this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 121 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Great, now we have disposable automobiles.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They already are disposable I got news for you.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago

I'm pretty sure cars are some of the most reused, repaired, and recycled products we have.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago

The vehicles will be much cheaper to make. A shame costs savings will leave out the consumer and also cause all vehicle insurance rates to go way up.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 2 years ago (3 children)

This article is misleading. If a car crash is bad enough that it damages the frame of a car, it's going to get totalled anyway. So either way it's going to go to a junk yard and get slowly parted out.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No. These cast parts take up a lot more area. They will get damaged much more frequently than a frame being damaged.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lots of 'totaled' cars that still function fine get shipped to other countries with less picky used car markets too.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I once took a taxi in Addis Ababa that had slicks and a view of the road under the car. Very fancy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not true. Some idiot t boned me and they had to replace the frame of my car. It cost her $7k and my car is worth about twice that today.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

You can contest that you were not fully reimbursed for the expense/what you have received in not equivalent in value to what you had.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Manufacturers are joining the era of disposable cars.

Consumers are joining the era of disposing of cars.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Many consumers treat their cars as disposable already

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Reject modernity, revert to Swedish brick car.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It will reduce costs for toyota.

I doubt the consumers will see any savings.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

C level executives will have big fat bonuses tho

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 years ago (3 children)

As mentioned in another thread, there is a paintless dent repair video on YT of a fix done to the corner of a Rivian rear bumper

The owner claimed that he was quoted $41K. To do the work, they would need to cut the body all the way up to the front of the roof

The PDR fix was close to perfect in this case

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Enshitification has infected Toyota. What a shame.

Just another brand I can start avoiding.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 years ago

Corporate execs: How can we force people into even more debt so we can have even more money than we'll ever need or spend?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Impossible seems a bit dramatic. Cost prohibitive is more better

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

If it is cost prohibitive for a majority, then it’s pretty damn near impossible.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago

If you have a large cast part you could do the same thing as you do with a frame or body panel now. As long as there’s a replacement cast part ready, it is lots of work in some cases, so it’s less “impossible to repair” and more accurately “cost prohibitive to repair”

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Has anyone come up with a guess on the cost of swapping out an entire cast body section vs replacing or refurbishing the parts that would be there without the cast?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think point is without the cast body section you could just replace broken parts which may be significantly less. In practice though I don't think it matters that much. Small accidents hopefully don't damage the frame and if they do it's often a bit dubious repairing it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Yeah, I think once you get to the point where the car needs the frame worked on, it's probably going to get scrapped whether it has a cast frame or not.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

.. on a 1st world country.

we definetly do those kinds of repairs over here

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The problem is that you'd have to pretty much disassemble half the vehicle to replace a cast part, and that will be thousands extra in labor.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Considering that the cast part is practically half the vehicle, I wonder if it is easier to change out the cast vs several frame parts.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

Toyota has fallen, billions must ride horses

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

Article does not have the numbers, and I filled in DDGing the Numbers. How many cars have their frames repaired each year?

My anecdotal experience indicates very few car frames are repaired each year, though not zero.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Gigacasting saves car companies money, it doesn't save car owners money. For the manufacturer it reduces their bill of materials and time take to assemble a vehicle. They might save a couple of hundred bucks. Possibly.

For the owner, it increases the risk that a small collision runs a fracture along the body of their car which is then basically impossible to repair and the entire vehicle is a writeoff. Castings could potentially have sacrificial points where some kinds of damage could be ground off and replaced with stamped metal but even if that were so, it's still less repairable than if the entire frame of the car were assembled of stamped metal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's more than a couple hundred dollars. Production time will drop from 10 to 5 hours per car. The tooling and multiple parts eliminated from large casts will save thousands.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Guess I won't be sticking with Toyota when my Prius finally craps out. Too bad. It's a great car.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

this is just more outsourcing the costs onto the public and privatizing the profits for short term gain, they're hoping the entire industry folds in on this but I am absolutely not buying a car where some asshole bumping into my parked car will result in me having to replace the whole front third.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What will EU do?

Coz they gptta do something at some point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Help the consumer, cause somebody got to.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

All according to kaikaku

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Good luck getting comprehensive car insurance.

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