A Decentralized Roadmap To Compete With Elon Musk/Tesla: The Open Source Car

[Ucy]

observations of decentralised practices:
"wait for someone to do the hard work. look at it and if its good copy it"

yep. this method is seen in many places
-miners do hard work. nodes just validate and copy
-bitcoin creator does hard work piecing code together. altcoiners just copy and fork
-wall street apply for ETFs. when one is finally accepted every wallstretter will copy the template and get theirs accepted by default
....
its a form of precedent. once something is set as default. everything after can just use that reference
..
big automotive businesses are smart. they dont have to rush to EV for a decade. so why waste time/money on their own R&D when they can wait around for others to develop the tech and work out the bugs and do the hard R&D .. and then later big automotive can just open a factory and start at step 50. which took elon a decade of R&D to get to

innovate does not mean invent..
it means make changes in something established

so why go through the expense of invention and then R&D when you can let elon do that. and then you wait until all the bugs are worked out and then just copy from his template

why invent the battery. when they can just let elon pay panasonic to invent the battery. and other manufacturers just buy the end product. much cheaper

Interesting points.
From my experience, if you are not that connected and try to do things your own way(even if your own way is good) , you will run into alot of problems. And alot of times when you consider what you have to go through to succeed, you just prefer not to continue with the development of your ideas.
I think crypto space makes things abit better for independent creators. It just needs to have the right tools that protect all kinds of developers, as long as the ideas are good. Your adversary will be busy working hard to stop you from breaking free completely. You just need the backing of the ONE who is greater than the adversary in order to succeed.

[AndySt]

Quite an interesting topic to discuss, especially considering that some years ago, Elon Musk seemed to announce the transfer of Tesla's patents for public use and his commitment to the ideas of open source. It would be interesting to learn from informed forumchan how this issue is now, because then I seem to have no information on this issue did not meet. As for this particular topic, I would like to express the idea that, unlike the world of software in the hardware sphere, the ideas of open source are difficult to break through and offhand I remember the situation with RISC V, where there was some revival in the light of concerns about the potential sale of ARM. Specifically, in the automotive industry, the ball is ruled by huge monopolist companies that are not yet burning with love for such ideas and the conversation is still at most about joining forces to develop an automotive platform for several companies and not at all on the ideas of open source.

[tygeade]

I believe for real that Tesla should keep every single thing in hiding. However if I am not wrong SpaceX has all their info public so that others could take a look at it and improve on it if they want to, just like the idea here, just for spacex and not for tesla and that is the difference.

I know for sure that tesla would have been able to do that as well if other car manufacturers wouldn't steal it, but that is the difference, if spacex info is stolen and it was given to people, the outcome would be having a lot better ships that can go to mars and that is acceptable, but the reality is that if we have car manufacturers stealing from tesla that is not going to be fine, that is not going to be ok, and that is what Tesla and Elon would be worried about, stealing the info and making profit from it is not going to be something that anyone would be fine with.

[amishmanish]

I believe for real that Tesla should keep every single thing in hiding. However if I am not wrong SpaceX has all their info public so that others could take a look at it and improve on it if they want to, just like the idea here, just for spacex and not for tesla and that is the difference.
--snip--

I don't think that its SpaceX that has their info public. Tesla has open-sourced some of its patents in Battery and Battery management systems. Elon has always insisted that Tesla's main motive was to prove that electric vehicles can actually replace ICE cars. He also wanted to kickstart a technological race amongst the traditional car manufacturers as they had the resources to do all the research. The initial bootstrapping with costlier models served that purpose.

Its another story that Tesla has emerged as the most valuable car manufacturer within a very short time.

[Twentyonepaylots]

decentralizing Tesla's development right at its infancy may look good on theory, but in reality I see it as something they are actively avoiding to ensure that their vehicles are top of the line, pristine, and bonafide. If the same treatment gas cars receive is given to electric cars, quality is something they can control anymore, since every shop can basically say they know how to fix your e-car until they mess it up. In the future, when electric vehicles become more mainstream, and more people got the hang out of fixing and operating these types of vehicles, this may be viable, but I don't see why they should rush it now.

