Great, now we have disposable automobiles.
Toyota Will Adopt Tesla-Style Cast Bodies That Might Be Impossible to Fix
Submitted 1 year ago by boem@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 1 year ago
itsonlygeorge@reddthat.com 1 year ago
They already are disposable I got news for you.
bingbong@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I’m pretty sure cars are some of the most reused, repaired, and recycled products we have.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
The vehicles will be much cheaper to make. A shame costs savings will leave out the consumer and also cause all vehicle insurance rates to go way up.
Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 year ago
Manufacturers are joining the era of disposable cars.
Consumers are joining the era of disposing of cars.
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Many consumers treat their cars as disposable already
peopleproblems@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ll be honest, they are?
There is no affordable car today that you can make any money today that you need to use. They require money in order to maintain it well enough to use.
Tires are expensive. Gas is expensive. You’ve got filters and oils and fluids to replace, and headlamps. Without the required disposables, a car is basically useless.
A house without running water, or power, or natural gas, or a furnace filter, or water softener, or lightbulbs, or toilet paper, etc. still provides shelter without all of those things.
A car gets you from point a to point b until it doesn’t. At that point it’s disposed of.
Tammo-Korsai@kbin.social 1 year ago
Reject modernity, revert to Swedish brick car.
MisterD@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Won’t be a problem because more and more people don’t want a car.
Car manufacturers know this and that’s why they are focusing on self-driving cars. Taxis will be replaced by robo-taxis owned by manufacturers and private firms.
Within 20 years, will be like a luxury like owning a horse
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 year ago
robo taxis can’t respond to accidents and emergencies so its likely they won’t be affordable to operate for some time.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Ironically cars are far more reliable now than they were at any point in the past.
1847953620@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I agree, I think the real problem is the cost to maintain one and the economics around it. For too long the expectation was to put as little money as possible into maintaining it and getting a new one some years later. We need to stop making them the massive status symbols they’ve become.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It will reduce costs for toyota.
I doubt the consumers will see any savings.
deleted@lemmy.world 1 year ago
C level executives will have big fat bonuses tho
PizzasDontWearCapes@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
As mentioned in another thread, there is a paintless dent repair video on YT of a fix done to the corner of a Rivian rear bumper
The owner claimed that he was quoted $41K. To do the work, they would need to cut the body all the way up to the front of the roof
The PDR fix was close to perfect in this case
Coreidan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Enshitification has infected Toyota. What a shame.
Just another brand I can start avoiding.
666dollarfootlong@lemmy.world 1 year ago
These cast bodies will be used in the 2026 EV’s, so not really a massive issue yet. Wait and see…
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Impossible seems a bit dramatic. Cost prohibitive is more better
there1snospoon@ttrpg.network 1 year ago
If it is cost prohibitive for a majority, then it’s pretty damn near impossible.
Etterra@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Corporate execs: How can we force people into even more debt so we can have even more money than we’ll ever need or spend?
JoBo@feddit.uk 1 year ago
This bit does not ring true:
Such a scenario would be to Toyota’s benefit however, as an unrepairable car will still need replacement—potentially with a new car. Repairability is something the automotive industry has directly combated in recent years, with a Toyota-backed industry group sponsoring a scare campaign to (unsuccessfully) undermine a right-to-repair bill. Car companies make their money from selling new cars, not keeping old ones on the road. If cast bodies serve that end better than those stitched together, it’d be no surprise to see them become the industry standard.
Car companies need their cars to hold their value secondhand so that the people who buy their new cars can afford to replace them more often. The right to repair stuff is about forcing people to use their dealerships for repairs.
No idea what Toyota’s plan is for body repairs but destroying their second-hand market is probably not a part of it.
Plopp@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Also, don’t car manufacturers have ridiculous margins on original spare parts? I thought they made a lot of money on those over the pretty long lifetime of the vehicles.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Yeah, I mean the main advantages for Toyota are clear and massive. Huge cuts in assembly time and factory floor space. Any effect on the second hand market is likely not intended, but also almost certainly worth the savings made, as far as they’re concerned.
Raz@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s all about those short term profits baby! 😎
joel_feila@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Late stage capitalism for the win
orrk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
the value of a car depreciates by 50% when you drive it off the lot
Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Have you shopped for used cars recently?
Voyajer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I wish that was actually true as an exclusively used car buyer.
GroteStreet@aussie.zone 1 year ago
Not Toyotas
JoBo@feddit.uk 1 year ago
And?
thejml@lemm.ee 1 year ago
If you have a large cast part you could do the same thing as you do with a frame or body panel now. As long as there’s a replacement cast part ready, it is lots of work in some cases, so it’s less “impossible to repair” and more accurately “cost prohibitive to repair”
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I wouldn’t even say cost prohibitive. Imagine if you could just swap on a whole new front end after a car crash. Currently, it takes bodywork at hundreds of dollars per hour to repair damaged body panels while this could severely reduce that time and cost.
