cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24122615
A team of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology has built a prototype electric car with a built-in toolbox and components that can be easily repaired or replaced without specialist knowledge.
The university’s TU/ecomotive group, which focuses on developing concepts for future sustainable vehicles, describes its ARIA concept as “a modular electric city car that you can repair yourself”.
ARIA, which stands for Anyone Repairs It Anywhere, is constructed using standardised components including a battery, body panels and internal electronic elements that can be easily removed and replaced if a fault occurs.
With assistance from an instruction manual and a diagnostics app that provides detailed information about the car’s status, users should be able to carry out their own maintenance using only the tools in the car’s built-in toolbox, the TU/ecomotive team claimed.
Making a prototype electric car is actually surprisingly simple for what it is, the problem is adding all the required active and passive security systems and passing the safety inspection for selling in the EU, not to say the usual about supply chain, manufacturing, etc, which will probably be quite difficult given this goes against every automotive company’s interests.
A simple, repairable EV would be my dream car but unfortunately I don’t see it happening soon in Europe.
I don’t see it happening soon in Europe
Well, it’s probably not coming out of the US, Russia, or China sooner.
We almost it, but they ran out of money. Check out the Sono Sion.
My Nissan Leaf is currently bricked because a charging station sent the wrong communication messages (or the right messages in the wrong order, still don’t know exactly what happened).
The car thinks there is a cable still plugged in (when there isn’t), so it won’t go into drive. It also won’t recognise a new cable being plugged in, so it won’t charge. It doesn’t think there is a charging session ongoing, so there is no way to stop it. There are no fault codes and no errors. The car is behaving perfectly normally except that it won’t start.
Nissan has no idea what the problem is. Multiple experts has tried with success to find anything wrong. It’s been 3 months and the best option so far is to start replacing modules (for more than the value of the car) until we accidentally replace the correct module.
The vast majority of the problems we’re having is caused by a lack of information and communication from Nissan. They don’t provide circuit diagrams, or diagnostic manuals, and they don’t even permit people to buy the diagnostic tools they use.
An open source, repairable car would be really nice about now.
shit like this is exactly why I won’t buy a newer car, even an economical option like the Leaf
I want simplicity and reliability and repairability. these incredibly complex modern vehicles don’t have that
and it’s not like I’ll be buying them ten years down the road when there are no options left - I will find something that meets my criteria, and I will pay more for it. black box cars do not make good used vehicles, and they will be priced accordingly by knowledgeable buyers
If they have zero ability to debug the fuckers with multiple of them bricked then this is good information for all of us.
Nissan is clearly too stupid to buy from.
The shotgun approach to repair is a tried and trued method of wasting money.
Or making money. Depends on which end you are on.
It’s sounds bizarre to me that this couldn’t be resolved by rebooting.
Then again, how do you reboot a car exactly? It’s not “off” even when the car is not started I suppose.
You perform a battery reset of the low voltage system. Disconnect HV system, disconnect the 12V battery (or batteries) then short the positive and negative battery cables together for about half an hour. Then reattach 12V battery, and then turn HV system back on. Forces all the computer modules (normally about 30-50 modules in a modern car) to reboot from their base programming. Have to do this several times a week, often fixes weird electrical issues.
then short the positive and negative battery cables together for about half an hour.
Uh, on the pcb side, to discharge condensers & co. Not on the battery side.
You don’t need to disconnect the HV. Electronics are all run on 12V.
I’ve tried disconnecting the 12V battery. I believe the technicians have tried disconnecting the 12V and HV batteries at the same time. All factory reset buttons have been pressed. We’ve tried plugging in a CHAdeMO and type 1 cable at the same time.
I’m also very surprised that something like this could be software related and persist across power failures/reboots.
It depends on where the variable for this is stored.
In ram then a reboot will fix it. But it looks like for some reason the engineer put it on non volatile memory.
There’s some complex mechanical interlocks involved in charging circuitry too. You can hear these beefy solenoids clunk on/off when plugging in a charging cable. A stuck solenoid could be implicated too, as some safety detection circuitry might check those to see if the car is currently in a charging configuration. That goes especially since moving parts are typically more likely to fail before anything else. Although, I’d be stunned if that wasn’t already considered.
Not solenoids, contactors technically.
As a Leaf owner, this terrifies me. Do you have any details about that charging station, like what brand it was?
And just shooting from the hip here: I’ve noticed that a lot of folks that upgrade cars to electric using parts from crashed vehicles, know their way around production EV guts pretty darn well. Engaging with a local shop that does that work might be worthwhile, seeing as how (I assume) the dealer is getting nowhere by following the book.
