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Bruce Perens is organizing a conference on Open Cars. It will take place Tuesday, November 6th, 2018 in Orlando, Florida, USA. The concept behind Open Cars, is the idea that the hardware as well as the software conform to open standards and that, as an automotive product, it must be sufficiently accessible and modular to enable technology upgrades, aftermarket products, and testing by security researchers. The interfaces must be openly documented and be backed by openly disclosed APIs and hardware interfaces. It would not have to run on open data, but could nonetheless protect data privacy and security as well as or better than proprietary automotive products do today. As the emphasis is on the standards and interfaces, both hardware and software, it would not necessarily require that manufacturers base their vehicles on open source software.
The automobile industry thinks they have a solution: lease rather than sell autonomous cars, lock the hood shut, and maintain them exclusively through their dealers.
That works great for the 1%. But what about the rest of us? The folks who drive a dented, 10-year-old car? We should have the option to drive autonomous cars, and to participate in the same world as the more wealthy folks.
Open Cars will be the solution. These are automobiles sold with standard fittings, plugs and standards, so that an autonomous driving computer can be purchased in the aftermarket, installed and tested by a certified mechanic, and put on the road. Similarly, the on-board computer, communication, navigation, and entertainment system on an Open Car will be pluggable, purchased on the aftermarket, and will fit into well-defined niches in the vehicle.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 18 2018, @02:59AM
Just like new houses, new cars aren't problem free either (though they do tend to be better than the custom constructed houses...)
I've had as much damage done during warranty repairs as I have had things fixed, it feels like. Once the warranty is gone and I start making more rational decisions about "does this really need to be fixed?" the number of problems seems to drop off pretty quickly.
Often, it doesn't take much in the way of tools to do your own work (for some jobs...) I had a "bad" cooling fan that, when I got into it, was just a loose connector. The connector itself had some breaking plastic and a stretched out metal socket - once I saw that I reshaped the socket with a pair of pliers and it's fixed: total parts cost $0. Time to repair: less than any repair that would have attempted to replace the connector. How long will it last? Time will tell, if it gets flaky again, I already know to check the connector first before even thinking about a new fan motor.
For bigger jobs (like a total accessory tear-down to get to a timing belt), if you can find a good, honest mechanic they can do the work for less than 1/2 of shop rate. I sourced my own parts and paid a mechanic for his labor in my garage with his tools, total cost $1000 to replace: radiator, hoses, belts, alternator, water pump, timing belt and oil seals on a 1999 Miata - the alternator had died, the seals were leaking, and the rest was well past half-life. Hopefully we're now 50K+ miles away from the next necessary repair of any of that stuff. Shop rate for any one of those major component replacements would be over $500, well over at most shops.
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