20 Car Innovations That DID NOT Stand the Test of Time

[portland_bill]

Totally agree re Stop /Start for most it increases the sale of batteries, starters and alternators even though they are more expensive and heavier duty to operate this system.

When stop/start was introduced, there were many tales of short battery and starter life, but this has subsided a little. My own experience, with my 2015 Fabia, is that it is still on its original battery, surprising, even without stop/start. Expecting a heavy purchase to be necessary sometime soon. The car mostly gets use two days a week, so the first day stop/start often does nto operate, due to the weak battery state. Next day, all working fine. So battery is getting tired.
The Doblo, has stop/start, but is not well. Being a wheelchair van, it has had little use, and was on 12,000 miles at 6 years old. Battery starts the engine instantly, but obviously not in a good enough state for the sensor, so stop/start does not work. Recently, it has stopped displaying the warning light that tells you it won't operate. Might sometime have a look at that, or not.

Not a fan of Electronic Handbrakes, my understanding it was due to Citroens etc. running away when parked with hot rear brake discs that contracted as they cooled allowing the cars to roll away! So the pressure is better maintained with electrical pull off. I always liked the combination of discs all round but brake drums for the handbrake inside the rear discs, all my 3.5 tonne Iveco Daily's had that and even with a 3.5 tonne trailer as well, worked perfectly.

That was the story I heard too, partly due to drivers not pulling the handbrake properly, and a few cooling after a hard braking session.

The other thing I dislike is Hill Hold which I have on a Skoda Scout 4x4, it never releases instantly meaning on a fairly quick get away your are straining the clutch and the brakes.

Early hill hold was generally awful, some still are, but most now do release smoothly when necessary. A feature on many, is that they will hold for longer on first move away. So if you've stopped, got out, and back in again, or on some just turned off the engine, it'll resist the release, so the driver has to pull harder, giving that jerk as it releases. A normal stop in traffic, should give a smoother release. Too many parameters, too much complication, leads to inconsistent operation, and owner annoyance.

Hill holders seem alright to me..

I've driven a few cack handed ones, usually on cars with rear drums where they tend to stick.

My Doblo seems to operate on the front discs, not the rear drums. Probably easier to facilitate via the ABS module. This brings a strange characteristic. Hill hold only operates for 2-5 seconds, then releases, whether you've moved or not. If the stop is longer, the driver is supposed to use the parking brake. With the Doblo, stop on a slope, the hill hold operates. I apply the handbrake and release the footbrake. 2 seconds later, the hill hold lets go, letting the van flex on its suspension as the rear brakes take over from the front. Just a little scary the first time it happened, makes me smile now. Sadly, hill hold on the Doblo is random, so cannot be relied on anyway.

Ehhhh, whatttttt. Saves on cable wear. And unless you have three legs, Impossible to hold most Fiats on the slightest of cambers, made since like ever!!!!!!!

The parking brakes on most small Fiats have been poor for many years, since the original 500 in my experience. Corsa C was also very poor, with poor leverage at the drums, and a short handbrake lever.
My trick for these, which I've described before on this forum.
Stop normally. Once stopped, press the footbrake hard. This squeezes the rear shoes against the drum. (Normal stopping uses them lightly) Then while holding the footbrake hard, apply the handbrake. I've parked a classic Panda, a Seicento and a couple of Corsas on very steep hills without issue. Will work on any car with drum rear brakes.

 

[StevenRB45]

Sadly, hill hold on the Doblo is random, so cannot be relied on anyway.

The parking brakes on most small Fiats have been poor for many years, since the original 500 in my experience. Corsa C was also very poor, with poor leverage at the drums, and a short handbrake lever.
My trick for these, which I've described before on this forum.
Stop normally. Once stopped, press the footbrake hard. This squeezes the rear shoes against the drum. (Normal stopping uses them lightly) Then while holding the footbrake hard, apply the handbrake. I've parked a classic Panda, a Seicento and a couple of Corsas on very steep hills without issue. Will work on any car with drum rear brakes.

I tend to find the way to combat "random" hill hold is to pump the pedal before taking your foot off.

On uphill stops you've usually come to a rolling halt at no or gentle brake pressure. This isn't enough to hold the car on it's own, so just press the pedal like your mention for the handbrake. This gives more than enough force to hold the car until you move your foot back to the accelerator and move away.


