this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Will use 4x as much electricity though, ugh.
https://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/your-old-refrigerator-energy-hog
Anyone know of any refrigerators today that are as durable as older ones and have today's efficiencies, but without the smart features and other junk?
Average refrigerator today still lasts 13 years though, and while they're made cheaply they also are cheaper (at least as a portion percentage of the average paycheck).
https://reviewed.usatoday.com/dishwashers/features/ask-the-experts-why-dont-new-home-appliances-last
Sub Zero, Thermador... High end refrigerators, just look at the price, we decided to forget the idea because of that.
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I've heard that in the US fridges are generally different, with stuff like active fans and nonsense like that. Is that true?
Because every fridge I've seen in Europe is mechanically extremely basic and I've literally never seen or even heard of one breaking. In my experience fridges are one of the only things that have remained phenomenally simple in design and extremely unlikely to break.
If someone told me their fridge broke, I'd genuinely assume they were lying. That's how reliable they are.
Well there are evaporator fans in modern refrigerators in the US. They serve an important role though helping with defrosting, improving cooling efficiency, and evenness of cooling throughout the fridge.
https://refrigeratorguide.net/maximize-cooling-efficiency-best-refrigerator-evaporator/
Usually only very small refrigerators are without them now.
It is another point of failure though, but should be pretty easily repairable. I mean it'll still be able to cool without the fan, but it'll be running much more to try and compensate and keep things cool though.
If you know the YouTube channel technology connections, here's a fun video of him messing around with a fanless style refrigerator:
Every LG and Samsung major appliance I've had has broken within 5 years.
Refrigerators, washing machines, and dryers.
Prior, I only ever had 80s era American tank energy hogs. Switched back to American brands in the last few years, so too soon to tell if they'll work out better...
Here's to hoping.
Oh, and having dealt with LG warranty for both electronics and major appliances, I'll never buy another LG product that isn't a monitor.
LG monitors are the only higher end LG product's I've owned that have survived well past the warranty date.
I think Samsung is generally considered trash now. I certainly will never buy any of their "smart" objects either, especially not an ad-ridden TV.
I can confirm Samsung appliances are complete trash. Every single one I've owned has either died or had a non-replaceable part fail within a couple years. We had a Samsung fridge at one point and one of the door switches failed. No big deal right, easy to replace? No, apparently Samsung used some kind of custom switch instead of the bog standard cherry contact switch that basically everything and everyone has used for decades, and it's no longer being manufactured.
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Samsungs don't just fail; they are incredibly precisely engineered to fail on purpose not too long after the warranty ends.
I had a Samsung front-load washing machine that failed after maybe six years or so: the drum quit turning and it started making a terrible banging noise instead. I decided to take it apart to see what went wrong. Every single part in it was pristine and in perfect working order -- electronic parts, mechanical parts, rubber parts, plastic parts, even the stainless-steel parts exposed to the water and detergent all that time -- everything looked brand-new.
That is, except for the "spider arm," which is the large bracket that connects the axle to the drum. That one single part was made out of a completely different kind of metal and had corroded completely through. It was blatantly designed not to stand up to water and detergent. The excellent condition of the metal in the rest of the machine showed that they were perfectly capable of choosing the right material for the job, but deliberately chose not to. It was the most brazen, shameless instance of planned obsolescence I've ever heard of before or since.
(Not my pic, but it looked pretty much like this -- except mine was in three wholly separate pieces! And, as I mentioned, the axle and drum were shiny and brushed, respectively, with zero rust or residue of any kind at all.)
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We have a refrigerator from the '80s that runs like a champ.
Solved the energy problem by putting solar panels on the roof.
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I haven’t looked at the statistical data on this myself, but there’s something to be said for survivorship bias.
