Lone VeirupJun 27, 2024
Cory Doctorow

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit - *lots* of it.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

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Pluralistic: Cleantech has an enshittification problem (26 Jun 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Jun 26, 2024 at 5:32pmWeb
Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be *some* personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these *should* be electric.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable - from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention - it can run on a car.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

EVs are *also* designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation.

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Cory Doctorow: IP

You’ve probably heard of “open source software.” If you pay at­tention to the politics of this stuff, you might have heard of “free software” and even know a little ab…

Locus Online
Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

EVs - even more than conventional vehicles - are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

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Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

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Tesla allegedly remotely unlocks Model 3 owner's car, uses smart summon to help repo agent - Alt Car news

Tesla remotely activated smart summon, locate, and unlock to help a repo agent reposess a car after an owner fell behind on payments.

Alt Car news
Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

This is "twiddling" - unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the *best case* scenario.

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Twiddler – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's *infinitely* preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and *bricking your car*.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

This is the third EV risk - not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you *really* gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a *cleantech* problem.

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Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall

Mercedes is the latest manufacturer to lock auto features behind a subscription fee, with an upcoming “Acceleration Increase” add-on that lets drivers pay to access motor performance their vehicle is already capable of.

The Verge
Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

Cleantech has *all* the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box - a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for *any* replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a *year*.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet - it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins.

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Show threadCory DoctorowJun 26, 2024

After all, the Solaredge system is *already* in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

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Show threadLisPiJun 26, 2024
@pluralistic Is it grid-tied, hybrid or supposed to be offgrid?

The kits for those different setups aren't the same.
Show threadMartin HamiltonJun 28, 2024
@pluralistic Here in Europe there are quite a few EV options that are "alternative drivetrain for long established vehicle" which now suddenly look a lot more attractive due to ready availability of cheap spares and reduced attack space for enshittification 
Show threadLeBonkJun 27, 2024
@pluralistic
asked *an independent
Show threadKarl Heinz HäsliprinzJun 26, 2024
@pluralistic and less km travelled. At least fewer per hour.
Show threadPeter BrownJun 26, 2024

@pluralistic two unintended consequences of the move towards electric vehicles is that they are at their best on short journeys, not travelling transcontinental.
And they are also at their best at speeds under 40 miles an hour, becoming very greedy over 60.

Both of these factors will help modal shift to mass transit across longer distances and should help to reduce average traffic speeds.

Show threadKorma ChameleonJun 26, 2024
@peterbrown @pluralistic I honestly think that every train station should have car rental. Normally when I need a car it's for a few kilometres of details
Show threadPeter BrownJun 26, 2024
@KormaChameleon @pluralistic most rental companies will deliver to stations, and most stations in this country have connecting buses.
Show threadKorma ChameleonJun 26, 2024
@peterbrown @pluralistic Which country?
Show threadPeter BrownJun 26, 2024
@KormaChameleon @pluralistic Scotland
Show threadBrianaryJun 26, 2024
@peterbrown
@pluralistic
The US needs much more investment in rail before we can stop using cars, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, where train service is perfunctory at best. I really hoped this would be a major benefit of Biden in the White House.
Show threadArandmoorJun 26, 2024

@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic Then weigh-in in favor of CA's HSR project when billionaire-owned papers like the NYT run hit-pieces or someone uses the word "boondoggle" to describe it (nobody uses "boondoggle". That word came down as a requirement in a memo because some rich-fogey thinks they know better).

Help us keep the air clear and get the HSR built and people like me will help by raising our voices when the CA project is complete to continue extending the rails north towards Seattle.

Show threadBrianaryJun 26, 2024

@arandmoor
@peterbrown @pluralistic
I don't really read newspapers, in part due to them being by and for fogeys.

Seattle was on a good path until one engineer set them back, probably by a decade. Who knows when Spokane, created as a rail town, will get any kind of decent service. Right now, it's about 2am LSR or nothing.

Show threadChucklesJun 26, 2024
@brianary @arandmoor @peterbrown @pluralistic newspapers hate anything the car dealers tell them to hate.
Show threadArandmoorJul 3, 2024

@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic

Honestly, Seattle should just leave Spokane behind.

They voted no on a N/S freeway that would have cost millions in the '80s for so long it's now costing them billions since they broke ground 20 years ago, and it's still not done.

Likewise they voted no on light rail between Spokane and Coeur d'alene despite the fact it would have meant building a light rail line between the valley and the downtown.

Spokane is anti-progress to their own detriment.

Show threadDan McDonaldJun 26, 2024

@arandmoor @brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic

AIUI HSR in California is in no small part bogged down by NIMBY/anti-growth types.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-build-nothing-country

https://www.railway-technology.com/features/will-california-ever-get-its-high-speed-rail/

The Build-Nothing Country

Stasis has become America's spoils system, and it can't go on.

Noahpinion
Show threadDan McDonaldJun 26, 2024

@arandmoor @brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic

Same kind of thinking keeps other sensible transit things from happening. In my own backyard, e.g., the North-Station/South-Station connector which would make Boston a proper transit hub instead of a bifurcated one.

Show threadChucklesJun 26, 2024
@danmcd @arandmoor @brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic that one is maddening. $20+ billion for a car tunnel but a TRAIN tunnel is somehow mysteriously out of reach.
Show threadDan McDonaldJun 26, 2024

@celeduc @arandmoor @brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic

Over on BSky, as the NYC congestion pricing got suspended, someone called for the elimination of franchised car dealers, as they sabotage anything not helping them out. (And their light-R districts need to be swung D.)

Monopoly concerns aside, I very much understand that POV.