Oh and I had 3 Fiats....one of them had a working handbrake.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Pedestrian protection airbags on a Stilo?

Bonnet lifting devices are surprisingly common now, a lot of regular cars you see on the roads regularly have things like this so while the stilo didn’t last long the technology persisted

 

[bugsymike]

Bonnet lifting devices are surprisingly common now, a lot of regular cars you see on the roads regularly have things like this so while the stilo didn’t last long the technology persisted

There was me thinking the bonnet lifting was because they had an engine fault.

 

[The Panda Nut]

There was me thinking the bonnet lifting was because they had an engine fault.

Or were they being respectful? I keep toying with the idea of a gas strut on the pandas. Must never have time to try to work something out.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Polished metal hub caps and bumpers have been and gone along with suicide doors on nearly everything other than Rolls Royces. What about fold down rear arm rests in the back. Or is it only Pandas that dont have these any more. LOL

 

[bugsymike]

How about EVs as an innovation that doesn't stand the test of time.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

How about EVs as an innovation that doesn't stand the test of time.

'm sure if you go back 100 years there were people saying the same about these new fangled motor cars all the rich people were using.

Realistically though, regardless of peoples views on electric cars they will become the norm, as laws are already changing to rule out the continuation of internal combustion engines.

One of the main reasons that EVs are so popular in China, is because in china they do not have access to any good oil reserves so energy security is dependent on buying in oil, with everyone driving EVs they can shift to an electric economy which has a lot of benefits not just in terms of pollution.

In the UK if everyone who had an EV also combined it with a roof full of solar panels and a battery storage system, then that would massively reduce the dependence on oil and oil infrastructure, you only have to see how the Ukraine is crippling russia by targeting it's oil depots so see how vulnerable oil and gas infrastructure actually is.

a power plant can be taken off line with 1 bomb dropped from an enemy plane, where as thousands of windmills spread around the whole country is a lot harder to target.

I get this is a bit of a weird excuse for moving over to an electric economy but really these are the sort of things that governments are weighing up, not just if a few asthmatic kids might be better off.

I think I wrote about it on here at the time, but I recently had the joy of waiting outside a shop in London for my wife, and I noticed how quiet it was, despite the long line of traffic congesting the road I was standing on. There was at that point maybe only 2 - 4 internal combustion vehicles out of about 30 - 40 in the traffic, not only was it super peaceful but also no choking fumes kicking out,

EVs is definately going to happen, and petrol and diesel cars will become something that classic car enthusiasts keep running.

Right now, 80s and 90s cars even up till the early 2000s are being considered classics in some cases so I can see most internal combustion engine cars being gone within the next 25 -30 years it is not going to be an over night thing, and I suspect my 2 year old may be the last generation who encounters ICE vehicles as they will be disappearing about the time he turns old enough to drive in 2035.

 

[bugsymike]

'm sure if you go back 100 years there were people saying the same about these new fangled motor cars all the rich people were using.

Realistically though, regardless of peoples views on electric cars they will become the norm, as laws are already changing to rule out the continuation of internal combustion engines.

One of the main reasons that EVs are so popular in China, is because in china they do not have access to any good oil reserves so energy security is dependent on buying in oil, with everyone driving EVs they can shift to an electric economy which has a lot of benefits not just in terms of pollution.


I think I wrote about it on here at the time, but I recently had the joy of waiting outside a shop in London for my wife, and I noticed how quiet it was, despite the long line of traffic congesting the road I was standing on. There was at that point maybe only 2 - 4 internal combustion vehicles out of about 30 - 40 in the traffic, not only was it super peaceful but also no choking fumes kicking out,

EVs is definately going to happen, and petrol and diesel cars will become something that classic car enthusiasts keep running.

Right now, 80s and 90s cars even up till the early 2000s are being considered classics in some cases so I can see most internal combustion engine cars being gone within the next 25 -30 years it is not going to be an over night thing, and I suspect my 2 year old may be the last generation who encounters ICE vehicles as they will be disappearing about the time he turns old enough to drive in 2035.

