2016-02-01 - open source cars

recently i changed a car. again some outdated, second-handed stuff, that you can buy at a reasonable price. some electronics on board just drive me crazy at times. these are minor, usability things mostly, but it see i could came out with a more intuitive/useful interface/algorithm for a given task within an hour, including PoC implementation… if i only had a source code and all the schematics. which drove me to the question – why don't we have open source cars?

it is not a problem to buy internet router and flash it with our own stuff. when it comes to cars… not necessary so easy. while there obviously are critical, hard real-time systems like: ABS, ESP, etc., that most users should not mess with, when it comes to on board electronics, computers, music players, and integration of new elements however – why not?

quick searching reveals an interesting company called OSVehicle, that might just do the trick. recently android auto has been release – though it is not exactly what i had in mind, it might be a small step in a right direction.

some time ago i've read an interesting article, stating that car manufacturers may actually need to change their approach to what “a car” really is, after self-driving cars will join our daily lives. SW is more and more important part of a car nowadays, yet it is still poorly protected against attacks. it is still not uncommon to have no inter-process memory protection in chips controlling vehicle ¹⁾, that is standard in PC for two decades now. also there are very few options for doing customization.

i personally look forward to more modular and open solution. when somethings annoys you, you can just change it, recompile and upload improved version to a device.