Not to mention those old fridges are Horribly inefficient on energy
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forever cars no make profit line go up
Time to make a billion dollars on something else, then start up a car company designed to fail. No investors, design a car for a 60-70k buying price, few bells and whistles, but built to last indefinitely with basic maintenance. Start the company planning to practically close it down just after the last preorder customer has their car delivered and become a maintenance company with a few employees to make replacement parts and install them. If demand rises, redesign for the new times, ramp up and do it all again.
"Why do you hate freedom? And America? And puppies? And apple pie?" -Republicans, probably
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Like the new LED lightbulbs. Buy one now and they last a year or so. I bought one of them WAY back when they were brand new and horribly expensive and the damn thing still works just fine.
Companies can't stand new technologies that just work. They have to build in planned obsolescence. See also: smartphones, especially iTrash that make you buy a new one every year or two because updates slow them down.
Good ones still last a long time. What fails is generally not the LED itself but the cheap-ass rectifier in a cheap-ass case that is optimised for production price instead of heat dissipation. The fixture can also be an issue as nobody designed for heat dissipation in the days of incandescent bulbs, you might be baking those poor capacitors.
And those kinds of bulbs will stay available because there's plenty of commercial users doing their due diligence on life-time costs. Washing machines, fridges? Yes, those too, though commercial ones aren't necessarily cheap. Want a solid pair of pants? Ask a construction crew what they're wearing.
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The problem with LEDs isn't the bit that emits lights. It's the power supply, specifically the electrolytic capacitors. Good designs either use higher quality caps, or use designs that avoid electrolytic caps altogether. Either one takes a bit more money, but the market is always in a race to the bottom.
Long term, I think we should be avoiding traditional light fixtures entirely. It's better to have a lot of little lights spread over an area rather than a few point sources in the room. That gives us the opportunity to separate the power supply from the lights entirely, like LED strips do.
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Seriously, no one is going to mention "Right To Repair"? If this was law, and companies had to divulge how there stuff worked and was assembled, as well as sell parts, things would last longer. If every trade zone had a repairablity index, competition would make things last longer still.
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All cars could last a lot longer if people kept maintaining them and - importantly - didn't damage them. Electric cars are not going to be immune to this, I can't see them lasting much longer on average than ICE cars.
Keep in mind that even when you change out the engine for something with less parts the rest of the car still remains and contains things which will eventually cause issues. For example I bought a cheap van a few months ago and here's some of the reasons it was cheap that are not ICE specific:
- Steering wheel lock mechanism sticking
- Air distribution flap cables kinked/binding so A/C only blew at feet
- Central locking on side door sticking
- Rear shocks leaking
- Front strut mount bushings worn
- Head unit not functioning
Presumably the previous owner just didn't want to spend the money on fixing these issues as they arose, and eventually it added up into a lot of potential expense (if you have to pay someone to fix it for you) and more reasons to sell the car. Such behaviour seems pretty common in my experience and I fully expect it to continue with EVs. It'll be hard enough to get people to even maintain their brakes and change the motor coolant considering the natural reluctance of people to spend money on maintenance and this unfortunately prevalent idea that EVs don't need it.
Funnily enough the main ICE specific problem with that van was just as much an electrical issue as part of the petrol engine - an intermittent secondary air injection error code which ended up being down to a combination of a sticking valve and a fuse with a hairline crack causing an intermittent connection.
A lot of this also comes back to asshole design, and EV's can be particularly bad for this. Switching to large touch "entertainment" displays is a major issue. With my last ICE (Honda) vehicle, it was integrated into the backup+side cameras and a few comfort/convenience features. I could still replace that with a new head unit, though only certain ones would still support the cameras.
My wife's EV (Hyundai) on the other hand, the console isn't really made in a way where it seems swappable, and even if it was there are major system functions - such as configuring charge/power settings - which can only be configured from that (or the dogshyte app that screws up often and requires a paid subscription after 3yr)
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Friend of mine bought an EV. Didn't even last a month. He landed in a tree.
Goddamn planned obsolescence.
*planted obsolescence
What was the issue? Do you know?
