Very cool. But is this allowed to drive on public roads in Sweden? I would have assumed that swedish laws are very restrictive to these kinds of DIY modifications. Amazing if it is allowed!
Very cool project though!
These rules aren't in place to annoy people who have fun with cars, they're a public safety issue. Until OpenPilot is confirmed to be safe enough to be road legal in Europe (I doubt it ever will be).
Having a 1366kg vehicle under complete control of a system with the disclaimer
> THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH LOCAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
with hardware that was cobbled together in a garage somewhere, taking this thing out on the road is pure insanity.
The well maintained highways would be much safer. Not even considering the autopilot.
The people who live in that sparsely populated countryside wouldn't agree with you that the risk seems negligible. To drive on ice (which some of the roads turn into if it rains/wet-snow then gets cold), with experimental technology on country roads sounds like a recipe for the car to end up in someones living-room.
Now I don't expect this to be well-received because of "cool hack" but it is truly a major issue. Other issues like the high housing costs, bad healthcare, lacking infrastructure, mediocre education and a short-sighted population are all hard to solve. But this issue is clearly a priority. Swedish voters and politicians are prioritizing this over providing a good quality of life at a decent cost to enable education, research and knowledge based businesses.
The result as a whole is that almost anyone who can is moving from these cities to bigger cities that don't have these problems, but are also so expensive that engaging in activates with high growth potential isn't viable. With grassroot hacking, small- and medium-sized business and major growth startup ending up being a fraction of what they have been and even more so should have been now.
I had to search to see what you were referring to:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230320-sweden-s-teen...
Edit: Someone infamously converted and registered a heavy truck this way. Legal to drive as a 15-year-old with a moped license.
https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/eddie-15-har-en-lastbil-som...
Seems like the original target was mopeds? But somehow cars and trucks were included?
The original law considered tractors and other farm equipment, AIUI. You can drive these so called A-traktor with only a moped or tractor license when you're 15.
[1] Swedish article from 2022 with some examples (there are many more since then): https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/ungdomar-manipulerar-a-tr...
[2] Example police chase: https://youtube.com/watch?v=CqcEqhXWiYE
The account is recently created and this is the first and only comment/post they've made on this site.
I'm interested in quality of life because I spend a lot of time working, organizing thing and doing projects. This is also on topic. But as such I don't have that much time. Or at least not enough to end up getting stuck here instead of doing something more important. I've found that the best to manage that is not to hold a regular account. My first account is however many years older than yours.
Sometimes I do have some time or find the motivation to post, because sharing information about something you know about to others who might not know about it but have thought about something I haven't is something that is harder to do anywhere else than on the Internet. In this case how the freedom to tinker with a car can affect the long time viability of creating bigger things.
Unfortunately your comment doesn't seems out of place. It's very much part of why I'm not around a lot. It simply isn't worth posting anything when I have something better to do. (Which isn't really now since I'm on a train to Stockholm with little else to do considering the holidays).
I’m not sure whether the commenter speaks Swedish or not, their username seems to suggest they do (sv_SE is the language code for the Swedish [country] dialect of Swedish [lang]) but their comment reflects a phenomenon I’ve both experienced and witnessed:
Swedes are more likely to discuss policy issues in Swedish (and all of these issues are debated back and forth with varying degrees of success). Our grasp of English is mostly contextual since it’s a secondary and utilitarian language for us. I think it’s easy and natural for an English-speaker to mistake hitting language barriers as ignorance. That can extend into the ESL-speaker [English as a Secondary Language] feeling belittled, and eventually you get this effect of people just avoiding English because you associate it with feeling stupid. We get the French-waiter-that-clearly-speaks-English-but-refuses-to trope.
On the other side of that fence we have ESLs butting in on domestic affairs in English-speaking countries because we happen to speak the language. That makes us appear elitist and judgmental, too.
Apologies for deviating further from the topic.
