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Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

A lot of these 'abandoned' cars are valuable at this point. There's a forest near Chatillon in Belgium where US servicemen parked their cars at the end of WWII, hoping to return one day and retrieve them. https://www.digitaltrends.com/dtdesign/belgian-car-graveyard...

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I lived in Chatillon for 15 years and was going to tell you that this US servicemen story is made up, but I read the article you've linked and was pleased to see that the truth is finally out ;)

Based on the popularity of YouTube channels aimed at restoring or even just getting abandoned cars' engines to start, I'd say they have a lot more than just intrinsic value.

(It makes me wonder if, e.g. 50 or 60 years from now, people will be finding abandoned Teslas and such and trying to get them moving again.)

The beauty of older cars are their simplicity and the fact they were designed to be owner maintained. Teslas and virtually all modern cars require expensive unique software diagnostic tools, getting past drm hurdles and a lack of workshop manuals. Modern cars are also typically sold with services packages included for a 3 year/mileage amount after which value drops significantly. It would be great to get back to basics with a simple EV that is owner servicable in the future

OTOH electric cars are much simpler than IC cars, so getting one running again in 70 years will probably be mostly an issue of finding a new battery.

> OTOH electric cars are much simpler than IC cars

Unfortunately, not in the case of Tesla.

Every subsystem is a computer, even the door handles.

Also, the battery is at the wheel level, so Teslas are more prone to flood damage than any other car.

If you buy a Tesla, get a warranty.

Electric cars are simpler mechanically, but electronically much more complex and electronics can fail super easily, as in not necessarily the hardware itself but the firmware controlling it has no idea how to account for 70 years worth of decay to the mechanical components so it'll probably not let you run it until you visit a service and have if reset with the manufacturer's proprietary tools with DRM and online connectivity. Good luck sourcing those in 70 years.

A Tesla Model 3 suffered a catastrophic failure while parked[1], I have no idea how people expect them to last 70 years in storage. That's not just a Tesla issue BTW, but all modern cars with too many computers.

OTOH, old school ICE cars are much simpler to get started if they've been sitting for 70 years. Replace battery, sparkplugs, fluids, gaskets and any other rubber bits and flip the ignition. Done.

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30361800/tesla-model-3-lo...

I downvoted you because the complexity of the software and electronics in a modern electric car is much higher than an old ICE car. The source code is private, schematics are hard or impossible to get, and replacement chips can't be fabbed at home like metal engine parts.

Fair enough, but I was also assuming that integrated circuits wouldn't wear out from sitting in a cow pasture quite as fast as a steel engine block would. Software doesn't rust.

Then again maybe I'm being naive. Lightning strikes happen, power supply glitches happen, and the lack of schematics and source code would indeed be a huge barrier to debugging. Unless somebody develops AI-enabled JTAG reverse-engineering systems in the future.

Software does not rust but the board it sits on does. Not to mention we still haven't managed to create any longterm storage that does not loose data...

In 50 years an old 'barn find' Tesla might seem stupidly simple compared to contemporary transportation devices. It might even function without network connectivity.

How do you expect an old 'barn field' Tesla to work in 50 years when some are suffering failures being parked for 20 minutes? That's not just a Tesla issue BTW, but all modern cars with too many computers. Mechanical components are more predictable to time decay than hardware and firmware.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30361800/tesla-model-3-lo...

That's just simple survivorship bias. Many cars from 50 years ago haven't survived just like that Tesla.

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