Handing out driving licences like they were sweets instead of actually testing people's ability to drive, maybe?
This is often the issue. Not in this case though. He had his license for 24 years, while driving from the south of Germany to the Netherlands back and forth twice a month. He never had an accident before.
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I think the tree didn't give way when it should have and damaged it a bit, hard to tell though
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After ~20-30 years, rubber gaskets and seals and cable insulation start failing. Plastic becomes brittle, especially if exposed to the sun. How do they solve this problem?
I would think an electric vehicle would have quite a lot fewer things like gaskets and other seals since gas isn't involved. Other than the normal wear and tear items like brakes, shocks, rotors, etc, battery repair would be the major thing I'd expect to need work. I imagine many mechanics aren't trained to handle these, so they end up just replacing the whole unit. Obviously this is wasteful though but could be easily solved via training.
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What about it's batteries?
They are still chemical so they wouldn't last forever.
Batteries can be replaced. An EV that could run 1 million miles would still need maintenance - I think the point is that they could be designed to last.
Planned obsolescence is so wide spread we don't even notice it, but lots of products are designed to fail either through cheaper components or deliberately flawed design. That means we have to go and buy a replacement. It is also generally cheaper.
So we either have cheap products that will break or seemingly expensive products but they last for a very long time. But in the long run the cheap products generally cost you more to buy than one expensive product.
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Yes, the batteries would need to be replaced but that means designing them to be replaced.
Unlike the Tesla model Y which built the battery into the frame and filled it with foam so that it absolutely cannot get replaced. Musk said the way to replace the battery is to send the entire car to the scrap yard and recover the lithium from the shredder.
Another reason on my list why to never buy a Tesla.
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Car manufacturers:
I've been taught that capitalism is all about innovation... So I'm sure the perfect long life car is just around the corner, they wouldn't actually just build crappy cars just to force us in a never ending cycle of consumerism, right?... Right?
/S ... in case it wasn't on the nose enough
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I would love to see a car company create a vehicle platform with battery replacements central to the design of the car. Make larger packs out of smaller units so their larger models (or simply longer range models) simply use more of the smaller pack units. Recycle old packs back into making newer ones to reduce the need to mine more materials.
Sure, charge me enough on the replacement to keep this cycle going. Buying a car you know will get battery (and therefore range) upgrades as time goes on is a no-brainer.
Imagine the goodwill and free word-of-mouth advertising you would receive if you went the extra mile and open sourced all the software for the vehicle and allowed users to modify it if they wanted. Make the car not look like dogshit and I imagine you'd do well.
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Surely the free market and competition will deliver what customers want, right? ... Right?!?
My family bought an electric forklift for their factory in the early 90s. I think it is a Yale.
My sister has since taken over the forklift for her company and she has only replaced the batteries and the controller once.
These things are cheap to replace and not as much of a mystery as ICE engines.
I am seeing people replace old Prius hybrid batteries themselves with basic tools now.
I think the only thing I would be concern about is the crash safety for cars. Newer cars are safer. I think that would be the only draw to buy a newer vehicle.
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Its really worth reading the whole Article. Im looking forward to long lasting EVs, but I really fear that, what the author also described in his article, may come true. I think we will see that car manufacturers will start to act like hardware company's and start to force you to regularly buy a new car by making your car incompatible to new features or by designing it to fail after a few years.
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so do most electronics.
but you know, line must go up.
Good luck with that. Planned obsolescence is a key ingredient in capitalism. I mean what better way to make line go up than to turn a one-time purchase into a repeat purchase? This shareholders and executives will never be able to step on the working class if they can't gouge customers. Won't anyone think of the shareholders?
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This is basically like saying combustion vehicles could last nearly forever if you replaced the engine every now and then
I mean...they can, you just refresh the motor. Tons of ICE vehicles out there with 400-500k miles on them. Hell most semi trucks have millions of miles on them.
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