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Self driving 1993 Volvo with open pilot

eschneider 2y ago
Nice build! I work on...similar actuators and, well, it's a lot easier to just drive the steering column. :)
dotancohen 2y ago
Very interesting build. Safety-wise it seems fine with the blatant exception of welding the steering column. A steering column could see very high torque, especially if e.g. power steering fails. The author even alludes to this twice but does not address it directly.
- rad_gruchalski 2y ago
  > Safety-wise it seems fine with the blatant exception of welding the steering column. See the fatal accident of Ayrton Senna. Shortened and welded steering column was exactly the cause of the accident.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Looks like they did a bad job at it though: > Lorenzini stated: "It had been badly welded together about a third of the way down and couldn't stand the strain of the race. We discovered scratches on the crack in the steering rod. It seemed like the job had been done in a hurry but I can't say how long before the race. Someone had tried to smooth over the joint following the welding. I have never seen anything like it. I believe the rod was faulty and probably cracked even during the warm-up. Moments before the crash only a tiny piece was left connected and therefore the car didn't respond in the bend." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna And the forces on a formula 1 steering column are also higher than on a road car, I imagine. A proper weld should be very strong, I don’t think welding a steering column in itself is bad.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      If a professional race team cannot make that weld properly, why do we have faith in amateurs doing it for the first time?
      - echoangle 2y ago
        If that’s your bar for DIY stuff, you couldn’t do anything at all. With enough time, everything will be messed up by a professional at some point. If some electrician makes a mistake when wiring a house and it burns down, does that mean that I can never trust myself to wire something myself? Arguably you have an advantage over the professionals because at least you’re motivated to do it properly because it’s your own life on the line. Edit: for another half-serious analogy: if a professional race car driver ever crashes while driving on a regular road, does that mean I can’t drive myself? Because even a professional made a mistake while doing it, so how can I be trusted to do it better?
      - GuB-42 2y ago
        A professional race team working under time pressure on a car going 3 times faster and where weight is a concern. Amateurs can take their time, it makes all the difference.
      - potato3732842 2y ago
        A professional race team is trying to build things that are just barely adequate and are working under crazy deadlines. Amateurs are free to throw more metal at the problem.
  - djaychela 2y ago
    If done badly, yes. There are lots of competition cars (rally cars I have direct experience of) with modified and welded columns that haven't had issues in extreme circumstances. Providing the welding is done to a high standard it is more than strong enough. Bear in mind that all modern steering columns have joints in them for crash safety reasons and they are often welded at the factory.
  - jamesholden 2y ago
    That was a hell of a wiki dive. Thanks. Tragic story :(
- cenamus 2y ago
  Do you think the weld would fail or what are you alluding to? I'd assume that relatively large weld surface could stand up to the 200-ish Nm or however much it actually it is easily
  - binoct 2y ago
    It’s not so much that a weld _can’t_ be sufficiently strong to be safe in a steering column, it’s the QA and validation needed to be sure the weld was done properly. Obviously it’s possible the folks involved in this have the experience and equipment required to do that, but it’s unlikely. Now, how much of a risk there is, and whether or not it should be allowed on public roads where the failure could kill them and/or other people is a question for the local society and legal system :)
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      The QA in this case is that the welder knows he doesn't suck and he knows when he does a good job. A 3/4 or so (approx the size most steering stuff is) shaft is going to be more than capable of handling steering wheel torque Not everything needs to be treated like a nuclear reactor.
      - binoct 2y ago
        Luckily welders do not suffer from superiority bias.
        potato3732842 2y ago
        With a competent welder it's basically never a question of whether or not the weld was good. It's a question of what's sufficient for the application. If you care enough you can make perfection happen but caring that much on everything is time consuming and unnecessary. X-ray and other inspection processes are mostly there to force people to behave like they give a crap.
- Hilift 2y ago
  That's why they call it "Carbage". "The daily value of your car should not exceed 1,000 Euros and the car must be at least 20 years old." Also it completed the activity without failure. https://www.carbagerun.nl/event/winter-editie-2025-naar-helsinki/ https://www.carbagerun.nl/event/winter-editie-2025-naar-hels...
  - t4h4 2y ago
