Self Driving Like It’s 1993

In a stunning example of the Baader Meinhof effect, we’ve recently heard several times this week about events like the “carbage run.” That is, a motoring event where you can only buy some garbage car to compete. In the case of [Robbe Derks], the idea was to take a six-day journey to the polar circle in a car. But not just any car. It had to be at least 20 years old and cost less than €1000. That wasn’t hard enough for [Robbe] and friends. They also decided to make the car self-driving.

If you have a car that is new enough, this might not be as hard as it sounds. The OpenPilot project adds L2 self-driving features to about 275 car models. But probably not a 20-year-old junker or, in particular, a 1993 Volvo 940. [Robbe] took up the challenge and is doing a series of blog posts covering how it all worked.

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Hackaday Links: July 14, 2024

We’ve been going on at length in this space about the death spiral that AM radio seems to be in, particularly in the automotive setting. Car makers have begun the process of phasing AM out of their infotainment systems, ostensibly due to its essential incompatibility with the electronics in newer vehicles, especially EVs. That argument always seemed a little specious to us, since the US has an entire bureaucracy dedicated to making sure everyone works and plays well with each other on the electromagnetic spectrum. The effort to drop AM resulted in pushback from US lawmakers, who threatened legislation to ensure every vehicle has the ability to receive AM broadcasts, on the grounds of its utility in a crisis and that we’ve spent billions ensuring that 80% of the population is within range of an AM station.

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