I’ve been helping a startup company test their prototype V2G charger for a while, so they gave me one of the first production units at a discount. The prototype worked; it was the production unit that caused the problem. We still don’t know what is different between the prototype and production units that could have caused this. All sales have been halted until this is can be fixed.
I’m keeping the company anonymous for now at their request. There is no risk to any other cars, they really don’t want bad PR from this, and they have taken responsibility for my car.
I have heard (with no evidence) that both Wallbox and Kempower had the same issue when first releasing their chargers, so it sounds to me like Nissan haven’t properly implemented the CHAdeMO standard, and companies are having to modify their chargers to fix Nissan’s mistake. All of this is just my speculation.
I shall pass on your suggestion. They may not have thought to reach out to hobbyists for help.
The main reason I am not buying into electric vehicles is the state of reliability and repairability and the immense black box which those vehicles are nowadays. What I would like to see is pretty much exactly that prototype as a commercially available and street legal product. Where everything can be modified and improved or repaired by anyone. Just like in the “good old days”…
Sounds like you’re not buying ANY vehicles nowadays
Modern ICE cars aren’t really any different in that regard.
It’s absolutely absurd that that isn’t the norm.
Across all industries. Look at a company like Framework, there’s no reason everything can’t be made like this.
We have customers that can’t figure out how to turn their headlights on, or fill the washer fluid. “Repair yourself” needs to be a pretty low bar.
Not really - being easy to repair also means that its easier for shops to repair, which is becoming a problem lately as companies are purposefully making it harder to service EV’s outside of their designated facilities.
Good point.
I worked a summer in a garage. I lost count of the number of “strange noise like something rolling around the truck” orders, resolved by removing the thing rolling around the trunk. I was 17, amazed these people had jobs and money to buy cars.
SlateEV is self-repairable. It’s one of those things super popular on Reddit, but no one in the real world knows which end of a screwdriver to hold.
Yup. We get cars towed in because they ran out of gas.
Ok, but what is “no information” supposed to mean? Why does it not say “empty”?
It did show empty. It has a normal gas gauge, plus underneath the gauge, it shows the mileage till absolutely empty. When you hit 0 km remaining, it will switch to three dashes, indicating you are absolutely, completely empty, as in out of gas typically in less than a km. The gauge was reading empty, and underneath was showing the three dashes. That is what the customer interpreted as “no information”.
AIN’T GOT NO GAS IN IT
People like that are why I support public transit and walkable cities.
Cars are appliances to them, and since they’re most of the car market most cars suck.
By getting people off the road who don’t want to be there the demands of the car market will change and maybe we’ll have cool cars again.
Plus we can increase driving license and maintenance requirements so that people know to stay in the right lane and don’t have parts falling off their cars.
And since we need fewer roads we can build them better and maybe, in some places, we can have no speed limits.
Plus we can increase driving license and maintenance requirements so that people know to stay in the right lane and don’t have parts falling off their cars.
Most of the world has annual safety inspections. Not North America.
We have annual inspections in my state and I still got a lug nut chucked into my windshield.
Where in North America are there no inspections? I can’t renew my registration without the car going through inspection and I assumed inspections were required everywhere.
Kentucky…
Most places in North America. Most places here in Canada only have inspections when the vehicle changes owners. In Quebec, the inspection is only done when you buy a car from a dealer or used car garage, does not apply on private sales. Some seriously sketchy cars in Quebec.
Damn Canada you scary.
In BC you only need a regular inspection if your vehicle is for commercial use, or business use over 8000kg.
Other than that, you only need an inspection if you purchased it over 6 months ago in another province… And that’s mainly Alberta’s fault.
Yup, you can thank our Conservative premiers for scrapping any kind of regular mechanical or emissions inspections.
The voters thank them by giving them full power majorities.
Where in North America are there no inspections?
Ontario. And no visible licence validation either. Doug Ford put all the drunks and uninsured losers back on roads.
Georgia has no inspections. If you live in the greater metro Atlanta area there is an annual emissions test to make sure you’re not making too much smog, but they don’t check the rest of the vehicle.
As far as I know, only Pennsylvania & New York have annual vehicle inspections. Hang on a sec. Okay, Wikipedia says 14 states have annual inspections. More than I thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_United_States
California has inspections never.
I’ve never had to get a vehicle inspected in Wisconsin as far as I can recall. There are some areas that do emissions testing but that’s about it.
I never had to get an inspection in ohio
Also you can basically do whatever you want in New Hampshire, they’re nuts over there
Depends where you’re talking about. Unfortunately most of the US states haven’t figured out how to make going to the DMV (department of motor vehicles) not suck tremendously and how to keep it from taking up most of a day, so many places only do those checks whenever you have to renew the license plate tag/registration, and it’s done at the DMV itself. Usually once every couple of years.
