[HN Gopher] Self driving 1993 Volvo with open pilot
___________________________________________________________________
Self driving 1993 Volvo with open pilot
Author : trainsarebetter
Score : 468 points
Date : 2025-01-04 06:30 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (practicapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (practicapp.com)
| dotancohen wrote:
| Very interesting build. Safety-wise it seems fine with the
| blatant exception of welding the steering column. A steering
| column could see very high torque, especially if e.g. power
| steering fails. The author even alludes to this twice but does
| not address it directly.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Safety-wise it seems fine with the blatant exception of
| welding the steering column.
|
| See the fatal accident of Ayrton Senna. Shortened and welded
| steering column was exactly the cause of the accident.
| echoangle wrote:
| Looks like they did a bad job at it though:
|
| > Lorenzini stated: "It had been badly welded together about
| a third of the way down and couldn't stand the strain of the
| race. We discovered scratches on the crack in the steering
| rod. It seemed like the job had been done in a hurry but I
| can't say how long before the race. Someone had tried to
| smooth over the joint following the welding. I have never
| seen anything like it. I believe the rod was faulty and
| probably cracked even during the warm-up. Moments before the
| crash only a tiny piece was left connected and therefore the
| car didn't respond in the bend."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna
|
| And the forces on a formula 1 steering column are also higher
| than on a road car, I imagine.
|
| A proper weld should be very strong, I don't think welding a
| steering column in itself is bad.
| dotancohen wrote:
| If a professional race team cannot make that weld properly,
| why do we have faith in amateurs doing it for the first
| time?
| echoangle wrote:
| If that's your bar for DIY stuff, you couldn't do
| anything at all.
|
| With enough time, everything will be messed up by a
| professional at some point.
|
| If some electrician makes a mistake when wiring a house
| and it burns down, does that mean that I can never trust
| myself to wire something myself?
|
| Arguably you have an advantage over the professionals
| because at least you're motivated to do it properly
| because it's your own life on the line.
|
| Edit: for another half-serious analogy: if a professional
| race car driver ever crashes while driving on a regular
| road, does that mean I can't drive myself? Because even a
| professional made a mistake while doing it, so how can I
| be trusted to do it better?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| A professional race team working under time pressure on a
| car going 3 times faster and where weight is a concern.
|
| Amateurs can take their time, it makes all the
| difference.
| djaychela wrote:
| If done badly, yes. There are lots of competition cars (rally
| cars I have direct experience of) with modified and welded
| columns that haven't had issues in extreme circumstances.
| Providing the welding is done to a high standard it is more
| than strong enough.
|
| Bear in mind that all modern steering columns have joints in
| them for crash safety reasons and they are often welded at
| the factory.
| jamesholden wrote:
| That was a hell of a wiki dive. Thanks. Tragic story :(
| cenamus wrote:
| Do you think the weld would fail or what are you alluding to?
| I'd assume that relatively large weld surface could stand up to
| the 200-ish Nm or however much it actually it is easily
| binoct wrote:
| It's not so much that a weld _can't_ be sufficiently strong
| to be safe in a steering column, it's the QA and validation
| needed to be sure the weld was done properly. Obviously it's
| possible the folks involved in this have the experience and
| equipment required to do that, but it's unlikely.
|
| Now, how much of a risk there is, and whether or not it
| should be allowed on public roads where the failure could
| kill them and/or other people is a question for the local
| society and legal system :)
| Hilift wrote:
| That's why they call it "Carbage".
|
| "The daily value of your car should not exceed 1,000 Euros and
| the car must be at least 20 years old."
|
| Also it completed the activity without failure.
|
| https://www.carbagerun.nl/event/winter-editie-2025-naar-hels...
| t4h4 wrote:
| Also relevant: 24 Hours of Lemons [0] where they race
| "lemons" worth $500
|
| [0]: https://24hoursoflemons.com/
| rollcat wrote:
| Danger is the nature of this kind of "sport". Friend & I were
| hitch hiking thru Albania, we ran into a "carbage" race from
| Poland to Greece. Both of had to travel in different cars (and
| our backpacks in a third), because otherwise the vehicles
| wouldn't make it uphill. We've passed by another team who have
| lost a wheel (it fell off and rolled down a hill at night -
| effectively got irretrievably lost); they didn't have a spare,
| so they just sold their car for something like EUR25.
|
| Fun times.
| poopsmithe wrote:
| I would never do this, but I'm glad there's someone out there who
| is brave enough to. It will make for a great story!
| Svip wrote:
| I assume part 2 will cover gear changes. Whilst not addressed
| directly, there are hints that it's a manual transmission (which
| would square very well for a 1993 Volvo bought in Europe), such
| as the clutch also being operated with hydraulics. I doubt a
| retrofit of a new transmission is in store, perhaps a clunky
| automatic clutch instead?
