Open Architecture Car
January 1st, 2003
First Post

What I Want

I can't pay anybody anything.  What I hope for in this project is to create a set of automotive engineering standards to submit to SEMA and ISO and to make available to automotive companies.

I don't have a complex website.  (Heck, right now I only have an Angelfire page!)  Very soon, though, I hope to have a dedicated T1 and a good ol' Linux server to handle the project.

Since I refuse to accept any non-profit tax code, any donations made to me will be in good faith that I will use them towards the open architecture car project.  (Unfortunately, I will probably end up having to work a few jobs to be able to keep up with the costs that I predict a project like this will incur.)  Being a businessman (proprietor of Vander Jagt Computers), I'll do my best to profit from this project.

I'm not quite sure how, yet, but even Red Hat is a highly profitable company giving away a free operating system!  They profit from boxed sets and training courses.  I can see a few ways that this will benefit any involved engineers.  Engineers who submit designs that are approved and added to the standard can certainly land any automotive engineering job they want.

This will be my role: I will read and review (or delegate reviews) any submissions.  Submissions can be full detail designs, diagrams, sketches, or even just a sentence or two giving an idea.  After reviewing them, I will have the enormous task of organizing them into a standards package.

I am not an automotive engineer.  :-(  I'm quite good at working on cars, and my uncle is practically an automotive engineer.  I need basic designs for a whole car.  Items that will likely make the biggest difference will be a standardized electrical connector to transmit data and power throughout the body, standardized engine mount points, and a standardized interior (like car stereos are now).

Contact me:
Benjamin Vander Jagt
benjaminvanderjagt@netscape.net
1(540)667-8388
P.O. Box 1398
Winchester, VA 22604

Sorry, but this page is very patchwork.  Click here to see the current, temporary, growing list of submissions.

Overview

You buy a car, keep it for about seven years, and then chuck it, right?  New cars are made of thin, low grade steel and plastic.  Up until about 1974, cars were made of very thick, relatively high grade steel.  They were made to last longer.  Well, the current method of building a cheap car, driving it to death, melting it back down, and driving it again in a new form works and has been well refined, but there's still a huge amount of labor and material lost in the process.

Imagine buying a super-strong frame for a high sum of money and being happy with your purchase.  ;-)

Imagine getting a turbocharger for your car, knowing for sure that there's a turbo available that will take just a few hours to install, is available from any car parts store, and is available in many brands.

Imagine getting exactly the car you want, with every option you want, including totally exotic ones, like internet access.  Imagine even being able to select a specific head and block combination!

Imagine getting in a wreck in your new $200,000 car; a wreck that would normally send a car to the junkyard, but since half of the parts are still good, you take them out and use them in your next car.

Your car will last forever!  You'll pass it on to your kids, and your kids will do the same!  Sound impossible?  It sounds to me like it would be stupid to throw out even a single standards compliant car.  Nowadays, if you want a sunroof, leather seats, a bigger (or smaller) engine, a more advanced transmission, more trunk space, etc., then you buy a new car.  With open architecture, you just add what you want!

For years, I've had a dream of an open architecture car.  (Yes, I've had this dream since before I started using Linux.)  Every part of the car can be standardized.

Dodge has a 2.2 litre engine.  Ford has a 2.3 litre engine.  BMW has a 2.3 litre engine.  Chevy has a 2.0 litre engine.  Honda has a 2.2 litre engine.  They're all basically the same thing, so why didn't the designers put the motormounts in the same place, use the same transmission bellhousing pattern, and use the same electrical system?  The secret is that they actually want to build proprietary cars.  It threatens them even now to think that some people are putting Chevy 350 crate motors in Beetles and Escorts.

I've figured out ways around the main difficulties, being government regulation, consumer safety, parts availability, building difficulty, incompatibility, and competing proprietary cars.

Government Regulation:

People already modify their cars.  Probably the easiest way to jimmy (pardon the pun) the concept into legality is to start with a brand name car.  I had hoped that Holley or Edelbrock would be interested, but neither one even wanted to listen to what my idea was.  Holley said that their focus for the upcoming year will be to improve their current product line's quality and appearance.

That's fine and dandy, but we need innovation.  I hope that, after reading this, they'll jump on the idea.

If a large parts manufacturer made a car that conformed to the standards, then other parts manufacturers will feel much more confident about new products, knowing they will have a larger customer base.  Other automakers will want to build cars that conform to the standard, because consumers will want the customizability.

Consumer Safety

Frankly, these cars will be much safer than the throwaway lawnmower powered beercans that are being sold now.  Cars will be made to last forever.  When presented with the various frames and bodies, people will see how safety counts and be able to make more educated choices.  This will be the end of compromise.

Parts Availability

To begin with, parts manufacturers will probably avoid making parts on their own.  Fortunately, producing a car is much too difficult for even a large parts company to do alone, so other companies will have to be commissioned to make the various parts.  This will give a good number of companies experience in dealing with this new standard.

Over time, more and more companies will adopt the standards.

Building Difficulty

When IBM created the open architecture computer (probably unintentionally), the system started out as a difficult but possible to upgrade computer.  It has now evolved into a system so easy to make that anyone who has never even used a computer can buy the parts from the store, read the directions, and make a computer in a day.  (It's also important to point out that the open architecture computers are far cheaper than the proprietary systems, like Alpha and Mac.)

Here's my prediction.  (I'm not a prophet, I just know profit.)

Compatibility

With computers, open architecture is directly linked to compatibility problems.  I think that we can avoid them by carefully planning and detailing the engineering standards.

Competing Proprietary Cars

As with Windows versus Linux, the proprietary systems will be a good choice for many people.  The open architecture community has no problem with the proprietary community, since they do make good systems with great attention to detail.  Unfortunately, history shows that proprietary manufacturers resent the success of the open architecture community.  Microsoft has been making claims that the Linux community is "un-American".  Undoubtedly, most of the proprietary automakers will accuse open architecture cars of being difficult to build, too expensive, unsafe, and even distasteful.

Let's keep it clear that proprietary cars are exactly what some people want.  Windows is exactly right for some people.