On 30 Jul 2021 at 21:39, Haudy Kazemi via EV wrote:
> This is a battle being fought between lots of hardware manufacturers and
> owners of devices ranging from cars to tractors to phones to laptops.
I had an insane idea in the 1990s, and it hasn't gotten any saner since. It
was down the block from impossible then, and probably right next door to it
now that EVs are actually in production, but it's kind of fun to dream
about.
My thought was that switching the world to EVs was an opportunity to rethink
the whole idea of how vehicles are designed, made, and sold.
We already have an open source EVSE. Why not an open source EV?
Call it the FLOSEV - Free, libre open source electric vehicle.
What I'm dreaming about is a simple, straightforward, no-frills reference
design EV. No power windows, no fancy sound system, no self-driving or
similar gimmicks and gadgets. Not even a specific body. Just a basic EV
platform that, with minimal changes, could be built as a functional 2- or 4-
door hatchback, small crossover, van, or pickup truck.
The design might be placed in the public domain, or it might follow the
Creative Commons, BSD, GNU, or other similar open licensing ("copyleft"?)
scheme.
Really ambitious EV hobbyists could build a FLOSEV from published plans.
Organizations, nonprofit or for-profit, could develop kits, semi-kits, and
finished vehicles. As with open source software, the design could be
improved or "forked" by others, as long as they adhered to the terms of the
license.
I know, an EV is orders of magnitude more complex than an EVSE. And there
would be enormous regulatory hurdles, especially since you'd want to meet as
many nations' standards as possible.
Financing the design would be a daunting challenge. For obvious reasons you
couldn't approach venture capitalists. Heck, if any showed interest, you'd
have to ward them off with tear gas and a large dog.
Donations would have to play a big part, but you'd have to be careful what
foundations, individuals, and governments you approached. Look what
happened to the Tropica / Xebra and the Solectria Sunrise when outside
organizations got involved.
As I said, this is utterly whacko. I can see hurdles, and I'm ignorant, so
I'm sure that an industry insider would see 50 foot walls topped with razor
wire, flanked by guard towers, and protected by armed guards.
But it's still intriguing to contemplate and dream about. Wouldn't a FLOSEV
knock the socks off of the big corporate automakers? :-)
Actually, the most likely scenario for something like this would be if the
Chinese government sponsored development of an EV platform that Chinese
automakers could adopt. That's not exactly what I have in mind though ...
David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey
To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my
offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt
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