Electric Vehicles (Cars, Planes, and Ships)

I think part of why SUV appeal to women beyond just the saftey marketing campaign is that they make a family vehicle that is "sexier" then a minivan, something you can pack the whole family in without being....

Well that.... because I like literally every other girl my age I have discussed vehicles with has gone "Yea no" to the idea of a minivan, and one even flat out said that the caravan "looks like and drives like a slug"

Basically what I am saying is can we give the family vehicle the same treatment as Dads sedan?.

Kind of depressing that SU Vs have supplanted estates/station wagons, since moving things is what they're good for, and being... well, what they are, they're at least starting with a better profile for that.

Bit worse on the 'fitting lots of people in' front, but there's only so much you can do before you just have a bus.

I remember my mom saying the exact same thing decades ago even, when she was taking care of all the kids in the family.

Can't say I know any women today who like minivans either.

Edited by LeGarcon on Mar 8th 2024 at 1:46:49 PM

Yeah, I feel like the SUV has replaced the station wagon as something that’s convenient when 1) you only need 5 seats, not the 3 layers of seating that a minivan has and 2) you want more trunk/storage space than a sedan has. I expect it’s more about that than about a minivan being less “sexy”. It’s too bad no one makes station wagons any more.

(Also, I feel like people have gotten taller and guys want a vehicle where they don’t have to scrunch.)

Edited by Galadriel on Mar 8th 2024 at 2:51:00 AM

I mean personaly speaking as well as the friends I have talked too it is 100% an aesthetics thing for hating minivans.

There grandma cars, and they handle like it.

Even if women are not stereotypically the ones into cars, there is an apreciation for if they look nice or not still... and minivans very much dont.

Edited by Imca on Mar 8th 2024 at 8:52:13 PM

See, and there I associate with SUV with macho posturing - an impression bolstered by the theory that the growing popularity of such high-front cars has driven up the mortality of car accidents. As so often, you are fixing a problem by shoving it off to someone else.

That said, I am not sure what electrification can do to these problems.

That sounds like you’re conflating cause and effect. I don’t see the logic in a theory that the danger of accidents involving SUVs means that people are buying them because of that danger.

If we want to reduce SUV use, there needs to be an understanding of the reasons for their appeal, and design of a vehicle that is safer and offers similar features.

The train of thought is people buy an SUV because they’re worried about the dangers of being in an accident, more SU Vs on the road then increases the danger of being in an accident for anyone not in an SUV, that then becomes a reason for more people to switch to SU Vs.

It’s a pretty standard arms race.

If crash saftey was the primary factor in buying a car, SAAB would be a dominant car manufacturer.

They are not, and cars that do much worse sell much better....

So I dont think that is quite the reason it is often claimed to be, not to say it's a non-factor mind, but I dont think it's the primary one.

Saab aren’t even a car maker anymore, their automotive arm got shut down and they just do weapons now.

Exactly, cant get much less dominant then exited the market entirely.

You're conflating 'actual safety' with 'perceived safety'. Remember, when a lot of early SUVs entered the market, despite the size, they were actually more dangerous than a standard car because they were using old truck construction as a baseline.

You just need the psychological effects of "I am in a big car" and "I am high up" to make it seem safer. And the first one isn't entirely wrong; generally if you're in a heavier, bigger vehicle you are safer in a collision... at the cost of whatever you're colliding with. The second one, OTOH, does absolutely nothing for safety except to make fatalities for pedestrians worse. And, depending on how extreme the ground clearance is and the bumper on the SUV, potentially put it so high up that it ignores the other car's crumple zones entirely.

SUVs have substantially higher rollover risk than passenger cars due to their higher center of gravity. That's the main safety factor involved in driving them. Electric SUVs address this problem with floor-mounted battery packs, which make them highly resistant to rollovers. They can be safer than gas sedans in this respect, which eliminates that part of the equation.

They are larger and typically less aerodynamic than a sedan, which reduces their economy no matter what their power source is, but an electric SUV is still better than a gas sedan. (Up to a point. The Hummer EV is a ridiculous vehicle.)

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 9th 2024 at 10:12:32 AM

Via Morning Brew: This EV might crash after a YouTuber’s review

The story is about EV startup Fisker and its new Ocean SUV. The company has been struggling with its finances for some time, but its situation got much worse after influencer Marques Brownlee gave the SUV a terrible review. He liked the styling but sharply criticized the software and user interface design.