Some states allow those inspections to be done by other approved locations. Different states have different timings on how often it’s required, and they all have differences as to what is actually tested and what is passing and failing.
My state DMV is great at customer service but terrible at roads.
Utopia.
I once had a car where you couldn’t change a frickin’ lightbulb without dismantling half the motor. Nowadays “repair yourself” really has a very low bar.
The driver’s side lightbulb on my wife’s Kia Soul is largely blocked by internal components. I found some instructions explaining how to remove the front bumper for access. Fortunately some guy on YouTube made a video showing a better way. Need to make some marks on parts so you can line them up properly when putting it back but with some tight contortions it was possible and only took a couple minutes.
A lot of modern car headlights are LED which you shouldn’t need to change like old bulbs. At least not often.
But if you do, it’s $100+ instead of $10
General Motors: *purchases all related IP, disappears it forever*
General Motors: Oh! Sorry squire! I’ve scratched the record
I would buy it. :)
Story: I drive a Mitsubishi electric car of generation 0 (MIEV). They have a typical error: a high voltage comparator on the motor controller breaks, stopping the car. The fix involves 1 resistor, and works (you just need dwarves with titanium hands to reach the correct part in less than a whole day). The resistor costs cents. Authorized representatives propose swapping in a 5000 euro motor controller (the remaining value of the car is about 1000 euros).
Easy maintenance is an absolute requirement. Otherwise expensive cars become junk.
The should create a system of interchangeable parts! A breakthrough
Are there plans to produce ARIA commercially? (All i saw in the article is about the prototype) Looks like a DIY Honda CR-Z, in a good way.
There was a cool Sono Sion project, a smallish boxy EV that comes with a repair manual, solar panels for topping off the battery, and power-sharing mechanic to power another EV or a home. But they either ran out of money or could not set up manufacturing.
I want one
Call me when it passes safety and has a price.
This stuff is cool, this thing looks great, it’s non viable though.
That’s not the point of the car. From the article:
The designers hope that the project will encourage policymakers to improve Right to Repair directives, while providing a case study for automotive manufacturers to follow when designing future EVs.
Due to regulation, I think it’s very unlikely that such a car will ever make it to the market. End customers aren’t not meant to freely modify their cars and mess around with security-related systems. And while I’d highly appreciate the repairabilty aspects of such a model, I have serious doubts about the negative aspects when insuffiently skilled people start ‘improving’ their cars causing accidents etc.
WTF are you talking about? People have been modding every square inch of their cars since cars were first built.
My father-in-law, who was 40 when my wife was born, told me at 82 that it’s hard for people to understand how many of our rights were stripped away during his lifetime, and how many more rights are being stripped away in our lifetimes.
So a young person today is subjected to corporate propaganda that tells them they don’t have the right to work on their own vehicles because of safety/ trademarks/ licensing/ subscriptions, etc., when it’s all just a scam to force us to pay for what we used to do in the driveway on a Saturday afternoon.
You can hear that capitalist propaganda, but you can choose not to believe it.
People have been modding every square inch of their cars since cars were first built.
Still, most of these modifications aren’t legal on public roads in Europe unless you use certified parts and get the modifications approved. At least in Germany rules are really strict. If you replace your exhaust, rims, add a spoiler, change dampers or even use the wrong light bulbs, your vehicle’s road license may be invalid and you might lose your insurance in case of an accident.
Thanks for that perspective. We don’t have those kind sof rules in America. We have a very mature car culture here, with a very long tradition of modding.
It’s nearly as important to some demographics as gun ownership. The government could never get away with totally restricting people from working on their cars.
That’s what inspections are for.
Next you say i’m not allowed to run whatever OS i want on my phone/computer?
People already have hardware access to their own cars and make stupid modifications all the time. That’s what vehicle inspections are for. Heck, I know police aren’t generally popular on this instance but stopping vehicles with unsafe modifications they spot on the roads falls under their purview too. I’m from a state with inspections but have a friend who wasn’t and her stories about the beater cars they drove (missing floorboards, reach out the window and push on a metal rod to use the brake) tell me the system basically works. At least as well as it can while transportation infrastructure is arranged so cars are a basic necessity for huge swaths of the country.
If the parts are easy to remove then are they easy to steal? Is this the next generation of the Chevette?
Normal ICE cars have parts that are easy to remove, is this any different?
Easy with a bit of know how and tools. Likely this is no different to thieves. Maybe makes the pool of potential thieves larger if they make it more user friendly to do. Similar to how opening a PC is easier than opening a Mac.
