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Comments
In the old days if your aircraft suffered a shot to the fuel tank, you were toast. In WWII they lined the tank with a rubber bladder and it self-sealed itself. You'll still get the "email" that a tank suffered a puncture.
Self healing aircraft wings are now within the realm of the doable. (Independent UK) That's kind of like the seal healing paint that Nissan introduced a few years back.
So why couldn't a cracked flywheel heal itself? A circuit could easily do that or just reroute itself to a different trace on the silicon board.
The diagnostic stuff can be in a repair facility that the car talks to. Stick a Cray at the dealership, who cares. Replace the entire drivetrain, who cares. So long as the car can limp to the repair place, a 15 minute module replacement would be the ticket.
And yeah, the drivetrain would be one of those modules. If you can swap out a Bug engine in a minute why not a Spark's?
Let some robot in Sri Lanka rebuild or recycle the module.
I'll look up the customer pay and warranty times for your Mini a little later. What year is it? Are there any options that I need to know about?
How would you deal with a problem within the brain of the system? It might *seem* like the issue lied in one ore more modules across the vehicular system, but replacing those areas results in no change. As with anything, self-diagnostics are only as good as long as the system integrity is intact.
What you're talking about makes me think of Cubelets (pretty cool invention), except trying to apply the concept to an inestimably more complex system. No doubt, a system like that would be fantastic for keeping vehicles in working order. Getting there, though.... what would you give up?
Modules are spread out but they can "talk" to each other, even if a lot of the sensors are just reacting passively to an "inquiry". Some stuff would be positional, other stuff would just have a pass/fail on the operating parameters. Failure means the part first tries to fix itself. If it's a wear item (say, brake pads), then your dash lights up with the info, cc'd to the "repair" facility. Likely a poor example - why are brakes still "wear" items? Why not electricmagnetic braking that captures the otherwise waste energy?
How many "systems" are we talking about? Six or eight?
powertrain
suspension and wheels
active safety
lighting and electrical
steering
braking
There's already a lot of tech in all of those systems. The drill now is simplify R&R (mostly the replacement part) when self-repair isn't an option.
But no, we're still driving dinosaurs that aren't much different than a 1930 Hupmobile.
If the system was designed to last, say, 100,000 miles (since it contains wear items such as brakes and suspension), then when you need brakes, you just disconnect these modules, connect a new one, and off you go. No, pads, no bushings, no struts, no bearings, and no alignments! The used module goes off for reconditioning or recycling, and the driver goes off happy after a fifteen or twenty minute wait.
well for one thing you'd have to get all the automakers to standardize parts, otherwise you've just put a couple ten thousand repair shops out of business.
"According to the complaint, after a routine audit this year found three incorrect claims, Nissan launched an extensive audit of the store. It found such abnormalities as fictitious owner names on records, labor bills for employees that claimed to have logged between 300 and 400 hours of warranty work a week, and warranty work allegedly performed on vehicles that were not in the state at the time, the court filing says."
Nissan accuses store owned by ex-dealer council chair of fraud (autonews.com)
"Ford wants to [utilize] a high-tech plasma process to remanufacture broken engines.
PTWA works by basically creating "paint" out of metallic materials. A wire feedstock is first fed into a highly-charged cathode. This atomizes the feedstock, which is then sprayed onto a surface with forced gas. The high kinetic energy of the particles means that they flatten on impact with the surface of the target. They then quickly harden. This has the effect of both depositing even amounts of material onto a surface and of "leveling" the surface by naturally filling in pits and gouges."
Not that I really *want* cars to go this route. I'm just saying that Steve's idea is not beyond possibility.
What needs to happen with "cars of the future" is standardization. It's ridiculous to have 200 different types of mufflers and 400 different sizes and shape of brake pad.
That would be incre.... BWHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA......
*pauses ten minutes to gain composure*
That would be incredible, Shifty; it really would. Especially if you could still get variety (size/shape/style) and still keep the standardization. Sadly, I think modular architecture is more realistic.
"Come with me, cats. Yes, yes; everyone this way!"
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
For cleaning the windshield, there's likely an ultrasonic gizmo for that.
Note how this is just enough to get them ready to start the official technician training program. That would put them just about fifteen years from being the technician that the consumer needs. Then you see the 2500 tech per year demand mentioned at the end of the article, and that is just for the GM dealers.
Of course, if the supply of trained tech is short, that sure seems like a career opportunity for those willing to work at it.
This morning I was listening to Mike and Mike on ESPN and they were talking about the concussion issues surrounding football. One of the key points was that the NFL has to get a grasp on this now or in twenty five years there won't be enough players since there are so many parents steering their kids away from the game. The whole discussion made for a nice analog to the trades problem. When the big shakedown does finally occur, and it will, there won't be enough people qualified to do the work to take advantage of that situation. All you have to do is look and you can see that it is already happening. The scope captures and diagnostic routines that I have posted here on a few occasions should be "common knowledge" stuff, today. That Jeep was a very basic example of what every technician, ten years or more in the trade should be able to handle as easily as they do a brake job, or an oil change.
We don't need more techs, we need more modular parts swappers.
Can the shortage, or impending shortage of qualified car techs be blamed in part on the "cell phone generation" and the fact that nobody seems capable of actually DOING anything remotely physical in nature?
There are things everyone needs to know how to do without their smartphone to guide them. Change a tire, start a fire, create shelter, etc. You know... all those merit badge things!
On of my favorite moments is when someone asks me what time it is, I hold this up...
...and they say, "But what time is it??"