Earlier this week, Riversimple announced unveiled an "open source" hydrogen-powered car, according to the BBC (with a tip of the hat to Earth2Tech for the lead). A partnership with fuel company BOC will allow the drivers of its ten prototype vehicles to buy hydrogen in their home towns; the goal is to build a national hydrogren infrastructure one city at a time.
What's most interesting about the car, from my perspective, is the open source approach to design. Riversimple will give the designs to the 40 Fires Foundation, which will make them available under an open source model. The goal is to make it possible for the cars to be manufactured on a small scale in many different localities; as manufacturers tweak and improve the design, the improvements will be contributed back to the 40 Fires community.
To put it mildly, this is a new approach to building cars, and a fascinating one. There has been some talk about small-scale manufacturing as the foundation for local sustainable economies - for example, see Decentralization and Small-Scale Manufacturing: The Basis of Sustainable Regions? in the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning (2004; subscription required). Riversimple's approach is a significant step forward along these lines. It remains to be seen whether small-scale manufacturing of cars is even remotely economically feasible; auto manufacturing tends to have high overhead costs, meaning that large-scale production is key to keeping prices affordable. On the other hand, the new Riversimple car will be considerably lighter than most cars, weighing in at 350kg, and might benefit from an overhauled under-the-hood design. I'm no expert in assembly lines, but perhaps these innovations will make small-scale manufacturing feasible.
I am also interested to see how the open source community organized around the designs will emerge. As a dedicated Drupal developer, I have a great deal of first-hand experience with an open source community which is organized exceptionally well. I think 40 Fires - and indeed, any open source community - could take a few pages from Drupal's book. The key to Drupal's success as an open source community, from my perspective, is the clear organization and extensibility of the core product, i.e. the Drupal source code. That clarity of design means that there are many avenues for a developer to step up and contribute to the community. At the same time, Drupal's loose licensing requirements, in which all contributions are released under the General Public License, make it possible for anyone to profit from an in-depth knowledge of Drupal (which is, indeed, the better part of our business model here at Lightbulb First.)
In that vein, I hope 40 Fires loosens its restrictions a bit. The foundation has already, and wisely, decided to add a moderate licensing fee of £ 5 - 10 per car onto the designs, so its economic survival is safe, as long as the cars themselves are commercially viable. But the designs are licensed under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, meaning that "the designs can be used, modified, distributed under the same license terms but not for commercial purposes", according to the foundation. It seems to me that modification and distribution for commercial purposes will be important to the success of the community - that will help provide the proper incentives to get manufacturers to contribute back to the community. Of course, designing an open source community for car design is not exactly well-trod ground. 40 Fires is well aware that of the potential for mistakes, and is actively seeking input on its open source policies. I may try and send them some ideas, and if you have some experience with open source communities, I highly encourage you to do the same!
Whether the small-scale manufacturing revolution takes off is still a big question, and the design of the 40 Fires open source community forms one small part of that question. But I think this experiment in sustainable transportation is extremely exciting, and I am eager to see what comes next.