Going back to the legality of the car: It’s complicated. The police claims it’s illegal to use autopilot on their website, but there’s a blurry line between adaptive cruise control/lane assist and autopilot. The competition requires cars to be insured, hopefully that insurance company is aware of the modifications and can advise the owners on what they can and cannot do. https://polisen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/ost/2024/mars/autopilot/ [swedish]
More practically, if they use country roads and drive somewhat near the speed limits, they’re not likely to run afoul of the law unless they’re in an accident.
If the author is here, I’d urge them to remember that a moose is practically designed to bypass a car’s safety features and kill you. There are a quarter of a million of them in Sweden. Invest in good tires and headlights, drive carefully, and avoid hitting wildlife or reindeer.
Here are some examples.
https://youtu.be/EprqvxTF5vI?t=92
And a chunk of people driving them violate the framework and drive extra passengers, bypass the speed limiter, and drink and drive.
Just pass the damn tractor. You're not doing anybody any favors by being "patient".
I've grew up in the countryside and worked on a farm as an adult and don't agree with you despite many hours in tractors, with and without trailers, on public roads.
What I hear when you say that is:
"I will follow you for several miles ignoring whaat other people would consider fine passing opportunities (and me waving my arm out the window at you trying to get you to go around) until a bunch of pissed off traffic stacks up until some guy with a Dodge Charger (or whatever, you get the stereotype) comes along and decides to pass us all at once in a sketchy way, to everyone's detriment"
And from there it goes one of two ways. Either you get the message and pass me at the next decent (to the average person, not you) opportunity or you squander that opportunity and the second guy in line passes you both of us at a reasonable time and that repeats.
Now, obviously when someone who gives off those sorts of vibes shows up I'll pull over at the first available opportunity to force them to pass but when you're talking a 2-lane with no shoulder and ditches and a combination too long to use a driveway as a pull off it could be awhile.
Listen, I get it, not everyone can pass, some people have higher standards than others for . There's people towing trailers, there's heavy trucks, student drivers, old people, shitboxes running on three cylinders, etc, etc. But that doesn't make the situation safer and for a normal person in a normal car in normal conditions to subject themselves to that is just, ugh.... misguided
The kind of people who won't pass (where reasonable, as defined by the average person) a tractor or moped or whatever in the name of safety are not creating a net increase in safety. They are creating a cluster fuck, which comes with a decrease in safety.
Driving 30 km/h instead of 70-80 km/h would drive anyone insane, it would effectively double your travel time.
There truly is more freedom in the US than there is in Europe in that context.
There are car shows in most major us cities featuring hundreds of tricked out, restored and modified cars.
The classic car market regularly appreciates. Just try to find an Alpha for a good price, or graph the price of a 1970 911 over the past 30 years. Also you can insure a classic for cheap since they see less road time, are garaged and generally well cared for. (see Hagerty)
As for getting hotrods and restored classics on the road. California has half a dozen classic car rallies where roadworthy classics get out on the road for a couple days.
I assure you the culture is alive and well.
They mean "that 5.0 Mustang doing burnouts at 2am" not a '32 Ford coupe.
It's not to say that "nice cars" are disappearing though. When I was a literal child in rural Appalachia, the standard fare Dream Car was a Dodge Viper or a Corvette and I did indeed admire those cars. But tastes certainly change as you get older and while I still have a "nice car", it's of a different breed than the All-American Dream Car.
I'd dare say that demographic died off and hasn't been replaced due to cultural and economic shifts. Also, the whirl of a turbo is a more appealing sound than the roar of a supercharged V8, to me anyways.
Edit: and yeah those types of guys just drive a lifted diesel truck with giant wheels now. At least they can do work with them.
I think car culture just takes different forms (In the 70s and 80s it was American hot rods, the 90s and 00s JDM and Euro, 2010s and 20s it’s all about trucks and diesels).
If feel rules about cars are such an obvious example of "your freedom to punch ends where my nose begins" that I'm not sure if the comment I'm replying to is satire x)