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| Though an auto wouldn't be expensive or hard to find. In that
| part of the world you could probably score one for free.
| Svip wrote:
| Fortunately, the picture of the car reveals its number plate,
| which means we can just look up.[1] The RDW data doesn't seem
| to include transmission type (at least from my glance), so I
| went to AutoWeek instead.[2] Here there is also no mention of
| transmission. My guess is that means it's a manual, since
| automatics would be the exception, and thus noted. I could
| also be wrong, I am not Dutch, and thus not completely
| familiar with the sort of data their vehicle registry would
| include.
|
| [1] https://ovi.rdw.nl/ [2]
| https://www.autoweek.nl/kentekencheck/HN-FZ-69/
| olex wrote:
| Since he explicitly mentioned a hydraulic clutch and needed
| to provide a separate fluid reservoir for it, it's a very
| safe bet to say the car is a manual.
| alrs wrote:
| As an American, every car I've ever owned was statistically
| included with an automatic transmission. Strangely, none of
| the cars I've owned have had an automatic transmission.
|
| Subaru was making CVT automatic cars back then that were
| even worse than the awful CVT cars of today. That would be
| my pick if I wanted to do a 30-year-old self driving car.
|
| https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-
| pioneered-...
| wongarsu wrote:
| In Europe, statistically nearly every car older than 10
| years is manual. With the recent improvements in
| automatics they are finally catching on in Europe.
|
| You may be able to find an old automatic or CVT car in
| Europe, but you would need to look for a while
| MoreMoore wrote:
| I take it you meant to write every car older than 10
| years is a manual?
| wongarsu wrote:
| Thanks, I obviously need more coffee. Fixed above
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Volvo made automatic versions of its cars from the late
| sixties onwards. A colleague had an automatic 244 in the
| early 1980s.
|
| Here in Norway automatics are not finally catching on,
| they are ubiquitous and the driving instructors'
| association is campaigning to get the rules changed so
| that you can pass the driving test on an automatic and
| later simply do a conversion course to allow one to drive
| manual.
|
| And of course it will all be moot quite soon because EV
| sales already outnumber ICE sales nearly nine to one
| here. Volkswagen and Hyundai no longer sell ICE cars in
| Norway. Volkswagen still sells ICE vans and pickups
| though.
| brnt wrote:
| Volvo is one of the exceptions though. I have friends
| whose parents are Volvo-people. Their cars have been
| automatic since the 80ies.
| olex wrote:
| I suppose they didn't bother with that, and the system
| basically only works for cruising in 5th gear, which is what
| the car was likely doing for the absolute majority of the
| 6000km drive. You'd lose out on having "self-driving" in slower
| traffic where gear shifting would be necessary, but it's still
| hugely useful.
| anticensor wrote:
| An automated manual retrofit that actuates the gear stick and
| the clutch could work.
| a-dub wrote:
| "I think part 2 will be about the wiring and the custom ECU I
| designed to keep the actuators happy, and to implement things
| like the cruise control buttons, as well as reading out the
| speed, blinkers, ...
|
| After that, I'll do part 3 explaining (and open sourcing) the
| code on the ECU and the openpilot port."
|
| according to freely and readily available specifications, the
| 1993 volvo 940 had an automatic transmission.
| xattt wrote:
| > One minor complication with this retrofit is that the
| clutch was also operated hydraulically with brake fluid from
| the same reservoir, so we had to add an small extra tank (the
| iBooster master cylinder tank doesn't have a port for this).
| a-dub wrote:
| and apparently european 940s did come in a manual five
| speed, despite the fact that manual was not offered on the
| 940 in the us.
|
| i stand corrected. live and learn.
| wtk wrote:
| I saved this story to understand more about cars and inspire
| myself and others to DIY stuff, great!