[bitmover]

Which isn't to say tesla's approach is 100% perfect. While tesla's team is talented and innovative, there is one perhaps one critical component they're failing to harness due to their centralized nature.

I don't think everything should be decentralized.

Companies make innovations because they are centralized. Because inventors become rich. Centralization is what makes companies efficient.

Decentralization of money is interesting, but decentralization of companies? That looks like socialism to me, which ultimately will fail.

Tesla is much more than a car.  Tesla is developing batteries  technology, allowing people around the world to create more and different projects (like more efficient electric bikes and electric scooters) based in the technology tesla help to develop.
This is not decentralization, this is the free market. This is what works, imo.

Let Tesla create, let them make money, let they innovate. There is nothing "wrong" when a guy create products and innovations, and he owns and control the company that he created.

[Timelord2067]

As far as I know when you buy any other car (not Tesla) you can make any modifications you want using your money.

While that is mostly true I can give you at least one example - Rolls Royce who when selling a car place a covenant on that car concerning service and resale.  They even tried to force John Lennon to repaint his psychedelic Rolls back to it's previous colour scheme.

[wiss19]

Question: could automobile corporations more effectively harness the collective resource of a population by decentralizing their development, maintenance and production models away from centralized monolithic models. To be more inclusive of local communities. Producing products designed to be open source hackable and moddable.

For analogies sake, if tesla has 1 thousand engineers in a centralized format. Could gains be made by decentralizing and opening select portions of their development process to millions of engineers, tinkerers and hackers around the world.

Is there anyone who would like to own a car or truck designed from the ground up to be open sourced. To make it as easy as possible to mod, hack, modify, repair without needing a certified professional. Don't forget movie franchises like the Fast and Furious arose out of the modding car scene. I don't know if there is a market for it today. But there definitely is a long history of hot rodding and modding with cars/vehicles which could be relevent.

Or are there perhaps significant flaws or shortcomings to open sourcing automobile technology which I am failing to acknowledge?

I doubt whether it being decentralized will be a better option or just remaining centralized. But, I do think that in a situation where there is a warranty for that car, it’s best that there are just some set of professionals that are left to handle it in cases where there breakdowns and things like that, cause that way the company will be sure that no one is really tampering with it in any other way that it would result to an extra costs for them and stuff’s like that.

But in a situation where there is now warranty of such, then anyone can be free to work on the vehicle. This is what I think, there are always two sides to a coin, we should always consider the two sides before making a decision that we think is the best.

[sheenshane]

IMO, this might work but only at the idea stage.
Even though there's a lot of people who are capable of developing vehicles, it doesn’t mean this will actually work.

In my point of view, the decentralization of vehicle development doesn’t really make that much difference.  Building a vehicle does require a lot of processes to be made, a lot of principles that have to be followed, and a lot of things to be considered.

Let’s say we have a lot of ideas, but only .01% will make it to manufacturing.
And that is something you had to consider.  Do you think .01% is profitable to the community?

[davis196]

Question: could automobile corporations more effectively harness the collective resource of a population by decentralizing their development, maintenance and production models away from centralized monolithic models. To be more inclusive of local communities. Producing products designed to be open source hackable and moddable.

Automobile corporations can do this,but they will lose a portion of their revenue,so what's the point for them to do this?Corporations want more revenue and more profits.They don't want to give away technology and "know how" for free.
If I buy a "hackable and moddable" car,that has cheap parts,that can be easily replaced,I would never pay to use the maintenance services provided by the corporation,which produced that car.

[Wind_FURY]

Decentralization for the sake of decentralization will just make creation, and development inefficient. Is there truly a need to make the production of cars to be more inefficient, not even sure to be as superior as its centrally developed counterparts?