Show threadChucklesJun 27, 2024
@danmcd @arandmoor @brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic NY state Democratic party governors are mid-20th century Republicans in drag.
Show threadCodhisattvaJun 26, 2024
@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic those tracks in the PNW are not safe. Entire new rails, stations and cities would need to be built east of the cascades in WA and OR to improve service.
Show threadBrianaryJun 26, 2024
@Codhisattva
@peterbrown @pluralistic
I don't know about cities and stations, but I agree we need to lay new track.
Show threadCodhisattvaJun 27, 2024

@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic there’s just not the kind of places that’ll support a passenger rail. Klamath Falls and Bend and Pendleton? Susanville? Walla Walla?

The trains can’t follow the I5 corridor.

Show threadTim Ellis 🦝Jun 26, 2024
@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic It's so absurd that if I want to take a train from Seattle to Spokane or Leavenworth, there's literally only one per day, and it's at an annoyingly inconvenient time.
Show threadMorgan AldridgeJun 26, 2024
@brianary @peterbrown @pluralistic It seems odd to say, but New England too! Vermont, for example, only _finally_ re-opened the western rail line to Amtrak a year or two ago. That left a single rail line serving southeast to central to northwest! We're a tiny state, but towns are located in small valleys between several mountain ranges, so long travel times by car (or bus in rare cases) to the few rail stations are necessary. I can't imagine New Hampshire & Maine are much better.
Show threadferricoxideJun 26, 2024
@peterbrown @pluralistic

What percentage of people making transcontinental trips are driving rather than already using mass transit? Feels like you'd be looking at a very small win if even 100% of such travelers opted for other than personal cars? That fraction not already traveling by plane, train or even bus, also seem the least likely to trade in their ICE for EVs, even if you corrected the charging-network deficit. I mean, one of the huge reasons for slow EV uptake is acquisition cost and cost is often a significant factor in the "do I fly or do I drive" calculus.
Show threadPeter BrownJun 27, 2024
@ferricoxide @pluralistic I understand that it is a big issue in the USA.
Show threadJohn DetersJun 27, 2024
@peterbrown @pluralistic Almost all passenger vehicles become "very greedy" over 60, regardless of fuel type. EVs just put the power number conveniently on the dashboard so you can see it for yourself.
Show threadOggieJun 27, 2024

@targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic
You know what the single biggest trend that lowered fuel usage and also lowered average car speed across the board, when they finally did a huge study over it? (I wish I could find the in depth thing, but my google-fu is weak)

It was the move to show active efficency on the dashboard. It turns out, if you see that your fuel MPG (this was pre electric) drops when you do something, the average driver...doesn't do it as much.

Always stuck in my brain.

Show threadDominicJun 27, 2024
@targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic ... because air resistance becomes very significant. It would be much better if cars could drive very close behind each other, so the first car pushes the air out of the way, and the rest ride along in the slipstream. This would require very advanced self driving or perhaps even better just mechanically coupling the cars together so they all move as one long unit...
Show threadahoyboyhoyJun 27, 2024
@dominic @targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic huh, never considered coupling cars together... into a... train. Damn, we already had the answer all along, again!
Show threadDominicJun 27, 2024
@ahoyboyhoy @targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic you could make it even more efficient by replacing the relative rough road, and soft tires... with something really smooth and hard. You could eliminate most of the rolling resistance that way. Perhaps you could even have the road configured with grooves the wheels fit into so you don't even need to steer, like mechanical "self driving". It would also be much cheaper than making a whole 2d surface the car can move around on when it only actually wants to move _along_ it. So, long skinny hard smooth roads.... could call it a "rail road" or something!?
Show threadJohn DetersJun 30, 2024
@ahoyboyhoy @dominic @peterbrown @pluralistic The concept has been bandied about for decades. One car acts as a pilot, and as cars enter the road traveling in the same direction, they would auto-navigate to follow the previous car just inches apart. The problems are in the safety: what happens when a system fails, or a pilot makes a bad decision, etc. Plus nobody would want to be the pilot, because they still have the expense of breaking wind.
Show threadahoyboyhoyJun 30, 2024
@targetdrone @dominic @peterbrown @pluralistic not to mention that we could just build more rail and then focus additional efforts on last mile optimizations.
Show threadDominicJun 30, 2024
@targetdrone @ahoyboyhoy @peterbrown @pluralistic take turns bring in front of course
Show threadListerine Lavender MintJun 27, 2024

@targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic

I was told once this is because at lower speeds, the dominant component of drag is linear since the air is only compressed around the car. At higher speeds, the drag is proportional to the velocity squared since the air is actually accelerated.

Whether that’s specifically the case or not, there’s a velocity-squared component that’s negligible at low speeds and dominant at higher speeds.

Show threadPeter BrownJun 27, 2024
@thedansimonson @targetdrone @pluralistic I understand that after 30 mph the car will spend more energy pushing air than it will pushing the car.
Show threadListerine Lavender MintJun 27, 2024
@peterbrown @targetdrone @pluralistic as someone who bikes regularly, this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. You can feel that difference as you get up towards 30 mph
Show threadPeter BrownJun 27, 2024
@thedansimonson @targetdrone @pluralistic yes, pedalling downhill into a headwind is extremely frustrating!!
Show threadToken Sane PersonJun 27, 2024

@thedansimonson @targetdrone @peterbrown @pluralistic

Its worse. The *drag* (force required to keep the speed constant) is proportional to the square of the speed, as you say. But *work* (the energy required) is the force times the distance, and the distance per unit time also increases with the speed. So the *power* (energy per unit time) increases with the *cube* of the speed.

So 2x speed means 8x power. But you get there in half the time. So only 4x the energy.

Show threadMartin RuskovJun 27, 2024
@peterbrown @pluralistic a shift to mass transit is only possible if there's mass transit in the offering.