Right to repair; Sustainable prioritisation

[JBee]

A CyberTruck is just another motor vehicle. Individuals and repair shops have been repairing motor vehicles as long as there have been motor vehicles. Whether Tom Cruise can or would attempt to repair his jet really isn't particularly germane, in this forum. Right to repair does apply to the military (I would bet that it is written it into most every procurement contract); but, again, it really isn't germane in this forum.
Furthermore, you appear not to understand that RtR applies not only to individual owners, but to repair shops, as well. As someone who has owned a third party service business for 35 years, manufacturers trying to restrict parts and knowledge is something that I have dealt with for many years.

Sorry could of sworn I posted a response here already.

Anyways, my arguement still isn't against the right to repair, rather that those that wish to repair have the capability to repair. Hence the military and Tom Cruise comments as comparison.

Military and airlines operate with highly trained and skilled technicians and engineers unlike most private persons, so they are essentially immune to RtR anyway, seeing the manufacturer dictates repairs and maintenance otherwise the FAA would not let them fly at all.

As for repair shops or DIY FIAT retailers, having a business licence or company registration doesn't make you capable of repairs either.

*(FIAT - Fix It Again Tony)

As for manufacturers trying to restrict information, patents have been around for ages and are the bane of modern progress in my opinion as every potential improvement becomes commercially arduous.

But that still doesn't justify unqualified work on machines that can pose a public safety risk.

Its hard to hear sometimes, but the only constant in the galaxy is change, you can either be the architect of change or the victim of change. As is the case with corporate farming, soon repairs will also be dominated by corporate repair chains that will push out individual small service businesses. In the case of car repair shops they will likely mostly disappear with the ICE age and go the way of the Dodo.

Is that good or what I want? No. But it is a opportunity to change and do things better.

 

[SparkChaser]

Sorry could of sworn I posted a response here already.

Anyways, my arguement still isn't against the right to repair, rather that those that wish to repair have the capability to repair. Hence the military and Tom Cruise comments as comparison.

Military and airlines operate with highly trained and skilled technicians and engineers unlike most private persons, so they are essentially immune to RtR anyway, seeing the manufacturer dictates repairs and maintenance otherwise the FAA would not let them fly at all.
My response.
Not at all how it works. The industry is capable of coming up with their own repairs and have licenses to do that. The military assumes all responsibility for operating outside the envelope and in adverse conditions. This is what makes them different than a commercial property. Designated Repair stations have large authority to alter or manufacture their own fixes and variations, improvements and they often market these FAA approved alterations.

As for repair shops or DIY FIAT retailers, having a business licence or company registration doesn't make you capable of repairs either.

*(FIAT - Fix It Again Tony)

As for manufacturers trying to restrict information, patents have been around for ages and are the bane of modern progress in my opinion as every potential improvement becomes commercially arduous.

But that still doesn't justify unqualified work on machines that can pose a public safety risk.

Its hard to hear sometimes, but the only constant in the galaxy is change, you can either be the architect of change or the victim of change. As is the case with corporate farming, soon repairs will also be dominated by corporate repair chains that will push out individual small service businesses. In the case of car repair shops they will likely mostly disappear with the ICE age and go the way of the Dodo.

Is that good or what I want? No. But it is a opportunity to change and do things better.

Altering a commercially created product often voids any warranty and responsibility of the manufacture. If you want to cut your CT in half and put it back together, you can't fault Tesla for it not working. Right to repair can make sense on many things but the more complex the product the less likely you are to have the tools knowledge or ability to actually repair it.

 

[zymolysis]

This video by Rich Rebuilds shows why Right to Repair is essential.

 

[fhteagle]

I care about right to repair, and it is very much a factor in my next purchase decision. Tesla's history and future trajectory in this regard is in the top three reasons why I might NOT end up buying the CT, nor Model Y.

Context: I run Linux on a Framework laptop, which has been about the best right to repair respecting experience I've ever had. I am a ten year Chevy Volt owner, which is a car that is a mix of things I can safely maintain, my skilled mechanic friends can safely maintain, and things even GM is having trouble maintaining/supporting. I live in the middle of nowhere where dealers for every OEM are few and far between, small privately owned repair shops are an absolute necessity and do a darn good job, because our community depends on it. My career is as a professional pilot, working much of it for an OEM and later doing delivery, prepurchase inspection, entry into service, and return to service missions for private owners through airlines, sometimes in ridiculously remote places. I find the analogies drawn earlier in this thread between the private passenger car world and FAA-regulated aviation to be hilariously inaccurate, let alone inapplicable.

If the end goal is safety above all else, OEM lock-in is not the way to achieve it. Period.

OEMs locking owners and operators into using only OEM sourced parts, service, etc is likewise not good for an OEMs bottom line. It might look good to some bean counters at the OEM, but there's real economic costs for said OEM to provide an adequate level of service to all owners in all places that usually gets missed in that calculation. Failure to provide such service after such a lock-in does damage to the customer's experience with the product, and then the brand's reputation, and ultimately the sales figures of said OEM. This is true for a $1500 laptop, a $50,000 car, and a $50 million business jet.

To bring it back around to Tesla / CT, the monolithic structural battery pack would make me very nervous after the warranty is up. The potential of a single mis-manufactured cell dragging down the whole pack and crippling the vehicle is something we are living with as Volt owners. This is not a situation I want to pay money to be in again. If Teslas are capable of isolating a weak cell or bandolier in a structure pack, and proceeding normally with reduced range until a repair/replace can be effected, someone please tell me now because that's not the impression I have gotten from my research so far.

