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Car Manufacturers Sued Over Rodents Eating Soy-Insulated Wires (hackaday.com)
An anonymous reader writes about "a little-known problem plaguing many newer vehicles from the likes of Honda, Toyota, and Kia."
The car makers used soy-insulated wiring to cut costs and "Go Green", but owners in rural areas are finding the local wildlife finds the wiring irresistible; thousands of dollars in damage has been done by rats and other critters eating wiring harnesses. Hackaday is asking their community to brainstorm solutions to this unique problem, as owners of affected vehicles have had to resort to sprinkling their driveway with coyote urine and putting rat traps on the wheels.
Hackaday reports that "It isn't just one or two cases either, it's enough of a problem that some car manufacturers are getting hit with class-action lawsuits." Back in 2010 Slashdot reported that rabbits had already discovered the joys of eating soy-insulated wires, and were turning the parking lot at the Denver International Airport into their own personal buffet.
There's even a web site called HowToPreventRatsFromEatingCarWires.com, which reports that Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape that's infused with the active ingredient from chili peppers.
Hackaday reports that "It isn't just one or two cases either, it's enough of a problem that some car manufacturers are getting hit with class-action lawsuits." Back in 2010 Slashdot reported that rabbits had already discovered the joys of eating soy-insulated wires, and were turning the parking lot at the Denver International Airport into their own personal buffet.
There's even a web site called HowToPreventRatsFromEatingCarWires.com, which reports that Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape that's infused with the active ingredient from chili peppers.
Lovely. Chewed up wiring and dead, smelly animals in your car.
What's not to like?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
people are fed up of SJWs pushing soy as the answer to everything. Soy also shrinks dicks
Most people would rather not have the wiring eaten at all, rather than finding it being used as a part of a multl-generation breeding experiment to develop a wild/feral population of wiring-averse rodents.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Obvious answer is poison but thats not great for mechanics, and also not addressing the root cause. The real answer is to not use soy insulation in the first place.
As someone who likes classic cars (i.e. that need to be around for a LONG time) I really don't like the whole thought that insulation should biodegrade after a few years anyway.
Honda has already manufactured a special wire-wrapping tape
This is simple: Poison
Just like pressure treated lumber, add arsenic to the insulation in relatively small quantities. Just enough to kill anything that eats this as a primary diet, but not enough to prevent biodegrading. Quickly enough critters will develop a strong distaste for the stuff.
A little nibbling on lumber will create essentially no damage or risk.
A little nibbling on electrical wiring is another matter entirely.
And one dead critter doesn't "teach" other critters. Otherwise, mouse traps would have been proven ineffective hundreds of years ago.
Why on earth would anybody want wires with biodegradable insulation? That makes zero sense.
Even without providing rodent buffets, cars will be shorting out in a few years due to the wire insulation BIODEGRADING. If these executives and engineers think it's such a great idea, let's see them use this wiring in their homes.
Personally, I think wiring should have insulation that can last through a century or more, if possible.
Wire harnesses are a critical component to vehicle safety. Wires that can degrade during the normal service life of a vehicle can be deadly. Think about a wire harness with insulation that's been eaten that controls the ABS, fuel injection or an airflow sensor, and you hit a bump in the road and it shorts. Now you lose power or braking. Are we willing to have someone's vehicle fail and the people seriously hurt or dead because of a fundamental design flaw?
I've worked on my own cars for years and seen some really stupid compromises and designs that make regular service difficult or results in failures just outside the warranty period. This, however, takes the cake, and we need to stand up to this by declaring the insulation issue a fundamental safety issue. I'm now thinking about mitigation strategies beyond my standard maintenance that neither I nor anyone else shouldn't have to think about, like underhood blinking lights, sprays, capsaicin tapes, etc..
I would encourage anyone with one of these vehicles to file a NHTSA complaint stating that soy wire harnesses should be banned and recalls instituted to remedy the problem by either (a) replacing the harnesses with standard synthetic non-edible polymers as appropriate to the specific application, or (b) providing coatings that provably prevent rodents from consuming the insulation over the lifespan of the vehicle. We should also inform our congresscritters about this issue.
NHTSA complaint form: https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/... Congresscritters: https://www.house.gov/represen... and https://www.senate.gov/senator...
Arsenic won't in itself biodegrade, it's a metal. It will spread in the environment. Probably not in dangerous doses just from wire insulation, but still no good idea. I would rather go with non-edible cables in the first place ...
This is all about the length of time a car will last.
The manufacturers don't want them to last, they want you to buy a new one every year.
This way, the every time they get parked outside, they get eaten, a bit at a time. :)
Cuts down on the impurities in the recycled copper, too.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani