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Open Source Car on the Horizon
PreacherTom writes "So here's a question: can open-source practices and approaches be applied to make hardware, to create tangible and physical objects, including complex ones? Markus Merz believes they can. The young German is the founder of the OScar project, whose goal is to develop and build a car according to open-source principles. Merz and his team aren't going for a super-accessorized SUV — they're aiming at designing a simple and functionally smart car. The OScar is not the only open-source hardware project out there: others include Zero Prestige, which designs kites and kite-powered vehicles, and Open Prosthetics, which offers free exchange of designs for prosthetic devices."
As long as it doesn't end up with a bunch of people bickering over what color to make the the cup holder.
that exterior panel design is simple?
Does it run Linux?
In Soviet America cars run YOU!
Will somebody please think of the children?
In North Korea only old people use cars!
Finally something to fill those tubes with
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Here's what it looks like: pic
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
The young German is the founder of the OScar project, whose goal is to develop and build a car according to open-source principles.
Does that mean it will crash less than other cars?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Auto mechanics will come out of nowhere to help fix your car and get you on your way. A representative from AAA will complain that open source mechanics don't do a great job as traditional (but expensive) mechanics.
...it will wind up smelling like pee. ;P A nod to the_mad_poster.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Merz says that while building a car today "is mainly software, until a certain point anyway,"
Not a car I would ever drive... I prefer my cars with *no* software.
AFAIK, about the only thing that isn't 'open' about cars is their engine management software & other associated softwares.
What else really is there to protect?
Everything else is trivially reverse engineered. Each of the major MFGs has engineering teams that buy new cars & strip them down to the bare chassis & then do an inventory to figure out how much their competitors are spending.
Software is really the only black box in a car.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I still want to buy "The Homer" from Powell Motors.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The young German is the founder of the OScar project, whose goal is to develop and build a car according to open-source principles.
Finally, all those car analogies people make on computer forums might actually be relevant..
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
From reading TFA, it just sounds like he wants help designing the car for free...
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Open-source principles will be good for innovation.
But there will be a BIG problem with laws - especially mandated safety and emissions testing.
That's designed on the assumption that large numbers of essentially identical cars are produced by well-funded manufacturers, so the cost of a lot of crash and emission-control testing and design work can be spread out over many units and become affordable.
Even if you are building using zero-emission or well-tested stock power plants, good luck on getting the safety-testing requirements relaxed. A poorly-designed car endangers, not just those in it, but those in vehicles around it.
With cars the "blue screen of death" is literal.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
do we call it a brick wall of death?
Work Safe Porn
It will have good fuel economy and run at 90 hp, take 3 weeks to learn how to drive, will require you to manually light the engine with a match before you start and it will also come in 65341 colors. It will run on gas, diesel, e85 and depending on owner, angst and arrogance.
It's a cool idea, but there's a few practical problems. Firstly, open source works for software because an intelligent person can pick up a few books and learn how to write code. Designing a car has a higher barrier to entry. Secondly, lacking the ability to run complex simulations on a car design, much less to produce prototypes for testing, will put an open source car at a disadvantage. Finally, who would mass-manufacture such a vehicle? I'm not saying it's impossible but there are many obstacles to overcome.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
What does it mean to be an open source car? Full details of the manufacturing and metal alloy percent content of the engines and suspension system? In some sense cars are already open source, you can open them up and see how they work and make modifications (unfortunately even add gold spinners and neon) without being hauled off for violating the DMCA.
The question I'm asking is, can you make a car with dynamic stability and traction control features that isn't going to violate someone's patent?
This might make car-pooling possible, even in Atlanta.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I like the idea. Maybe the car's designer(s) will design everything under the hood with quick easy maintenance in mind. And instead of idiot lights there could be computer readouts on an LCD panel.
It's gonna be a ugly square box with 3 wheels. When you take it to get it fixed, the mechanic just calls you a noob and tells you to compile your own wrench. But it really doesn't matter since it's just going to get forked into a moped in about a year anyway.
