200
Time for Open Source Community EV's to Be Made. Anybody want to do something like that?
(www.mozillafoundation.org)
Buses. They're called buses.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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buses are technically very proprietary like cars, and rented to you by a sort of subscription. and service works on their terms (usually badly)
unless you live in one of the few places with free bus fares and good service.
You must live in Europe. I’d rather walk the 3 miles from my house to the gym than wait for our bus in the US.
this is a doomed idea, youd be better off doing open source ebikes
What about those of us who live in colder climates?
Lipo and silicon carbon lithium batteries are a thing, you can also just wrap some wool around the base of the bike. I use one in 4 foot snow all the time
Growing up my grandfather always had those big thick JCWhitney catalogs. They had nearly ever replacement part of a jeep. So I always wanted to buy one of the fiberglass replacement tubs (body) and make an aluminum frame under it and a bunch of batteries and a couple motors.
A browser. Just make a browser. A FUCKING BROWSER. Don't bloviate on other topics. Don't bake AI into it. Just do ONE THING well ... make a FUCKING BROWSER.
I generally get your point and support it but want to point out that the Mozilla Foundation is a different entity than the Mozilla Corporation.
Woudnt it be a better idea just to offer standard EV kits to turn combustion engine cars into EVs?
It's unattainable for a low budget player to create and certify a car, and support it with parts for 20 years.
Just create a kit to turn your 10 year old VW into an EV, and let VW support the parts outside of EV domain
parts for 20 years
i think the good thing about an open source car is that we could crowdsource, or even make some parts ourselves, no?
daily driving conversions and heavily modified vehicles can get annoying, but something that has it in it's design could be something else.
Years ago i was looking for EV kits and found several people out there selling them. Idk what the current availability is, how much tech they have, or how open they are. The ones I saw were pretty low tech (lacking regen braking and such). Think accelerator pedal controls motor speed and a battery pack is about all they were. Again this was a while ago when I was looking (like 2010ish).
You could offer kits for older vehicles, but considering the cost of the kid and installation cost/effort, does it make sense to start with an older car that may have other issues coming soon?
So what's the alternative? Start with a new car and throw out the ICE? Sure, but a bit wasteful and even more expensive than an older car or you could find an existing manufacturer (idk like Lotus) who will basically provide you the car without the ICE related components (aka a glider). ;)
My dream is to convert an 1980s Saab 900 to electric!
Don't show this to c/carscirclejerk, it'll turn them over.
😏
I would definitely pay a premium for an open source car.
the premium you pay is for the space to build it and the tools. the (kit) car itself is a hell of a lot cheaper.
That feels like something we could crowd-source. I don't need the space and tools to build two open source cars, but if we had ten people in the community that wanted them, it would make sense to rent the space and buy the tools.
Only thinking about getting a TÜV certification or a permit to drive on public streets (Straßenzulassung) for an Open Source car in Germany produces nightmares about bureaucratic waves bigger then tsunamis.
Mm not really. The TÜV does not have a problem with open source.
But you need a manufacturer and a company that stands behind it.
But open source car does not equal diy car.
I never said that it is impossible, but the bureaucratic obstacles are nightmare inducing huge. And the TÜV is the smallest enemy, the end boss would be the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt for the operating permit.
Every single open source EV would, by law, need a new certification after every installation of a new or changed software to ensure that it still has all the required assistance systems and security features activated and working correctly. The same for the emissions values and other enviromental protection laws.
Edit: Hmm, after reading my post i have to say that emissions would not be a problem with an EV 😅
This is the same like for closed source. A new software release must be tested and have regression tests that homologation relevant parts are not changed and if they are changed, that they do not violate regulations.
That’s also one of the reasons why the software has different components. So that you can update the hmi for example without affecting the steering function.
Going down further that road, there are very specific regulations that cover software updates in particular. There needs to be a software update Management process behind it that makes sure software is only distributed to vehicles that it is designed for.
But none of that would be more difficult with open source…
Again, we are not talking about a crowd built vehicle, there still needs to be a manufacturer behind it.
This is the same like for closed source. A new software release must be tested and have regression tests that homologation relevant parts are not changed and if they are changed, that they do not violate regulations.
Yes, but with closed software you only have to have those tests and certification done once per version of the software. All installed instances of this version are the same, because only the manufacturer can make changes and sign the software to be installable.
This is completely different with open source software that can be changed and installed without limitations by every end user/owner of the car. Now the certification has to be done by every single person every time they install a new version to make sure that no forbidden changes were done to the code or the configurations.
Open Source Software that can be installed freely and unrestricted on a car turns every car into a DIY system, even if it was manufactured by a company
Going down further that road, there are very specific regulations that cover software updates in particular. There needs to be a software update Management process behind it that makes sure software is only distributed to vehicles that it is designed for.
Yes, but such a process would be so tight that it more or less produces the same closed system that we have at the moment. One possibility I see would be that the boot loader of the EV is locked and only updates signed by the company can be installed to the car, with the option to send in your changed open source version to have it checked and signed. But this would not be very open source and not really that much more secure then what we have today because you can never be sure that the version you send in for verification and signing is the same that you get back.
But if you have better Idea the would be true to the open source idea and be compatible with the strong regulations, I would love to read that.
Ah, but this is a different discussion. You want to be able to run modified software in a vehicle.
Then the question becomes an architectural one. Which Software components do you actually want to modify and still be street legal? In theory a modular structure can be build where all homologation and safety relevant limits are fixed and monitor the other non critical components. These non critical components could be changed without needing new homologation (you know, like „apps“).
You could also make the other ones modifiable with the limitation of losing street legality. So you could only run it on closed tracks or private land. Just like manufacturers do today.
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I'm retired. I'll show up and turn bolts all day for free coffee and a couple of laughs.
Just a reminder that "kit cars" exist. Their existence makes the idea of "open source" cars seem more reasonable to me in that one does not need to make a large company, it is possible (though likely not profitable or cheap) to be a small car company.
do they make kit cars that are hybrids or electrics or have fancy safety features?
because i was looking at a real fancy lotus for like six grand a few years ago, but it was just an ice manual. i've built those before, those are easy. i do not know all these fancy new cars with regenerative braking and shit.
You can retrofit electric drivetrains to basically any car but it’s not cheap and takes a decent amount of research and expertise in fabrication
regenerative braking is literally just a power supply to get the spinning energy of the wheel back to the battery. in concept, electric cars are way simpler than ice, the gizmos they put in modern cars make them look more complex.
Yeah but I ain't built an electric nor a hybrid and I ain't programmed one neither. I built an ice engine before and those are simple. Fun too. I figure the programming is the hard part.
I don't want a car without the fancy safety features like checking your blind spot sensor or the backup camera or the dash cam or the adaptive cruise. For one, they lower your insurance rates.
you first need something that moves.
"Hey so the auto assist locked the wheel and the brakes, swerved into another lane, shifted to reverse and blew the transmission, then..."
Hahahaha what a funny story consumer, anyways how's your sex life?
You're my favorite customer
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I love this idea
Eventually, electric cars will become the norm. For an open source OS it just needs enough commercial interest. That's largely what lets down alot of open source projects by the looks of it.
I saw there is a new open source printer out there now. I'm excited about that and interested to see how it goes.
Most of the public don't see the value in open source or the barriers to entry are not worth it for them.
I'm not a dev so I'm certainly not casting shade on all the wonderful projects out there, more just an observation that you usually need to learn abit about computers to be able to access these projects. I've enjoyed the learning experiences
Good luck with that in the EU. Try to bypass eCall and your car won't score 5 stars on the Euro NCAP scale.
You kinda could before tesla even existed. I have a car in the garage still from the brief time when the cad/usd rate was decent but it got fucked right before I pulled the trigger on the batteries and motor. Was going to be a sick electric 80s honda civic station wagon but now its just a dusty old car.
How exactly will my impoverished ass, who can't afford meds, has nothing left to eat atm, and is watching his parents go under with an Aspergers brother, supposed to design advanced electronic vehicles?
To build as a community I meant. I expanded on this in the opensource community via cross post
Much love to ya though you'll pull through. Try joining and getting to know actual people from all kinds of groups: open source, Linux, etc. I'm sure some people would be willing to hire for simple tech jobs or other jobs in marketing, etc
Ok, I followed the link. We will see if I ever actually have time for it though.
EDIT: Read up more, residental stuff is more important right now. Need to design a cheap toolkit that will allow people to live off-grid.
Additional Comment:
It seems like the trend of open source is expanding not just more broadly in regions: Europe adopting it. But also in natural expansions: open source hardware.
Would be interesting if we can get a couple more opensource communities up and running and get more people interested in open source in various ways.
opensourcevehicles/opensourcetransit seems like the next logical step. (I would like to help with this)
Extra Side Notes:
Another area that can be good is opensourcebusiness (Everything related to starting, running, etc a business to make it more accessible for people. Would help more open source companies be made as well overtime)
opensourceanimation/anime (grow that part of the community to collaborate with for visual presentations of open source projects. Animated Tux would be amazing. An anime Krita mascot intro. We can get really creative), opensourcevalues (teaching values and ethics: hope, empathy, strength, we the people, gratitude, humble, etc) and opensourceuxui (grow that part of the community too to collaborate with. UX/UI community struggles with at times) to expand on main opensource software/hardware communities themselves
Personal Note:
2 more being opensourcehealth (To give a baseline of health resources people can make use of), open source housing, opensourcefood, open source water, and opensourcefinances (Baseline of finance resources). All that is more of a personal want but don't know if there is much want in the open source community for those 5.
I'll try to find it, but I thought I saw an organization that was trying to come up with a standard Linux flavor for vehicles. If not, it definitely needs to happen
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