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Has anyone come up with a guess on the cost of swapping out an entire cast body section vs replacing or refurbishing the parts that would be there without the cast?
w2qw@aussie.zone 1 year ago
I think point is without the cast body section you could just replace broken parts which may be significantly less. In practice though I don’t think it matters that much. Small accidents hopefully don’t damage the frame and if they do it’s often a bit dubious repairing it.
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, I think once you get to the point where the car needs the frame worked on, it’s probably going to get scrapped whether it has a cast frame or not.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
The problem is that you’d have to pretty much disassemble half the vehicle to replace a cast part, and that will be thousands extra in labor.
Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Considering that the cast part is practically half the vehicle, I wonder if it is easier to change out the cast vs several frame parts.
Uranium3006@kbin.social 1 year ago
I can replace every part of my self built ebike with hand tools and how to videos. fuck cars
Luminocta@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Cars are essential where I’m from, an e bike will get you killed. But good for you
Uranium3006@kbin.social 1 year ago
We need protected bike lanes everywhere
bemenaker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you live anywhere in the US that isn’t a big coastal city, this isn’t an option.
gothicdecadence@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Got any special tips or suggested guides on building an ebike diy??
Uranium3006@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'm still building it, but be prepared to buy a lot of tools and parts if you don't have experience already. I'm waiting on some electrical connectors to connect the controller and battery, and I had to get a metal file to file down the front dropout because it was ever so slightly too small to fit the motor on.
MNByChoice@midwest.social 1 year ago
Article does not have the numbers, and I filled in DDGing the Numbers. How many cars have their frames repaired each year?
My anecdotal experience indicates very few car frames are repaired each year, though not zero.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 year ago
The expense of repairing frame damage is already really high and, in my personal experience with a couple cars that had frame damage from being hit, the insurance counts it as a total loss every time. I don’t suspect the average car owner is going to repair that kind of damage when it would be cheaper to just replace the entire vehicle.
dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Toyota has fallen, billions must ride horses
arc@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Gigacasting saves car companies money, it doesn’t save car owners money. For the manufacturer it reduces their bill of materials and time take to assemble a vehicle. They might save a couple of hundred bucks. Possibly.
For the owner, it increases the risk that a small collision runs a fracture along the body of their car which is then basically impossible to repair and the entire vehicle is a writeoff. Castings could potentially have sacrificial points where some kinds of damage could be ground off and replaced with stamped metal but even if that were so, it’s still less repairable than if the entire frame of the car were assembled of stamped metal.
jimbolauski@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s more than a couple hundred dollars. Production time will drop from 10 to 5 hours per car. The tooling and multiple parts eliminated from large casts will save thousands.
arc@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I doubt it is thousands since most plants are automated, but even assuming it were, it’s the consumer who suffers when their car is basically disposable after a crash.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 year ago
this is just more outsourcing the costs onto the public and privatizing the profits for short term gain, they’re hoping the entire industry folds in on this but I am absolutely not buying a car where some asshole bumping into my parked car will result in me having to replace the whole front third.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Guess I won’t be sticking with Toyota when my Prius finally craps out. Too bad. It’s a great car.
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
bruh
Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
What will EU do?
Coz they gptta do something at some point.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Help the consumer, cause somebody got to.
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Good luck getting comprehensive car insurance.
xkforce@lemmy.world 1 year ago
All according to kaikaku
ExtraPartsLeft@kbin.social 1 year ago
This article is misleading. If a car crash is bad enough that it damages the frame of a car, it's going to get totalled anyway. So either way it's going to go to a junk yard and get slowly parted out.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
No. These cast parts take up a lot more area. They will get damaged much more frequently than a frame being damaged.
bemenaker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not on unibody cars. There isn’t a big increase in frame area in this car versus any other unibody out there. The difference here is the unibody isn’t actually a unibody, it’s a multipart unibody that is bolted together. A standard unibody, which is just about everything on the road today that isn’t a pickup truck, is all three of those frame pieces you see in that picuture, but as one giant piece. That big piece of metal you are normally used to seeing in car assembly photos. There are no frame rails under it. The unibody being split into segments is the first real change to the unibody design since GM started using it in the 80’s.
FireTower@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Lots of ‘totaled’ cars that still function fine get shipped to other countries with less picky used car markets too.
mayonaise_met@feddit.nl 1 year ago
I once took a taxi in Addis Ababa that had slicks and a view of the road under the car.
Critical_Insight@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Not necessarily. On some vehicles the exterior panels are part of the frame and you may only have cosmetic damage but fixing it would costs tens of thousands.
Chunk@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not true. Some idiot t boned me and they had to replace the frame of my car. It cost her $7k and my car is worth about twice that today.
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 year ago
You can contest that you were not fully reimbursed for the expense/what you have received in not equivalent in value to what you had.