    Also relevant: 24 Hours of Lemons [0] where they race "lemons" worth $500 [0]: https://24hoursoflemons.com/ https://24hoursoflemons.com/
- rollcat 2y ago
  Danger is the nature of this kind of "sport". Friend & I were hitch hiking thru Albania, we ran into a "carbage" race from Poland to Greece. Both of had to travel in different cars (and our backpacks in a third), because otherwise the vehicles wouldn't make it uphill. We've passed by another team who have lost a wheel (it fell off and rolled down a hill at night - effectively got irretrievably lost); they didn't have a spare, so they just sold their car for something like €25. Fun times.
poopsmithe 2y ago
I would never do this, but I'm glad there's someone out there who is brave enough to. It will make for a great story!
Svip 2y ago
I assume part 2 will cover gear changes. Whilst not addressed directly, there are hints that it's a manual transmission (which would square very well for a 1993 Volvo bought in Europe), such as the clutch also being operated with hydraulics. I doubt a retrofit of a new transmission is in store, perhaps a clunky automatic clutch instead?
- bigfatkitten 2y ago
  Though an auto wouldn't be expensive or hard to find. In that part of the world you could probably score one for free.
  - Svip 2y ago
    Fortunately, the picture of the car reveals its number plate, which means we can just look up.[1] The RDW data doesn't seem to include transmission type (at least from my glance), so I went to AutoWeek instead.[2] Here there is also no mention of transmission. My guess is that means it's a manual, since automatics would be the exception, and thus noted. I could also be wrong, I am not Dutch, and thus not completely familiar with the sort of data their vehicle registry would include. [1] https://ovi.rdw.nl/ https://ovi.rdw.nl/ [2] https://www.autoweek.nl/kentekencheck/HN-FZ-69/ https://www.autoweek.nl/kentekencheck/HN-FZ-69/
    - olex 2y ago
      Since he explicitly mentioned a hydraulic clutch and needed to provide a separate fluid reservoir for it, it's a very safe bet to say the car is a manual.
    - alrs 2y ago
      As an American, every car I've ever owned was statistically included with an automatic transmission. Strangely, none of the cars I've owned have had an automatic transmission. Subaru was making CVT automatic cars back then that were even worse than the awful CVT cars of today. That would be my pick if I wanted to do a 30-year-old self driving car. https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-pioneered-the-dreaded-cvt/ https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-pioneered-...
wtk 2y ago
I saved this story to understand more about cars and inspire myself and others to DIY stuff, great!
stavros 2y ago
This is fantastic. I've been wanting an RC car for years, but I've never bothered to buy a car for this. This post has inspired me to try it myself in 2025, though mine will probably not be self-driving. I really enjoyed this post, well done.
victorbjorklund 2y ago
Very cool. But is this allowed to drive on public roads in Sweden? I would have assumed that swedish laws are very restrictive to these kinds of DIY modifications. Amazing if it is allowed!
- bgnn 2y ago
  Definitely not allowed. The route they are taking requies the car to be road legal. These modifications make it definitely illegal on public roads on Sweden and Finland. It's often not enough to pass MOT (which this car wouldn't in the Netherlands, where it seems to be registered at), you need to get type approval to make it road legal. Dutch government has a nice English page about it: https://www.government.nl/topics/general-periodic-inspection-apk/applying-for-individual-vehicle-approval https://www.government.nl/topics/general-periodic-inspection...
  - amelius 2y ago
    I hope they don't require a crash test ...
    - anticensor 2y ago
      Individual approval does not require destructive crash testing.
      - amelius 2y ago
        Great! :)
  - tpm 2y ago
    Individual approval, not type approval, at least in most of the EU. Type approval is for manufacturers.
    - CalRobert 2y ago
      The same approval used to get thousands of otherwise illegal huge American trucks like Dodge Rams on Dutch roads, incidentally.
moffkalast 2y ago
> we also fitted a Tesla Continental radar sensor behind the front grille Aha! So the obvious radar plate most manufacturers mount in an aesthetically horrible way directly in the middle of the grille is in fact complete lazy bullshit and it could easily be hidden without performance loss. The more you know...
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Let's not get crazy here, I think that the engineering of the 'carbage' volvo probably has slightly less effort put into it than a major vehicle manufacturer.
garaetjjte 2y ago
>This is the only major actuator that I couldn’t easily find a suitable modern automotive solution for. This is mainly because newer cars don’t have carburators anymore, but rather use direct injection and advanced engine control units. Actually injection system is largely independent from throttle control. Required amount of fuel is calculated based on manifold air pressure sensor, so there were cars with fuel injection and cable operated throttle plate. I suppose the problem was with plumbing in modern throttle body as carburetor needs to be upstream of throttle plate.
