Category: Cars, including self-driving

Why don’t cars monitor 12V battery condition and suggest replacement before failure to start?

by philg

I’m not sure what caused our rented-from-Sixt Mercedes E 300de to fail and refuse to start even with a jump, but I am suspecting 12V battery health. The battery measured 12V on the tow truck guy’s multimeter, which sounds good for a 12V battery, but the chart below (source) says 12.4 is more of a practical resting minimum:

Today’s question is why cars don’t all come standard with battery health warnings, similar to the warnings regarding when it is time to change the oil.

  1. The car knows the battery voltage before start and after engine/generator shutdown.
  2. The car knows how long the last trip was (i.e., duration of most recent charge).
  3. The car knows how long it was sitting since the last trip (i.e., expected voltage drop from self-discharge).
  4. The car knows roughly how hot it has been (maybe use the temperature at startup for this and apply it to the sitting period and, if refinement is desired, tweak for the time of day).

If the car sees consistently lower-than-expected voltages, shouldn’t it flash a “replace battery ASAP” message to the owner?

Bosch seems to have a product that tries to do this, but I haven’t seen it in action:

I’m not sure why the Bosch hardware is needed when the car already has voltage and outside temperature sensors, plus a clock.

Our dead Mercedes displayed a “low battery” warning, but only after the total failure. It also said “towing not permitted” (what is the alternative if the car won’t start?) and “See Owner’s Manual” (we weren’t supplied with one):

Ford says that an owner should come to the dealership after he/she/ze/they “Constantly experience charging or electrical system problems” or “Experience trouble or difficulty getting your engine to start”. Why is this the best that modern electronics and software can do?

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Is this the month when Europeans stop speeding?

by philg

Loyal readers may remember my proposal to Save lives by limiting cars to 35 mph? (apply coronalogic to other situations in which human lives are at risk)

Maybe European readers can tell us if this is the month when Europeans begin to follow the Science. Back in 2022, Autoweek said “Anti-Speeding Tech Is Now Mandatory In European Union” and would apply to all new cars sold starting in July 2024:

The peasants still have some freedom, according to the article, but that could be fixed with an over-the-air software update:

The speed control function goes one step further by cutting power input from the pedal once the speed limit is reached. It’s important to note that drivers can override all four of these systems, either by acknowledging the audible or vibrating warnings or by pushing harder on the accelerator in the case of the haptic feedback or speed control function.

The same over-the-air update could impose my dream 35 mph (55 kph) limit and “save lives like a Fauci” (TM).

Separately, the speed nanny has supposedly already been in new-design cars in Europe for a year or two. Is there already statistical evidence that the hoped-for reductions in accidents/deaths have occurred? (Might be a little challenging to tease out of the data because newer cars in general might not have the same propensity to get into accidents compared to older cars (as with guns, it isn’t the driver who should be blamed, but the car).) If not, should we be skeptical about this new tech? A dramatic effect was predicted and shouldn’t be difficult to find if the prediction was true. (Though another confounder is that traffic gets worse in Europe every year and it is tough to be involved in a serious accident when you’re crawling along at 5 mph, working your way in between migrants’ tents and all of the pro-Hamas demonstrators.)

Our personal experience with the AI speed overlord wasn’t promising. Our almost-new rented Mercedes E 300de, which reliably started for two entire days (compare to 25 years for Toyota and Honda minivans), was consistently wrong when it came to determining a reasonable speed. When merging into traffic on the highway, for example, it would decide that a former limit of 50 or 60 kph applied and would issue frantic warnings about our 80-90 kph speed as we joined 120 kph traffic. It wasn’t smart enough to use front and rear cameras to see that the car was keeping up with traffic. When on scary narrow roads in little villages, the speed overlord would suggest blasting through at 90 kph. Most of the time, but not all of the time, the speed overlord’s displayed speed limit would be consistent with what Google Maps was showing. The audio warnings could be disabled by pressing and holding a mute button the steering wheel and we nearly always had to do that. The 10-year-old said “Let me get into the front seat so that I can give ‘Hey, Mercedes’ a piece of my mind.”

Related:

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Do Mercedes aluminum wheels have visible lug nuts or bolts?

by philg

Question for Europeans and Mercedes nerds: Can a new Mercedes have aluminum wheels without visible lug bolts (I’ve been told that Mercedes uses bolts rather than the conventional nuts)?

Sixt rented me a 2024 E 300de at the Lisbon airport with the exterior covered in dirt/grime. This was at the end of a 1.5-hour rental process (line at the office in the terminal then a second line at the office in the parking garage). They cleaned the windows so that it was safe to drive, but didn’t clean up the wheels or body. Maybe because it was so dirty, they didn’t notice a scratch on one of the wheel covers that Sixt Porto complained about on return (the car was clean due to having been driven through rain so any scratches were 10X more prominent). Sixt later emailed saying they were going to charge me for an “aluminum rim” (they never sent me a photo of the purported damage). I happened to take a photo of the car and the detail below shows a wheel with no visible lug bolts/nuts and what I think is shiny black plastic. Does a 2024 Mercedes have some kind of magic system for attaching aluminum wheels where lug bolts/nuts aren’t visible? (The car actually failed after two days of our rental and was replaced with a similar-looking one that definitely had plastic wheel covers. During the final return in Porto, I found some Mercedes cars in the Sixt parking lot that had aluminum wheels and the expected visible lug bolts.)

