever materialize in the real world.
I can’t wait to preorder mine! https://www.slate.auto/share/VYMIBC
Preorder a new model from a new company that has never made anything before?
I know, I know…
Cool idea.
You are close to describing the Slate truck
Too bad it’s backed by Bozos
That would be part me saying “close to” for sure
Which doesn’t actually exist yet and price jumps $5000 every quarter.
Dacia Spring (but that’s probably not exported to the US which I guess you’re from)
Canada, so no. :(
The price is nice. I doubt it is easy to repair.
Seriously, I need this bad. I’m about to get a rikshaw instead
Closest to that is a base trim Bolt. Considering inflation since COVID, 29k is pretty decent for the US market.
Lemmy wants a new EV for $6500 to park in the garage of their $125,000 house.
The fact that Bolt is not sold out indicates all these internet comments of “we just want an affordable EV” are bullshit.
What people say in forums and what they actually buy are very different. Ford sells almost a million F150s every single year.
Yeah, but all the manufacturers don’t want to lower their profit margins.
That means room for new manufacturers.
The mecedes g wagon was developed with easy repair ability in mind. At least regarding the outer shell and maybe the frame. Straight and rectangular sections that can easily be welded. As all good ideas it went to shit of course.
Germans will not save us with simple engineering. Everything in their cars is so fucking complicated to work on.
It’s like they have a division of how to make mechanics work hell
You read my comment, right?
But what if I’m not a Russian arms dealer?
We used a one-piece body side, and so that means if you damage like the rear fender, the repair operation, depending on the level of the damage, you can either do body work or you have to cut out a portion of the panel, re-weld the new panel on,
So, a problem of design that didn’t really think about repairability
I’m not even a mechanic and I can tell you that no car company thinks about repairability.
Hell, just replacing a consumable like the battery can be a major chore that requires far more disassembly than anyone with a functional braincell would consider appropriate on some cars.
You’d think cars, at least, will be built under the assumption they’ll typically have to be repaired rather than replaced.
They used to be. Go back far enough in time and you could climb up under the hood into the engine bay to work on it. All that went by the wayside to get smaller packaging, lighter weight, and better fuel efficiency.
Now you need special tools or special code readers to solve/diagnose all vehicle problems. The large scale farmers are dealing with this now with the large combines and harvesters needing a tech with special equipment to read all the codes where the older tractors from the 70s and 80s can be repaired.
Uncle had a truck, I dont remember what brand or what year. But I do remember him climbing into the engine bay and sitting on the front tire well to work on the engine, because I was on the other tire well watching him. and we both had absolutely loads of room to move around. more so me, being a kid, but he was a big man and he still could slither around everywhere in that engine bay to get at what needed got at.
vehicles, especially trucks, used to have an insane amount of space under the hood for working on the engine.
I used to think that until I worked on a friends 70s muscle car. The spark plugs on the drivers aide are a pain because the steering shaft runs directly down beside plug 5 and 7. But overall all the plugs and boots suck because they are tucked under the exhaust manifold.
Try 70s and newer Italian sports cars. Everything is difficult.
What kind of car?
Chevelle
I’m getting annoyed at hearing this “they made them better in the old days” trope.
Modern cars are pushing 200-300,000 miles of life. They don’t rust like they used to, and complex, efficient engines can be diagnosed with a read from a computer screen, as can the entire car electric system. Sure, older vehicles had more room to do repairs, but they always needed repairs. Lots of rose colored glasses being worn here.
Vehicles like giga cast Teslas are almost like hot wheels cars, one large casting of aluminum, which is often too expensive to fix so the car gets written off. Rivian and Tesla didn’t give a shit about collision repair…until sales are being choked when people get insurance quotes. Tesla setup their own insurance and it’s losing money. Poor design means Teslas crash more than any other brands, and get written off more than any other brand, which sets actuarial tables on fire.
Now Rivian CEO cares because bad design is affecting sales.
Lots of rose colored glasses being worn here.
I will take modern rust prevention tech every day all day. The control modules and circuit boards are a hole in repairablity, and there’ll be a wall where nobody makes them anymore and the specs are not published (considered proprietary/trade secret/whatever), and that whole vehicle will just have to be scrapped. The world won’t ever see the end of old body-on-frame vehicles with crate engines. Speaking for myself the “rose colored glasses” is a wish for the best of both worlds. I wouldn’t doubt it’s out there being done somewhere, but I’m sure it’s cost prohibitive to do it, or people are doing it for themselves.