Some are even for cars. There are many that relate to computer hardware, but there are others:
t Vehicles/
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/SmallEfficien
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osmc
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
There is something of an open source firearms movement. Firearms fulfill a basic human need, namely that of self-defense. They're also not difficult to make from scratch. Links: Instructions for a primitive home-made subgun: http://www.thehomegunsmith.com/ . And here's a whole forum of people who are actually having fun building and shooting their own guns: http://www.homegunsmith.com/ . Fortunately it's legal in most of the US to build an "ordinary" firearm for personal use without any paperwork.
My first advice is this. Reconsider basing the design on the Plymouth Horizon ;)
I think the most important part of Open Source development of ANYTHING is standards. You need to have a standards body. The problem with the auto industry today is there are no real standards. Take for example custom wheels--a simple, non-moving piece of metal that basically holds the tire. It's main purpose is cosmetic after the basic functionality that all wheels share (round, has bolt holes in the middle, etc.). You'd think it would be simple to get a different wheel for your car, but if you ever try you'll find hundreds of different widths, bolt-patterns, diameters, etc.
This Open Source car would only be better if there were standards employed in these particular sections. Or have any connections be customizeable on both sides of the connection. So, if someone invents a better wheel pattern, it's easy to change the disc brake assembly to to fit it (dependency).
The problem is that just having the design isn't going to get you very far because of the specialized components involved. A car is very expensive to build but at million plus quantities it's very cheap. But try to one-off one gear for a transmission sometime (it'll be THOUSANDS to get the precision in a $900 off-the-shelf manual transmission like Mazda makes for Ford).
Instead, from the design stage, standardize everything. A standard ring or star topology for communications and power bussing throughout the car. Then each powered device has a microcontroller that turns it off or on. Then the microcontroller can report back it's status to a central computer. Most of the electricals are easily standardized. Where you run into problems is precision machined steel parts of an engine and transmission. Replacing also those with electrics is the way to go. Use electric motors, magnetic suspension, etc. Modular body panels can have their own microcontrollers also, so the car can reconfigure itself based on what you have mounted. You have the rear door in place, the rear door up/down button appears on the interface. The top is off, no sense showing the moonroof control. Etc etc.
RFC's and the like are what's really made stuff like linux possible. It's not just having the source but having the standards that really make everything easy to work with, and make sure that many different programmers can all work on different sections of the project without worrying about if their module can talk with the others.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
"A Fork In The Road"
...but does it run Linux?
Sorry, this joke has been beaten to death. Couldn't help it.
*runs away*
/* No Comment */
Now, what GCC version do I need to compile it?
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Blue or I walk.
Sweet informative mod.
More can be found here http://www.locostusa.com/forums/
-
What a great thread of comments here. It's nice to see that /.ers can actually joke and make fun of OS practices even if they are directed at something besides software.
BTW did Hell freeze over?!?
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
A mechanical engineer, a systems analyst, and a software engineer had just completed their open source car. During the first test drive, the brakes give out while heading down a steep mountain grade. After a few harrowing minutes of high speed, tire-squealing, om-my-god-we're-going-to-die excitement, they run the car off the road and come to a safe stop.
The mechanical engineer says, "There must be a leak in the hydraulic system, and that caused the brakes to fail."
"Not so fast," said the systems analyst. "There could be many other causes. We need to do a thorough analysis before coming to any conclusions."
The software engineer said, "Why don't we drive back to the top of the hill and try it again?"
hey if beer can be open sourced
http://www.voresoel.dk/
i dont see why cars cant be
back in the day we didnt have no old school
This is retarded, IMHO. While open source is good for a lot of things, I don't think this is one of them.
Are car part designs really that incumbered by patents or IP issues? So much so that someone CAN'T design their own without running afoul of the law?
After all, don't forget that Mopar (and countless others) have been knocking off manufacturer's parts for years. And they are still around.
While it's nice that the designs would be "open", I think practically speaking, they already are.
Crashing can be reduced by reducing the dangers.
The maximum speed is easy to set.
Next, you can limit or warn about following distance.
You could also detect a vehicle following you, and emit some warning brake pattern.
Erratic (swerving due to some distraction/impairment) driving behavior could be detected and warned (perhaps it could switch to safer limits too).
It would be nice if some limits were imposed on the whole auto industry. But companies (and their consumers, and their government) want to have cars that go 200 MPH, even if deaths increase as a result.
