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 removed 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.
There are two basic kinds of Mirage. There is a hatchback and a sedan. The sedan has a huge trunk (My wife is 5’-9", I’m 6’-0", and we can both fit in the trunk) and a decent amount of rear legroom.
My wife and I have a 2017 “G4” Mirage, which is the sedan. Ours is a 5 speed manual, the only “option” we got is bluetooth which we never use. It does have power windows and locks standard. It has a steel oil pan, not an aluminum one, so it doesn’t strip out as easily. The only problem we have had with ours is a gas guage that started acting up last month. Other than that it’s a solid car that gets us 45+ mpg highway.
It’s actually frustrating to drive with it’s 78 horsepower and 2,000 pounds. But not for the reason you might think.
The problem is, most of the time, It’s the fastest car on the road. Every time we drive it somewhere, our 78 horsepower car is unable to go more than 30 miles per hour, because there is someome with a twin-turbo F150, or a Hemi Challenger, or literally any car that should be faster, and they are in the way. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve followed some allegedly much faster vehicle down an onramp at 40 mph, wishing they would go faster so I (and those behind me) could merge. The 1.2 liter under the hood hasn’t ever been an impediment. It is always held back by another car that should be faster.
The only car I have had that was worse about this was an old Metro. (1 liter 3 cylinder, 55 hp, 1600-ish pounds) The problem with that car was people knew what it was, and they would blow their engines or cause an accident trying to get in front of it just so they could pull their phone out and scroll facebook while going under the speed limit. I noticed a bridge I used to drive over always had a speed trap. I also noticed that the easiest type of vehicle to “trigger” were the fancy lifted diesel 4x4 trucks. So I started to bait them near that bridge, so they could show me how their big expensive truck was faster than a car I literally rebuilt in my driveway, and they woukd inevitably blow by a cop at 60+ in a 45.
Haha, baiting people into a speeding ticket when they try to prove something must be very satisfying.
The only car I’ve had that was just too slow was a 2006 Hyundai Elantra. Cheap to buy, cheap to fix, cheap little tires. But so so slow. Whenever I’d borrow another car, I would inevitably chirp the tires trying to accelerate normally.
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.
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 removed 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.
There are two basic kinds of Mirage. There is a hatchback and a sedan. The sedan has a huge trunk (My wife is 5’-9", I’m 6’-0", and we can both fit in the trunk) and a decent amount of rear legroom.
My wife and I have a 2017 “G4” Mirage, which is the sedan. Ours is a 5 speed manual, the only “option” we got is bluetooth which we never use. It does have power windows and locks standard. It has a steel oil pan, not an aluminum one, so it doesn’t strip out as easily. The only problem we have had with ours is a gas guage that started acting up last month. Other than that it’s a solid car that gets us 45+ mpg highway.
Is it light enough that the car can get out of its own way, despite the low horsepower engine?
It’s actually frustrating to drive with it’s 78 horsepower and 2,000 pounds. But not for the reason you might think.
The problem is, most of the time, It’s the fastest car on the road. Every time we drive it somewhere, our 78 horsepower car is unable to go more than 30 miles per hour, because there is someome with a twin-turbo F150, or a Hemi Challenger, or literally any car that should be faster, and they are in the way. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve followed some allegedly much faster vehicle down an onramp at 40 mph, wishing they would go faster so I (and those behind me) could merge. The 1.2 liter under the hood hasn’t ever been an impediment. It is always held back by another car that should be faster.
The only car I have had that was worse about this was an old Metro. (1 liter 3 cylinder, 55 hp, 1600-ish pounds) The problem with that car was people knew what it was, and they would blow their engines or cause an accident trying to get in front of it just so they could pull their phone out and scroll facebook while going under the speed limit. I noticed a bridge I used to drive over always had a speed trap. I also noticed that the easiest type of vehicle to “trigger” were the fancy lifted diesel 4x4 trucks. So I started to bait them near that bridge, so they could show me how their big expensive truck was faster than a car I literally rebuilt in my driveway, and they woukd inevitably blow by a cop at 60+ in a 45.
Haha, baiting people into a speeding ticket when they try to prove something must be very satisfying.
The only car I’ve had that was just too slow was a 2006 Hyundai Elantra. Cheap to buy, cheap to fix, cheap little tires. But so so slow. Whenever I’d borrow another car, I would inevitably chirp the tires trying to accelerate normally.
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 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.