Maybe I’m just complaining because I don’t personally have the time/knowledge/workspace to do what I want in that area. C’est la vie.
Yeah, I’d agree engineering and material quality is up, but the problem is that enshittification is up at a higher amount.
A GMC Hummer EV taillight costs an eye-watering $6,100 to replace, plus labor. The idea of having to replace one of Audi’s new adaptive Matrix LED headlight setups is something most people probably don’t want to stomach.
Audi made these adaptive light strips to fix the artificial problem of newer headlights being too bright compared to older ones.
Meanwhile, only 30 years ago when we had sealed-beams in standardized shapes, you could replace a headlight for like $10. And the lens was actually glass instead of plastic prone to yellowing and abrasion.
Yeah and if you hit someone that glass shatters and stabs them. The plastic is shatter resistant.
Did you know shatter resistant glass exists? Like your windshield for example. The issue is plastic is cheap and easy to manufacture and nothing else.
Tempered glass is very hard to mold into a complex shape. Those plastic headlights shrouds are much cheaper to replace, it’s the internals that are expensive.
Also that plastic you can just polish and they’re like new.
Windshield are actually a composite of two glass layers and an inner plastic layer.
They burned out and needed to be replaced. New ones should never burn out
You say that as if saving $10 on a bulb once every few years is worth the risk of spending $100s or apparently even $1000s if they get damaged.
There are reasons cars have been getting ever more unaffordable (above and beyond inflation), and stuff like bespoke model-specific headlights requiring complicated tooling to manufacture is one of them.
Cost wise, no it’s not worth it.
But you now have an item that
- never needs to be maintained
- is brighter
- works better
The adaptive headlights in my car are truly amazing, and every time I’m blinded by oNcoming headlight glare I wish everyone had them
They’re nice until you need to replace them.
Unfortunately that’s the fifth owner’s problem so nobody really considers it
I might support this point of view if the last 20 years of lifespan promises with new light bulb technology had actually been true.
Brighter is a negative trait in my opinion.
I partly agree, headlights are causing harm by blinding other drivers. But adaptive headlights seem to work. Brighter should only be allowed with adaptive headlights
I can drive through a busy area with “high beams” on but watch dark spots move to keep other cars in the dark
I live in a very hilly area, adaptive headlights do exactly fuck-all.
Well, AUDI owners are insufferable douchenozzles so I don’t have much sympathy.
So… put LEDs in the same form factor. Now you have lights that don’t burn out and can be repaired. You can even use PWM to dim them.
Same form factor is the problem: LEDs need a different beam pattern with a sharp cutoff, otherwise they’re harming other drivers.
But adaptive headlights are even better. They seem to work really well and I’m a huge fan. I have really bright LED headlights so I can see everything but I can also watch them change to keep other cars in a dark spot so I don’t blind them.
The combination of super bright LEDs with adaptive headlights seem like a huge safety improvement for us all
Same form factor doesn’t mean same reflectors. It just needs to fit into the same space. You can fit LEDs into that space.
You could, but capitalism … most cars do not get aftermarket reflectors, no one would pay the significant cost, and LEDs fit into standard reflectors. There’s a whole bunch of failure here
We’re talking about the sealed headlights with the reflectors contained in them. LED versions have their own reflectors that could be (and I assume are) tuned to work correctly with LEDs.
Those lights were absolute garbage though and the vehicles that used them got half the gas mileage compared to new ones due to their blocky shape and lack of aerodynamics.
Somehow, people could still see in the dark.
Never a good argument. We could transport goods with horses too. Never needed that fancy cart wheel.
And the ones who couldn’t see crashed.
Just don’t drive if you can’t see adequately. Fuck.
Funny considering the argument here is that these lights are too expensive to replace after something like a crash, yet your argument is that we should use headlights that make it much harder to see at night which just leads to more crashes.
Well the core of my argument is that people shouldn’t drive if they can’t see well and I’d rather solve that by having far fewer drivers than with brighter lights.
My Miata with pop-up sealed beams gets ~30 MPG. Any aerodynamic problems it has are due to being a convertible, not the headlights.
Aerodynamic headlights should never ever cost $6k under any circumstances.
Greedy corporate executives ran out of ideas to grow their revenue so we have to deal with absurdity inflated prices.
