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."

Great

As long as it doesn't end up with a bunch of people bickering over what color to make the the cup holder.

Blue, dammit.

Blue or I walk.

Pic

Here's what it looks like: pic [wikipedia.org]

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Here's what it looks like: pic

That's obviously the car on the Gnome desktop. Damn it! Why won't people learn that posting screenshots of new distros makes no sense if they all use the KDE/Gnome/XFCE/Fluxbox/your_preferred_WM_here para

Re:Pic

I dunno, all this talk of customization makes me think it might look more like this [wikipedia.org].

does that mean..

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?

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It means that the feature you actually want, the one that's been available in the commercial equivalent for years, will be migrating from the developer's code base to the unstable version on sourceforge just as soon as he's finished with his divorce.

Re:Well, if the speed and tailgating is auto-limit

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 distr

If your open source car breaks down...

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.

Re:If your open source car breaks down...

Actually, depending on your variation, wouldn't it be...

"You will have to search out mechanics on your own, and in most cases if you find them they will laugh at you for being too stupid to use the car, and point you to libraries spread throughout the country. In each of those libraries there will be manuals that give small, different chunks that sort of relate to the problem you're having. Sometimes you will be lucky enough to find a mechanic who has seen your problem before, and actually gives you a straight answer and gets you back on the road. But good luck on the rest of the times." :-/

Like Linux...

...it will wind up smelling like pee. ;P A nod to the_mad_poster [slashdot.org].

"mainly software??"

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.

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Not a car I would ever drive... I prefer my cars with *no* software.

I'm with you, in that I drive older cars, mostly for this reason. I'm all for this "open source car" thing, though; at a certain point the future, virtually every car on the market will ha

Re:"mainly software??"

Not a car I would ever drive... I prefer my cars with *no* software.

I'm with you, in that I drive older cars, mostly for this reason. I'm all for this "open source car" thing, though; at a certain point the future, virtually every car on the market will have a computer in it. Do we want to be able to service these things ourselves, or are we going to have to take them to a Certified Mechanic who needs an expensive proprietary interface to work on the car?

First I guess it should be noted that you are taking all of this out of context. The quote in the article is referring to the fact that much of hardware design is done via mock-up in software packages, it is not insisting that running the car is mostly software.

Second: Older cars have the same problem. "What? They do not!" you say! Yes, yes they do. How much money does it cost for all the specialized tools needed in vehicle repair? Flare nut wrenches? No use other than brake jobs. Flywheel puller? Special presses?

You already need to use expensive, sometimes proprietary (Ford fuel line disconnect) tools to do the job, how is that different than needing to connect a car up to a computer interface?

BTW, you will find that those fancy computer interfaces can be had for under 200 bucks, which is less than many of your single-purpose tools needed for car work and supports a whole suite of diagnostic purposes.

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I dislike anti-lock brakes...I feel in less control...good old manual disk brakes on each wheel thank you!

You are, I hope, aware that modern ABS systems typically give a shorter stopping distance than even a talented driver, on any surface other than d

What isn't open about cars?

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

Simpsons did it

I still want to buy "The Homer" from Powell Motors. [wikipedia.org]

Main problem will be laws.

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.

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Could you get around that if you made it a 'kit car'? I've wondered about that...was looking into the Cobra replica kit cars...and wondering if they got around the emissions and other regulations on those....'cause some of the places will assemble them fo

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"You are permitted one custom car per lifetime. "

That is a VERY interesting statement. Where does this law come from?? I've been to the sites where you can order these kit cars...and I've not seen any indication of this as a fact. Do you have some links

An open source car?

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.

Standards

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.

They've tackled the wrong problem

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!

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I do every day. Its called 'rush hour'.

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Car ownership has to be individual for a good reason: people don't take care of things they don't own.

Ideas about collectively-owned cars have been bandied about here on Slashdot for years, but no one's ever gotten very far in the real world with the idea.