Complex cars in the future? A thought...

[zeitgeist57]

As I watch the latest episode of ignition, where they're testing the new Ferrari 488, I can't help but think of how such complexity in cars will lead to monumental problems and obsolescence in the future.

 

Will there be an opportunity for hot rodders and car tuners to take hyper cars that can't perform any longer, eliminate some of the manufacturers' computing and hardware, and reconfigure with the powertrain to operate with a user –managed system?

 

it's fun to think that a $400,000 Ferrari could be worth less than $100,000… Just because the market doesn't know what to do with it after 25 years...

 

To put it simpler, think about your $500 phone from 10 years ago, and the fact it's not worth anything today.

[unfunnyryan]

To put it simpler, think about your $500 phone from 10 years ago, and the fact it's not worth anything today.

 

A lot of the infotainment systems put in cars in the last few years are just as shitty and in 5 years will be like using a windows 98 computer in comparison. I'm glad I went without any fancy screens in the accord, just BUTTONS AND KNOBS BUTTONS AND KNOBS

[Geeto67]

As I watch the latest episode of ignition, where they're testing the new Ferrari 488, I can't help but think of how such complexity in cars will lead to monumental problems and obsolescence in the future.

 

As opposed to the monumental problems of obsolescence in the past? You don't see a lot of Daily Driver carb'ed cars anymore because what the rust didn't get the poor metallurgy and use wore out. We forget because it's been 30 years but there was a time when 60k miles was high mileage just because the rings would start to wear out. There will always be something making the cars obsolete, we are just in a transition from mechanical to electrical.

 

 

Will there be an opportunity for hot rodders and car tuners to take hyper cars that can't perform any longer, eliminate some of the manufacturers' computing and hardware, and reconfigure with the powertrain to operate with a user –managed system?

 

The new hot rodders will be software programmers. It's a different skill set but the DIY nature of things has not slowed down in the Information Age, in fact it has sped up.

 

it's fun to think that a $400,000 Ferrari could be worth less than $100,000… Just because the market doesn't know what to do with it after 25 years...

That happens now. Have you priced a Ferrari Mondial, 348, or 360 lately? Or a jaguar XJS for that matter? All state of the art complex cars for their time (I think the XJS was more expensive than a 911 in 1980) and all relatively affordable.

 

 

To put it simpler, think about your $500 phone from 10 years ago, and the fact it's not worth anything today.

 

The car market is a little different than a phone. If there is a desire for it someone will develop a support network for it or an upgrade or something. Plus the drivers of the collector car market are not always mechanical. For example: take two cars: a 1966 fairlane with a 390 and an auto. One is a four door and one is a two door. Mechanically the same car, but the two door is worth 3 times what the 4-door is worth.

 

The cars that used to give me nightmares were the hellcat dodges. When watching roadkill and some of the other you tube swap videos those cars wouldn't run without the factory tail lights hooked up. But you know what? The aftermarket came to the rescue and now you can get standalone harnesses to retrofit the drivetrain into older cars, and the same tech can be used to keep the hellcats running when they become 30 years old and factory tail lights are NLa.

[Draco-REX]

The future of the auto industry is going to be greater and greater complexity. Cars need to be more and more efficient as well as become more and more integrated into our mobile lives. The only way to achieve this is through greater integration of the various parts of the car.

 

However, there will always be room for the enthusiast to modify the car. If it can be repaired/maintained my human hands, it can be modified by human hands. Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow will always hold true for fueled cars, and electric drivetrains will always have room for more windings, more volts, more amps.

 

As far as the computers go, there are a large number of people out there that you'd have to strap down and sedate to keep them from cracking the encryption on them. The VAG-COM community is very impressive, and Vorschlag found someone to make an interface that bridges GM's LS ECU with Subaru's CAN-BUS for their BRZ/FRS swap kit. As the on-board complexity goes up, more and more of these people will rise to the challenge.

 

Will cars become obsolete like a phone? No. Your old brick phone still works as a phone, just like your iPhone 7. The problem lay is the OTHER stuff your phone does; you can't play Angry Birds on your old Nokia. But does it matter as much that an older car doesn't have Nav? Probably not. As long as the government doesn't do anything stupid, your carb'd 69 Camaro can share the road with a 2025 Mercedes S-Class. Even the cars between those extremes won't become obsolete. The modifications and knowledge that were pioneered when they were new will still work years later.