| stavros wrote:
| This is fantastic. I've been wanting an RC car for years, but
| I've never bothered to buy a car for this. This post has inspired
| me to try it myself in 2025, though mine will probably not be
| self-driving.
|
| I really enjoyed this post, well done.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| 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!
| bgnn wrote:
| Definitely not allowed. The route they are taking requies the
| car to be road legal. These modifications make it definitely
| illegal on public roads on Sweden and Finland. It's often not
| enough to pass MOT (which this car wouldn't in the Netherlands,
| where it seems to be registered at), you need to get type
| approval to make it road legal. Dutch government has a nice
| English page about it:
| https://www.government.nl/topics/general-periodic-inspection...
| amelius wrote:
| I hope they don't require a crash test ...
| anticensor wrote:
| Individual approval does not require destructive crash
| testing.
| amelius wrote:
| Great! :)
| tpm wrote:
| Individual approval, not type approval, at least in most of
| the EU. Type approval is for manufacturers.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The same approval used to get thousands of otherwise
| illegal huge American trucks like Dodge Rams on Dutch
| roads, incidentally.
| bgnn wrote:
| my mistake. it's mentioned as individual approval in the
| link too.
| spamatica wrote:
| To me it sounds extremely unlikely a car with such heavy
| modifications would be allowed on swedish (or finnish) public
| roads.
|
| Very cool project though!
| lwde wrote:
| The simpel solution is to register in Poland, at least here in
| Germany that's the normal way for ICE to EV conversions.
| anticensor wrote:
| Doesn't Germany have any EV conversion shops that has
| supplemental type approved kits?
| kristjank wrote:
| Most countries in the EU are pretty fascist concerning vehicle
| modifications. So it probably falls on the Pulp fiction end of
| the spectrum "It's legal but it ain't 100% legal."
| bboygravity wrote:
| That's why it was mind blowing for me (Europoor) to see hot
| rods and things like that on public roads in the US.
|
| There truly is more freedom in the US than there is in Europe
| in that context.
| morsch wrote:
| Land of the free, home of the noise pollution
| bigfudge wrote:
| And pedestrian fatalaities. Although to be fair the
| autobahn is more fun than the highway.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Hotrods are dissappearing quickly. They cost too much. They
| are a pain to insure and have very low resale potential. As
| the culture changes, cars are moving from personal
| expressions to comodified fashion statements. It is rare
| now to even see a repaint driving on the road, let alone
| major engine mods. Hotrods are now just expensive weekend
| toys alongside boats. The market for RV mods probably now
| double the north american market for car mods.
| more_corn wrote:
| Not sure where you're getting your information. There is
| a huge market for classic cars. Ever heard of Concours?
| Most of that crowd like to keep them stock, but there are
| tons of sub-genres like drift kids and Stance nation to
| name a few weird ones. Hotrodding is alive and well.
|
| 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.
| mp05 wrote:
| A "hot rod" need not be a "classic car" and I'm sure that
| most Europeans don't know nor care about the nuance that
| we understand as Americans.
|
| They mean "that 5.0 Mustang doing burnouts at 2am" not a
| '32 Ford coupe.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Correct. It has moved from a home hobby to an elite show.
| The number of young (ie poor) people doing tuning up
| their own cars is practically zero. The average young
| driver cannot change a tire, and I'd bet that half those
| under 30 have never even popped their hood let alone
| modded anything. Hotrodding is now all rich people
| "getting stuff done" by shops, always on their second or
| third car. The closest we see on the street is the
| occasional muffler mod, usually only installed as the
| cheaper option after the stock pipe has worn out.
| juliusgeo wrote:
| There are many young people (myself included, though not
| nearly as skilled as most) that are modifying their cars
| in pretty substantial ways. Just in my own friend group
| there are multiple under 30 with their primary car being
| a heavily modified sports car. I myself own 2 relatively
| old sports cars (90s Acura, and 00's Audi), both
| obviously in manual, both of which have had significant
| work done in my driveway. The way that I would frame it
| instead is that the concentration of interest has
| increased. Nowadays with social media, etc, there are
| infinite ways to learn about, do, and compare various
| modifications to cars. People who do not care about cars
| are now in a position where essentially zero knowledge is
| required to use them as a method to get from A-B.