- loeg 2y ago
  I'm kind of shocked Volvo was still making carbureted vehicles in 1993. That is very late to still be using carbs.
  - throwaway173738 2y ago
    It wasn’t an american car. Did they have OBD I style regulation in Europe? I think that might have been the driver for electronic injection.
    - Reason077 2y ago
      Europe didn’t have mandatory OBD until MY2001. The US (driven by CARB) was well ahead of Europe on emissions regulations in those days!
  - cr125rider 2y ago
    My buddies ‘96 Taurus had a distributor cap. I was floored.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    It’s not, the author either does not know what they are talking about and/or is mistranslating to English. You can clearly see in the photos that this car has electronic fuel injection, but simply has a physical throttle body- something that most cars still had for about a decade after this vehicle was made.
- 2y ago
JimmyWilliams1 2y ago
[dead]
gunnarmorling 2y ago
> Luckily [the accelerator servo] is also the only actuator that doesn’t come with major safety implications This is giving me chills, what if that RC servo gets "stuck" at full throttle? I suppose the assumption is you could hit the clutch, but depending on the specific situation there might not be a lot of time for realizing what's happening and reacting accordingly.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  Wasn't that the supposed cause of all those Toyota crashes a few years back? People claimed the accelerator was stuck on full, and pressing the brakes did nothing, but the actual cause was people panicking and slamming on the accelerator instead of the brakes?
  - mdorazio 2y ago
    That and improperly sized or installed floormats catching the pedals. There are many examples of people hitting the gas instead of brake, freaking out, and hitting it even harder on the IdiotsInCars subreddit. Here's one: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/xj8540/they_use_the_gas_instead_of_the_brake_then_hit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/xj8540/they_u...
    - sgerenser 2y ago
      As discussed in that thread, apparently this mostly happens to “2-foot drivers,” people who use one foot for the gas and one for the brakes. When in a state of panic or surprise, they can accidentally mix up which foot they need to stomp down on and end up slamming down the accelerator instead of the brakes.
      - gambiting 2y ago
        I know some countries have very....."easy going" attitude to drivers ed, but surely.....especially if most of your vehicles are automatic.....you must have been told that your left foot never leaves the floor or you're going to seriously hurt yourself, right???
renewiltord 2y ago
You can add radar to a comma 3x? I thought it was vision-only. That’s interesting. Thanks.
- grepfru_it 2y ago
  the openpilot model can accept forward facing radar as an input
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    This is terrific. I’m trying to get it running on my older Subaru. Will see if I can hook this up if I can get that working.
    - grepfru_it 2y ago
      This is an uphill project. I spent 3 years getting my last car supported in open pilot and it honestly felt like a waste of time when I picked up the keys for a car with less digital hoops to jump through. I plugged and played and immediately had a platform to test on vs a test bench of wires which always had a new error when you powered it up for the first time We also found a diminishing return the older the car we supported. So now we are currently only focusing up to gen n-1
      - renewiltord 2y ago
        Reasonable. I’ll give it a crack. In the end, it’ll be useful on the minivan I end up getting for the fam
nothrowaways 2y ago
Wow what an amazing blog post!!! When will part 2 come out??
_yb2s 2y ago
Very cool! I love the Volvo 940- it stands out as one of the best quality, and best designed cars ever made. It's an incredibly mature design evolved slowly from the Volvo 140 in the 1960s through the 240 in the 70s and the 740 in the 80s, and by the 940 they worked out almost any possible issue. I only wish one could have gotten them with AWD and a fuel efficient diesel (they had the latter but it was not sold here in the USA). The author seems to have a lot of electrical hacking knowledge, but didn't know some car stuff that could have made getting these controls installed much easier: 1) They could have just swapped in a newer BOSCH ABS pump, which can activate the brakes electrically without involving the brake booster. European cars started getting these when they got traction control in the late 90s, but I believe some would be virtually (or maybe even exactly) a direct swap into this vehicle. I was able to do this in a VW with about 10 minutes of work, which uses the same basic ABS systems as Volvo. This is assuming the car already had factory ABS which I think most (but possibly not all) 940s did. 2) They could fix the steering problem by swapping in an entire electric steering rack- they're fairly standard dimension wise, installing a fully manual rack from a Volvo 240, or adding an A/C compressor clutch to the hydraulic power steering pump to disable it above parking speeds (the only time torque would be high anyways). Moreover, these racks are strong enough to simply work with the hydraulic assist removed, because people in the Volvo racing/performance community do it all the time. 3) This car does not have a carburetor- it is electrically fuel injected. You can see the fuel injectors and rail above the throttle body. This could be just a mistranslation if the author is not a native english speaker. However, more importantly there was a factory system on this car to electrically control the throttle for the cruise control. They are missing those parts, but they are cheap and common, and would have just dropped in to a bracket and cam already on his engine. They consist of a vacuum servo on the throttle itself connected to a box that can actuate this with an electrical signal.
