Hacking the Nissan Leaf EV 199
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the run-it-off-an-arduino dept.
from the run-it-off-an-arduino dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is running a story on people hacking the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. 'Using Mr. Giddings’s home-brewed E.V. fuel-level display, Leaf drivers get the confidence to extend their driving range by 10 percent or more. His gauge, which displays the actual state of charge, reveals that the Leaf dashboard’s "zero bars" display comes on when the battery pack has several miles remaining.' Here's an interesting quote from one of the hackers, Phil Sadow, who was interviewed for the story: 'I don't like the term hacking because it's been portrayed by the media as something evil. To me, hacking is actually very American. Go out to the garage. Take it apart. Make it better.'"
Re:Why is it "american"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a bit tired of people claiming that an activity is very american just because the person is from USA and likes it.
You must be the life of the party when an american brings up the topic of "american football" (as opposed to real football = soccer). I'm from the US, our style of football is somewhat popular here (only around 5% really care, but at least 50% go along to get along with them). So our style of football is very american, oh well.
The reason for "american DIY culture" is our profoundly anti-business anti-entrepreneur climate. If you own a set of wrenches in Ecuador even if you mostly work on your own vehicles you'll be considered a "pro car mechanic" by an American if you ever help your neighbor change their windshield wiper blades, so an Equadorian (?) in that situation can't be DIY if they're a businessman, so there is no DIY culture in Equador, even if the same percentage of guys are turning wrenches under a shade tree in their backyard... In the US we have a huge quantity of laws and regulations to prevent individual entrepreneurs from competing with the bigger businesses, because those bigger businesses have purchase the govt and "suggested" those laws to the purchased politicians to improve their profits. I can't even begin to imagine the paperwork and financial resources required to let me change my neighbor's oil for a couple bucks... but I can change my own (so far) without too much govt interference, although they're working on it...
An american DIYer is pretty much just a frustrated entrepreneur. In a better country they're be a very small part time businessman, a dude with a "side job".