There is no perfect quality control, and no way of knowing for sure that my particular battery pack is free from the kind of defects we've seen from GS Yuasa, LGES, etc. Sure, I'm covered under the warranty for a period of time against such a defect and that's what warranties are for. But I want to keep products beyond their warranty if they are still serving their purpose. The idea of having a repair bill that's 25-50% the new cost of the product at warranty expiration plus a few months is not a pleasant thought.

Could Tesla and other OEMs soften the blow by offering core credit for the returned monolithic battery? Yep, and I think they should, especially as the prices of battery materials keep going up and recycling infrastructure gets more efficient. Other aside question, does anyone know if the pink foam of death in the structural battery pack is at all recyclable?

 

[Throwcomputer]

"Imagine an average person, and then realize that half the people are stupider than that."
- George Carlin

Average people don't try and repair things themselves. They hire people to.

Right to repair is both for the non average owner willing and able to do their own repairs, and the professional repair man not employed by Tesla to repair things through access to the replacement parts.

 

[Crissa]

Alas, fixing battery packs is just not going to be a thing, because cells need to be matched in their yield curves which are three dimensional. Not to mention, the pack itself is safer if glued together.

Yeah, it's a big piece. But you lose alot of performance trying to make the cells themselves repairable.

Still, I support right to repair because I hate having to throw things away because someone won't let me have parts that are fixable. I just replaced the battery packs in my PS3 controlers. But Sony still hasn't allowed the drives to be unlocked. So when that hard drive or processor fails: everything stops working. They're keyed to only work with each other. And that's bad. Especially over fifteen years later.

-Crissa

 

[fhteagle]

Yeah, it's a big piece. But you lose alot of performance trying to make the cells themselves repairable.

-Crissa

Agreed that repair to the cell level is probably too granular. Being able to replace a module that's 1/10th to 1/20th of the total pack seems about right to me. I would much rather remove and replace the weak module than the whole pack. Yes, the newest cells will be hindered by the old ones in this scenario. However, if my choices are ~1x cost to get back to 90% of original range vs ~8+x cost for even a small bump in range over new, guess which one I'm likely to pick for an out of warranty vehicle.

 

[Crissa]

Agreed that repair to the cell level is probably too granular. Being able to replace a module that's 1/10th to 1/20th of the total pack seems about right to me. I would much rather remove and replace the weak module than the whole pack. Yes, the newest cells will be hindered by the old ones in this scenario. However, if my choices are ~1x cost to get back to 90% of original range vs ~8+x cost for even a small bump in range over new, guess which one I'm likely to pick for an out of warranty vehicle.

It may sound right, but it's not currently technically possible. Finding a module with the same properties as the existing ones is difficult. The slightest imbalance, and it puts extra wear on the weakest module.

-Crissa

 

[fhteagle]

I've heard that idea discussed before. But I don't think I've run across any good science studying how bad wear imbalance from imbalanced capacity across cells in series really is. I'll do my own literature search, but if you know of any good primary or secondary articles on the subject, feel free to pass em along.

 

[rr6013]

It may sound right, but it's not currently technically possible. Finding a module with the same properties as the existing ones is difficult. The slightest imbalance, and it puts extra wear on the weakest module.

-Crissa

Such a rebuild scenario begs an inventoried stash of cells with known properties to capacity-match back to the rest of the OG module subject to repair.

Not cheap, not maintenance free on the shelf neither but those are the odds in play. Anybody doing pack-level surgery is up against long odds of used cells or new degraded cells to match back.

Science must point the way to process and age new cells to match, maybe. Until, its a new batterypack buddy…

 

[Crissa]

It's more likely that a battery management controller might be fashioned to make other modules' performance.

But the supply of modules and repairs would have to reach the hundreds of thousands before making such parts would be profitable.

Most vehicles won't get there, and it would be far easier just to recondition entire packs or replace with newer, longer range packs.

-Crissa

 

[rr6013]

In the case of car repair shops they will likely mostly disappear with the ICE age and go the way of the Dodo.

RtR is not the death knell of car repair, repairpersons or car repair shops irrespective of that famous Australian example of extinction. I admire the fun literary usage in context, tho.

Here’s the deal people are missing in RtR. The high level flyover view reveals hidden in the system is a detrimental reliance on manufacturers. RtR assumes this to be what is ultimately the mgfr desired outcome. It’s not. Tesla are ill-equipped to repair what it sells. It sells new.

For reasons…labor disputes, supply chain disruption, service ill equipped and production artifacts that create obstacles to solving a problem, etc… Manufacturer’s lean on DIY, salvage and third party repair even though they condone, legislate and are won’t to admit it. There are times when the mfgr new is substandard, unavailable or simply creates a different problem with new replacements.

Whichever outcome RtR emerges, the facts are incontrovertible. Tesla may enjoy legal rights, omissions from liability or non-compete measures for Tesla component resale but it can either pushback or make RtR safer with certification, training and live&let live policy.

Pushback is friction points for Tesla on a reputational and TCO front. EM isn’t losing Tesla sales over RtR, he’s supporting Tesla products and seeding its inherent value in the brand after sale. It took OEM’s decades to economically stand up parts and service for their products. No one can argue how cost efficient that has turned out.

 

[Crissa]

How would repair shops disappear? There are repair shops for phones and laptops.

-Crissa

 

[rr6013]

How would repair shops disappear? There are repair shops for phones and laptops.

-Crissa

Watch FORD

 

[CyberGus]

I envision a battery pack that has a small circuit attached to each cell, and it could be as simple as just a chip. It could monitor each cell individually and report back to the BMS. Maybe it could even tweak the resistance slightly to being the cell into balance. If the cell was detected as defunct, it could blow a thermal fuse that would isolate it from the rest. In this way, the pack would be less reliant on having 100% perfect cells.

However, if these revolutionary chips cost a mere $1 each, we just increased the cost of the pack by 10% or more. It's probably cheaper to just replace the bad packs.