I fully accept the advantages for the environment ( although if China is building ever more coal fired generators to provide the electricity for their factories as they are, then even if we attain Net Zero the results will be unchanged) my current thoughts are in the time span the Governments aim for there will not be the infrastructure to support it, nor sufficient trained mechanics in the servicing and repairs required. I also think that in the long term the second hand market for older EVs will be poor, even now the media are talking about a 31% depreciation year on year for Tesla cars and many EV owners saying their next car will be ICE, so doesn't bode well in my mind.
I don't doubt it will happen for many reasons, but I suspect many poorer people will find it hard to drive to work.

 

[portland_bill]

There is not enough lithium in the planet to replace all the current population of passenger cars, even if battery sizes reduced somewhat. Then we need vans, trucks, emergency vehicles, etc. Plus we also want lithium for our telephones, hearing aids, power tools.
Next we need a grid that can supply the electricity. That's some way away. Each winter we have a little scare that we may not be able to provide enough electricity for demand, without adding lots of EVs.
Lithium batteries carry a risk of spontaneous combustion. Quality of manufacture is important. China make lots of EVs for their home market, and are experiencing fires every day. There is some evidence that the poor quality control is escaping to batteries made for export, as both Mercedes and Skoda have had issues.
I like Toyota's view, that EVs will be here, but not more than about 20% of the market, whereas hybrids can provide electrification in cities, and gain from regenerative braking, without the range and refuelling issues.
Emergency vehicles make less sense as EVs. Gloucester have a few local beat car EVs, but response and traffic cars need range. One police force in California bought a load of Tesla 3s, and have since found them inadequate due mostly to internal space, which should have been identified at the initial sample stage. There are 'EV' fire turcks, but they carry a diesel engine as a 'range extender', and to provide power for the pumps. Not sure I'd want a large lithium battery close to a house fire.
I wonder how much longer I can make the Panda last.

 

[bugsymike]

There is not enough lithium in the planet to replace all the current population of passenger cars, even if battery sizes reduced somewhat. Then we need vans, trucks, emergency vehicles, etc. Plus we also want lithium for our telephones, hearing aids, power tools.
Next we need a grid that can supply the electricity. That's some way away. Each winter we have a little scare that we may not be able to provide enough electricity for demand, without adding lots of EVs.
Lithium batteries carry a risk of spontaneous combustion. Quality of manufacture is important. China make lots of EVs for their home market, and are experiencing fires every day. There is some evidence that the poor quality control is escaping to batteries made for export, as both Mercedes and Skoda have had issues.
I like Toyota's view, that EVs will be here, but not more than about 20% of the market, whereas hybrids can provide electrification in cities, and gain from regenerative braking, without the range and refuelling issues.
Emergency vehicles make less sense as EVs. Gloucester have a few local beat car EVs, but response and traffic cars need range. One police force in California bought a load of Tesla 3s, and have since found them inadequate due mostly to internal space, which should have been identified at the initial sample stage. There are 'EV' fire turcks, but they carry a diesel engine as a 'range extender', and to provide power for the pumps. Not sure I'd want a large lithium battery close to a house fire.
I wonder how much longer I can make the Panda last.

Still Government knows best!!!

 

[PuntoHowTo]

There is some suggestion the future may lay in sodium ion batteries which are of similar construction similar performance but sodium is significantly more abundant and cheaper to extract, as well as safer with being less violently reactive compared to lithium

 

[bugsymike]

There is some suggestion the future may lay in sodium ion batteries which are of similar construction similar performance but sodium is significantly more abundant and cheaper to extract, as well as safer with being less violently reactive compared to lithium

It's all worth investigating to get the correct solution , but I feel Governments are too exposed to people lobbying with vested interests, with the end result all eggs in one basket.
Often the wrong one, which the public has to pick up the bill for, whilst they all go off to inflated tax free index linked retirement.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I watched an interesting video the other day talking about the motor industry as a whole and how things that go on with cars and the motor industry just wouldn't be allowed in any other situation.

There always was the long running thing about "big oil" ruling the world.

The whole reason in the USA you can get arrested for Jaywalking is because car companies lobbied the government, as it couldn't possibly be a cars fault if a person got run over it had to be the person, so they introduced laws on pedestrians crossing the road. The oil industry has a tighter grip on the US government than probably any other country in the world.

So if you consider 100 years of oil companies convincing the world what we actually need is to burn more oil, is it any wonder that they don't like the idea of electric cars?

We hear all the stories about electric car fires, but day after day goes by we don't hear about petrol or diesel car fires, which happen much more often.

