palmerit

fold? he did the exact opposite of "fold"

he released the hardware plans, specs, and software as opensource. You can go build it, today. And if you have a supported car (currently certain honda civics, and accura ILX's.. soon honda crv, toyota prius, and chevy bolt/volt) you can actually use it, today. There are videos on youtube of people doing exactly that.

Changing your business model, is IMO.. the opposite of folding. it's adapting.

I used automatic for a while. It was pretty limited, and pricey. I've been using a panda for several weeks now, and FAR more capable. It probably boils down to: do you want a pretty UI dumbing the info down for you, or do you want the raw data so you can do things with it?

if all you care about is rpm's and high level stuff, I absolutely agree. a $10 bluetooth dongle is more the sufficient. However, data about any particular sensor becomes significantly more intersting if you look at the bigger picture comma.ai is presenting. with their openpilot platform (ie, the actual self driving code/product) it needs to know what those sensors are reporting. ie, is the radar reporting an object in front of you?

panda+cabana allows joe user to identify (and report back to the project) what they are seeing on the CAN bus.. so it can be catalogged and added to the database for all the thousands of different vehicle makes/models on the road.