New Zealand Developers Building Open Source Code For Electric Cars 45
MatthewVD writes "New Zealand electric racecar developer Greenstage is close to finishing an open source project called 'Tumanako,' which would allow owners of electric cars and motorcycles to tweak the code in their vehicles. Electric vehicle gearheads grouse about proprietary code that keeps current, torque and speed within very conservative limits. 'In racing, you need the system to push all those parameters to the limits. You only need the system to survive until just past the finish line,' says Bill Dube, the owner of the record-setting KillaCycle. Open source code could also be used to build any type of electric vehicle, from cars and submarines to motor-launched aerial gliders, from scratch. It's like Linux for your Chevy Volt."
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Maybe they can mange the repository on megaupload.
Hooray! (Score:2)
couple things (Score:4, Interesting)
1) I dont have a chevy volt, I bought a 40mpg Kia 2 years before the tax credits, and cash for clunkers were announced, and a little bitter that I did the right thing and got fuck all nothing for it.
2) I dont want to sound too assie, but how many gearheads are computer / electronic nerds? This may well be the future for more professional setups, but when you have local racer Johnny brazing spade terminals for a simple toggle switch with a blow torch looking at written instructions at the drag strip I dunno, seems ripe for people to come in, take the fruits of your labor, slap it on a 1$ rom and sell it as a 299$ speed chip.
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Me, me! I'm a gear head and an electronics nerd.
I work in IT and race a Mazda RX7 on the weekends. I rebuilt and modified the motor and programmed the ECU! I've been wanting to build an electric race car like this for years and now I can get a head start with this project. Fantastic!
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The knack.
It's a rare condition characterized by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical... and utter social ineptitude.
I know a few others with this diagnosis. varying amounts of all three, of course.
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I dont want to sound too assie, but how many gearheads are computer / electronic nerds?
I'd say about 2/3rds. EFI's been around for a long time and now there's fucking CANbus, you pretty much have to deal with computers to be a gearhead (whether the situation calls for it or not).
Also, "Linux for you Chevy Volt?" Really? More like Megasquirt for your Nissan Leaf.
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Damn dude....why did you have to broadcast my new business plan like that?!?!?!
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Have you seen the tech in an F1 racer these days? It takes a while, but that does slowly trickle down. Soon enough, dirt track racers will have a software specialist on the team.
Just don't let... (Score:3)
Interesting Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
200kW Inverters, Battery Management Systems, and chargers are all high price items right now. I'm curious to see where this goes. It's an ambitious undertaking but it could be done with the right people working on the project.
Electric != Autonomous (Score:5, Insightful)
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An electric car is about a ton of metal that moves in public under only loose control of its driver. It's not quite autonomous, but, for the most part, the only thing that makes it slow down and stop on demand is the software, which is designed and tested to ensure that bad things don't happen. Can you say the same of the latest source release you downloaded from the internet? .. And if it isn't?
Put another way: It's illegal for people to drive on public roads without being qualified. Why would you let u
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Because, you can do it today...you are free to do anything you want with your car's system computers...and many cars are already pretty much drive by wire.
The only difference between now and your question, is the engine (internal combustion vs electric).
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Amen, brother!!
I said the same thing when a thing called "Linux" was created and nobody believed me. And now we have Android!!
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Umm, how is this any different from linux which exist in so many important things?....
The big difference here is that if something were to go wrong with your desktop / smartphone / tablet then people tend not to be seriously injured as a result. All it would take is for a stray pointer to screw with some RAM used to calculate PWM or inverter output frequencies and you've got real potential to lock the drive wheels in an instant. Anyone who has put DC current through an AC motor will know how much braking torque it can develop. And that's not the kind of thing you want to happen, without warn
Linux car distros (Score:1)
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..always knew they would come at last.
So, when the "year of Linux on race cars" is supposed to be?
(ducks)
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ArcticCore (Score:3)
Is the gas engine equivalent. It'll be interesting to see if/when anyone actually uses either project, versus the software merely being there. The world doesn't operate according to Field of Dreams, building it means nothing. What matters is not what is there, but what people find useful.
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[Arctic Core] Is the gas engine equivalent. It'll be interesting to see if/when anyone actually uses either project, versus the software merely being there..
Arctic Core is being used in several University projects around the world (with main focus on scheduling, multicore and diagnostics; have a swift look on Google Scholar for a couple of them). Its commercially licensed branch is already being used in some commercial ECUs in actual commercial vehicles, and several ECUs are in testing. Although far from all of the AUTOSAR standard is covered to date, the most important parts are, and has been proven useful and stable.
As you might imagine, the automotive world
What is the relevance? (Score:3)
... of an article of 2009 on April 11, 2012?
I mean, technically.
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... of an article of 2009 on April 11, 2012? I mean, technically.
Some things need gestation time? Some things are cool ideas out of the box, but what's its application? I've worked with startups that had cool ideas, but no real plan as to what to do with it or how to sell it once done. Who's the eventual target market?
"Uhh, ... But it's cool, yes?"
Not good enough. In this case, I see 1st day Redhat admins hypermodding their cars which end up slamming into bridge abutments.
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silent danger (Score:2)
Mario is slowing down! (Score:2)
You only need the system to survive until just past the finish line,' says Bill Dube
While this is, in a race, true, it is a limit that a lot of race teams have bounced against and lost. Also, while I think most people receive value from what is learned in races, but they want their daily driver to have a little more longevity. Hopefully there's still enough pep to let the thing merge in traffic.
Just another process crash? (Score:2)
Chevy Volt is linux already (Score:2)