Things weren't improved when the dealer who sold Brownlee the car recorded and published a call that they received from Fisker, during which the company admitted that its software was faulty and would continue to be so for some time. That plus disappointing financial results for Q4 2023 sent the stock tumbling 50% over the course of a single month.

Fisker has declared that it may run out of operating cash this year, and unless someone steps in to save it, it could join the graveyard of starry-eyed EV startups.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 9th 2024 at 1:03:52 PM

There is something depressing about software being this important to the performance of a metal box whose job is to get you from point A to point B.

Whether you like it or not, cars are increasingly computerized these days, and that has nothing to do with electric vehicles. One of the challenges faced by EV makers trying to create unified software stacks is that the traditional model has been to outsource embedded software to suppliers, meaning that modern cars can have hundreds of individual systems, each with its own proprietary code.

So far, Tesla has been one of the few automakers to successfully overhaul this model. Volkswagen sunk billions into the problem with disastrous results. Fisker seems to be struggling as well.

I'd describe most of that as firmware... which actually sounds like what's wrong with the car (actual functional things). I was thinking more about how everyone and their mother keeps pushing things like entertainment centres etc.

Sure, but those have nothing to do — or should have nothing to do — with the core functionality of the vehicle, the ability to play driving games on your Tesla notwithstanding.

Your typical OEM: Ford, GM, VW, Stellantis, Toyota, etc., has very little understanding of or experience with software. It's all subcontracted. Trying to bring it in-house means developing their own expertise, largely from scratch, and it requires stepping on the toes of all of those suppliers who want to hang on to their IP because it gives them a moat to protect their pricing.

The horizontal supply chain model has advantages in terms of cost since you can compete suppliers against each other and each can specialize in producing certain goods, but it's terrible for rapid iteration and flexibility.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 9th 2024 at 3:40:08 PM

You would think, but a lot of modern cars are running crticial systems through the infotainment unit now.... infotainment units which are often pretty shoddy....

Such as Mazda's which can be bricked by a filename without an extension.... or a song name that contains a %.....

I mean I guess you noted should and on that part I very much agree, but sadly we don't live in a should world...

Edited by Imca on Mar 9th 2024 at 8:33:12 PM

I'm not going to argue about automakers doing really dumb things with software! I own a Hyundai that recently went in for recall service to address that issue with the theft-prevention system that was notorious for the past couple of years.

I'm just saying that vehicles-as-software-platforms is something we need to get used to. It's not going to change any time soon.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 9th 2024 at 6:36:53 AM

That I agree with, I just think that we should push back against the idea that the software should be critical to running the car though.... at least until we actually get self driving vehicles fully roadside.

Unless the machine is going to be doing the driving itself, which it should given how bad we are at that.... well, the core functionality of the vehicle should be insulated from outside sources as possible.... nothing wrong with electronics, but keep the actual functioning of the car on separate circuits from any thing the customer can tamper with.

Like even for an electric vehicle I am pretty sure you could get the core functionality to run on some pretty simple circuitry, isolate that off, and then go from there.

Mmm, the ability to integrate everything doesn't mean you should integrate everything. A perfectly normal non-EV can still get by with just the ECU, everything else is pretty much a bonus. The more and more different components you're then wiring up that are 'essential', along with all the ones that are non-essential but integrated... system complexity is just asking for bugs.

I'm not experienced with the automotive industry, but then are infotainment units held to the same standards as operation-critical systems, such as the ECU, drive by wire? Like in aerospace, anything life-critical in a crewed vessel is subject to very strict reliability standards, and there are requirements for redundancies.

Infotainment systems are not (or should not be) considered life-critical, so bugs/issues with them shouldn't cause the vehicle to be unable to drive safely. For example, early Teslas were notorious for the main screen crashing, but the cars were still perfectly drivable without it, despite losing speed and certain other indicators.

I haven't heard of MCU instability in years, though. The self-driving and core control systems are independent of each other and of the MCU.

The goal of a fully vertical, integrated software stack is perfectly reasonable, at least in my opinion. The reason it isn't done by OEMs is that they committed themselves to a horizontal supply chain decades ago.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 9th 2024 at 8:04:10 AM

Electronic Stability Control, which is required by law on all vehicles produced after 2012, has eliminated this drawback. ESC-equipped SU Vs have rollover rates equivalent to sedans. [1]

People prefer SU Vs because they are easier to drive. They have a significantly higher H-point than traditional sedans, which means they are more comfortable to drive for the majority of people and the driver can see further down the road which improves confidence for people who are uncertain behind the wheel.