Beyond some limits and warnings, to achieve true safety, an entire automated traffic system would be needed.
(Open source of course).
It's called a junkyard. But that's not quite truely open, you have to pay for them. If you're quick, and have friends who'll look out for cops, you can go open source almost anywhere you can find a car with no one looking. But hey, where else you gonna get a transmission for free?
GM used to be the big standardizer; some years, you could put Buick and Oldsmobile body parts on your Cadillac and vice versa, of course the trim looked a little funny, kind of like the interfaces on different open source applications. Engines were more interchangeable, there were some engines (perhaps still, I haven't followed closely in the last decade), that were identical in displacement, number of cylinders, horsepower, and bolt holes for mounts, carburetors, and other attachments. And yes, the story about the happy owner of the brand new Cadillac looking under the hood, and discovering, to his horror! an engine with "Oldsmobile" stamped on it is true. The only difference between the Olds and Caddy engines was the stamping. That was true of most of the parts at that time.
What about the cost associated with all the misc software packages required for building a car? For software one can just go and get a c or java or assembly complier a few books from the library and start cranking out software. With the design of a car requiring so many different analysis packages (like FEMLAB or ANSYS or MATLAB), are there open-source solutions for all the design components?
As much as I like the idea, they've tacked the wrong problem. It's not the car that needs designing, its the manufacturing systems that need designing. Until they can manufacture 1,000,000 of their cars for under $20,000 ea (if they want middle-class buyers in developed nations), or 10,000,000 for under $10,000 ea (if they want worldwide volume), or 100,000,000 for under $5,000 ea (if they want to pre-empt the environmental nightmare of 1 billion new cars in China & India), they've done nothing to address the problem of transportation's contribution to global environmental problems. Form may follow function, but manufacturing defines what form you can make and sell.
As cool as their renderings and open-source specs are, they do nothing to address the real problem. And before someone claims that this is only a concept and that manufacturing can come later, they need to know that 80%-90% of the cost of something is baked in during the design phase (the figure comes from companies such as Volkswagen and Lucent). If manufacturing is an afterthought, there's no hope of getting the costs down because it's too late. Maybe a few stock-option millionaire geeks will be able to spring for the vehicle, but it will never hit a price point that sells the volume that makes a difference.
I hope they switch the focus of the effort to make a breakthrough in manufacturing systems. That would be really cool!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Crashing can be reduced by reducing the dangers. The maximum speed is easy to set. Next, you can limit or warn about following distance. You could also detect a vehicle following you, and emit some warning brake pattern. Erratic (swerving due to some distraction/impairment) driving behavior could be detected and warned (perhaps it could switch to safer limits too).
I see where you're going with this. Perhaps if we put some sort of sentience in charge of controlling the vehicle, we could accomplish all of those things; maybe an organic neural net, but those take about 9 months to grow, and I think it's illegal to sell them since they ratified the 13th amendment.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
But hey, where else you gonna get a transmission for free?
The Factory, of course!
ONE PIECE AT A TIME
Well I left Kentucky back in 49.
And I went to Detroit workin on an assembly line The first year they had me puttin wheels on Caddillacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by and sometimes id hang my head and cry
Cause i always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan that should be the envy of most any man Id sneak it out of there in a lunch box in my hand
Now, gettin caught meant gettin fired But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
And I'd have me a car worth at least a hundered grand
(CHORUS)
I'd get it one piece at a time And it wouldnt cost me a dime
You'll know it's me whe I come throught your town I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild Cause I'll have the only one ther is around
So the very next day when I punched in With my big lunch box and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears I've never considered myself a thief
But GM wouldn't miss just one little piece Especially if I strung it out over several years
The first day I got me a fuel pump And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then i got me a transmission and all the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunch box Like nuts and bolts and all 4 shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddies mobile home
Now, up to now, my plan went all right Till we tried to put it all together one night
And thats when we noticed that somethin was definitely wrong The transmission was a 53
And the motor turned out to be a 73 And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone
So we drilled it out so that it would fit And with a little bit of help from an adapter kit
We had that engine runnin just like a song
Now the headlights they was another sight We had 2 on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of em come on
The back end looked kinda funny too But we put it together and when we got through
Well thats when we noticed that we only had one tail fin About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags And I headed right on down main drag
And I could hear everybody laughing for blocks around But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
Cause to type it up it took the whole staff And when they got through the title weighed 60 pounds
(CHORUS)
Uh,yeah,Red-rider,this is the Cottonmouth in the sycho-billy-Cadillac,come on
This is the Cottonmouth and negatory on the cost on this machine here Red-rider
You might say I right up to the factory and picked it up, it was chaper that way
What model is it?