- DebboR 2y ago
  Author here! Super surprised this made hackernews It does indeed not have a carburator (I wrote this while half asleep on a plane, I meant to say that it has a mechanical throttle/air valve which is cable operated). It also doesn't have ABS (although I believe this was an option on the car starting this model year), so swapping out that pump wasn't an option. The iBooster is a great and easy retrofit, definitely recommend! Haven't done it yet, but I'm just going to lower the pressure of the hydraulic steering by shimming the regulator, should be enough. It already steers somewhat ok without this mod too
grepfru_it 2y ago
Amazing story! I have been involved in openpilot development for the past 5 years, and I am always interested in the user stories of this project. I drove my car 2500 miles on Openpilot this holiday and it was wonderful. I took over maybe 10% of the trip and let automation handle the rest. That said, there are many many many areas of improvement and I have devoted this year to creating an openpilot fork to bring it's ADAS functionality closer to modern vehicles (read: tesla). I will Show HN the first release!
- mdaniel 2y ago
  "I would like to subscribe to your newsletter" But, in seriousness, if you don't mind pointing to your GH fork that'd be awesome, in case I miss the show hn My wishlist, as soon as I work up the nerve to build and flash my own image, is: - recognize lane change blinkers and decelerate (since currently it only decelerates once the car has intruded into the lane). I am aware of the innumerable edge cases about this, but it still seems like it should be a pretty safe (and polite!) change to make - recognize multiple brakelights and lay off the accelerator; I believe it currently uses the radar from the car immediately ahead but if 75% of the other cars have their brakelights on and the car in front is just lazy or driving aggressively, there's no reason for the Comma to cause me to further that chain really nice to haves: - have it recognize speed limit signs and adjust the cruise accordingly this change is related to my desire for it to decelerate on exit ramps versus screaming into them at 65mph and then whining because the curve is too sharp for its speed. If it recognized the "recommended speed limit" sign on the exit ramp then we'd all get what we wanted, and if the exit ramp was going into a new highway no driver action would be required (versus exiting into a stop sign intersection) - have it recognize stop signs (and yellow or red lights would be awesome). I don't need it to detect traffic or whatever, but I also don't enjoy it screaming at stop signs and red lights at full velocity causing me to have to take further action - I need to investigate whether the Comma is bright enough to know I have an electric car and to merely let off on the accelerator versus applying the brake. My car also has multiple levels of regenerative braking, so I'd be open to it taking that into consideration but for me personally I always run in the highest level of regen because that's how my BMW i3 drove and I got used to it
levocardia 2y ago
Comma is actually hosting a hack in February, if anyone is feeling up to trying something like this on another "vintage" car https://blog.comma.ai/comma-hack-5/ https://blog.comma.ai/comma-hack-5/
INTPenis 2y ago
I must be getting old because this blog post scares me to death. Knowing this will be sharing roads with me, scares me. And it's not the DIY:ness, I don't care if this blogger is 10x more competent than all the engineers at Tesla, I don't trust a machine with my life or my family's life. Obviously it's illegal so I don't expect them to use this while in Sweden.
nbzso 2y ago
Nice project. Wow. Sidenote: Since 2018 all my cars are carbadge. Restored fully a CLK 200 Kompressor and Jaguar X308. I cannot stand the current cars. Neither designwise nor tech. There is a lost art of honest design, aesthetic and pure functionality in today's automotive logic. All the infotainment needs you have is live in your phone/tablet. You can use it with every carbadge car you can imagine. I enjoy my cars. They are stylish and reliable. Something that I would not say about my 2016 BMW 6. Next stop Toyota Land Cruiser from 1995.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ehnto 2y ago
I must say, the elegance of a vacuum brake booster stands out in contrast to the electrical variant. Barely 5 parts, stamped steel probably. Then, in contrast, the electric power steering assist seems so much easier compared to hydraulic, just because of the fuss that hydraulics introduce. I may be a bit biased from dealing with rotted 90s hydraulic power steering systems.

