Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | sschueller's commentslogin

I hope it was not deliberate but it may have been. Blowing up the kids of military generals is a strategic move when you ignore the "rules of war".

I wonder how many fools will get burned again after last time.

As someone who has never used Salesforce nor hubspot. What are the core features that has people using these services? Is it just the integration between all the different areas where customer data lives?

It’s like a lot of these big SaaS platforms that lock people in to big contracts. They promise the world with all sorts of features and integrations but most customers don’t use that and get locked into buying a very expensive solution to a very simple problem (in this case tracking sales pipelines).

Where customers do use the features and integrations it’s often a giant mess that needs a whole separate ecosystem of consultants and “partners” to get the thing working and maintaining it.


> in this case tracking sales pipelines

Salesforce does a lot more than that


Integration and reconciliation between arbitrary data sources (from SFTP+CSV files to connecting to data warehouse like snowflakes, potentially through vpn tunnels).

Data querying for creating marketing campaign audiences or generating some reporting reporting.

Little development for landing pages, forms, or custom integrations.

Multiple channels (SMS, push, email) & message templating.

And many marketing stuff like AB testing/fatigue, etc


They're an incredible marketing machine.

But mostly it's a mix of the integration network effects you mention, cost of reimplementation if you want to leave, and the good old "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" dynamic.


I don't understand why everyone wants to build a laundry folding robot that is humanoid when we generally build purpose built machines which can do a much better and quicker job.

I want to toss dirty laundry into a hopper and have it come out clean and folded at the other end.

There is no reason to use my existing washer and dryer that are designed for human use.


Yeah but nobody has had any successful ideas for sorting and folding random fabric and clothes in any other way. Its not that people wouldn't mind a non-humanoid laundry robot/device, the problem is nobody has found any other solution to solve the problem, human hands and minds and methods are the only currently known solution.

Because we're already designing machines with reinforcement learning. It would be two steps forward and one step back to design robots who can walk but can't fold laundry. Why would anyone want a third machine next to their washer and dryer if you're already going to have a household robot?

God, not to mention how home are designed around the two-machine space.


The press wants to make it sound like these things are sentient and are committing crimes on their own now.

Highly disingenuous and borderline criminal to spew such disinformation to the public that does not understand what an LLM really is.

Especially incredibly unethical behavior by those spewing this that understand the tech and are doing it for profit motives to get open weight models under control.


We've moved on to LRMs now. Get with it.

That doesn't make them sentient.

Also, distillation means paying US AI firms api fees. Do they want to loose that source of income as well?

Doesn't make a difference if Apple takes security more seriously if they bend like a rubber pole when the government comes asking...

That depends on your threat model.

Realistically intelligence agencies aren’t too interested in my grandma, but malware/scams/bloatware absolutely are.


Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?

The oil that lubricates the combustion chambers and pistons gets burnt and filled with nasty combustion goop. An impressive amount of cleverness goes to minimizing this, but the oil that sees the combustion chambers still goes bad at many times the rate of any other lubricant.

Even on an ICE vehicle, you have transmission oil and differential oil and lubricants in your air conditioning compressor and brake hydraulics and grease smeared on CV joints and door mechanisms and pretty much everything else that moves. But you still talk about "changing THE oil" and mean the oil-that-sees-combustion specifically (along with, typically, the filter that fights the constant battle of getting the worst combustion products out of it). I personally think that makes it fair to say "EVs don't require oil changes" because even though they don't magically eliminate the other lubrication systems or the need to maintain them, they do eliminate the one that is so much more obnoxious than the rest that we commonly called it "THE oil change" before this was ever a debate.


The other systems see less wear and tear as well ... Brakes don't get as hot, transmissions don't have clutches shedding material, and so on.

It does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years.

I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?


By "plenty of things" you mean one thing with a 10yr service interval?

https://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/diy/model3/en_us/GUID-...

You got brake fluid, calipers, but it’s not even close to a regular car.