It's a 49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59 automobile
It's a 60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70 automobile
Well, not really a standard, per se, but I know some old Fiat designs have been (and probably still are) bought, modified, and manufactured in many non-Western countries that do produce their own vehicles. Don't know if old VW designs are used in similar manner, though I wouldn't be surprised. They are pretty good designs, too - small engine ( 1 Liter displacement), simple designs to keep the cost down, fuel-efficient, and easy to fix (assuming parts are available).
You could design it to accept crashes and keep going instead of trying to avoid them. In fact, encourage the drivers to crash for the fun of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BumperCar.jpg
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
... and start off by copying a simple proven design? Then, you can work on all kinds of variants, and some neat hacks.
Depends on now you define 'open source car', of course. Kit cars in various forms have been on the market for years. Parts are supplied either by the kit manufacturer or the buyer has to get them from a donor car. There's an instruction manual, but the owner is free to modify the car (and can do so far more easily than with a conventional car). Some countries (the UK for one) have special regulations that allow these cars on the road after a thorough inspection but without having to pass destructive tests. It's not quite design-by-committee, but I'd call it an open source approach.
How do you recompile a car??
First post and we're already into the bad car analogies. :P
"The Bakeoff"
http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_09_05_a_bakeoff. html
The article is a discussion about the use of programming methodologies (traditional, open source, "extreme") to create something that isn't software -- in this case, a cookie.
It's n=1 but the conclusion is that there are some good reasons why an expertly run traditional team is better at producing goods, even if some of the alternate programming methodologies are sometimes better at producing code.
so you open up second rate tech that is already probably public domain. big fucking deal. and all you open source zealots are missing the big point behind your beloved movement: community contributions. who the fuck is going to improve on these designs? i know a lot of you slashfags like to think you're engineers but you're simply not.
when i was your age open source was compute gazette. don't act like this is something new and wonderful.
you "new way of thinking" is old and on projects like this it's counterproductive.
Open Car is a misleading expression; what we mean is a Free Car.
In fact, I think it should be exclusively referred to as the GNU/Car.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
to be drinking open source beer in an open source car?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
I had some ideas, but couldn't find anything newer on the website that April 2006. Where is the active portion?
science is a religion
If the car used windows for engine management we would be in trouble. The engine would unexpectedly stall at red lights, oil pressure would suddenly go through the roof, and can you just say "VALVE JOB!" Oooh, even worse the engine gets a virus that only allows the car to start once in a while.
"I think Packard and Deusenberg had computers in the 30's."
;)
Last I checked, the computer hadn't been invented yet in the 1930s, so it seems unlikely. Unless you mean something rather different than is typically meant by "computer" these days.
("I know! We'll control certain aspects of our automobile's operation with a computer!" "Hey, what a great idea--of course, the computer will be several times the size of the rest of the car and will require its own staff of expert operators, but why not?")
>>Ever get the feeling you're trying to explain quantum mechanics to a goat?
>Oooh! Ooooh! Thanks! My new sig!
Oooh! Ooooh! Thanks! My new sig!
thanks for that too.
..........FULL STOP.
Wonder if they use a megasquirt to control the engine. It is a great open source software and hardware open source solution to EFI. Read more at http://www.msefi.com/forums/index.php
SCNR
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Hasn't the venerable AK already proven the viability of an open and free design?
What's next? Open-source fusion weapons?
An open source ELECTRIC car would be good because:
1) Electric cars can be pretty simple compared to gasoline based cars.
2) Far fewer electric cars are manufactured each year, so the competition will be less stiff.