| However, those who are interested in it for process of
| building itself still exist, and the resources are better
| than ever. For the time that I've been around, I've been
| seeing increasing, not decreasing, interest in older car
| platforms primarily for the reason that they are easier
| to work on compared to new cars.
| mp05 wrote:
| FWIW I haven't heard the word "hot rod" in a long time,
| so that could be some indicator.
|
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| There has also been a disheartening shift with supercars
| that, imho, has damaged the industry. In the 90s, if you
| won the lottery you could buy a Lambo or a Ferrari and
| have one of the best cars on the planet. Become a top
| lawyer/doctor and and you could buy one too. Today, the
| elite cars require one to win the lottery multiple times.
| The market for cars worth 10m+ and even 20m+ has exploded
| since the 90s. Something like a Zonda now cost more than
| the flyaway price of a Learjet. Kids don't dream about
| great cars anymore because, short of marrying a world
| leader, there really is no possibility of attaining such
| things. They instead dream of tictok fame and one day
| owning their own house in the burbs.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Vintage hotrods might be dropping off but off-roading
| culture has exploded where I live and you'll see heavily
| modified Trucks, Jeeps, 4runners, and Broncos on a daily
| basis.
|
| 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).
| andrepd wrote:
| There is freedom to run it in a track where the only person
| you can kill is yourself lol, definitely not on public
| roads where you can kill and maim other people (not to
| mention pollution, noise, etc).
|
| 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)
| sesvsesv wrote:
| You are correct that it probably won't be allowed. But your
| assumption that Sweden is restrictive isn't. I see that you
| live in Stockholm, so maybe you already know this, or you
| haven't spent much time outside the city in recent years.
| Almost every medium and small city in Sweden now features 16 to
| 17-year-olds driving old cars electronically or mechanically
| converted to only run at 30 kph (~20mph) without requiring a
| proper driver's license, adequate noise reduction, exhaust
| system and until recently not even winter tires or seatbelt.
| Making roads slow and dangerous, and the local environment much
| worse for everyone else.
|
| 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.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| > features 16 to 17-year-olds driving old cars ... converted
| to only run at 30 kph
|
| I had to search to see what you were referring to:
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230320-sweden-s-
| teen...
| sesvsesv wrote:
| As I understand it some of the cars are newer cars
| electrically modified (usually the previous family car,
| often a station wagon). Those are mostly wasteful by
| driving at slow speed with only two seats and no storage
| (which are also rules to be able to convert them). These
| can be converted back to a normal car when the driver turns
| 18 and gets a proper driver's license. But it is also
| possible to disable the electronic limits. Other cars are
| pemanantly converted much older cars and sold as such.
| These are the ones that are also bad cars without the
| regulation affecting a normal car.
|
| 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...
| DrRobinson wrote:
| This comment seems out of place to me. It brings up (claimed)
| political issues irrelevant to the topic at hand.
|
| The account is recently created and this is the first and
| only comment/post they've made on this site.
| sesvsesv wrote:
| Car regulation is relevant to the topic, and so is car
| regulation of modified cars in Sweden which they are
| planning to drive through and a statement was made on. I
| have thought about this. It is something that is discussed
| a lot in Sweden. But not available outside it as those
| discussions are in Swedish, and also not held by everyone.
|
| 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).
| sakjur wrote:
| The political issues are all somewhat valid, but like most
| political issues rather more complicated (and also more
| debated) than described.
|
| 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/ny
| heter/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.
| CalRobert wrote:
| How does it make the roads more dangerous?
| sesvsesv wrote:
| Disregarding just being teenagers (using their phones,
| doing burnouts), not having a proper driver's license
| (usually a 20+ lesson affair in Sweden) and driving old
| cars without safety systems; driving at less than half the
| speed of regular traffic in a smaller city or a more rural
| area means a lot of dangerous overtaking as the standard
| road is one lane in each direction (especially where the
| terrain doesn't allow for much more) and these cars are not
| allowed on highways. Since you are allowed to choose high
| school in Sweden, some choose one further away and driving.
| Making such roads congested.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I was thinking it'd be similar to tractors, which I'm
| guessing are already legal (but maybe I'm wrong!)
| sesvsesv wrote:
| It's normal cars regulated as tractors, because at some
| point it was considered useful to use cars as tractors.