Detail from Car #1:

The original photo from which the above was taken:

A random Mercedes in the Sixt Porto lot with conventional aluminum wheels and standard visible lug nuts:

Is there some magic alternative Mercedes system for wheel attachment in which the first photo above can be of an aluminum rim and not a plastic wheel cover?

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Citroën is ready to meet Joe Biden’s new fuel economy standards

by philg

Photographed in Lisbon, the 8 hp Moroccan-built Citroën Ami:

“Biden pulls back on tightened car and truck fuel standards” (Politico):

The Biden administration on Friday backed off its proposal for a dramatic rise in fuel economy requirements for SUVs and pickup trucks, in yet another move that risks deflating the climate activists whose enthusiasm could hold the key to the president’s reelection. … NHTSA’s final rule, Reg. 2127-AM55, maintains the proposal’s requirement that passenger cars make 2 percent annual improvements for model years 2027 through 2031. Passenger cars will reach an average of 65 mpg in model year 2031, up from the current average of 48.7 mpg, according to NHTSA. (The non-plug-in version of Toyota’s Prius, one of the most fuel-efficient hybrids on the road, gets 57 mpg, according to federal regulators.)

I’m thinking that the above Citroën will be part of the solution for our 65 mpg cars.

Separately, Joe Biden says that climate change is an existential threat to humanity and that we’re experiencing a “climate crisis”, but apparently things aren’t so bad that we need to reduce fuel consumption by SUVs and pickup trucks.

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Thanks to fathers, our failed Mercedes is back on the road

by philg

Happy Father’s Day to those who celebrate.

Sunday is generally a sacred day of rest/family here in Portugal, but two dads teamed up to get our failed rental 2024 Mercedes E 300de back on the road. I hope that no fathers were implicated in the engineering of this useless machine. It’s a five-seat car that can barely hold luggage for two people because most of what should be the trunk is taken up by a hybrid battery (impossible for a rental customer to charge because a special card has to be set up with a Portuguese tax ID and bank account).

In its 13,000th kilometer of life the machine suffered an all-systems meltdown and refused to start, claiming that the 12V battery was exhausted. Two dads came out to deal with the problem. One, a tow truck operator and one a restaurant chef who was working on a Sunday. Jumping the car didn’t help and the tow truck guy’s voltmeter showed 12V on the battery. With these two guys putting their heads together plus a phone call to another dad, the car was resurrected via a dramatic reset involving tools applied to an under-hood connector. We limped away without CarPlay, navigation, or the new European speed nanny.

Here’s to the dads who work Sundays and holidays to make life better for their families!

(The tow truck guy waved away a 20 euro tip (this is enough for a sit-down meal for two here). We ate at the restaurant last night and for an early lunch today while waiting for the tow truck.)

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Should automakers offer a factory Palestinian flag paint scheme?

by philg

Parked in front of the Embassy Suites RDU for the entire evening of May 29:

It occurred to me that this demonstration of solidarity with Hamas (see Talking with a pro-Hamas college student for how the folks who say that they’re only “pro-Palestinian” actually do expect and seek long-term Hamas rule) would be more effect if (a) done 24/7, and (b) done in paint rather than via a draped flag.

How about a car company that already caters to progressives, e.g., Subaru, offering a factory Palestinian flag paint scheme? It might also be popular with Muslim-Americans.

Separately, I’ve been listening to parts of Robin Williams: When the Laughter Stops (included with an Audible subscription). The 2014 book quotes Williams as being interested in world peace, but asking “How do you create a Palestinian homeland when there’s a large amount of Palestinians who want to obliterate Israel?” (the “large amount” has been quantified as 85 percent support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a 2023 poll)

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Don’t expect a car to last more than 10 years or 150,000 miles

by philg

I was chatting with a senior engineer at a Detroit automaker. “We design the car to last 10 years or 150,000 miles,” he said. He explained that component manufacturers try to torture-test the components so as to meet the same standard and then the entire car is given an accelerated aging beating on a test track, e.g., with a road so bumpy that the car needs to be driven by a robot to avoid employees developing back problems. What about other car companies? “As far as I know, all of us use the same standard.”

So… don’t pay real money for an old or high mileage used car! Here’s an example of a car that is about ready for the boneyard and that will cost over $15,000 including taxes and fees:

The price for this 2012 Toyota with 204,000+ miles seems insane, but it aligns with KBB estimates in our inflation-free completely-affordable-for-the-working-class economy:

“Low Mileage”?!?

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Maybe cars can teach themselves to drive in the more structured states (the MANIAC book)

by philg

I recently finished The MANIAC, a concise novelized biography of John Von Neumann bizarrely bolted onto a history of computer programs that dominate chess and go. Somehow the combination works! What I hadn’t realized was how quickly programs that play chess and go can evolve when entirely freed from human guidance. Apparently, in a matter of just a few hours, a program can go from knowing almost nothing about chess other than the basic rules to being able to beat a grandmaster.