But that's the problem with any non-software or non-data (wikipedia) product. The open source account gets into trouble with hardware or other technical stuff because of the value of the material you have to use to build it.
You can have open source design or conception/planning, but I never heard of any sensible (or realistic) way of open source realisation of the product. (Actually open source makes no sense there for me. What's an open source factory? Community makes sense there, though.) But if an factory invests into building a car they have to sell it and that's different to Ubuntu/Suse/RedHat... that sell their DVDs, you can't download the car for free.
But I like the idea of a community planing cars (and other stuff). I would hope in the course of that someone would come up with a great idea how to realize it!
And come on, that is real hacker spirit. That's more geeky than linux and the squaring of MAKE Magazine.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Then if a company wants to make them available for people on a medium scale, they still have to get various parts kite mark'ed, NCAP'ed and all the other various regulations road vehicles are expected to meet
...your machanic tells you to RTFOM before he will take a look at your car, noob.
I hope the initial release isn't full of bugs
If an effort is going to be made then let's make something that beats the c... out of regular cars, maybe something like the deceased electric Car!, surely somebody still has knowledge about it..
a r/
But just in case..
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricc
How could the article not mention the free 3D-printer project RepRap?
I've long said that hackers are just greasemonkeys with clean(er) fingernails. This is good stuff, I hope it gets the talent it needs.
I'd be happy with an open firmware for regular car computers. Just let me redefine the auto-headlight logic (to avoid getting lynched by astronomers) and the auto-wiper logic (no really, after a squirt and 1 swipe, it's clean! no need for 4 more swipes!), and the remote control logic (If I want to leave the engine running with the doors locked, I should be able to unlock them with the remote control. Disabling the remote when the engine is on means I just locked my key in the car outside 7-11.), and I'd be happy.
What'll really be interesting is if they can reuse some interfaces (mounting bolt locations) so perhaps the open-source engine will be more or less interchangeable with a common, existing engine. Then people could share parts both ways, in and out of the open-source world.
...why is this effort not going to get stuck on patent issues? Don't car companies have panteted every simple idea for the parts?
I went through 3 batteries and 3 alternators before I told the mechanic that there was a loose wire inside the alternator connector.
"on the horizon" = BS
o m_joomlaboard&Itemid=21/
Just take a look at the forums on their site.
http://www.theoscarproject.org/index.php?option=c
What's the url to download one ?
Here's what's going to happen.
a) Three or four people with a clue join the project.
b) Seven hundred and eighty six people with absolutely zero clue, but a great deal of enthusiasm, join the project.
c) The project starts, to all manner of slashdot-augmented fanfare.
d) Two months into it, a three month long set of newsgroup/forum/wiki threads slowly converges on the fact that approximately two people on the project have the resources and wherewithal to actually build and test any given component. The rest want the plans to be reifiable on a $200 budget, employing but a nail file and two hours of high school shop class. Guidelines are implemented, prescribing any given component to be buildable using a nail file and $250.
e) Two of the four people with a clue withdraw from the project. Three hundred people with no clue withdraw as well, intimidated by the $250 investment. They return to their jobs bagging groceries.
f) Alpha release comes out, to all manner of slashdot-augmented fanfare, accompanied by three hundred prototypes manufactured in Kyrgyzstan. The prototypes sell out immediately, primarily to the parents of project participants and alumni.
g) A Ford employee writes a blog post describing a crucial design flaw in the prototype. Slashdot responds by dubbing him a "Ford shill." Twenty eight hundred and seventy two posts ask the unfortunate individual "how much Ford is paying him to subvert the OpenCar project." The remainder merely speculate on the amount.
g) All three hundred of prototypes simultaneously explode, causing their inhabitants to summarily expire in a fiery inferno of flesh and steel.
h) The survivors form a support group. The project is never mentioned again, until someone floats the idea of OpenShuttle.
I'm guessing this will be either -1,Troll or +5,Funny. I'm shooting for +5,Troll. Help me out here, folks.
The patents will expire before this project is done.
Seriously, even assuming that the project is successful, the patents will be expired. For the new patents, either you have prior art (you invented it!) or the patented ideas just don't make it into the design in time. The lead time on this thing will be a decade or two.