Nice build! I work on...similar actuators and, well, it's a lot easier to just drive the steering column. :)

Very interesting build. Safety-wise it seems fine with the blatant exception of welding the steering column. A steering column could see very high torque, especially if e.g. power steering fails. The author even alludes to this twice but does not address it directly.

rad_gruchalski 2y ago
> Safety-wise it seems fine with the blatant exception of welding the steering column. See the fatal accident of Ayrton Senna. Shortened and welded steering column was exactly the cause of the accident.
- echoangle 2y ago
  Looks like they did a bad job at it though: > Lorenzini stated: "It had been badly welded together about a third of the way down and couldn't stand the strain of the race. We discovered scratches on the crack in the steering rod. It seemed like the job had been done in a hurry but I can't say how long before the race. Someone had tried to smooth over the joint following the welding. I have never seen anything like it. I believe the rod was faulty and probably cracked even during the warm-up. Moments before the crash only a tiny piece was left connected and therefore the car didn't respond in the bend." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ayrton_Senna And the forces on a formula 1 steering column are also higher than on a road car, I imagine. A proper weld should be very strong, I don’t think welding a steering column in itself is bad.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    If a professional race team cannot make that weld properly, why do we have faith in amateurs doing it for the first time?
    - echoangle 2y ago
      If that’s your bar for DIY stuff, you couldn’t do anything at all. With enough time, everything will be messed up by a professional at some point. If some electrician makes a mistake when wiring a house and it burns down, does that mean that I can never trust myself to wire something myself? Arguably you have an advantage over the professionals because at least you’re motivated to do it properly because it’s your own life on the line. Edit: for another half-serious analogy: if a professional race car driver ever crashes while driving on a regular road, does that mean I can’t drive myself? Because even a professional made a mistake while doing it, so how can I be trusted to do it better?
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      A professional race team working under time pressure on a car going 3 times faster and where weight is a concern. Amateurs can take their time, it makes all the difference.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      A professional race team is trying to build things that are just barely adequate and are working under crazy deadlines. Amateurs are free to throw more metal at the problem.
- djaychela 2y ago
  If done badly, yes. There are lots of competition cars (rally cars I have direct experience of) with modified and welded columns that haven't had issues in extreme circumstances. Providing the welding is done to a high standard it is more than strong enough. Bear in mind that all modern steering columns have joints in them for crash safety reasons and they are often welded at the factory.
- jamesholden 2y ago
  That was a hell of a wiki dive. Thanks. Tragic story :(
cenamus 2y ago
Do you think the weld would fail or what are you alluding to? I'd assume that relatively large weld surface could stand up to the 200-ish Nm or however much it actually it is easily
- binoct 2y ago
  It’s not so much that a weld _can’t_ be sufficiently strong to be safe in a steering column, it’s the QA and validation needed to be sure the weld was done properly. Obviously it’s possible the folks involved in this have the experience and equipment required to do that, but it’s unlikely. Now, how much of a risk there is, and whether or not it should be allowed on public roads where the failure could kill them and/or other people is a question for the local society and legal system :)
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    The QA in this case is that the welder knows he doesn't suck and he knows when he does a good job. A 3/4 or so (approx the size most steering stuff is) shaft is going to be more than capable of handling steering wheel torque Not everything needs to be treated like a nuclear reactor.
    - binoct 2y ago
      Luckily welders do not suffer from superiority bias.
      - potato3732842 2y ago
        With a competent welder it's basically never a question of whether or not the weld was good. It's a question of what's sufficient for the application. If you care enough you can make perfection happen but caring that much on everything is time consuming and unnecessary. X-ray and other inspection processes are mostly there to force people to behave like they give a crap.
Hilift 2y ago
That's why they call it "Carbage". "The daily value of your car should not exceed 1,000 Euros and the car must be at least 20 years old." Also it completed the activity without failure. https://www.carbagerun.nl/event/winter-editie-2025-naar-helsinki/ https://www.carbagerun.nl/event/winter-editie-2025-naar-hels...
- t4h4 2y ago
  Also relevant: 24 Hours of Lemons [0] where they race "lemons" worth $500 [0]: https://24hoursoflemons.com/ https://24hoursoflemons.com/
rollcat 2y ago
Danger is the nature of this kind of "sport". Friend & I were hitch hiking thru Albania, we ran into a "carbage" race from Poland to Greece. Both of had to travel in different cars (and our backpacks in a third), because otherwise the vehicles wouldn't make it uphill. We've passed by another team who have lost a wheel (it fell off and rolled down a hill at night - effectively got irretrievably lost); they didn't have a spare, so they just sold their car for something like €25. Fun times.

poopsmithe 2y ago

I would never do this, but I'm glad there's someone out there who is brave enough to. It will make for a great story!

