A Ridiculous Journey To Set The Clock In A 2014 Renault

November 4, 2026 by Tom Nardi 10 Comments

As difficult as it may be to believe, it’s not possible to adjust the time on a 2014 Renault Latitude’s in-dash navigation system unless you have an original SD card with valid map data on it. If you lose that card, or never had it in the first place because you’re not the original owner of the vehicle, you’re out of luck.

That is, unless you’re [Rasmus Moorats]. Not willing to pay for an original Renault SD card just for the privilege of adjusting the time on his vehicle’s dashboard, he set out to hack the navigation system so he could fiddle with its parameters manually.

You might think that the end result of this hack is really only interesting if you happen to own a Renault of a similar vintage, and to a point you’d be right. The part that’s worth sticking around for even if you don’t have an applicable vehicle is the fascinating process of poking and prodding at the car’s embedded Linux operating system which [Rasmus] was kind enough to document for us.

There’s a lot of ground covered in the write-up, but the short version is that while the navigation system has the ability to load scripts from the SD card, as designed there are pretty strict limits on what said scripts can actually do. The trick for [Rasmus] was to find a way to break out of the limited sandbox.

After a number of only partially successful attempts, he finally found the solution by using the script’s built-in logging functions to overwrite the operating system’s core_pattern string which is executed whenever a process crashes. By then using a different function of the scripting language to intentionally crash a binary, he was able to execute commands of his choosing, and in turn modify the configuration file that held the time data.

If you’ve ever found yourself trying to hack your way through a locked down embedded Linux system, we’re willing to bet at least a few of the tricks [Rasmus] outlines here could come in handy. As for hacking obstinate in-dash navigation and entertainment systems, it gets even harder on more modern vehicles.

Open Safety In The Auto Business: Renault Shares Its Battery Fire Suppression Tech

March 7, 2025 by Jenny List 31 Comments

As consumers worldwide slowly make the switch from internal combustion vehicles to lower-carbon equivalents, a few concerns have appeared about electric vehicles. Range anxiety is ebbing away as batteries become bigger and chargers become more frequent, but a few well-publicized incidents have raised worries over fire safety.

Lithium-ion batteries can ignite in the wrong circumstances, and when they do so they are extremely difficult to extinguish. Renault has a solution, and in a rare moment for the car industry, they are sharing it freely for all manufacturers to use.

The innovation in question is their Fireman Access Port, a standardized means for a fire crew to connect up their hoses directly to the battery pack and attack the fire at its source. An opening is covered by an adhesive disk designed to protect the cells, but breaks under a jet of high-pressure water. Thermal runaway can then be halted much more easily.

The licensing terms not only allow use of the access port itself, but also require any enhancements be shared with the rest of the community of automakers using the system. This was the part which caught our interest, because even if it doesn’t come from the same place as the licences we’re used to, it sounds a lot like open source to us.

Oddly, this is not the first time Renault have open-sourced their technology, in the past they’ve shared an entire car.

At Last, An Open Source Electric Vehicle From A Major Manufacturer

January 12, 2017 by Jenny List 75 Comments

There is a rule of thumb to follow when looking at product announcements at the fringes of the motor industry that probably has something in common with crowdfunding campaigns. If the photographs of the product are all renders rather than real prototypes, walk away. It is said that small volume vehicle production is a space that attracts either crooks or dreamers, and parting with your money to either can be a risky business. So when yet another electric vehicle platform makes its debut it’s always worth looking, but too often the rendered images outnumber anything from the real world and you know you’ll never see one on the road.

It is with interest then that we note an exciting announcement made last week at CES, that the French carmaker Renault are to release an open-source vehicle platform. It is called the POM, and it is based upon their existing Twizy electric buggy platform. If this last point causes you to snort with derision because the Twizy is a tiny and not very fast in-line two-seater with awful weather protection better suited to the French Riviera than an American Interstate, remember that the car itself is not the point of this exercise at this stage. Instead the access to the technology will spark fresh innovation in the open electric vehicle sector that will transfer into better systems for more practical open source vehicles in the future. (Incidentally, we’re told by people who’ve tried the Twizy that it can be something of an unexpected gem to drive. It seems the lowish top speed doesn’t matter in the twisties when you have a low centre of gravity and quite impressive acceleration in a tiny machine.)

Partnered with Renault are OSVehicle, ARM, Pilot Automotive, a manufacturer of automotive accessories, and Sensoria, who will be working on wearable accessories. It’s probable that you won’t see many POMs on the road if you don’t live in a territory that already has the Twizy, but it’s certain you’ll see its technological legacy in other vehicles.

We’ve covered plenty of electric cars in the past here at Hackaday, and this isn’t the first one with an open source angle. We’ve had a very nice Mazda-derived ground-up build, and an astounding home-made hub motor.