Electric car fires are much harder to tackle because of the large steel armored box the batteries are kept in, the fire services do know and are able to put out electric car fires, and in the last couple of years alone there have been big improvements in the designs of battery venting technologies which prevents the vented gases from igniting, prevents the heat build up inside the battery compartment, that leads to thermal runaway across the whole pack.
Cheap crap from China, I'm not going to talk about or go anywhere near, but just remember one Chinese brand BYD which is now widely on sale in the UK has become known as "Burn Your Drive" due to the massive issues with cars and even whole dealerships burning down in china. So while there are issues, there are also advancements going on every day that are making EVs better, more reliable and less prone (except in China) of burning down your house, it is probably the drive towards ever cheaper cars, such as the BYD and others that means the cars are badly built, more prone to accidents and of poor design due to cutting corners that then impacts on people's perception of EVs, as if you go and sit in an EV from Merc or BWM, Ford or other mainstream brands, you'll not notice any difference between them and other cars from that manufacturer.

 

[bugsymike]

hear all the stories about electric car fires, but day after day goes by we don't hear about petrol or diesel car fires, which happen much more often.

Electric car fires are much harder to tackle because of the large steel armored box the batteries are kept in, the fire services do know and are able to put out electric car fires, and in the last couple of years alone there have been big improvements in the designs of battery venting technologies which prevents the vented gases from igniting, prevents the heat build up inside the battery compartment, that leads to thermal runaway across the whole pack.
Cheap crap from China, I'm not going to talk about or go anywhere near, but just remember one Chinese brand BYD which is now widely on sale in the UK has become known as "Burn Your Drive" due to the massive issues with cars and even whole dealerships burning down in china. So while there are issues, there are also advancements going on every day that are making EVs better, more reliable and less prone (except in China) of burning down your house, it is probably the drive towards ever cheaper cars, such as the BYD and others that means the cars are badly built, more prone to accidents and of poor design due to cutting corners that then impacts on people's perception of EVs, as if you go and sit in an EV from Merc or BWM, Ford or other mainstream brands, you'll not notice any difference between them and other cars from that manufacturer.

Is that because there are much more petrol and diesel cars, including older and maybe less regularly serviced in some case, whereas the EVs are still quite new so shouldn't be worn out and badly maintained and yet some have issues.
I saw on a TV program that Fiat are halting production on 500 EVs for a few months due to lack of public demand.
I agree that big multi National companies have an undue influence across the World , greater than any Government's power, big Pharma" is another example.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

So apparently and depending where you look, electric car fires account for less than half a percent 0.4% of all vehicle fires. And it would be fair to argue that is because there are less of them on the roads, but then you start looking at stats for cars where the number of the cars doesn't matter so much, such as

Tesla released stats showed that there is one car fire for more than 200million miles traveled in tesla cars. so if you had 2000 teslas, you would have to take 2000 Tesla cars and drive all of them in excess of 100,000 miles to get one car fire.
While there is around 1 ICE car fire for every 19 million miles traveled and tesla EVs are said to cause the highest number of EV fires.

Hybrids apparently have a greater risk of catching fire than full EVs,

For internal combustion cars there are apparently over 1500 fires for every 100,000 cars sold, with a 0.1% chance of an ICE car catching fire so more than double that of an EV.
Apparently the figure for EV fires is somewhere around 25 EV fires for every 100,000 sold.
and Hybrids will catch fire around 3500 times for every 100,000 cars sold.

There is a 1% chance of ICE cars catching fire where as the same statistic for EVs is just 0.0012%

The 1% of ICE cars chance of catching fire relates to the first 12 years of life in many reports, and most EVs are less than 12 years old, basically they are not looking at ICE cars older than 12 years old, so the higher rate of fires in ICE cars is not attributable to age.

I know people like to make assumptions about ICE car fires being caused by older unmaintained cars, but I think with cars in general they are probably more likely to catch fire when they are new due to manufacturing issue then that risk goes down over time as older cars tend to get fixed or not exhibit the manufacturing issues that newer cars can have.

When you really start digging into the figures they do not reflect the media presentation that EVs are catching fire all over the place and risking peoples lives, arguably ICE cars are much, Much worse and hybrids that people keep saying is a happy medium are the worst of both worlds.

