Open Pilot essentially created an aftermarket advanced adaptive cruise control that works better than most brands outside of Tesla. They just can't sell it legally as a whole package, so you buy the hardware, but the software is open source.
The difficulty of modifying the body, is mostly a financial decision I think. The body is by-and-large optimized for assembly rather than repair and modifications - that's why body shops charge an arm and a leg.
> Crumple zones are model specific you can’t just change those without making new car.
Yep, and I think that's the problem. Cars should be designed in a way that you can make this kind of safety upgrades. There's little technical reason why with a more modular body and platform, the manufacturer can't design a new crumple zone for retrofit, run finite element analysis, and crash test it.
They may need to rethink fundamentally how mass-market cars are made, like using more fasteners instead of welding in the body and frame, or using plastic instead of sheet metal when they are not necessary, like for the body panels.
That old malfunctioning airbags should be able to be replaced easily.
But then it would incentivize the customers to keep their old cars instead of buying new ones.
The difficulty of modifying the body, is mostly a financial decision I think. The body is by-and-large optimized for assembly rather than repair and modifications - that's why body shops charge an arm and a leg.
> Crumple zones are model specific you can’t just change those without making new car.
Yep, and I think that's the problem. Cars should be designed in a way that you can make this kind of safety upgrades. There's little technical reason why with a more modular body and platform, the manufacturer can't design a new crumple zone for retrofit, run finite element analysis, and crash test it.
They may need to rethink fundamentally how mass-market cars are made, like using more fasteners instead of welding in the body and frame, or using plastic instead of sheet metal when they are not necessary, like for the body panels.
That old malfunctioning airbags should be able to be replaced easily.
But then it would incentivize the customers to keep their old cars instead of buying new ones.