this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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The market is ripe for the equivalent of a wileys jeep ev. Cheap to buy, repair and capable with no frills.
Seriously, I need this bad. I'm about to get a rikshaw instead
Make the software foss too and i'm in
I would die for a FOSS car. The main barrier for that is airbags, people could just disable them, which wouldn't be good or fair to their passengers or future owners. I also worry about other dumb stuff people would do with a foss car. Of course, I still want one.
Not gonna happen for multiple obvious reasons, but here's one that would make you not want to buy one - it'd be a budget car for a price of a BMW.
And you're not gonna want to buy it second-hand, because of the risk of unimaginable extent of software garbage the previous owners would leave you with.
Tinker cars are for tinkering, good luck untinkering it.
If it’s software, you could just reinstall it.
Hardware would be a different story. But I’m not sure how that’s different than today. My friend has a RAV4 that he’s added several hardware hacks to. For example, there is a module you can add that will give you actual numbers for each tire’s pressure instead of the usual warning light that a tire is low with no indication of which one. It even shows up as an extra screen on the normal interface between the gauges.
Exactly, right!
As a FOSS person you don't buy a used PC from someone, find it still has an OS installed and just start using it.
No, you wipe that sucker clean and install your OS fresh.
An open-source car would be exactly the same.
I’m pretty sure I do that with EVERY piece of hardware I get. I don’t trust that shenanigans haven’t been done. Hell most times I update the BIOS too if I can.
You can already do that though. Basically any truck just has a control on the dash to disable the passenger side airbag in case you neet to put a car seat there. You can also just remove the airbags in any existing vehicle as is. It really isn't hard to do. People are just hesitant to do so because if you screw up then you can set the airbag off.
More importantly though why would the software being foss effect the airbags? The airbags shouldn't be interacting with the vehicle software at all.
People have been doing dumb things with their cars since the invention of cars. Making them harder to repair via locked down software isn't the fix for that.
Airbags are definitely a part of the can bus these days, they trigger based off of a number of inputs like the gyro, speed, acceleration, etc. I suppose they could just put in a seperate, secure system for the airbags that cannot be tampered with.
If those sensors give the values thru a server port and the airbag reads them as a client there is no need for more interaction than what the 90s browsers had with the web servers.
Thankfully cars use more reliable things than http.
But the point is that security related messages should be sent through another can bus, which is actually already the case. Except for earlier Tesla's, because of course their idiotic CEO thought he knew better than every single other car manufacturer in the past half century
Theoretically there are ways to deal with modifications in that scenario.
Prusa for instance had a trace on the PCB of the mk3 that you had to cut to be able to flash a unsigned binary iirc. You voided the warranty or at least the parts that were affected by modifications.
Imagine something like this for a car. Not a binary blob but something signed or otherwise secured through a chain of trust for components the law decides to regulate. Driving data recorder in case of crash and airbags and such. All the other non safety components can be changed and nobody but you controls your data and your ability to repair. And if you decide to change said components you loose some rights regarding insurance, not warranty for the car itself.
Yes please.
Slate.. though who knows if it will ever materialize in the real world.
I can't wait to preorder mine! https://www.slate.auto/share/VYMIBC
Isn't Slate a unibody design?
No idea, does it matter?
Yes, because unibody designs will all have this problem, where it's extremely expensive to repair damage to the frame.
Body-on-frame is generally better for repairability because you don't have this problem - you can just remove the damaged panel and replace it.
In both slate and rivian's case (I think), they seem to use a hybrid of both. So, it's probably around the same expense as repairing a Rivian in regard to labor (and possibly materials).
The point is that Slate might not resolve this problem either.
My understanding is the Slate is kind of body-around-frame.
Not exactly a ladder chassis but I don't know if you can call it a unibody.
I corrected my first comment in the comment you just replied to:
Everywhere I've found calls it a hybrid or mix of both options. This is how Rivian does their bodies as well, which means Slate may not fully fix this "more expensive to repair than standard body-on-frame" problem. At least, Rivian calls it a "unique" body on frame.
Here's an R1T, for example and to compare:
I do see that the Slate's bed body is less of a unibody compared to the R1T, however it otherwise is very similar. I'm betting that the Slate will be cheaper to repair in the rear, from a labor and material sense, however I think it will suffer from similar problems elsewhere.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a Slate regardless. R2 is a full unibody, which will almost definitely make repairs more costly, as well.
Frame on rails doesnt save you any money in repairs if the frame is damaged. The real key is to hace rapairability as part of the design. The problem with the rivian isnt that its unibody, its that the exterior pannels are part of the unibody, so a small exterior dent is essentialy frame damage. That being siad, its likley cosmetic damage.
EVs will never be frame on rails due to battery packaging. The most likley similar design would be body on "skateboard" as they call it. But the hybrid approach does make better cars. Frame on rails has issues with twisting and flex that unibody solves. This makes the cars drive softer and handle better.
But either way, any design could have easy replacable exterior panels. Most unibody designs still have replacable bumpers, front quarter panels, mirrors, doors, trunks, etc. For some reason though they dont do usually do it on rear quarter panels, which is where the costs skyrocket. Just like in that r1t picturee above. The rear quarter panel could have been a replacable part. There may be a good reason for this, but i suspect its mostly production cost savings, with maybe a bit of weight savings.
Cool idea.
The mecedes g wagon was developed with easy repair ability in mind. At least regarding the outer shell and maybe the frame. Straight and rectangular sections that can easily be welded. As all good ideas it went to shit of course.
Germans will not save us with simple engineering. Everything in their cars is so fucking complicated to work on.
It's like they have a division of how to make mechanics work hell
You read my comment, right?
Dacia Spring (but that's probably not exported to the US which I guess you're from)
Canada, so no. :(
The price is nice. I doubt it is easy to repair.
shouldn't be too difficult for most body shops...
and there's plenty of them: so plenty of parts available e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/157804119428