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Hitchless Towing... (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 96 points 1 week ago

Have you ever printed something via wifi and it works and you're like "ok, cool, I've set it up and it works" and then you don't change anything at all and you go to print and your computer is like "no sweat, we're definitely connected to the printer" and nothing prints, so you send more inputs and still nothing, so you take a break and then go to investigate and the printer is printing out 30 copies and you desperately try to cancel them but the printer keeps going like its on a mission from God?

That, but its a 6 ton trailer that's phantom driving 60 miles an hour.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 59 points 1 week ago

"Trailer. Unpaired."

"NOOOO"

[-] ellieficent@reddthat.com 12 points 1 week ago

Your music slightly quiets, you think you just heard the windows Bluetooth disconnect sound... but the music goes back to original volume and everyone looks at each other like "did I just hear something? Nah, musta be crazy" and you go back to driving while your trailer quietly passes you by in the right lane.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 8 points 1 week ago

I've actually seen that sort of happen with a conventional trailer, as someone hit a bad railroad crossing and seemingly didn't have the trailer chains that you should have for such things. Watched both the truck and trailer go past while I was at the light, and thought, "huh, don't see that often."

[-] MoonMelon@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago

The print spooler is basically the Typhon Expanse. You send a bunch of print jobs that disappear, and when you walk down there to see what the fuck is up some ancient print job pops out like Kelsey Grammer wearing the ancient Star Fleet uniform with the stack-of-coffee-filters collar.

[-] unphazed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Answer: Linux. My Windows machines jist fucking hate printers, I often have to delete and reinstall jist to get them to work. My Bazzite machine; "Sure, coming right up. Btw, you haven't restarted your machine in 70 days, you really need to install updates."

[-] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 70 points 1 week ago

not even considering all the techy computery things that can go wrong, the little towing dongle needs its own whole drivetrain, with an engine more powerful than the car, so that it can keep up while hauling a load, better brakes so it can stop quicker than the car while hauling a load, and automated steering system. it's like buying, and paying for gas for, a whole second car that's better than the car you already have, but without seats

[-] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 37 points 1 week ago

It seems to me that the use-case for this technique is freight hauling, where a series of trailers follow a single, human-driven truck, thereby skirting the law and reducing payroll. And, once again, the techbros have re-invented trains, but worse.

[-] ZC3rr0r@piefed.ca 5 points 1 week ago

This is an idea similar to driverless / autonomous vehicles. Great on paper, but nigh impossible in the real world.

Imagine if you will a road train of several dozen trailers and a lead driver: what happens if wildlife jumps in between the lead driver and the rest of the convoy? Or if the lead vehicle has to make an emergency correction? Or if other traffic merges into the convoy? Or one of the trailers crashes?

There are so many ways this can go wrong and only one perfect scenario in which i all "just works".

[-] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

It also needs enough ballast for the whole thing not to become unstable, which also lowers efficiency if it's not itself carrying passengers or cargo.

[-] ellieficent@reddthat.com 5 points 1 week ago

While that was my first thought, it might actually be useful in the "I rarely tow anything" category.. like a Uhaul rental. So you don't need to actually OWN the towing dongle. Or a car with that much power. You just rent it when you need it.

Which honestly would be nice... we've got too many people who own massive gas guzzlers just for that one or two times a year they need to use it for its intended purpose.

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 5 points 1 week ago

just for that one or two times a year they need to use it for its intended purpose.

Nah, that's only the justification they use. Actually, they own massive gas guzzlers because it helps with their personal insecurity and makes them feel more manly.

[-] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

All for what, less wear on your main vehicle

Absurd

[-] trem 2 points 1 week ago

I saw this picture many years ago already, so I don't think that's happening anymore...

[-] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I imagine people would rent these, not buy them. And it would mean you didn't need a car rated to tow whatever trailer you have.

[-] balsoft@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 week ago

I was like 90% sure it's a joke. It's not

Thankfully it was published 4 years ago and didn't seem to go anywhere in that time. Good.

I immediately checked to see if it was posted on April 1st. It was not

[-] arrow74@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 week ago

Why did we skip past cool tech and go straight to idiocy.

Like if your car and trailer are connected physically and digitally that could be cool an enhance safety. A trailer that can respond and assist a hard brake? Cool. Wifi or digital connection goes down? Okay now it just works like a normal trailer.