 

Going forward though, SEMA and the EFF need to start working closely together. The first fight will be keeping it legal to modify the on-board software/firmware that runs the cars. That needs to be paramount. The second hurdle will be keeping it legal for people to drive their own cars if they wish. That may not become an issue in the near future, but it WILL eventually, and it's a hurdle that must be cleared or the auto enthusiast will disappear.

[bdhill]

We are living in the last generation of true autonomy.

[Cordell]

As a technician who strives to stay current and up to date I don't worry about my job as people will always need some form of transportation. As an enthusiast though, I wonder about the time frame and extent of progress in my lifetime. For the next generations not modding a car may be more normal, they may not drive themselves at all, but I hope using cars like we have today on the road doesn't go away anytime soon. I fear that self driving cars will gain traction and what we have now will simply become too expensive to insure.

 

I think self driving cars and the desire to modify will go hand in hand, but modifying cars in the future will still be possible it just may take a different approach.

[1Quik7]

I'm more.curious of the resale value. I mean I have a beater X5 which was hot in 01, but now it's an electrical nightmare. Where will all these touchscreens be, or digital dashboards...or Tesla batteries.

[Mallard]

You don't know how good you have it right now. CAN is easily accessible, easily reverse engineered, and easily spoofed. Current architectures are highly distributed, which makes it easy to replace or hack a module.

 

With cars becoming more connected this poses a problem, so cybersecurity measures are being implemented, and communication protocols are changing. Also, some manufacturers are already starting to consolidate modules into master domain controllers.

 

I do think that there will still be aftermarket companies that can offer support, just as many people thought the GTR would be too complex. Many things are produced to published standards. Combine that with time and ingenuity and you'll get somewhere. Tesla battery packs are easy, and much of that is already reverse engineered (check out EVTV).

 

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

[bdhill]

wait for all the prius owners to find out how much batteries are...saved on gas?

[aussiek2000]

I'm more.curious of the resale value. I mean I have a beater X5 which was hot in 01, but now it's an electrical nightmare. Where will all these touchscreens be, or digital dashboards...or Tesla batteries.

 

I'm already seeing a lot of touchscreen issues in cars still under warranty. I Don't even want to see what the parts prices jump to when warranty runs up.

[Dr. Apex]

It's definitely something to wonder about, I have issues with my Sync almost daily and wonder whether or not I'll be able to get it fixed 5 years from now and if it can't be fixed at all down the road. Would you buy a car without a working stereo system and non-functioning and obsolete control system?

[2highpsi]

One of my first cars was a Camaro Berlinetta. When the dash failed on it GM no longer carried the parts, and it became unserviceable. We ended up making a custom dash with Autometer gauges etc.

 

OEM looked like this:

 

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/comment-image/324805.jpg

 

 

I sold a 2017 R8 a few weeks ago, and couldn't help but to think "Man, what happens when this dash goes out in 10+ years"

 

http://www.autoreviewsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/R8instrument.jpg

[zeitgeist57]

Wait...the Camaro BERLINETTA had that Knight Rider dash??? The 2.5L Iron Duke 4-cylinder CAMARO had that dash???

[2highpsi]

Wait...the Camaro BERLINETTA had that Knight Rider dash??? The 2.5L Iron Duke 4-cylinder CAMARO had that dash???

 

Lol

 

Mine had an OEM 305 5.0L

 

But I think the entire Berlinetta line came Knight Rider style.

 

Had to do everything custom on that obscure bastard. I remember Sun TV (yeah it was that long ago) telling me that it was impossible to add a CD changer to it. I proved them wrong.

[Geeto67]

Wait...the Camaro BERLINETTA had that Knight Rider dash??? The 2.5L Iron Duke 4-cylinder CAMARO had that dash???

 

The berlinetta package was a "luxury" interior package on second and third gens. It was an expensive trim level but GM used it as a test bed for a lot of luxuries they latter added to upscale lines. It could be had with any engine combination and I think could be stacked on the z28 and iroc trim packages (it would only add the interior but none of the emblems).

 

The "starship" berlinettas were 1984-1986 and in addition to the all digital dash had moveable control pods. It was really advanced for the time. I remember wanting to add the interior out if a wrecked berlinetta to my 1984 ZF but taking a look at how much work was involved I passed. I think the later Firebird GTAs had a similar dash.

 

IIRC they had a multiple cassette carousel in the dash. How weird.

 

Here you go clay:

[zeitgeist57]

Thanks for the explanation.