The dealerships and shops are doing every one a huge disservice by lying about how frequently engine oil needs to be changed. It’s in the manual but even that should be on page one. And then they set reminders on the car inside whatever last changed or when near, miles. So they’ll set it for 5k instead of 6-8k as the manual says and reminder at when you hit 3k. Like cmon.

Or tell me that I need a balance every 3k miles in a Tesla. Shameless.


Engine oil is pretty much the only critical one because of the tolerances between the piston and the cylinder. Loose tolerances allow bypass (inefficiency), but tight tolerances require good lubrication (friction). Engine oil is also unique because it’s exposed to oxygen and combustion byproducts.

The other components just aren't as sensitive or exposed to as much abuse. Often, really only needing replacement if they’ve leaked out.


plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils

I can come up with one. What's your list?


Not op, but brake fluid comes to mind, power steering fluid, transfer/reduction box. All depends on which ev you are talking about. Things like cv joints, axels and other rotating parts also require greases, again depending on make and model. Not that those need yearly replacement but they do need maintenance.

Brake fluid isn’t oil (generally speaking). EVs have electrical motor-driven power steering, not hydraulic. You scored correctly on the reduction box, which will need changing well after most people sell the car (>100K miles).

I find it hard to believe that someone somewhere isn't making an EV with a electric pump to supply a traditional hydraulic steering system. If I had to guess it would be Europe because they love electric over hydraulic steering.

Now you have me wondering if our OG Leaf didn’t work that way, as I have this vague memory that maybe it did.

EDIT: nope, that is definitely an electric motor on the top of that 2011 Leaf steering rack:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254589825844


It’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil. It’s not formulated the same as engine oil, but it’s not far off gear oil.

It’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil.

Nope, glycol-based and synthetic. Not the best article, but best I could find at the moment:

https://engineerfix.com/what-is-brake-fluid-made-of/


For any car there will also be the periodic service bulletin so every once in a while you'll likely want to go in and deal with those too.

Bought a old Nissan juke in 2021 - built in 2011.

Haven't had to change or refill oil once.

Ymmv


“I haven’t brushed my teeth, but I don’t have a cavity - so I’m good”.

Don’t get me wrong, my “fun” car (an old, beat up Jeep) is going on 2 years with the same oil (I barely drive it), but I known I need to change it soon.

Oil degrade with oxygen. Every time you drive that car, the oil are being re-oxygenated and continuing to degrade (along with being exposed to combustion byproducts).

Also, the type of wear you get often isn’t noticeable until it becomes catastrophic. In my case, a 30 year old car that’s already on its last legs “catastrophic” is more like “time to finally drag it to the scrap yard”.


Probably time to change the oil.

Motor oil is a wear product with a lifespan. It will become saturated with microscopic particles of metal and end up with lower lubricity. You are just slowly grinding away all the metal off the moving parts. Eventually the tolerances will fail, usually a rod bearing, leading to self-destruction of the motor.

I mean technically you never need to change the oil on any car if you're willing to just drive it into the ground.

I wonder how long a full synthetic could run in an engine that, for whatever reason, doesn’t push oil hard. 20k miles?

You can find these stories in the mechanics subreddits, typically it's some Toyota came into the shop dying at around 60k miles with the factory oil turned to sludge.

There is a YouTube channel sponsored by people like you:

https://youtube.com/@i_do_cars


What I omitted on purpose is that Ive also only driven it like 4k km during that time period ( ・ั ﹏ ・ั )

Oil is a consumable with both a use lifespan and a time lifespan. So it needs to be changed at the lesser of either of those intervals. Same with tires, which a lot of people don't realize.

True, and I'll probably have to change it soonish, but 5 years/4k km is not in a problematic range.

They do have some gearbox oil that is usually considered to last a lifetime but some sources advise changing it every 100k miles or so. This is analogous to transmission fluid in an ICEV.