It’s the same as the blockchain bandwagon, everyone wanted to use one, but what they truly needed was a ledger/database.

[Kakmakr]

I do not know if I want my car to be developed, based on a Open sourced decentralized network. A car can be a weapon if it is not done by a well-trained certified specialist. (You can cause a accident or you can be in a accident, if this is not done correctly)

Let the car be developed by a centralized automotive industry, but give the backyard mechanic the option to tweak some parameters that are developed by these specialists. (They can play around with that, based on your driving style) 

Most backyard mechanics cannot work on new cars today, because it is all electronic these days and everything is done by the onboard computer. (These guys do not have the tools and software to work on these cars) 

[bitgolden]

I do not know if I want my car to be developed, based on a Open sourced decentralized network. A car can be a weapon if it is not done by a well-trained certified specialist. (You can cause a accident or you can be in a accident, if this is not done correctly)

Let the car be developed by a centralized automotive industry, but give the backyard mechanic the option to tweak some parameters that are developed by these specialists. (They can play around with that, based on your driving style) 

Most backyard mechanics cannot work on new cars today, because it is all electronic these days and everything is done by the onboard computer. (These guys do not have the tools and software to work on these cars) 

That's another thing, I mean given the source code to someone else for free is acceptable, even though it is financially an idiotic move it is still acceptable, that way you can learn from that and build something of your own.

However the idea here is that tesla should open source their car and get help from all around the world and build something from all the help they get, that is the weird part, why would Tesla "hire" thousands of people all around the world to make their car better? Why do they have that kind of responsibility? That is crazy and I do not want my car to be done by some freelancer on some other nation putting few more lines to "make it better" with his coding, maybe he did something horrible? Maybe that's actually a bad thing? I wouldn't feel safe in a car like that. I want tesla to continue the way it does, and if someone else wants to copy it, they might do that, I won't buy it but I wouldn't mind it.

[Hydrogen]

I do not know if I want my car to be developed, based on a Open sourced decentralized network. A car can be a weapon if it is not done by a well-trained certified specialist. (You can cause a accident or you can be in a accident, if this is not done correctly)

Let the car be developed by a centralized automotive industry, but give the backyard mechanic the option to tweak some parameters that are developed by these specialists. (They can play around with that, based on your driving style)  

Most backyard mechanics cannot work on new cars today, because it is all electronic these days and everything is done by the onboard computer. (These guys do not have the tools and software to work on these cars)  

To offer a different perspective. Years ago, it was claimed open source code contains fewer bugs and security vulnerabilities per lines of code. In contrast to proprietary closed source code. Open source mozilla firefox was claimed to be more stable and secure than proprietary microsoft explorer. These claims were partly attributable to greater peer review and scrutiny of open source code.

Linux(open source) versus windows(proprietary) is another facet of the debate. Bitcoin itself is considered open source software, if I'm remembering correctly.

I suppose the worst that could happen if tesla ever open sourced its software. Is if Roger Ver forked the project and named it tesla cash. Tesla software specially designed to buy coffee at starbucks.

why would Tesla "hire" thousands of people all around the world to make their car better? Why do they have that kind of responsibility? That is crazy and I do not want my car to be done by some freelancer on some other nation putting few more lines to "make it better" with his coding, maybe he did something horrible? Maybe that's actually a bad thing? I wouldn't feel safe in a car like that. I want tesla to continue the way it does, and if someone else wants to copy it, they might do that, I won't buy it but I wouldn't mind it.

A good chunk of open source relies on volunteer based man hours. Its more like volunteers developing counter strike as a mod. Than simply hiring more workers.

If tesla software were open sourced. Volunteers would develop mods and hacks for the software. Which would be scrutinized and tested before ever being released to the general public. Its a win/win scenario for everyone. Volunteers gain experience and credibility for their contributions. Tesla consumers get free stuff. Done correctly everyone benefits.