 

I only knew a guy that had a Camaro Berlinetta in high school, and it was the 4cyl. I didn't know about the interior, but from my early days seeing that thing roll by I assumed all of the Berlinettas were 4-cyl.

[Geeto67]

You don't know how good you have it right now. CAN is easily accessible, easily reverse engineered, and easily spoofed. Current architectures are highly distributed, which makes it easy to replace or hack a module....

 

...I do think that there will still be aftermarket companies that can offer support, just as many people thought the GTR would be too complex. Many things are produced to published standards. Combine that with time and ingenuity and you'll get somewhere. Tesla battery packs are easy, and much of that is already reverse engineered (check out EVTV).

 

I actually have been thinking about this comment a lot this weekend as I put a new radiator and t-stat in the audi. With my GTO and jeep doing a radiator and t-stat is 4-10 bolts and you use simple and common wrenches and sockets to do it. drain it through the drain plug, and then pop it out the top when disconnected.

 

To do a radiator in the audi there were over 40 fasteners (that's when I stopped counting) and ran the gamut from torx, triple square, allen, hex head bolts, flat and Phillips head screws and 12 point bolts. The just to get to the t-stat the alternator and charge pipe both have to be removed, to change the rad it required removal of the bumper headlights, core support, condenser, intercooler, and disconnect about 12 different sensors. the car has both an electric water pump and a mechanical one, but no drain plug and even though the t-stat was stuck open, the car required opening several different junctions to fully drain all the old coolant.

 

So do we have it good? yes. Cars last twice to three times as long as they used to, handle better, and make hp numbers that were fiction for a reliable street car 20 years ago. I get 215hp (thereabouts) out of a 2 litre engine that my wife drives everyday without a single incident and returns 30mpg regularly in mileage. we couldn't do it without complexity. And now we have OEM's working with aftermarkets so that by the time a new car design comes out there are already performance parts for it on the market ready to go.

 

the thing we give up for all of this is the shadetree ability to fix things simply. maybe I am not expressing this as well as I could, but if you asked 19 year old me working on my 60's car which would I rather have - performance or ease of maint, I would take performance every time. Cars are better than they ever have been but they sure as shit aren't as easy to fix. I guess it's good that we have to fix them less.

 

I have a lot of faith that the car hobby will always find a solution to obsolescence, but what frightens me is how much the OEM's will drive up the price of doing shade-tree work by requiring special tools to work on their special fasteners and connectors. I could fix almost everything in my 60's junk with a $19 budget tool kit, but I spent $150 this weekend on specialty tools just to remove one or two fasteners in an overly complex car.

[zeitgeist57]

That's my point of this thread...

 

I find, as I get older, that a happy shadetree-mechanic life is to have 1-2 vehicles within spitting distance of a warranty/active OEM support, and the rest of the cars can be as simple as possible FOR WHAT THEY ARE DESIGNED TO DO.

 

http://jalopnik.com/driving-this-jdm-honda-civic-type-r-was-as-perfect-as-i-1789197385

 

No one - including myself, Not Brian and others on CR having owned them - will deny that Honda hatchbacks of the 90s were fun at a time when they were still socially acceptable to own. Even in an era before internet shopping was mainstream, you could buy hop-up parts for super-cheap out of catalogs and have a fun, simple, reliable platform for not much maintenance$$$.

 

Now, society seems to dictate that simple is unsafe, and for the less-intelligent. I see marketing dictate that we constantly get NEW NEW NEW and I find that's the path for the TRUE ignoramuses: pay far more than you need to for what social media or a commercial say you should own and love.

 

When I see car-enthusiasts keeping 1990s cars in great working order - especially at CC&C - I feel far more connected to those vehicles than modern cars claim they can offer.

 

There are a few options that still give me hope for the future of fun used cars RWD platforms like BMWs/FRS/BRZ, Fiesta ST, trucks, ponycars like the Mustang/Camaro/Challenger/Corvette. Like reports of the manual transmission dying off, there will always be a few cars that keep simple driving alive, well-supported by the aftermarket. Those will be my choice in the future.

[Geeto67]

Time is what renders these things "simple", or rather familiarity breeds contempt. I remember first hearing about v-tec in the mid-1990's (on the B16 engines) and thinking "my god, how are we ever going to service something this complicated", and yet you refer to Hondas now as simple, and by comparison to the modern stuff they are. Time is the avenger.