Most dont cost $6k just these ones because they’re adaptive lights
They’re also only 6k in the US because y’all pay extra for everything German and somehow also get worse reliability.
New matrix LED headlight for A6 C8 from Hella is 1700 EUR. Used one from a wrecker could be as low as 300. Parts catalog also shows individual LEDs for repairs.
Toyota Avalon 2011 headlight housing (which usually gets damaged) with auto leveling costs $150 each from the dealer ship. I still run the factory blasts and leveling motor and I just replace HID bulbs for ~$180 every 5 years or so.
Compare it with 2022 Toyota Avalon with unserviceable headlights without auto leveling which cost ~$2000
So a fender bender would cost $10k easy just for a pair of headlights and a bumper.
Here they are for $470 each with a CAPA certification for body shop repairs:
OEM parts are always going to be ridiculously priced because the OEM has a monopoly on OEM parts. Your 2011 headlamp assembly also has removable bulbs while the newer Avalon uses built-in LED lights with all the circuitry to drive them.
By “artificial problem” you mean the problem that they created… Right?
… Right?
deleted by creator
I thought we all agreed there is a problem with headlights these days? Is it just not because of LEDs specifically?
It’s because they’re made brighter and cooler than they need to be, basically. There’s no reason they couldn’t be less of either. We have Christmas tree bulbs made of LEDs that accurately mimic the old fashioned ones after all.
Oh so you mean it’s an “artificial problem” as in they are “solving” a problem they created themselves. Not that there isn’t actually a problem.
So funny story, I hit the back of my husband’s Rivian on accident and we need to file a claim. I’m fucking terrified now.
I mean if it’s just a fender bender, who cares? Bumpers are meant to bend. Do you think it was hit hard enough to cause actual structural damage?
No but I didn’t think the bill could be that high for bumper damage. It’s full coverage, it would just suck if they totaled it.
What’s a bumper. Vehicles all have integrated crash structures now behind plastic facias tucked close to the body.
I like the rivian cars, but i have worked for years as a hardware engineer and i am 100 percent certain this was a known issue. I have seen design scrutinized on so much less and this is just such an obvious issue…
Rivian and Tesla are trying to hit price points with lower volumes so they are 100% aiming to reduce manufacturing costs even if it creates scenarios like this.
This was an issue when they were making record profit margins in the industry and charging $150,000++.
It’s only a problem now when people pull out of purchases because they get a shocking insurance quote.
If you don’t scrutinize then you don’t find any issues?
The issues get fixed before production, except, not in this case it seems.
This is why it is such a shame that all the major auto manufacturers could not be bothered to produce a decent cheap EV. They have repairability figured out from the start. They already have dealers, parts, crash safety, etc all worked out.
they had spent money last adminstration to put 100% tariffs on foreign evs.
Just hammer it out bro
Hit the front with a hair dryer for a minute, then use a mallet from the inside
Just drive it as is. When other road warriors see your battle scars, they’ll know not to mess with you.
I imagine a rough looking dent that is flirting with the clean sheet metal of the other car at a red light.
“You want some of this? Come here and I’ll take you on a wild ride. Come over to the dent side. Insert some sexual innuendo here.”
That’s why I have a Mohawk and wear leather chaps.
literally the only reasonable solution
Can you reach the inside though? Thought that was part of the problem.
This is an aluminum panel, not likely to work here
Careful with this posting it is an antique. The guy had a paintless dent repair
Whatever, fuck cars.
Its CEO is only disappointed that the repair costs are so low. This is by design.
There is no way a CEO talks like that. “We made like a one piece body”. Not a chance.
Just because they are a CEO doesn’t mean they are smart. Money does not equal intelligence
He has a bachelor in Mechanical Engineering and a PHD in Automotive Mechanical Engineering. He’s no dummy.
Engineers figure out how to make a thing as cheap as possible. Unless they are told to consider repairability, they won’t.
That why a 2025 or later Ford F150 has a plastic oil pan.
Just crazy.
I’m sure he appreciates you standing up for him.
You would think with a PhD he would have had his company look at how other cars have been built for over 100 years and learn from that.
How many electric cars have been built over the last 100 years?
The Rivian design has to reduce weight for the massive battery packs only Americans need or they get anxiety from having to do math.
I’m just saying someone that educated doesn’t typically speak like that. I think (like, an opinion) the story misquoted him.
Someone can be educated and still be a blithering moron.
intelligence does not equal wisdom.