Svip 2y ago

I assume part 2 will cover gear changes. Whilst not addressed directly, there are hints that it's a manual transmission (which would square very well for a 1993 Volvo bought in Europe), such as the clutch also being operated with hydraulics. I doubt a retrofit of a new transmission is in store, perhaps a clunky automatic clutch instead?

bigfatkitten 2y ago
Though an auto wouldn't be expensive or hard to find. In that part of the world you could probably score one for free.
- Svip 2y ago
  Fortunately, the picture of the car reveals its number plate, which means we can just look up.[1] The RDW data doesn't seem to include transmission type (at least from my glance), so I went to AutoWeek instead.[2] Here there is also no mention of transmission. My guess is that means it's a manual, since automatics would be the exception, and thus noted. I could also be wrong, I am not Dutch, and thus not completely familiar with the sort of data their vehicle registry would include. [1] https://ovi.rdw.nl/ https://ovi.rdw.nl/ [2] https://www.autoweek.nl/kentekencheck/HN-FZ-69/ https://www.autoweek.nl/kentekencheck/HN-FZ-69/
  - olex 2y ago
    Since he explicitly mentioned a hydraulic clutch and needed to provide a separate fluid reservoir for it, it's a very safe bet to say the car is a manual.
  - alrs 2y ago
    As an American, every car I've ever owned was statistically included with an automatic transmission. Strangely, none of the cars I've owned have had an automatic transmission. Subaru was making CVT automatic cars back then that were even worse than the awful CVT cars of today. That would be my pick if I wanted to do a 30-year-old self driving car. https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-pioneered-the-dreaded-cvt/ https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/the-subaru-justy-pioneered-...

wtk 2y ago

I saved this story to understand more about cars and inspire myself and others to DIY stuff, great!

stavros 2y ago

This is fantastic. I've been wanting an RC car for years, but I've never bothered to buy a car for this. This post has inspired me to try it myself in 2025, though mine will probably not be self-driving. I really enjoyed this post, well done.

victorbjorklund 2y ago

Very cool. But is this allowed to drive on public roads in Sweden? I would have assumed that swedish laws are very restrictive to these kinds of DIY modifications. Amazing if it is allowed!

bgnn 2y ago
Definitely not allowed. The route they are taking requies the car to be road legal. These modifications make it definitely illegal on public roads on Sweden and Finland. It's often not enough to pass MOT (which this car wouldn't in the Netherlands, where it seems to be registered at), you need to get type approval to make it road legal. Dutch government has a nice English page about it: https://www.government.nl/topics/general-periodic-inspection-apk/applying-for-individual-vehicle-approval https://www.government.nl/topics/general-periodic-inspection...
- amelius 2y ago
  I hope they don't require a crash test ...
  - anticensor 2y ago
    Individual approval does not require destructive crash testing.
    - amelius 2y ago
      Great! :)
- tpm 2y ago
  Individual approval, not type approval, at least in most of the EU. Type approval is for manufacturers.
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    The same approval used to get thousands of otherwise illegal huge American trucks like Dodge Rams on Dutch roads, incidentally.

moffkalast 2y ago

> we also fitted a Tesla Continental radar sensor behind the front grille Aha! So the obvious radar plate most manufacturers mount in an aesthetically horrible way directly in the middle of the grille is in fact complete lazy bullshit and it could easily be hidden without performance loss. The more you know...

idiotsecant 2y ago
Let's not get crazy here, I think that the engineering of the 'carbage' volvo probably has slightly less effort put into it than a major vehicle manufacturer.