As the old adage goes the more complex it is, the more there is to go wrong, EVS are incredibly simple with very few moving parts, no highly flammable liquids, being pumped all over the car and require considerably less maintenance which means less likelihood of being neglected as well, worst case for most EVs is you keep an eye on the brake pads and top up the washer fluid every once in a while.

 

[bugsymike]

In general I accept the points you make.
My concerns are many people have no choice but to drive older/cheaper cars just to get to work etc. and away from cities public transport is pretty minimal, so when they are in the market for a cheap car and older well worn EVs come along in time, that is when the problems will arise as there are fewer trained EV mechanics than are needed at present and servicing and specialist repairs are never cheap. Even now depreciation on EVs is much higher than ICE.
My other concern is the speed of an electrical fire taking hold in a vehicle gives little time to escape from the choking fumes etc. whereas generally a petrol or diesel will start to show signs of imminent disaster giving time to pull to the side of the road and watch as the bonnet starts to glow red hot safely from behind the barriers of the hard shoulder, to the amusement of the "rubbernecks" until they realise they are about to hit the car in front doing the same thing

 

[portland_bill]

The biggest issues with EV fires are the temperature, and the inability to extinguish them.
Petrol burns at around 850 degrees C, diesel at 650 degrees. EV lithium ion batteries are around 2500 degrees, so they cause significantly more damage, and can affect things further away. The current recommendation is to park any damaged EV at least 15metres away from any other combustible material. As a result, many recovery companies will not touch them, as they do not have acres of old airfield to park them on.
When a lithium ion battery burns, the chemical reactions create oxygen. To extinguish a fire, you need to break the triangle of fuel, heat and oxygen. Difficult to do when the heat is so high that water only contains it, not cools it significantly, and you cannot smother it to starve it of oxygen, as it creates its own.
There's a firefighter captain in the US who has specialised in lithium ion fires, initially small but now including EVs, and he regularly posts on YouTube. He is the industry expert as far as fighting such fires goes. Typically, an ICE car fire requires one fire truck, and is sorted within an hour. An EV fire requires a minimum of two trucks, and typically lasts 2-3 hours, just letting it burn and containing the spread, but then the vehicle needs a fire crew attending it for up to 12 hours after the fire appears to be extinguished. As an EV is taken on a recovery truck to a containment or disposal site, it will usually be followed by at least one fire truck. Many recovery companies are not willing to risk their trucks.

An ICE car fire in a domestic garage, multi-storey car park or underground car park can be dealt with quickly, and will result in some minor damage to the building. An EV typically takes the building down.

Whilst the risk is low, the consequences are very high. One is too many.

 

[portland_bill]

And there, in my Youtube recommendations is this:

 

[PuntoHowTo]

An ICE car fire in a domestic garage, multi-storey car park or underground car park can be dealt with quickly, and will result in some minor damage to the building. An EV typically takes the building down.

Whilst the risk is low, the consequences are very high. One is too many.

I’d maybe agree with this except that massive fire at Luton airport, that wiped out 1500 cars was started by a diesel landrover.

One is too many no matter what the cause, but even with the additional resources given to tackling an electric car fire,

the resources in tackling combustion related fires massively exceeds that of EVs

In general I accept the points you make.
My concerns are many people have no choice but to drive older/cheaper cars just to get to work etc. and away from cities public transport is pretty minimal, so when they are in the market for a cheap car and older well worn EVs come along in time, that is when the problems will arise as there are fewer trained EV mechanics than are needed at present and servicing and specialist repairs are never cheap. Even now depreciation on EVs is much higher than ICE.
My other concern is the speed of an electrical fire taking hold in a vehicle gives little time to escape from the choking fumes etc. whereas generally a petrol or diesel will start to show signs of imminent disaster giving time to pull to the side of the road and watch as the bonnet starts to glow red hot safely from behind the barriers of the hard shoulder, to the amusement of the "rubbernecks" until they realise they are about to hit the car in front doing the same thing

This I can agree with, I know what you mean about people needing cheaper older cars, in some respects though the massive depreciation on EVs in some case is making second hand EVs cheaper than petrol or diesel alternatives.

I’ve lived in rural norfolk for over 10 years, one thing that I’ve seen time and time again is people living out this way, tend to have the most expensive cars. I appreciate that it’s not representative of everyone across the country but, there are more fancy cars and fancy houses out in the countryside, than in the towns and cities.