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| ▲ | jchw 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Oh that's simple. Both Tesla and John Deere are bad guys. And yes. I am happy to expand that list to literally every other manufacturer you have in mind. They are all bad guys too. If manufacturers were altruistic good guys, they would need no regulation. |
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| ▲ | arrowsmith an hour ago | parent [-] | | If all manufacturers except one were altruistic good guys, the one malevolent bad guy would undercut the altruists and drive them out of business. Regulation is the solution to this prisoner’s dilemma. | | |
| ▲ | phyzix5761 43 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Heavy regulations are the reason why we have the John Deere semi monopoly. The regulatory entry cost is in the millions for any new player to enter the market so no one wants to compete and provide better service. | | |
| ▲ | skeeter2020 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is just not true - their machines are purposely opaque and loaded with DRM. Regulation in this area could potentially make the entire system more efficient and cheaper for everyone at the cost of JD's predatory practices. In addition to owners there are lots of independents who could work on JD equipment, but they are all literally locked out. | |
| ▲ | pvab3 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | the cost of starting a company that makes a line of tractors combines and sprayers is probably second only to an aircraft manufacturer in difficulty and complexity | |
| ▲ | Eisenstein 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | So are for some regulations but not others. I think that is most people's stance. It's more constructive if we talk about which specific ones. | |
| ▲ | dreamcompiler 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | I call bullshit until you cite evidence. Farm equipment doesn't even need to comply with road vehicle requirements. What special regulations does a farm equipment manufacturer need to comply with that don't apply to any other industrial manufacturer? |
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| ▲ | geoduck14 36 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Like others have said: Tesla is the bath guy here. I'm pretty sure most people are focused on the other ways Tesla has been fing around that they just haven't gotten this far down the list. Also, there's something special about tractors. Their owners (farmers) are both willing and capable of repairing tractors, in general, so John Deere is demonized for taking that ability away. Where as Tesla's owners are comfortable not changing their own oil, so "less" was taken away. (Yes, I know Tesla doesn't have engine oil, don't get hung up on that) |
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| ▲ | skeeter2020 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | A tractor - and all farm equipment - is ridiculously expensive, the core platform is not much different from previous generations and they are used by a respected segment of our society to grow us food. All of this adds up to make JD's impact large and feel much worse than the relative nitpicks we have with many car manufacturers. |
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| ▲ | nvme0n1p1 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| When I bought my current car, it came with an owners manual--for free!! I can grab any data I want from the OBD port. The hardware was cheap, the software to use it is, again, free. I'm not excited about this brave new world where you have to pay a subscription fee to plug a cable into a device you own and interact with it, and even less excited there are people here defending the idea. |
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| ▲ | itsrobreally 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You may not be aware but there are a lot of proprietary PIDs on your OBD2 bus you can't interpret without specialized software - you can get like oil pressure and temperature, but not say, shift points or anything the manufacturer doesn't think you should see. True right to repair would mean all of the PIDs get documented and there is a marketplace where I can purchase software or documentation without having to be a certified brand X mechanic. | | |
| ▲ | jonhohle 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I’m not sticking up for car manufacturers, but at what size or capacity should you be required to document and publish these things? It requires employer time and effort and has a cost associated with it. As a counter argument: I was just looking at a small open source utility. As I was going through the code I found cases where certain arguments could be set to magic values that cause useful, but undocumented behavior. Should the developers be forced to document these options? I don’t think a manufacturer should be able to lock you out of reading diagnostics on your own devices, or that anyone should be prevented from reverse engineering what those values mean. But I also don’t think there should be any requirement that they are forced to do additional work. That seems just as immoral. | | |
| ▲ | skeeter2020 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | the issue is not that this information is undocumented, it's that an "authorized service center" gets information that an "owner" does not. Also cars are not "small open source utilities" with undocumented arguments; do you think that an auto manufacturer has hidden, untested diagnostics that only the dealer uses? >> don’t think there should be any requirement that they are forced to do additional work At one time seatbelts, airbags, emission controls, etc were all viewed in this category. Now we have regulations enforcing aspects of all of these. Why would diagnostics be different? | |
| ▲ | vlovich123 6 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I don’t think a manufacturer should be able to lock you out of reading diagnostics on your own devices, or that anyone should be prevented from reverse engineering what those values mean. But they do do that. Also what’s the difference between a lot of obfuscation and prevention and how will you enforce that without lawsuits and discovery? Also, what is those values have the ability to do damage and cause safety issues? Like losing your own software onto a control by wire car? Then you can rent a car and install your own software surreptitiously. |
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| ▲ | nvme0n1p1 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes and I'm just pushing back against GP who seems to think gatekeeping that access is a good thing. And it's still way better than John Deere who (according to TFA), when the tractor detects that some wires are disconnected, wants you to pay $195 to find out which ones. I'd love to move towards a world where owners can access everything, flash the firmware in the headlamps, etc. But all I can do as an individual is vote with my wallet and avoid the 2020s computers-on-wheels. |
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| ▲ | loopies an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | What you want is the service manual. Owner manual should be implicit.
OBD port can work for some cars, for some of the data. But other cars do have specialized gear they require to either access either reset some stuff in some of the car's computers. | | |
| ▲ | somehnguy 43 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yeah the owners and service manuals are two very very different things. You won't be performing much maintenance with the owners manual besides the absolute basics, like checking your oil. The cheap OBD2 readers lack the vast majority of data and tools you would want to use for service as well. There are aftermarket options but most manufacturers want you to subscribe to their service tools - often charged per monthly plus an additional a fee per VIN it touches. These cost in the hundreds to thousands. It can be pretty frustrating as a shadetree mechanic. | | |
| ▲ | lazide 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Notably, some vehicles like the Toyota Highlander you can’t even figure out when you need to change the spark plugs, let alone what kind of spark plugs you need from the owners manual. Theoretically, they are to be replaced at 120k miles (!!) but they won’t even tell you that in the owners manual. Insane. | | |
| ▲ | somehnguy 25 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It is, yeah. The owners manual for my current vehicle seems to mostly contain walkthroughs about the infotainment and other tech features. The section related to maintenance is tiny in comparison. You're probably aware of this already but luckily a lot of service manuals can be found online in PDF form. Somewhat related but I was going through an older relatives belongings not too long ago to help cleanup and found a bunch of old manuals for various household things. The detail included in them was beautiful to see - full wiring diagrams, mechanical diagrams, etc. |
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| ▲ | DuncanCoffee an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Because in agriculture you are absolutely expecting to be able to repair stuff yourself. I work on a project related to it and was absolutely surprised at how the company gave instructions to the clients to help them fix their machines (stuff I wouldn't be able to do myself). Having a non-working machine can mean big $$ lost everyday. |
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| ▲ | RobotToaster an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Real life isn't as simple as the one in fairy tales, there's usually more than one villain. |
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| ▲ | voxl an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Whataboutism. Two evils are still evil. |