This kind of success has famously eluded those who promised us self-driving cars. We’ve gone from failing via humans encoding rules to failing via AI-style training sets of good driving and bad driving (coded by people in India? if you’ve ever been to Delhi or Mumbai maybe that explains the failure). Benjamin Labatut (the MANIAC author) reminds us that when the situation is sufficiently structured computers can learn very fast indeed.

Returning from a helicopter trip from Los Angeles to Great Barrington, Maskachusetts, my copilot commented on the chaos of road markings as we entered Cambridge. “Are there three lanes here or two?” he asked. This is a question that wouldn’t be posed in most parts of Texas or Florida, I’m pretty sure, and certainly not on the main roads of the Netherlands or Germany. Instead of the computer promising to handle all situations, I wonder if “full self-driving” should be targeted to the states where roads are clearly structured and marked. Instead of the computer telling the human to be ready to take over at any time for any reason, the computer could promise to notify in advance (via reference to a database, updated via crowd sourcing from all of the smart cars) that the road wasn’t sufficiently structured/marked and tell the human “I won’t be able to help starting in 30 seconds because your route goes through an unstructured zone.” The idea that a human will be vigilant for a few months or even years waiting for a self-driving disconnect that occurs randomly seems impractical. The MANIAC suggests that if we shift gears (so to speak) to redefining the problem to self-driving within a highly structured environment a computer could become a better driver than a human in a matter of weeks (it takes longer to look at videos than to look at a chess or go board, so it would be weeks and not hours). We might not be able to predict when there will be enough structure and enough of a data set and enough computer power for this breakthrough to occur, but maybe we can predict that it will be sudden and the self-driving program will work far better than we had dreamed. The AI-trained chess and go systems didn’t spend years working their way into being better than the best humans, but got there from scratch in just a few hours by playing games against themselves.

Regardless of your best estimate as to when we’ll get useful assistance from our AI overlords, I recommend The MANIAC (note that the author gives Von Neumann a little too much credit for the stored program computers that make the debate regarding self-driving possible).

Separately, based on a visit to the Harvard Book Store here’s what’s on the minds of the world’s smartest people (according to Harvard University research)..

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Meet at the Miami Grand Prix (F1 race)?

by philg

Who wants to meet at the Miami F1 race, sort of, on Saturday, May 5? This is one day before the “big race” that rich people are desperate to see. There are a lot of events throughout the day, including a spring race, the F1 Academy (from which 73 genders recognized by Science are excluded and this exclusion is the epitome of social justice), and some Porsche racing.

The official F1 site sells only 3-day tickets. A lot of buyers, however, don’t want to show up on Friday and Saturday. Individual days thus show up as verified resale on Ticketmaster. A “campus pass” that lets you walk around is about $120 and a ticket in a grandstand is $200-300 (this also includes the right to wander).

Given the often-brutal Miami heat and sun, I picked tickets in the Turn 18 grandstand. This has its back to the sun and rows beyond about N are shaded (our tickets are in Q). [Post-race update: M is the best row! It is in front of the columns that hold up the shade roof but is still completely shaded. Some of the rows below M also are well-shaded, particularly on the west side of the Turn 18 grandstand, as the afternoon develops.] It has views of cars braking out of the longest/fastest straight and then navigating a couple of turns. The one knock against this grandstand is that it might be a long walk to the Fountains and Promenade areas. The Marina grandstands might be better for taking that one perfect photo of a race car in front of boats, but I don’t think the cars are moving as fast in this area.

It looks as though parking passes are sold on SeatGeek and VividSeats. I’m thinking that traffic won’t be terrible on Saturday because people will arrive gradually and also leave gradually depending on which of the events they’re interested in. On Sunday, by contrast, there is literally nothing on the schedule after the 6 pm finish of the Grand Prix per se (which I’d rather see on television so that I would have a chance of understanding it) and, therefore, there will be a mad rush for the exits.

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Top Gun slows down to 25 mph (across Florida by EV)

by philg

“I feel the need for speed,” said my friend who flew the F/A-18 for the U.S. Navy to the Hertz folks in Tampa. They rented him a Volvo XC40 EV, purportedly capable of 293 miles of range. It’s 190 miles and 3 hours to get from Tampa to our neighborhood in Jupiter, according to The Google. It took him more than 7 hours, an average speed of 25 mph. He found various chargers along the way, e.g., from ChargePoint, but they often charged at only 6.5 kW, less than what you’d need to feed a climate-safe induction range.

Adding insult to injury, as he watched the divergence between miles to destination and miles to empty he was treated to an NPR broadcast about the irrationality of range anxiety. As with inflation, if Americans were only a little more intelligent they would see everything the same way that the D.C. ruling class does.

Perhaps there would have been some way for him to plan the trip around the availability of high-speed chargers, but that’s in a theoretical world, not our real world. His take-away: “I will never buy an electric car.”

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