But no that's too simple and it works

[-] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

A trailer that can respond and assist a hard brake

we already have that, and it's legally required for trailers above a specific weight in many places

[-] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

but think about how much more money the manufacturers could make if it claimed to be AI powered

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 10 points 1 week ago

A trailer that can respond and assist a hard brake?

Trailer brakes have existed for a long time, and are common. They're often mandatory in some settings.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Why did we skip past cool tech and go straight to idiocy.

We didn't skip past cool tech. We plucked a bunch of low hanging fruit. And now that fruit is gone. So we're getting weird with it to justify further consumer spending.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I presume the concept is "you have need to tow a 5,000 pound trailer and you just have your Toyota Corolla"

To provide effective towing, your vehicle has to be rugged, powerful, and weigh enough to not get yanked around by your load, meaning even when not towing it's a heavy vehicle. Instead this imagines a self-driving, passengerless truck that plays follow the leader and hopes it's close enough to towing to be allowed.

Of course, the problem as illustrated is that they show a tiny little thing towing a big payload. The physics just doesn't work (I suppose if the trailer is hollow aluminum and the tow is lead...)

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literally what's the point of that

[-] Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

Another large purchase to foist onto consumers who opt out of the truck market, but fantasize about using this machine to haul stuff all over town.

[-] cheat700000007@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

"Towing" with a small car that couldn't otherwise is the only reason I can think of.

Still dumb, but it's something

[-] smh@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

Maybe you could tow with a motorcycle? I dunno.

Look up the towing capacity of a mid sized SUV. They can't tow shit, you basically need a pickup to tow anything over 1500lbs. That's only a small Uhaul 5x8 trailer.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Sure, but here you basically have to have an autonomous pickup truck following you. The question is if you need something about the size of a pickup anyway, why not just drive the pickup?

The diagram shows something impossible, a tiny little autonomous tow vehicle. The physics just don't support it. Even a tractor is only acceptable for towing a big load by virtue of going at a relative snail's pace. At speed the bigger mass will tend to dictate how the physics goes. So for decent payload, you'll need basically a full on pickup truck.

So the usage scenario is "I want to rent something almost exactly like a pickup truck, but am not willing to actually drive the pickup truck".

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[-] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 9 points 1 week ago

I own several wifi jammers, lets see how this works out

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Guys sliding into the DMs with a "Watch this one neat trick where I disable your wifi" when wifi is so unreliable that nobody will notice.

[-] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 4 points 1 week ago

Just disabling? I disabled it then hosted an evil twin with the same name :) your toyota is mine

[-] IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 3 points 1 week ago

I made the device with FOSS code and like 30 bucks

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago

FCC wants to know your location.

[-] Jackusflackus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

This may be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen be greenlit

[-] makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Hey you know how towing takes advantage of the crazy amount of extra torque car engines have to facilitate the insane driving people do to increase that efficiency? What if we got rid of that, gave you another thing you had to fill up, and you just have to pray the most recent patch doesn't make your trailer drive into a lake because it didn't know the ramp was closed

Would you pay extra for that?

[-] eletes@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago

Reads like a scene out of snow crash

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Given it's Toyota, did they think this was the option to give Priuses and such a tow option? It's clearly insane, but I could imagine the stupid use case being that (even though you could also just rent a truck for that move...)

[-] balsoft@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

A Prius can tow like 700 kg if you put a hitch on it, almost the limit for a B class license.

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Ok, guess I'm wondering what a B class license is in your geography.

Round my parts a class B license is more than 11,800 kg total mass with a trailer no more than 4500kg.

It was just funny to read "700 kg, almost the limit for B class" weighed against the context of what that means round here...

[-] jj4211@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Think it was an "indulge the stupid executives dumb idea so he can say "innovation".

[-] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I've been waiting for this since the moment trucking companies announced the intention to go driverless. Gonna grab some popcorn and watch cyberpunk road pirates become a thing.

[-] melfie@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Guess they were so impressed with Homer’s car, they invited him to help design the tow hitch.

It's going to be real interesting when there is a catastrophic power failure on the vehicle or trailer.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

This is the actual future cyberpunk promised.

[-] fedikitty@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

I wonder if hackers would ever just make them all drive to a chop shop if they don't crash on the way.

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

You just established they in fact cannot catch you.

[-] Triumph@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Bitcoin mining uses CPU.

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this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
460 points (100.0% liked)

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