

Local-Motors: Open-source automobile design and manufacturing - replicatorblog
http://www.local-motors.com/static.php?p=what_is_local_motors

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replicatorblog
I think this project is especially exciting given the state of the US auto
industry. We are a long way from seeing anything valuable come out of this,
but some innovation in this space is greatly in need. An Ubuntu flavored
station wagon would be a nice change of pace in this rigid industry.

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bprater
Not sure I get it. 2,000 units at $50k doesn't seem like a model "for the
masses". This model should start by building a car like the cheap Tata Nano
car.

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davidw
Seems kind of like "The Homer":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F#T...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F#The_Homer)

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replicatorblog
Haha, I want a horn, here, here, and here! It seems like one of the big issues
with crowd sourced design is filtering out the garbage. Go to a site like
Zazzle and look at the galleries and there is a ton of amateurish design. Car
design is an interesting field cause there is such a grass roots enthusiast
community that have really spectacular skills. The signal to noise ratio in
this gallery is really high.

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mieses
they seem to focus on the design of the shell, i.e., marketing and lifestyle.

it would be more interesting to look at manufacturing of durable parts.. like
in the Volvo 240's which were engineered to last unlike today's plastic shell
cars.

a durable car would benefit consumers, the environment, and local
manufacturing.

the shell is all psychology, fashion, and fetish. it's boring. what would be
radical is to make a car that lasts 20 years.

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dotcoma
"our proprietary open source design community".

a good start ;-)

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tommcdonald
Grease monkeys aren't known for their software chops I guess:)

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dotcoma
is that web2.0 buzzword thrown in there making anybody else feel uneasy?

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rrhyne
Feels like some hackers got together and made a parody auto manufacterer
start-up site.

But then, any hacker worth a sh!t would be capturing email addresses, so it's
prolly real.

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replicatorblog
rrhyne, they are allowing people to set up accounts and requiring it for
people to vote. It may not be the most polished site, but I don't think its a
parody.

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rrhyne
Whoa... read all the text on the home page and managed to ignore the rest.
_DOH!_