The seal between the piston and the cylinder isn't perfect, so when the engine runs combustion products will mix with the oil, making the oil eventually unusable. That's why ICE engines meed oil changes so often.

And in fact it is necessary for it to be imperfect, and the oil is what lubricates the interface. So it is necessarily exposed to lots of heat and pressure.

There is oil for the gearbox, but there's no scheduled maintenance for it at all, and in practice, people regularly get hundreds of thousands of miles without ever needing to think about it.

On a DSG gearbox the interval is 65k km. You should also change the transmission fluid in a regular automatic and a manual transmission. Some cars have a service interval for those transmissions and some don't. The "lifetime" oil statement is a lie.

It refers to the design lifetime of the vehicle. Usually accurate. Mileages may vary.

Bearings and shocks have grease, sure. But those things last decades after installation. They're probably two orders of magnitude lower in volume consumption than engine oil, which gets contaminated and disposed of at the rate of like a gallon or two per vehicle per month.

Like, the price differential is so high that the high end artisinal lubricant market is dominated by chemically synthesized products that aren't strictly petroleum at all (though many of the reagents used to manufacture them probably come out of the petrochemical world).


There are plenty of things that still need oil and grease in EVs still, but it is in such low quantities that we could synthesize most of that from air and it still not being a cost of any concern.

Correct. ~140k miles on my 2018 Model S, tires, wipers and wiper fluid, and one battery pack heater replaced (deprecated, no longer used in newer builds) are all that have been done. Motors are lubricated at manufacture and sealed for life.

https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/tesla-electric-vehicle-pow...


Same here. Got a 2017 Model S. Only wiper fluid and tires and had to change out break disks in the front but besides that, nothing.

I’m still on the original brake discs and rotors luckily but will likely need to replace them soon from corrosion and warping versus consumption. Which is very cool imho.

Transmission/differential oil tends to last a very long time (150-400k, unit doesn’t matter). Automatics require relatively frequent oil changes in comparison, but they’re using the oil to transmit power. Lots of greased parts, but again, the grease will last about as long as the part (mostly because the grease falling apart makes the part fail), which usually lasts the life of the car.

I would imagine if there is oil in the electric motors that is “lifetime” but test really probably 300k miles, so if you drive the car into the ground, you probably would want to service that at some point, assuming they are serviceable without destruction.

There's no oil in electric motors.

The only significant oil is for the reduction gearbox, but as it doesn't change gears the wear is very low. First change will pull out some metal I'd guess, quality of machining dependent. Every 60000km/2Y, 1-2 litres.

Batteries may be immersed in a high dielectric thermal fluid, which will experience some breakdown but over a long time period, more than 10Y.


> There's no oil in electric motors.

Many EVs use hybrid water/oil cooling, typically water for the stator and oil mist/spray for the rotor and exposed parts of the windings.


Playing with semantics. Oil isn't lubricating anything. There is grease in the bearings and the gearbox.

I doubt there's ever been a production car that used grease in the gearbox. Not outside the 1890s, anyway.

Whatever buddy.

Nothing that matters on "people who drive new cars" timelines.

Like yeah there's probably some box with gear oil might get a little nasty after 100-200k but gears are pretty hardy and don't demand all that much.


You’ve got parts with oil that have to be done every 10 years or are completely sealed into the part and are expected to last as long as the part does.

There’s still gearbox oil, diff oil, and brake fluid. These last far longer and are far smaller volumes than engine oil, though.

Nope. I've had a Model 3 since 2018 and besides swapping out tires and window washer fluid, no maintenance.

There was suggested battery fluid maintenance when I first got the car every 3 years or so, but they removed that recommendation.

It's one of the reasons I just can't go back to a regular gas car.


And idea like this is why EVs will still have poor depreciated values even if the battery holds up. Yes it is common for people to ignore all the non-powertrain maintenance items on cars before EVs, but at least in ICE half of them regularly dripped oil down its body and lines and still semi-regularly had somebody kicking the tires and shit when the oil was changed to try and sell you a repair before it fails.

