I am sure this article has been shared before, however I wanted to have a look at this topic.
The articles short summary is this:
All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label – making cars the worst category of products that we have ever reviewed
I am currently driving a 2014 Ford Fiesta which just has a radio with a CD player and Bluetooth. I do not need more than that in a car.
The reason I am looking at all is that that the Fiesta does not belong to me and the friend owning it will be moving out in a bit, so I kinda need another one.
There seems to be one brand that is not as bad as the other ones (but still bad): Renault; mozilla’s review…
Maybe I will have a look at their cars.
What do you guys think? Stick to older used cars and not use an EV or look at which of the manufacturers have the least bad privacy policy?
I’d love this, but I doubt that it is ever going to happen. Open-Source-Hardware is not as widely spread as open source software which is also still a niche. The big difference is that you can easily develop OSS on your own in your free time, but with hardware its a lot more difficult. And then think of all the parts necessary to build a car and then again all the certifications to actually get it on the street and after that the question of liability in case of accidents…
The need is an OSS ecu that drops in present cars.
Speeduino is a thing. Not exactly drop-in, but it’s a start.
I think the real obstacle isn’t even the regulations but the safety systems. The various US DMVs can comprehend things like scratch-built or kit cars, but the level of engineering to make a thing that can even sometimes decelerate a person from like 60 to 0 without killing them more with exploding airbags is several levels above that required to make a thing with wheels that drives forward.
So you can build and probably even drive a car from plans you got off Github, but if you crash it it will kill you.
I’d be happy to have a car that goes max 50 kph
All it takes is one company to do open hardware. Then all the other companies will use it, because its cheaper for them without having to do the initial r&d.
If it’s licensed properly, then all subsequent customizations by these other companies will get shared, so the project just gets better and better with time.