| But as you can now convert them electronically, they are
| used at scale for convenience. So it like driving behind
| a tractor, but there are many tractors going back and
| forth to school, the supermarket and friends in rush hour
| and on weekend. All day, every day. And the drivers are
| very overrepresented in not behaving well on the road.
|
| Here are some examples.
|
| https://youtu.be/EprqvxTF5vI?t=92
|
| https://youtu.be/RfhIPGVDQ2Q?t=461
|
| https://youtu.be/wTkM5Cknobc?t=509
| sakjur wrote:
| They tend to lead to more unsafe overtakings since getting
| stuck behind one is stressful, they're driven by young
| people who have a license to drive a moped and haven't gone
| through the ice-driving classes a regular Swedish driver's
| license includes, and the cars are often older inherently
| unsafer car models lacking proper maintenance.
|
| And a chunk of people driving them violate the framework
| and drive extra passengers, bypass the speed limiter, and
| drink and drive.
| cess11 wrote:
| Adults that hate kids tend to do dangerous overtakings
| because they just can't chill for a bit at 30 km/h and so
| on. It's not the kids and their tractors making the roads
| more dangerous.
| gambiting wrote:
| It's the same crowd who blame cyclists for making the
| roads more dangerous because drivers "have to" overtake
| them in dangerous ways.
| cess11 wrote:
| Those aren't cars, they're tractors.
| breckenedge wrote:
| It's carbage, so if it gets caught, impounded and destroyed,
| I'm sure that's all part of the fun of the experience.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| That's great until the self-steering mechanism drives into a
| pedestrian or gets the driver into the hospital. Insurance
| sure isn't going to pay out and even if it does, no amount of
| money can undo injuries.
|
| 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.
| ornornor wrote:
| I wonder why you're getting downvoted, these are good
| points.
| breckenedge wrote:
| It's on a cross-country rally through sparsely populated
| countyside in the dead of winter. The risks seem negligible
| to me. The assistance may actually make this safer than
| without it on such a grueling 1000km/day distance, much of
| it spent driving in the dark.
| gambiting wrote:
| The worry isn't the crappy car, it's that you can't get 3rd
| party insurance for it(or if you do, it won't pay out as your
| car isn't road legal). So yeah if you crash into a tree
| that's no big deal, but if you hit a Ferrari that's a problem
| as your insurance pays out nothing.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| About no way this is legal. The throttle set up looks dangerous
| - any issue with the servo and it won't fail-safe to closed
| throttle like any drive by wire throttle body.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I would doubt that one could get it insured for use on public
| roads. Is having liability insurance a requirement for
| operation in Sweden and Finland?
| ornornor wrote:
| Third party liability is mandatory in the EU afaik.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > we also fitted a Tesla Continental radar sensor behind the
| front grille
|
| Aha! So the obvious radar plate most manufacturers mount in an
| aesthetically horrible way directly in the middle of the grille
| is in fact complete lazy bullshit and it could easily be hidden
| without performance loss. The more you know...
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Let's not get crazy here, I think that the engineering of the
| 'carbage' volvo probably has slightly less effort put into it
| than a major vehicle manufacturer.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >This is the only major actuator that I couldn't easily find a
| suitable modern automotive solution for. This is mainly because
| newer cars don't have carburators anymore, but rather use direct
| injection and advanced engine control units.
|
| Actually injection system is largely independent from throttle
| control. Required amount of fuel is calculated based on manifold
| air pressure sensor, so there were cars with fuel injection and
| cable operated throttle plate. I suppose the problem was with
| plumbing in modern throttle body as carburetor needs to be
| upstream of throttle plate.
| loeg wrote:
| I'm kind of shocked Volvo was still making carbureted vehicles
| in 1993. That is very late to still be using carbs.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| It wasn't an american car. Did they have OBD I style
| regulation in Europe? I think that might have been the driver
| for electronic injection.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Europe didn't have mandatory OBD until MY2001. The US
| (driven by CARB) was well ahead of Europe on emissions
| regulations in those days!
