this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/55598715

‘Privacy Nightmare on Wheels’: Every Car Brand Reviewed By Mozilla — Including Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota — Flunks Privacy Test

Originally found on privacy@lemmy.ml

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I would definitely pay a premium for an open source car.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] L0rdMathias@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

"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?

[–] jbellows@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago

You're my favorite customer

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[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 month ago (10 children)

this is a doomed idea, youd be better off doing open source ebikes

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[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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

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[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Buses. They're called buses.

[–] DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] philanthropicoctopus@thelemmy.club 10 points 2 months ago

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

[–] picnic@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] lambipapp@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My dream is to convert an 1980s Saab 900 to electric!

[–] QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Don't show this to c/carscirclejerk, it'll turn them over.

😏

[–] Lee@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 month ago

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). ;)

[–] DarkMetatron@feddit.org 8 points 2 months ago (8 children)

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.

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[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

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.

[–] duncan_bayne@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mastod0n@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

Good luck with that in the EU. Try to bypass eCall and your car won't score 5 stars on the Euro NCAP scale.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Batmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

All good go for it. We all can focus on different things that are good to build up. Good luck

[–] Nednarb44@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

I'm retired. I'll show up and turn bolts all day for free coffee and a couple of laughs.

[–] EugeneNine@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

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.

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