Without right to repair, there will be planned obsolescence.
My Citroen EV developed an on board charger fault. It wouldn’t charge. The part was a “coded part” which meant it had to specifically programmed with my EV’s ID by Citroen at manufacture. It took months to finally be fitted and ready. So basically, not only does the coded parts system make service shit, but also means when the manufacturer is done making the part, the car is dead. You can’t swap parts between cars and there is no third party parts. It’s meant to be about car theft, but it’s very convenient it blocks competition and long product life…
The public are usually very for that after it’s been implemented. They hate it before, assuming you include people who live outside the area where it’s being built but imagine they might want to some say drive there in “the public”. It’s much more of a mixed bag if you don’t.
Until it needs to be funded. A large part of the public think public transport should be entirely funded from tickets and if it isn’t profitable from that it should be shut down and turned into more space for cars.
Where as the true profit of public transport is in other things. E.g. the land valuation around a railway station is way higher than it would be without. The public also seem to be against land value taxes.
It’s not just cars. Anything with electronics (appliances, smarthome devices, healthcare, transportation) that is designed to last more than three years will hit a wall.
The host devices are designed to last 10-15 years, but the electronics will be out-of-date in 3-5 years.
The processor manufacturer will have moved on to new tech and will stop making spare parts. The firmware will only get updated if something really bad happens. Most likely, it’ll get abandoned. And some time soon, the software toolchain and libraries will not be available anymore. Let’s not think of the devs who will have moved on. Anyone want to make a career fixing up 10-yo software stack? Where’s the profit in that for the manufacturer?
So as an end-user, you’re stuck with devices that can not be updated and there’s still at least 10-20 years of life left on them. Best of luck.
Solution: go analog. Pay extra if you have to. They’ll last longer and the ROI and privacy can’t be beat.
I’ve been screaming about this for years and no one listens. My old car will run longer than my new one because I can change the head unit in the old one
Noone listens because they want people to buy new cars every 10-15 years. Capitalism endgame where companies don’t care about what the consumer wants anymore, as long as they make sure consumers don’t have choices.
My hunch is that "average ownership lifetime" for mobile phones is MUCH lower than you or I (or anyone who is careful with their phone) probably expects. There is probably a too-big segment of the market that is trading in yearly for a newer model.
By communities, but not the manufacturer. Custom ROMs is the only way to keep it up to date for long enough for the hardware to become too old to be worth it.
I’m disappointed to find this article is mainly about losing premium subscription features that use mobile internet, which I see as little more than expensive spyware. I don’t want them in the first place, and although I believe that some people might, it doesn’t seem like one of the important issues around car technology or transportation in general.
The promise is a “smartphone on wheels”: a car that automakers can continue to improve well after an owner drives away from a showroom.
I feel a more worthwhile discussion would be about how a long a “smartphone on wheels” will remain useful compared to one that doesn’t depend on continually updated software. How much more often will they need to be replaced? How much more will that cost people? How much more waste and pollution will be generated because of shorter car lifetimes? What sort of right-to-repair laws do we need here?
I hate these proprietary systems because companies have very bad track records in terms of maintenance, since they’d rather you buy a newer product.
In 2022, the automaker told drivers of the affected cars, some only three years old, that a technical solution was delayed by the pandemic. Now, more than two years later, those drivers still don’t have access to telematics services. […] Vehicles from Hyundai and Nissan, some as late as model year 2019, also lost some features after 2022’s 3G sunset.
In a country with good consumer rights, this would be a valid reason to return it and get a replacement or refund: It’s no longer offering functionality that was advertised and that you paid for as part of the purchase price.
In a country with good consumer rights, this would be a valid reason to return it and get a replacement or refund: It’s no longer offering functionality that was advertised and that you paid for as part of the purchase price.
That’s what I like about CarPlay. Just give me a dumb screen with CarPlay compatibility. I’ll get new features with my phone upgrades. The rest of the car could be mechanical for all I care. I prefer cable clutches anyway.
Profit. They can add all those features and charge significant higher margins. The same as the bigger the car the bigger the profit so they push huge SUVs and pickups on everyone.
The main issue is that the NHSTA requires a backup camera, which requires a screen. Since they have to make room for that screen, manufacturers now want to make it a premium thing they can use to justify up charging.
I don’t see a solution to this until someone actually tries to make things cheap again and small screens become the trend.
Luckily modern cars are generally a lot safer to drive than your old magna. Air bags (not new, just better), crumble zones, automatic emergency braking, lane assist/departure warning etc. have come a really long way in the past 30 years. They’re not only less likely to be in major crashes, they’re also safer for both people in the car and outside the car (bikes/pedestrians) if it happens.