Cool Open Source Car Customization platform...

[Tweak155]

Saw this from Ford today... really cool idea. They give you access to the car's (In this case, a Mustang) diagnostics / information and you can design your own customizations to react to those readings...

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=38325

Pretty nifty idea.

 

[Ferzerp]

Nifty idea, stupidest application ever. Both hands on the wheel, hands off the shifter except when shifting. You need to steer, and you need to not accidentally habitually torque any of the shifting components.

In other words, the guy who thought this up, knows nothing of manuals.

The framework is neat though, just the application is asinine.

 

[Tweak155]

Nifty idea, stupidest application ever. Both hands on the wheel, hands off the shifter except when shifting. You need to steer, and you need to not accidentally habitually torque any of the shifting components.

In other words, the guy who thought this up, knows nothing of manuals.

The framework is neat though, just the application is asinine.

I don't think this is for the guy that already has it down pat.

 

[smackababy]

I am confused at how you do not know when to shift. How do you learn to drive a manual without learning when to shift?

 

[Tweak155]

I am confused at how you do not know when to shift. How do you learn to drive a manual without learning when to shift?

While I'm not supporting the idea as super awesome or anything, the idea is to improve your timing. It is useful for only a short period of time.

The real benefit is a community that comes up with all sorts of ideas...

 

[smackababy]

While I'm not supporting the idea as super awesome or anything, the idea is to improve your timing. It is useful for only a short period of time.

The real benefit is a community that comes up with all sorts of ideas...

Even the idea of improving your timing, from what I can tell (and I am no professional driver), is dependent entirely upon how you are driving. It seems to me that this idea is no better than an automatic transmission that you manually control. The computer does the thinking and you just go through the motions.

The problem, and I am sure people who appreciate manual transmissions agree, is having a computer make the decision on when it is the right time to shift removes control. Now, there is always a perfect time to change gears, but that is based almost entirely on what your goals are while driving: fuel efficient? racing? a balance of both? A computer cannot determine, at least without significant data input, the balance between accelerating slow enough not "waste" gas and still feel like I am not driving a sloth on it's own. And that is different for every person I am sure.

 

[Tweak155]

Even the idea of improving your timing, from what I can tell (and I am no professional driver), is dependent entirely upon how you are driving. It seems to me that this idea is no better than an automatic transmission that you manually control. The computer does the thinking and you just go through the motions.

The problem, and I am sure people who appreciate manual transmissions agree, is having a computer make the decision on when it is the right time to shift removes control. Now, there is always a perfect time to change gears, but that is based almost entirely on what your goals are while driving: fuel efficient? racing? a balance of both? A computer cannot determine, at least without significant data input, the balance between accelerating slow enough not "waste" gas and still feel like I am not driving a sloth on it's own. And that is different for every person I am sure.

You're looking too far into it.

 

[Ferzerp]

And the guy who did it isn't looking in to it enough.

You don't drive around with your hand on the stick, even during acceleration.

 

[thescreensavers]

^ this

As someone who just learned recently. I see no point in this. I don't even look at the tach to shift. I do glance at it when really going for it but only so I can not hit the limiter. My hand isnt on the shifter until I need to shift.

 

[EvilYoda]

Ford's being pretty awesome about OpenXC - I saw a few things being worked on at TechShop Detroit including gauges and stuff. They're also starting an OpenXC class there which would be awesome to take.

 

[_Rick_]

^ this

As someone who just learned recently. I see no point in this. I don't even look at the tach to shift. I do glance at it when really going for it but only so I can not hit the limiter. My hand isnt on the shifter until I need to shift.

In any car with electronic accelerator pedals, you can run right into the limiter, and use the drop in torque to get out of the gear without unclutching, then clutch into the higher one 😉

As for the topic: sure it's nice to have access to some of the ECU - but why aren't car electronics fully modular yet?
I'm mainly interested in this, because these days many new cars come with plenty of forward looking sensors, thermal, visual, radar. Logging those could replace an ugly dash cam. But getting access to those systems, and plugging in a hard disk? In a normal PC it wouldn't be an issue, but a car PC is sacred, and even interchangeable head units get rarer and rarer, while hard-mounted touch screens become the norm.

With electronics advancing at a much greater pace than the engineering of cars, replacing electronics for a car two to three times during ten to fifteen years of lifetime shouldn't be exceptional. Standardize hardware interfaces and form factors already! Allow the users to run their own software (within reason, I guess you want to have some safeguards built in)