Open-Source Hardware Platform to Develop Electric Vehicles

If you’d like to build your own road-legal electric vehicle, there are many things that must first be done. Design, sourcing components, and meeting regulatory approval for the countries where you plan to use it can certainly be a challenge. What if, however, there was a chassis and drivetrain that you could just buy, then modify as you see fit?

OSVehicle’s TABBY EVO (now in its second version) aims to be just that, and claims it can save your company three years of R&D as well as two million dollars if you use their barebones vehicle. The car, available for less than $20,000, is shipped to you and can be ready to drive in just under an hour.

Importantly, the design files are available to use and tweak. This means that you could, in theory, construct your own. Perhaps more importantly, this means that you don’t have to reverse-engineer the car in order to customize it.

OSVehicle’s mission is to democratize mobility by enabling businesses and startups to design, prototype, and build custom electric vehicles and transportation services.

But here’s where it really gets exciting… Recently during CES, Renault announced a partnership with OSVehicle, marking the first time a mass-market automaker is open-sourcing its platform. Based on their Twizy model, Renault developed a compact, lightweight electric vehicle with bodywork parts removed. Available to startups, independent labs, private customers and researchers, it allows third parties to copy and modify existing software to create a totally customizable ride.

Working with Renault will be a significant boost to OSVehicle’s growing ecosystem. This collaboration, along with support from ARM, will open up the hardware and software of Renault’s Twizy architecture to new features and adjustments. Be sure to read more here!