Its CEO is only disappointed that the repair costs are so low. This is by design.
Whatever, fuck cars.
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.
The first two generations of the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Bolt are the closest to what you’re describing.
they had spent money last adminstration to put 100% tariffs on foreign evs.
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.
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.
What kind of car?
Chevelle
Careful with this posting it is an antique. The guy had a paintless dent repair
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ahh yeah, my steel stick welding looks like a swarm of seagulls with daierherra
The market is ripe for the equivalent of a wileys jeep ev. Cheap to buy, repair and capable with no frills.
Closest to that is a base trim Bolt. Considering inflation since COVID, 29k is pretty decent for the US market.
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
Yeah, but all the manufacturers don’t want to lower their profit margins.
That means room for new manufacturers.
Seriously, I need this bad. I’m about to get a rikshaw instead
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.
Thankfully cars use more reliable things than http.
But the point is that security related messages should be sent through another can bus, which is actually already the case. Except for earlier Tesla’s, because of course their idiotic CEO thought he knew better than every single other car manufacturer in the past half century
Not gonna happen for multiple obvious reasons, but here’s one that would make you not want to buy one - it’d be a budget car for a price of a BMW.
And you’re not gonna want to buy it second-hand, because of the risk of unimaginable extent of software garbage the previous owners would leave you with.
Tinker cars are for tinkering, good luck untinkering it.
If it’s software, you could just reinstall it.
Hardware would be a different story. But I’m not sure how that’s different than today. My friend has a RAV4 that he’s added several hardware hacks to. For example, there is a module you can add that will give you actual numbers for each tire’s pressure instead of the usual warning light that a tire is low with no indication of which one. It even shows up as an extra screen on the normal interface between the gauges.
If it’s software, you could just reinstall it.
Exactly, right!
As a FOSS person you don’t buy a used PC from someone, find it still has an OS installed and just start using it.
No, you wipe that sucker clean and install your OS fresh.
An open-source car would be exactly the same.
I’m pretty sure I do that with EVERY piece of hardware I get. I don’t trust that shenanigans haven’t been done. Hell most times I update the BIOS too if I can.
Absolutely correct, however the thing about cars and electronics in general is that if you tinker too much, your software issues may become hardware issues - and usually much sooner than you may have anticipated.
It’s not fun when you burn your GPU, it’s super not when you brick your car’s AC and have to disassemble your entire dashboard
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
Isn’t Slate a unibody design?
No idea, does it matter?
Yes, because unibody designs will all have this problem, where it’s extremely expensive to repair damage to the frame.
Body-on-frame is generally better for repairability because you don’t have this problem - you can just remove the damaged panel and replace it.
In both slate and rivian’s case (I think), they seem to use a hybrid of both. So, it’s probably around the same expense as repairing a Rivian in regard to labor (and possibly materials).
The point is that Slate might not resolve this problem either.
My understanding is the Slate is kind of body-around-frame.
Not exactly a ladder chassis but I don’t know if you can call it a unibody.
I corrected my first comment in the comment you just replied to:
In both slate and rivian’s case (I think), they seem to use a hybrid of both
Everywhere I’ve found calls it a hybrid or mix of both options. This is how Rivian does their bodies as well, which means Slate may not fully fix this “more expensive to repair than standard body-on-frame” problem. At least, Rivian calls it a “unique” body on frame.
Here’s an R1T, for example and to compare:
I do see that the Slate’s bed body is less of a unibody compared to the R1T, however it otherwise is very similar. I’m betting that the Slate will be cheaper to repair in the rear, from a labor and material sense, however I think it will suffer from similar problems elsewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a Slate regardless. R2 is a full unibody, which will almost definitely make repairs more costly, as well.
Frame on rails doesnt save you any money in repairs if the frame is damaged. The real key is to hace rapairability as part of the design. The problem with the rivian isnt that its unibody, its that the exterior pannels are part of the unibody, so a small exterior dent is essentialy frame damage. That being siad, its likley cosmetic damage.
EVs will never be frame on rails due to battery packaging. The most likley similar design would be body on “skateboard” as they call it. But the hybrid approach does make better cars. Frame on rails has issues with twisting and flex that unibody solves. This makes the cars drive softer and handle better.
But either way, any design could have easy replacable exterior panels. Most unibody designs still have replacable bumpers, front quarter panels, mirrors, doors, trunks, etc. For some reason though they dont do usually do it on rear quarter panels, which is where the costs skyrocket. Just like in that r1t picturee above. The rear quarter panel could have been a replacable part. There may be a good reason for this, but i suspect its mostly production cost savings, with maybe a bit of weight savings.
Cool idea.
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.
shouldn’t be too difficult for most body shops…
and there’s plenty of them: so plenty of parts available e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/157804119428
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?
I got into a fender bender with my Buick and they totalled it because the fender was worth half as much as the car. They’re doing something very wrong in car design.
I used to drive an Isuzu Trooper. I got rear-ended which totaled my car. Theoretically it was repairable, but when your car is old enough to vote it doesn’t take much damage for it to get totaled.
There was other damage, but one thing that still pisses me off is that a few hundred bucks of that calculation was my spare tire cover, which had some cracks after the accident, and the insurance company would not let that drop.
It was a plastic shell that is mostly just decorative that covered the spare bolted to the back of my vehicle. I didn’t care that it was cracked, it in no way affected the safety of my vehicle, I would have happily driven that car for another decade with it being cracked, if they slapped 5¢ worth of epoxy on it I would have been more than satisfied, or hurry they could have just thrown the damn thing away and I guess my spare would get a little dirtier that it would if it was covered.
But they had to include that in the repair cost estimate, and since it was kind of an uncommon older car, replacement spare tire covers were scarce and pricey and added a few hundred bucks onto the estimate.
I don’t know if that was the thing that pushed me over the edge to a total loss but it certainly didn’t help
I had a perfectly mechanically sound vehicle that was paid off, and could possibly still be on the road today, and instead I got stuck with a couple years of car payments on a car I liked less than that one.
Isuzu Trooper mentioned! Consumer Reports did them dirty with the rollover test rigging. Really hurt the sales. Glad to see them on the decline as a reputable information source.
Yeah the spare parts are an issue for less common vehicles. I was getting some Trooper parts from Australia before the tariffs messed that up for awhile. Really a shame how many cars are scrapped by insurance. Cash for clunkers not allowing parts to be sold also didn’t help much.
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Wrong for who?
Slate’ service partner blurb at least has some sound bites related to ease of repair. But aren’t they also a ‘our car only has 3 parts’ company?
Slate is the car for me.
No radio. No screens. A gas pedal, brakes, steering wheel, and manual windows.
I want to be hype for it so bad, but I can’t get behind buying a Bezosmobile. I really wish somebody else was behind it.
He was an early investor, it is not his idea. He is not the majority owner.
Oh really? Damn, then I’ve been misinformed. I’ll have to take another look.
Is it still a gas pedal when the truck is electric :P
technically, it’s an accelerator, but I’ve taken to calling it the “go pedal”
“Go pedal” was Tesla’s thing, it was part of their branding.
Well, fuck; now it’s ruined…
How about “Vroom” and “Skrrch”?
Fast Footy?
According to an old video by Doug Demuro, an early Volkswagen EV had the “play” and “stop” buttons on the accelerator and brake pedals, respectively.
I refuse to call it a “go pedal” like Tesla tried to create, lol. I guess it’s like “footage” for film, or “rewind.”
Maybe we can call it an accelerator?
Yea, just like the save icon is still a floppy disk.
What do you mean? I save all my files to floppy.
(I actually have a floppy drive yjat I sometimes use to remember yo sounds)
That’s a Buick thing. Was it a CTS? I’ve seen two year old CTS total from small accidents because there were no parts available for it.
Envision. The car was worth like $18k but with labor the fender was about $7.5k and since that’s over 40% of the value, it automatically totaled. I argued to no avail and almost kept it but the damage title wasn’t worth it.
Totaling a car over 40% is wild to me, is this a normal thing in the US? A bus drove into my grandma’s car last year and the damage was something like 11k Euros on a 16k car. The bus insurance paid for the full repair.
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.
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.
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.
They burned out and needed to be replaced. New ones should never burn out
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 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
I might support this point of view if the last 20 years of lifespan promises with new light bulb technology had actually been true.
They’re nice until you need to replace them.
Unfortunately that’s the fifth owner’s problem so nobody really considers it
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.
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.
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?
He actually does mean that I think.
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.
literally the only reasonable solution
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.”
Can you reach the inside though? Thought that was part of the problem.
This is an aluminum panel, not likely to work here
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.
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.
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.
