• rmuk@feddit.ukEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    I just want a simple car. One without extraneous functions.

    My old boss bought a brand new car that was in the shop for two of it’s first four weeks. The issue? The capacitive touch sensor that operated the motorised glove box door was activating automatically because it was being confused by dust.

    My shitty 15 year old VW’s plastic glove box door has a metal latch and had never experienced this bug.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      There certainly are places where technology and electronics can improve a car, but replacing one of the most basic, reliable mechanical functions such as a latch is arguably stupid. It’s just adding numerous more failure points. It’s form over function.

    • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 year ago

      I guess that depends heavily on what you consider cheap… And how fast it’s supposed to go.

      A friend of mine started scrounging up various battery packs from e-bikes and e-scooters. For some reason these battery packs “degrade” to the point where you have to replace it to continue to use your e-transport thingy, but all the cells inside are still perfectly healthy, so he built a battery backup for his house out of scrapped e-bikes batteries.

      Apparently many bike shops have stacks of the out back that they basically give away for free as it saves them a trip to the recycling station.

      The motor is probably not going to be terribly cheap, and the motors on e-bikes and such are likely not powerful enough…

      You obviously also need a lot of knowhow about electronics and loads more materials to actually build a car.

      There are however also people who take old gasoline cars and convert them to electric cars.

      • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        1 year ago

        Man, people are living in places where they get free batteries and am here living in hell, half of me buried in the desert sand and the other dead and hopeless in a place where they would sell tetanus ridden rust if they could.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      1 year ago

      Economies of scale are huge for vehicles. A single prototype vehicle like a model y or mach e often costs several million dollars. A custom car might not be that much, but it’d still be a ton.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          1 year ago

          Ask a local engineering university if they want to get rid of their old electric baja. I don’t know how much they cost the university, and they’re probably not street legal, but if they’re making a new one each year you might be able to get the old one for cheap.

          • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            1 year ago

            Let’s just say the quality of education in our universities are below subpar. I don’t think they ever made anything. All that is taught is theories.

            Also, for some reason car went x3+ their prices since 2015 and still going up.

            Yeah, i meant something with a body made of tubes of aluminum , a seat and a motor with some batteries that can go to 50km/h (30miles/h?) for doing some rides in the desert.