Originally Posted by Cujet
All that is wonderful, but the chassis of a modern car is a small fraction of its complexity. I see little in the way of savings here. Very few of the complex systems required are taking less time and effort today.
The complexity in a modern car is the wiring needed to support the drivetrain, infotainment and ADAS. CAN and other automotive-spec networking protocols(FlexRay, IEBus - which Toyota and Honda implement as AVC-LAN/GA-NET, MOST, LIN, etc) have helped by reducing wiring count but all the OEMs have specific implementations of it. You'd think Tesla would be using a lot of CAN, ethernet and fiber optic-based networking(MOST) to network the car.
I feel over-the-road trucks and transit buses/tour coaches are as close to "open" for wiring and networking. COTS components, common SAE-defined bus protocols and familiarity to a mechanic.