....dashboards that display Perl and Emacs.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, it was sold by Datsun/Nissan ('82 280ZX), and the enigine is a modified version of a Fiat racing engine. My point is that in the 3 years I've actually owned the car, i've had to make it like the Millenium Falcon. Lots of special modifications. (however, it still can't do the kessel run in less than say...8 parsecs) I've ripped out 40 LBS of useless crap from under the hood (mainly the AC and Cruise Controll mechanisms and pipes.), I've had to totally retro-fit the heater, nerd-rig the stereo (gone through 3 already, from tape decks to MP3 DVD players), I made my own trunk mats and re-colored the entire interior, made speaker housings, tapped bolt holes, re-wired electrical, and probably removed about 6 miles of useless vacuume hoses from behind the dash. next is all the exterior work (new hood, a few odd fender dents etc.) and eventually maybe a paint job and Wrap Apilication (I know people). I'm even going to rebuild the engine myself, one day.
I have even found 'free' plans to upgrade the car to alternative fuel sources, change out the CPU (or replace with a totally non-supported unit), and make all kinds of crazy modifications to it. Some of which I may do some day if I have the time, energy and cash to actually go and do it.
A lot of work, as much money as I feel like spending (on hardware), and whatever free time I've got, make my car better than when I bought it. I'm updating, and changing as I see fit. Which is what I do with my Linux installations.
All this and more, and I'm still an AMATURE when it comes to cars. I've had to read and look up removals and instalations, parts, processes, etc, either in books or the internet. Whats the different between hacking my car, and hacking some code, or compueter hardware? Or, hehe (opensourcing), revising original specs to fit my needs?
I've heard people call their Hondas "The Legos of cars" whatever that means. But my old-ass Datsun is more like the "Linux of cars" to me. (some of this may be toungue-in-cheek, as I do know what opensource means, and fully support the movement. However, I'm not a coder, nor an engineer. Just a geek who likes to figure stuff out.)
You can implement it yourself! :)
FRA: STFU GTFO
Open source factory? See here: http://www.adciv.org/Turning_collaborative_designs _into_physical_objects
In order to design this car, they'll have to design all components from the ground up - an almost impossible job. You have to have an ecosystem of people and free/open designs and standards which you can borrow from in order to create or execute a project as complex as a car.
First, the standards have to be defined (as pointed out by another poster somewhere above). This can only happen by a process of evolution, when de-facto standards accepted by the community who develop open hardware (ignoring for a moment that such a community does not (currently) exist) are turned into reference standards used by the community, to which all entrants are encouraged to confirm. This process of evolution has not yet even begun, much less culminated in any standards.
Secondly, all the components you have used in the car should be available openly, under some sort of license which grants you GPL-like freedoms. Many components can be simply lifted from the ecosystem of open hardware (again, ignoring for a moment that such an ecosystem does not exist), making the job of designing the car even possible.
It's like trying to build a factory in the middle of nowhere, and trying to build the roads, electricity, and everything else by yourself. You're trying to do the job of an entire community and the resultant ecosystem yourself.
There's a local corporation (in Pune, Maharashtra, India) trying to create such an ecosystem, by inviting college students doing their university project to work on open-source/free (as in speech) engineering. They're trying to create a system which is self-sustaining. Machine designs are given GPL-like freedoms - use, modify, redistribute, and any mix of the three. So if I design a simple lathe machine today, a student team the next year could improve it.
The goal is realistic - first free up all the basic technologies, such as basic industrial fabrication machinery (lathes, drills, etc), while simultaneously developing standards for the ecosystem by seeing what works and what doesn't. Then free up the basic components which nearly all machinery today uses. Then move on to more complex stuff, such as designing small electrical or mechanical appliances. Finally, move on to the most complex stuff, done by a number of teams working in tandem over a few years, such a building a car. Such building will only be possible when most of the components are already available, and will only need to be tweaked and customised for the car.
Let me quote an essay I have written on this topic:
The lathe is a very interesting machine. So is the boiler. So is the drill. And they are interesting for more reason than the usual ones, as shall be seen soon.
Let us start with the lathe machine. The concept is simple and brilliant. The earliest recorded reference to a lathe is an Egyptian Ptolemaic carving dating back to the 7th century BC, depicting a turning tool. The lathe was also known in India since antiquity. In medieval Europe, it was used to turn polearms. It played a key part in the industrial revolution of Europe. Its design is now practically fixed and all but perfected into a general-purpose lathe which we use today.
Now let us see the history of the boiler. Their biggest use was in coal-powered steam locomotives. Their design has remained practically static since the time of the great Babcock and Wilcox. Steam boilers are, as of today, a dead-end for innovation or improvement. For over two hundred years, the only improvements have been evolutionary ones. I study them. My father before me studied the very same design. So did my grandfather before him. And given current trends, my grandchildren will study the same thing my grandfather did.
Turning out attention to the drill, we come across the innovation of the father of dentistry, Frenchman Pierre Fauchard (1678-1761), who described an improved drill in 1728. The industrial drill is a fundamentally simple design, which agai
I checked out the oscar site. I am not impressed. There's a lot of flakes saying "no piston engine" and similar things in the forums. I wish their registration system worked so I could set them straight on their own forums. Much of the rational behind an OScar is for use in underdeveloped countries. But it's a shame. It's as though these people have no clue about what it's like in a developing country.
* There's not a lot many repair stations, and fewer that are reptuable when dealing with strangers. The car must be as easy to repair as possible, on the side of the road. This means to use as many standardized parts as is possible. There's a nice standard already available: NATO truck parts. Not sure how well it scales down to the consumer automobile, but that's not really important: It's more important to have buses and trucks in the developing world than cars. But there's also a need for moped and motorcycles. Cars are really secondary.
* Energy efficiency does have value, but not so much as other considerations. Without a good pool of qualified mechanics, many of these vehicles are going to be out of tune. There needs to be a design where the vehicles can be badly maintained and not self-destruct, and more importantly for the rest of the world: Not have horrible emissions.
* There needs to be a "base" which can be extended to a variety of uses. i.e., a tractor, a bus, an ambulance, a freight hauling truck, a refrigerated truck. It's much easier to work with wood in underdeveloped countries, so it should be easy to build a wood cabin on top of the truck frame.
* What has to be sheet metal, should be as easy to bend as possible. This rules out many of the the ultra-aerodynamic designs seen on the OScar project. You don't even have to go to Mexico to see cars have rust holes repaired with beer cars. This is what is going to happen and should be easy to do.
* The roads in underdeveloped countries are going to suck. This is another reason why NATO truck standards may be the best place to start. Imagine one of the Volkswagen beetles being touted by some people handling that death road in Bolivia. Ha ha! We need a good adaptation of existing suspensions of things like the Pinzgauer, but done inexpensively. At the very least, 4 wheel drive.
* Of course you have to use metric. And use as few sizes of screws/bolts as possible, so fewer tools and replacement bolts need to be carried in the toolbox which will accompany the vehicle everywhere.
* Forget the complex and compact engine compartment of modern automobiles. Once of the nice things about older (pre 1980) american cars is the spacious interior of the engine compartment - making them easy to work on. Modern cars require you to remove the engine to replace the spark plugs (well, I am exaggerating, but you get the idea).
* Vehicles need to be capable of using multiple fuels. By this I mean Diesel, biodiesel, straight vegetable oil, and kerosene. Another engine type might be able to use octane (gasoline) and several types of alcohols.
* There has to be a crank or similar way to start the vehicle with a dead battery.
* In such envirnoments lights tend to get broken. Have a backup system of LED lights for minimum driver navigation and detection by other vehicles in addition to the standard incandescent system. LEDs are tougher.
* There needs to be training programs for vehicle owners/mechanics. Manuals need to be published for such repairs, manuals that are able to survive the elements. Manuals should be bilingual, with English and the native language side-by-side.
* Horns needs to be manual, bulb-pneumatic types. It seems that some people think of horns as a way to say "hello". This needs to be discourages. It should take physical effort to make noise, to help keep the din to a minimum and to lend value to the actual noise being made, so that it gathers attention. You should have to expend a lot of effort to make a loud noise.
* CB radio or similar should be considered standard equipment i
Forgot OpenHuman lol