I love the idea of a sound system that is just an aux cord to a speaker
If I ever win the lottery, I’m hiring a 50 people like you to build an incredibly basic production car together. Make it barely or technically meet the modern technology standards to be road legal in all 50 states, but use the simplest mechanical solution to everything a car needs to do. I assume a lot of systems would have to be installed as a “backup” to the electrical version, but I’d want to build it to be able to function perfectly with all the computers disconnected. Probably ship it with instructions phrased as warnings of what not to do.
As long as the price reflects that absolutely. I feel like one of the reasons cars are getting so pricy is because we are filling them with so much bloat. Ex. Heated seats, power windows, tablets. Like, what happened to a base model car?
Yes, I would want the price to reflect the simplicity, and lack of extras should help with that. Let the aftermarket companies do heated seats and fancy stereos.
Open source car? Lol. Design it as easy to aftermarket as possible. Let aftermarket companies sell full seats and ECT. Use only standard connections and hardware
Surely there is an open source car by now. Some sort of street legal kit?
I do think open source car is the best label to describe what I’m dreaming of. But factory built to take advantage of bulk order pricing for the parts and because people who are actually willing and able to put their own car together are rare.
Nope, at least afaik. Prototyping and building cars by hand (without a whole factory set up to build it) is hard. Not to mention extremely expensive. And you have to build multiple (identical) copies of the prototype to get it street legal, because of crash testing. And you have to be able to guarantee that what people build with your kit remains identical to your prototype. Or everyone assembling such a kit would have to build multiple copies of the car and go through the certification process individually.
And of course there are very few people that would want to assemble their own car, so you wouldn’t be able to make a business out of it.
I’ve seen a few builds from scratch online. All of them say it turned out to be far FAR more difficult than they ever imagined. Once the thing works properly, it’s up to what state/ country the builder is in to determine how hard or easy it is to get it legal to drive on the road.
This exists in the motorcycle world, actually. You can buy a 2023 Suzuki DR650. It will have a speedometer, an air cooled 650cc single cylinder engine, and that’s it. No ECU, no LED lights, no ABS, nothing. It doesn’t even have fuel injection.
In the automotove world there is/was something sort of close to what you’re describing. It’s called a Mitsubishi Mirage. 3 cylinders making a furious 78 horsepower, gets great mileage, and is absurdly easy to maintain and repair. And ever since they started making the current Mirage in 2014, it has been given so much hate because it’s a no-frills economy car. People literally bitch about how you can see a couple of screw heads when you open the door, and cry that it’s slower than a Mustang and less luxurious than a Lexus.
So be prepared to hear that when designing a basic car. There are automotive writers and reviewers who are very out of touch, and can’t understand that a basic cheap car is a good thing.
Oh absolutely, I’d expect this imaginary car would be an ugly thing, and constantly panned by reviewers. People would be outraged that some nobody burned hundreds of millions in lottery money on a trash looking car. Meanwhile, every mechanic constantly recommends it for a daily driver because it just works and is super easy to fix.
I love the idea of a sound system that is just an aux cord to a speaker
If I ever win the lottery, I’m hiring a 50 people like you to build an incredibly basic production car together. Make it barely or technically meet the modern technology standards to be road legal in all 50 states, but use the simplest mechanical solution to everything a car needs to do. I assume a lot of systems would have to be installed as a “backup” to the electrical version, but I’d want to build it to be able to function perfectly with all the computers disconnected. Probably ship it with instructions phrased as warnings of what not to do.
As long as the price reflects that absolutely. I feel like one of the reasons cars are getting so pricy is because we are filling them with so much bloat. Ex. Heated seats, power windows, tablets. Like, what happened to a base model car?
Yes, I would want the price to reflect the simplicity, and lack of extras should help with that. Let the aftermarket companies do heated seats and fancy stereos.
Open source car? Lol. Design it as easy to aftermarket as possible. Let aftermarket companies sell full seats and ECT. Use only standard connections and hardware
Surely there is an open source car by now. Some sort of street legal kit?
I do think open source car is the best label to describe what I’m dreaming of. But factory built to take advantage of bulk order pricing for the parts and because people who are actually willing and able to put their own car together are rare.
Nope, at least afaik. Prototyping and building cars by hand (without a whole factory set up to build it) is hard. Not to mention extremely expensive. And you have to build multiple (identical) copies of the prototype to get it street legal, because of crash testing. And you have to be able to guarantee that what people build with your kit remains identical to your prototype. Or everyone assembling such a kit would have to build multiple copies of the car and go through the certification process individually.
And of course there are very few people that would want to assemble their own car, so you wouldn’t be able to make a business out of it.
I’ve seen a few builds from scratch online. All of them say it turned out to be far FAR more difficult than they ever imagined. Once the thing works properly, it’s up to what state/ country the builder is in to determine how hard or easy it is to get it legal to drive on the road.
I did a moped over a 3 day weekend. That was a lot of fun. The state required me to get a mechanic to sign off on it.
I would also join this endeavor. This country needs a small, light pickup truck again that a guy can fix in his driveway with basic tools.
Yes! Something the size of a 90s ranger, or even a little smaller. Built with flat glass and a bench seat if we can get away with it.
This exists in the motorcycle world, actually. You can buy a 2023 Suzuki DR650. It will have a speedometer, an air cooled 650cc single cylinder engine, and that’s it. No ECU, no LED lights, no ABS, nothing. It doesn’t even have fuel injection.
In the automotove world there is/was something sort of close to what you’re describing. It’s called a Mitsubishi Mirage. 3 cylinders making a furious 78 horsepower, gets great mileage, and is absurdly easy to maintain and repair. And ever since they started making the current Mirage in 2014, it has been given so much hate because it’s a no-frills economy car. People literally bitch about how you can see a couple of screw heads when you open the door, and cry that it’s slower than a Mustang and less luxurious than a Lexus.
So be prepared to hear that when designing a basic car. There are automotive writers and reviewers who are very out of touch, and can’t understand that a basic cheap car is a good thing.
Interesting about the Mirage. Next time I’m looking for a commuter car, I’ll have to look for one of those.
Oh absolutely, I’d expect this imaginary car would be an ugly thing, and constantly panned by reviewers. People would be outraged that some nobody burned hundreds of millions in lottery money on a trash looking car. Meanwhile, every mechanic constantly recommends it for a daily driver because it just works and is super easy to fix.
Why do I feel it would look like the Homer?
It might look like an economy car of yesteryear, but not like the Homer