Renault is claiming that it has created the “world’s first open-source mass-market vehicle.” That sort of stretches the definition of mass market—the car, named POM (for Platform Open Mind), is based on the not-for-the-U.S. Twizy ultracompact EV—but the more pressing question is what Renault means when it calls this vehicle open source.
Turns out the vehicle itself, which Renault introduced at the CES technology show, is not open source, but the software it runs on is. Renault partnered with software specialist OSVehicle and processor maker ARM to crack open the POM’s operating system and will offer the car to “startups, independent laboratories, private customers, and researchers.” The move allows “third parties to copy and modify existing software to create a totally customizable electric vehicle.” Sounds to us like any vehicle could be made to be open source—just take all the security measures off the software and declare it so! But maybe it’s not that simple.
Still, what Renault has done is noteworthy. By giving researchers and electronic fiddlers access to a mildly rebranded Twizy, Renault is getting ahead of the industry’s curve toward integrating its vehicles with third-party apps and features. Fostering relationships with developers and other tinkerers likely will pay off for Renault in the future in the form of Renault-compatible apps and such. The company isn’t alone in this thinking—Ford opened up its AppLink app-to-car integration software to the coding community years ago and recently formed a multi-automaker consortium that shares that very software, aiming to encourage developers to make their apps compatible with those automakers’ cars.
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