Body, wheels, and suspension components all require maintenance. Just because those components have a less predictable maintenance schedule doesn't mean they don't crap out if problems aren't identified and taken care of. And unless you are driving a short range smart car, EVs weight more than most ICEs, which accelerates the wear and shortens the lifespan of many components.

Don't get me wrong, EVs should be more reliable than ICE still, but in my experiences motor and engine problems are rarely the death knell of a vehicle, body damage and rust are. There are always enough people crashing or junking their cars so that even less reliable motors can be easily had on the used market for cheap, if you don't just swap to something better to start with, but once you get significant body rust 95% of mechanics won't/can't deal with it and repairing metal body shell is a level of skill and tooling that most DIYs aren't going to even attempt.


I don’t understand this criticism. I have owned an EV for five years now. The app and the vehicle display clearly let you know when you are due for scheduled maintenance.

Due to how online the whole platform is, it’s so much better than my older ICE car that has a cryptic wrench light on the dash.

Did I mention that the intervals are also so much cheaper? Tires are the one standout but pretty much every thing else is a dream


There are multiple people in this thread talking about about how their EV requires zero maintenance despite owning them for years, which is just the admitting they are setting up a ticking timebomb of maintenance tasks that are being neglected. And then years down the line they will wonder why their model car has depreciated so poorly despite their battery being in good condition. And they will likely blame ignorance of EVs, rather than considering it is the average owners negligence of maintenance tasks on that car.

What ticking time bombs? Please be specific. I'm an EV owner who has done no maintenance in 26k miles. I want to know which system, if I don't do maintenance, will create some hidden wear which will progress silently until too late.

Shocks, springs, tie rods, steering systems, motor mounts and any other rubber parts, cooling systems, braking system, wheel and possibly motor bearings.

Nothing special for being a car, but an ICE and transmission weren't the only things on cars that move and wear.


There's no maintenance to shocks, springs, tie rods, motor mounts, or wheel bearings. Every one of those announces their failure with clicks or clunks or bouncy ride. I'm not sure when chassis lubrication went away as a maintenance activity but I'm guessing around the '80s. I can remember using a grease gun on my parents' cars but none I owned. EVs obviously eliminate all the engine internals, so no spark plug replacements, no ignition modules, no accessory belt, no timing chain or belt, no engine air filter, no oil filter, no manifolds, catalytic converters or mufflers.

Brakes need to be inspected but my last ICE vehicle went about 90k miles between needing pads. My EV has sealed drums in back (a choice VW made to reduce friction when brakes aren't in use and I think trying to slow corrosion of the components) and conventional large discs in front. If we have issues with the front brakes it will be due to corrosion as I don't expect to put enough wear on them to ever wear through the pads. In normal driving the brakes are only applied at full stops.

I don't expect EVs to have motor mounts like an ICE vehicle, as the motor is a few orders of magnitude smoother (commutation ripple vs cylinder firings) and shouldn't need fluid-filled rubber isolation mounts.

If I think of what I've had to replace on my cars over the years, half-shafts and CV joints and wheel bearings might now be the least reliable mechanical things on the car, plus the oddball failures, like a clock spring in the steering wheel or a window motor.

So I still have to keep tires inflated, rotated and balanced, keep good wipers installed, change the cabin air filter occasionally, and listen to the rest.

My source for my opinion is having done the vast majority of the maintenance and repair of our cars over roughly 4 decades and more than a million miles.


Not really. Most stuff is sealed for life. So it's more replacing whole parts when they fail than changing the oil in something. But many bearings will last hundreds of thousands of miles and never need changing for the entire life of the car. Quite amazing really.

Surely at some point, but it hasn’t yet happened in my short 3 years owning one

The biggest one that needs changing would be the differential.

There is not. Just brake and washer fluid and coolant.

Yeah, but the intervals are much longer.


Same issue on desktop. Would be nice be able to set a prefix or postfix for every prompt.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: