Comments on: Change We Can Believe In – Reinventing the US Auto Industry: Open Source the Chevy Volt http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/ Entrepreneurship and Conservation Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:39:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: KevinB http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-4431 Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:51:06 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-4431 “the Energy and EPA team. But they’re smart, let’s see what happens”

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read on the Intertubes in years.

]]> By: What else can we open source? | The official QGIA blog. http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-169 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:12:59 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-169 [...] most successful entrepreneurs. He writes a great blog which I read frequently. One of his recent posts talks about the idea of open sourcing the Chevy Volt [...]

]]> By: Nicolás Boullosa http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-135 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:14:24 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-135 @Mahmoud

I agree with you on safety. There are also other concerns, such as economies of scale, production efficiency, etc.

Instead of a Lulu.com for cars, think how Nike allows the visitors of its shoes’ customization site to choose from a wide range of colors, designs, materials.

I wouldn’t see it as a free-tunning movement, but more as a Web-2.0 improvement system.

It comes to my mind the “labs” option in Gmail. The “Volt Customization Platform” would be the Gmail, and the customization options the “labs” option.

So safety wouldn’t be compromised. I think you went too fast refuting such an idea.

Ask the writer of the post if he didn’t invest in a company because they had “too crazy” ideas.

]]> By: Mahmoud http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-134 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:28:36 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-134 Nicolas,

I would love to believe in that vision, but its far from reality. At the end of the day every person cant go out and build their own car based on the open sourced design for one simple reason; safety. I’d be afraid to drive on a road full of DIY cars without them undergoing the rigorous safety testing. Having open source designs will democratize car building for current and aspiring car manufacturing ventures but not on an individual level.

]]> By: Mahmoud http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-130 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:06:48 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-130 @deepa nice find…thanks for sharing

]]> By: Nicolás Boullosa http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-129 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:05:21 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-129 Hello,

It’s such an interesting idea and it makes sense.

I think the Volt open source platform could be managed through a Web 2.0-like community of users, that would allow citizens not only buy a car based on the open-sourced Volt, but built-it themselves with the pieces and improvements they prefer, taking in consideration their own personal necessities, preferences.

So instead of making one car for millions of people, it would be possible to build one ev for every person.

Also, people successful with their designs could be able to earn some royalties, if they decide to do so!

So why one can go to Lulu.com to create his/her own book, or buy an Arduino motherboard and do whatever, and it’s not possible to do the same with a car?

It’s time to be brave. You guys are paying the taxes, so you should decide on the future of the Volt “platform”.

Nicolás Boullosa
ceo, *faircompanies (www.faircompanies.com)

]]> By: Deepa http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-126 Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:23:23 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-126 Actually, open sourcing of a car spec is already done in Netherlands.
Check out http://www.cmmn.org/

]]> By: Mahmoud http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-123 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:29:15 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-123 Steve,

I believe its the right idea, just not the right time for two reasons. One, is that no one will be building cars anytime soon; they won’t get the capital or government dollars. Tesla which has the best chance of pulling off a legitimate mass market car will barely make the cut to get some capital infusion from the government. Second and more importantly the brand. No one wants to build on top of a losing platform. The closest analogy would be cellphones and why developers choose the iphone platform over many others even though its not the most widespread in terms of handsets. If that blog post was written two years ago we would have had a different discussion.

]]> By: Change We Can Believe In - Reinventing the US Auto Industry: Open … | Open Hacking http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-122 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:01:48 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-122 [...] the original post:  Change We Can Believe In – Reinventing the US Auto Industry: Open … This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Cars, [...]

]]> By: Jeff Barr’s Blog » Links for Wednesday, April 15, 2009 http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-121 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:26:48 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-121 [...] Steve Blank: Change We Can Believe In – Reinventing the US Auto Industry: Open Source the Chevy Volt – “I proposed that in exchange for the GM bailout we spin out the Chevy Volt into an open source electric car platform. Any automaker who builds the car in the U.S. will be able to build on the Volt Platform, but all drivetrain improvements are open source.“ [...]

]]> By: Michael F. Martin http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-120 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:38:34 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-120 But the biggest problem with the Volt is that customers don’t want electric cars right now. And as a policy matter, it’s silly to spend time and money promoting 300 MPG cars over 30 MPG cars when you get more energy savings getting people to trade 20 MPG cars in for 30 MPG cars.

]]> By: Michael F. Martin http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-119 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:35:01 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-119 Worth a try…

]]> By: Justin Gibbs http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-118 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:23:22 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-118 If I’m not mistaken the Volt is targeted to be very expensive and most of the innovation in electric cars is in the battery. How much innovation has GM put into the battery so far? Maybe the public can be better served by the government just subsidizing battery research.

]]> By: Michael Buckbee http://steveblank.com/2009/04/15/bold-idea-for-reinventing-the-us-auto-industry-open-source-the-chevy-volt/#comment-116 Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:37:58 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=1123#comment-116 A couple random thoughts:

1. The Chinese auto market currently treats all other cars as an open platform to build off of anyway (without paying any royalties). As proof, checkout this gallery of images:

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0810/gallery.china_cars.fortune/index.html

2. To make an analogy to the tech world. I think the Chevy Volt is to Netscape as Tesla is to Firefox: faster moving, more refined and a better more appealing experience.

Thanks,

Mike

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