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| New UK plan "could spell end of throwaway culture" (BBC News) |
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| MK14:
--- Quote from: thinkfat on March 11, 2020, 01:25:03 pm ---That's a reason to push for 'Right to Repair' legislation, not reducing the amount of electronics. Most of the regulation makes sense as it pushed manufacturers towards safer, cleaner and more efficient cars. --- End quote --- You can say that, and you can believe it. But ... You can't have (I don't want to say it is impossible, but it can get very, very hard) huge functionality (Electronics), very long life, great reliability, fully repairable by someone with zero skills, is 100% safe under all circumstances, meets all the EU regulations, is liked by all drivers etc etc. Then sells for an affordable amount of money. |
| MK14:
(I've seen some stuff about this so would expect that) There are many articles/videos and explanations on what has happened over the years. tl;dr The combination of rules (e.g. EU), public desires for ever increasing functionality in cars, and many other factors. Has meant that the latest cars, can "almost" be considered as disposable items, now. --- Quote ---However, with replacement parts for modern cars becoming ever more high tech, expensive and proprietary and therefore difficult to obtain (due to OEM copyright), many critical components are no longer available at low cost from third party aftermarket suppliers. Due to this fact, most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. This trend has led to the modern cars being labeled as the first ever "disposable" cars. --- End quote --- Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity |
| SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: MK14 on March 11, 2020, 02:59:21 pm ---[...] most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. [...] --- End quote --- This has always been true... if the transmission fails in your 20 year old beater, it is going to the auto wreckers, not the repair shop. |
| MK14:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 11, 2020, 07:28:32 pm --- --- Quote from: MK14 on March 11, 2020, 02:59:21 pm ---[...] most modern cars can no longer be maintained once repair cost of the car exceed resale value. [...] --- End quote --- This has always been true... if the transmission fails in your 20 year old beater, it is going to the auto wreckers, not the repair shop. --- End quote --- Actually, 20 years, is pretty good, before the car ends up on the scrap yard. But the latest goods, cars, washing machines, TVs etc. Don't seem to last a long time, like they use to. In the 1990s, you could have bought, those items and others, and they last 20 years, just like you just said (for the car). But these days, the same items, can easily break, fail and be uneconomic to repair, in less than 10 years, in some cases, a lot less than 10 years. |
| rstofer:
The EU is somewhere around the 3rd largest economy while the UK is around 6th (behind California) so the UK doesn't necessarily have to follow the EU down a rabbit hole. There are other places to trade. This is going to be the case with the US vs EU on an increasing level. We, the US, are not going to legislate the curvature of bananas. As to "Right To Repair", well, sure, as long as it doesn't mean "Give away our IP". In other words, the manufacturers might sell you a pre-programmed chip (for significant money) but they darn sure aren't going to give away the contents. The other thing about "Right To Repair" is "Cost To Repair". I don't get out of bed in the morning for less than $100/hour. How much time can I spend on an obsolete cell phone before it becomes uneconomical. First I have to diagnose the problem. I probably can't bill separately for that but I have time, and hence money, tied up in the repair before the customer even agrees to pay something. Assume they do... Then I have to order the parts (assuming I don't stock every chip on the market) and then I wait. Maybe in a month or so, I get the parts and then in a day or two I can fix the widget. Does the customer want to be out of the widget using business for a long period of time or do they just walk away. There's a lot of huffing and puffing about "Right To Repair" (primarily by Rossman) but, in the end, it doesn't make financial sense. There aren't any radio repair shops around and there hasn't been in around 50 years. TV repair shops have been gone for nearly as long. I remember being able to buy schematics for the old tube type sets but once transistors came around the schematics became fewer and fewer. With application specific integrated circuits, I don't know if they are available at all these days. What if the parts are no longer obtainable - like some Tektronix specific chips? It doesn't matter what you want to do about "Right To Repair" if the parts are obsolete. I guess you could mandate that manufacturers had to stock repair parts as long as their product is in use, or 50 years, whichever came first. Sure, that's going to work! It's going to be interesting when the UK is outside the Common Market. The EU will still try to throw their weight around but sooner or later, they're going to run up against real economies. They're sellers, not buyers and they should keep that in mind. |
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