| cr125rider wrote:
| My buddies '96 Taurus had a distributor cap. I was floored.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| It's not, the author either does not know what they are
| talking about and/or is mistranslating to English. You can
| clearly see in the photos that this car has electronic fuel
| injection, but simply has a physical throttle body- something
| that most cars still had for about a decade after this
| vehicle was made.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| 80's and 90's Euro's were mostly using MAF sensors, a hot wire
| that detects how much air is passing, not MAP+Temp sensor. That
| came a little later but all the LH systems at the time had MAF
| sensors
| robingchan wrote:
| would the distinction not be on wether the vehicle is
| turbocharged? or did they use map/maf regardless?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| the turbos also used the MAF, its on the intake side so
| theres no pressure. They're not very reliable. It wasnt
| until I think saab came out with the trionic system that a
| single computer controlled boost, fuel, and timing all
| together. Prior to that you had a few independent brains.
| ECU setting fuel, timing sometimes with an EZK brain, etc.
| brewtide wrote:
| Yup. T5 used a combination of MAP and temp sensors to do
| its fuel mappings. The system was able account for fuel
| quality by adjusting the spark timing and boost amount
| via controlling a solenoid valve down to whatever the
| actually physical waste gate spring was set to.
|
| The later T7 system involved a MAF sensor behind the
| intake, while still retaining the temp sensors and MAP
| but changed the fuel mapping in the system to be a speed
| - density system for greater control and better boost
| handling with large temp and altitude changes. (T5 shot
| for a pressure value t7 shot for a target air mass).
|
| There is software called t5suite / t7suite that allowed
| you to remap everything in the ECU, basically letting you
| modify the system in every possible way but not making
| you do all the setup that a complete stand alone unit
| would make you setup. It was and is, amazing. You could
| flash an ECU via BDM interface out of car, and in later
| T7 models actually make real time changes on a laptop
| that would immediately take effect. Later you could write
| them to the ECU flash (it requires more than 12v to
| flash, although some people rigged things up so they
| could also flash the memory in car).
|
| Good times. I still have a t7 Saab on my lawn. My custom
| tune isn't the best, but it went damn good.
|
| Interesting to note, the MAF in the t7 could be placed on
| the pressure side of the world and it would work
| perfectly fine minus the fact that they would die a lot
| quicker due to oils and such on the pressure side of the
| turbo. People sometimes did this as it was the only way
| to run a true blow off valve for cool effect. If the MAF
| is in the stick location and you do not recirculate that
| air, the car would be fueling for XYZ air density but
| you'd have dumped some out of the closed system and it
| ran rich as hell and like crap .
| eschneider wrote:
| Nice build! I work on...similar actuators and, well, it's a lot
| easier to just drive the steering column. :)
| gunnarmorling wrote:
| > Luckily [the accelerator servo] is also the only actuator that
| doesn't come with major safety implications
|
| This is giving me chills, what if that RC servo gets "stuck" at
| full throttle? I suppose the assumption is you could hit the
| clutch, but depending on the specific situation there might not
| be a lot of time for realizing what's happening and reacting
| accordingly.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Wasn't that the supposed cause of all those Toyota crashes a
| few years back? People claimed the accelerator was stuck on
| full, and pressing the brakes did nothing, but the actual cause
| was people panicking and slamming on the accelerator instead of
| the brakes?
| mdorazio wrote:
| That and improperly sized or installed floormats catching the
| pedals. There are many examples of people hitting the gas
| instead of brake, freaking out, and hitting it even harder on
| the IdiotsInCars subreddit. Here's one:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/xj8540/they_u.
| ..
| sgerenser wrote:
| As discussed in that thread, apparently this mostly happens
| to "2-foot drivers," people who use one foot for the gas
| and one for the brakes. When in a state of panic or
| surprise, they can accidentally mix up which foot they need
| to stomp down on and end up slamming down the accelerator
| instead of the brakes.
| gambiting wrote:
| I know some countries have very....."easy going" attitude
| to drivers ed, but surely.....especially if most of your
| vehicles are automatic.....you _must_ have been told that
| your left foot never leaves the floor or you 're going to
| seriously hurt yourself, right???
| dtgriscom wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration
| loeg wrote:
| One outcome of this is that driver floor-mats are no longer
| free-floating; they clip in to the floor, so they don't
| shift.
| skykooler wrote:
| A car's brakes are required to be able to overpower the engine
| at full throttle.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You can add radar to a comma 3x? I thought it was vision-only.
| That's interesting. Thanks.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| the openpilot model can accept forward facing radar as an input
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is terrific. I'm trying to get it running on my older
| Subaru. Will see if I can hook this up if I can get that
| working.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| Wow what an amazing blog post!!! When will part 2 come out??
