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Comment Re:Car manufacturers are correct (Score 0) 98

Filling up the gas tank does not take a lot of time.

Cleaning up the mess from all the people filling and then subsequently emptying the large tanks for their large cars is something we literally do not know how to do, so it can be considered to take an infinite amount of time and cost an infinite amount of money.

If people cared only about fuel efficiency and emissions, everyone would be driving tiny cars (gas powered or electric).

People don't care, so we should burn the world! What a fucking stupid, senseless, self-centered argument.

Comment Re:Car manufacturers are correct (Score 0) 98

The laws ARE garbage.

On what basis?

If a test can be rigged, it will be.

The laws are garbage because people will cheat on the laws? That sounds more like the cheaters are garbage, and you're an enabler.

The US has a similar problem, we have CAFE standards that were SUPPOSED to require car manufacturers to increase efficiencies to IMPOSSIBLE levels

Every. Single. Car. Company. In. The. US. Can. Meet. Those. Standards.

They choose not to.

The law of unintended consequences is undefeated

Guess who bought these laws? These are intended consequences.

Comment Re:You need law enforcement. (Score 1) 98

they only ended up picking on one auto group and failing to deal with the others at least at the beginning.

The DOJ also collected settlements from Mercedes and BMW. VW was just the company they had conclusively nailed, and they're also largest of them. VW led to Bosch which led to Mercedes and BMW. It all actually makes sense if you know about it.

Comment Re:The more I hear of this happening (Score 1) 78

I don't want to wait for a computer to boot up before I can drive away. I don't want a computer deciding what gear I should be in.

All cars since the late eighties have had the former and all cars with automatic transmissions since the nineties have the latter. Even where they have a linkage to a valve on the throttle body, there are still computer-controlled solenoids.

Comment Re: Move fast and break everything. (Score 1) 78

AFAIK the only vehicle in the US with 100% drive by wire steering is the Cybercuck. All of the other drive by wire cars have a linkage with a clutch that fails closed so if you have a complete power failure, you still wind up able to control the steering.

My 2008 Versa also has EPS (electric power steering) and it took me a long time to get a feel for it. Now I no longer even notice that the steering feel is different from hydraulic except for very, very fine adjustments. Those still feel kind of sloppy. In my car the steering motor is on the column. Obviously in this kind of system there is no clutch, the linkage is always connected.

Comment Re:The real question... (Score 1) 78

Once the update is downloaded the infotainment board waits for the car's main systems to be available and then updates those as well - it's the whole 'Over The Air Update' that marketing loves to push - and why many think it's doomed to cause failure or safety issues.

That is not a satisfactory explanation. My phone uses an A/B system where if an update doesn't boot, it can simply boot the prior version. Why is Stellantis too incompetent to do the same thing with PCMs, which are much more important? Who the fuck is still buying vehicles from these clowns?

Actually, I know who, otherwise smart people who just have insufficient experience with modern cars to know what's going to be shit. One of my coworkers bought a Mach-E, I've discussed it before, he returned it because it got nowhere near the advertised range in even slightly cold conditions (like 50 F) and then he got... sigh, a Jeep. One of his HID headlight capsules recently went out. On one side it's easy to replace, there's plenty of access. On the other side the common wisdom is to remove the fender for access because it's such a clusterfuck.

If you buy a vehicle from Stellantis, you're gonna have a bad time.

Comment Re:Due diligence -- ? (Score 1) 35

When the Wingtech purchase was first discussed, did no one in the Netherlands consider that it might be a bad idea to have this "critical" company in the majority hands of a foreign organization? Seems like no one did their homework.

Perhaps they, unlike you, were aware that they had this law available to them to use to prevent this critical company from acting against their nation's interests.

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