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Very cool! I love the Volvo 940- it stands out as one of the best
| quality, and best designed cars ever made. It's an incredibly
| mature design evolved slowly from the Volvo 140 in the 1960s
| through the 240 in the 70s and the 740 in the 80s, and by the 940
| they worked out almost any possible issue. I only wish one could
| have gotten them with AWD and a fuel efficient diesel (they had
| the latter but it was not sold here in the USA).
|
| The author seems to have a lot of electrical hacking knowledge,
| but didn't know some car stuff that could have made getting these
| controls installed much easier:
|
| 1) They could have just swapped in a newer BOSCH ABS pump, which
| can activate the brakes electrically without involving the brake
| booster. European cars started getting these when they got
| traction control in the late 90s, but I believe some would be
| virtually (or maybe even exactly) a direct swap into this
| vehicle. I was able to do this in a VW with about 10 minutes of
| work, which uses the same basic ABS systems as Volvo. This is
| assuming the car already had factory ABS which I think most (but
| possibly not all) 940s did.
|
| 2) They could fix the steering problem by swapping in an entire
| electric steering rack- they're fairly standard dimension wise,
| installing a fully manual rack from a Volvo 240, or adding an A/C
| compressor clutch to the hydraulic power steering pump to disable
| it above parking speeds (the only time torque would be high
| anyways). Moreover, these racks are strong enough to simply work
| with the hydraulic assist removed, because people in the Volvo
| racing/performance community do it all the time.
|
| 3) This car does not have a carburetor- it is electrically fuel
| injected. You can see the fuel injectors and rail above the
| throttle body. This could be just a mistranslation if the author
| is not a native english speaker. However, more importantly there
| was a factory system on this car to electrically control the
| throttle for the cruise control. They are missing those parts,
| but they are cheap and common, and would have just dropped in to
| a bracket and cam already on his engine. They consist of a vacuum
| servo on the throttle itself connected to a box that can actuate
| this with an electrical signal.
| DebboR wrote:
| Author here! Super surprised this made hackernews
|
| It does indeed not have a carburator (I wrote this while half
| asleep on a plane, I meant to say that it has a mechanical
| throttle/air valve which is cable operated).
|
| It also doesn't have ABS (although I believe this was an option
| on the car starting this model year), so swapping out that pump
| wasn't an option. The iBooster is a great and easy retrofit,
| definitely recommend!
|
| Haven't done it yet, but I'm just going to lower the pressure
| of the hydraulic steering by shimming the regulator, should be
| enough. It already steers somewhat ok without this mod too
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Great to hear from you, and awesome project. I had an early
| 90s 240 that did have ABS so assumed incorrectly that yours
| would. Dropping the hydraulic pressure sounds like a really
| good idea, hope that works!
| mnsc wrote:
| I have a Xc70 now, from the year they stopped making these
| brutalistic work horses, and having owned a 740, v50 and a V70
| before I believe this is peak "herrgardsvagn". Nowadays the
| large Volvos like the v90 are stupid Chinese luxury cars that I
| will never buy.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| Amazing story! I have been involved in openpilot development for
| the past 5 years, and I am always interested in the user stories
| of this project.
|
| I drove my car 2500 miles on Openpilot this holiday and it was
| wonderful. I took over maybe 10% of the trip and let automation
| handle the rest. That said, there are many many many areas of
| improvement and I have devoted this year to creating an openpilot
| fork to bring it's ADAS functionality closer to modern vehicles
| (read: tesla).
|
| I will Show HN the first release!
| levocardia wrote:
| Comma is actually hosting a hack in February, if anyone is
| feeling up to trying something like this on another "vintage" car
|
| https://blog.comma.ai/comma-hack-5/
| INTPenis wrote:
| I must be getting old because this blog post scares me to death.
| Knowing this will be sharing roads with me, scares me. And it's
| not the DIY:ness, I don't care if this blogger is 10x more
| competent than all the engineers at Tesla, I don't trust a
| machine with my life or my family's life.
|
| Obviously it's illegal so I don't expect them to use this while
| in Sweden.
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