garaetjjte 2y ago

>This is the only major actuator that I couldn’t easily find a suitable modern automotive solution for. This is mainly because newer cars don’t have carburators anymore, but rather use direct injection and advanced engine control units. Actually injection system is largely independent from throttle control. Required amount of fuel is calculated based on manifold air pressure sensor, so there were cars with fuel injection and cable operated throttle plate. I suppose the problem was with plumbing in modern throttle body as carburetor needs to be upstream of throttle plate.

loeg 2y ago
I'm kind of shocked Volvo was still making carbureted vehicles in 1993. That is very late to still be using carbs.
- throwaway173738 2y ago
  It wasn’t an american car. Did they have OBD I style regulation in Europe? I think that might have been the driver for electronic injection.
  - Reason077 2y ago
    Europe didn’t have mandatory OBD until MY2001. The US (driven by CARB) was well ahead of Europe on emissions regulations in those days!
- cr125rider 2y ago
  My buddies ‘96 Taurus had a distributor cap. I was floored.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  It’s not, the author either does not know what they are talking about and/or is mistranslating to English. You can clearly see in the photos that this car has electronic fuel injection, but simply has a physical throttle body- something that most cars still had for about a decade after this vehicle was made.
2y ago

JimmyWilliams1 2y ago

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gunnarmorling 2y ago

> Luckily [the accelerator servo] is also the only actuator that doesn’t come with major safety implications This is giving me chills, what if that RC servo gets "stuck" at full throttle? I suppose the assumption is you could hit the clutch, but depending on the specific situation there might not be a lot of time for realizing what's happening and reacting accordingly.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
Wasn't that the supposed cause of all those Toyota crashes a few years back? People claimed the accelerator was stuck on full, and pressing the brakes did nothing, but the actual cause was people panicking and slamming on the accelerator instead of the brakes?
- mdorazio 2y ago
  That and improperly sized or installed floormats catching the pedals. There are many examples of people hitting the gas instead of brake, freaking out, and hitting it even harder on the IdiotsInCars subreddit. Here's one: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/xj8540/they_use_the_gas_instead_of_the_brake_then_hit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/xj8540/they_u...
  - sgerenser 2y ago
    As discussed in that thread, apparently this mostly happens to “2-foot drivers,” people who use one foot for the gas and one for the brakes. When in a state of panic or surprise, they can accidentally mix up which foot they need to stomp down on and end up slamming down the accelerator instead of the brakes.
    - gambiting 2y ago
      I know some countries have very....."easy going" attitude to drivers ed, but surely.....especially if most of your vehicles are automatic.....you must have been told that your left foot never leaves the floor or you're going to seriously hurt yourself, right???

renewiltord 2y ago

You can add radar to a comma 3x? I thought it was vision-only. That’s interesting. Thanks.

grepfru_it 2y ago
the openpilot model can accept forward facing radar as an input
- renewiltord 2y ago
  This is terrific. I’m trying to get it running on my older Subaru. Will see if I can hook this up if I can get that working.
  - grepfru_it 2y ago
    This is an uphill project. I spent 3 years getting my last car supported in open pilot and it honestly felt like a waste of time when I picked up the keys for a car with less digital hoops to jump through. I plugged and played and immediately had a platform to test on vs a test bench of wires which always had a new error when you powered it up for the first time We also found a diminishing return the older the car we supported. So now we are currently only focusing up to gen n-1
    - renewiltord 2y ago
      Reasonable. I’ll give it a crack. In the end, it’ll be useful on the minivan I end up getting for the fam

nothrowaways 2y ago

Wow what an amazing blog post!!! When will part 2 come out??

_yb2s 2y ago

Very cool! I love the Volvo 940- it stands out as one of the best quality, and best designed cars ever made. It's an incredibly mature design evolved slowly from the Volvo 140 in the 1960s through the 240 in the 70s and the 740 in the 80s, and by the 940 they worked out almost any possible issue. I only wish one could have gotten them with AWD and a fuel efficient diesel (they had the latter but it was not sold here in the USA). The author seems to have a lot of electrical hacking knowledge, but didn't know some car stuff that could have made getting these controls installed much easier: 1) They could have just swapped in a newer BOSCH ABS pump, which can activate the brakes electrically without involving the brake booster. European cars started getting these when they got traction control in the late 90s, but I believe some would be virtually (or maybe even exactly) a direct swap into this vehicle. I was able to do this in a VW with about 10 minutes of work, which uses the same basic ABS systems as Volvo. This is assuming the car already had factory ABS which I think most (but possibly not all) 940s did. 2) They could fix the steering problem by swapping in an entire electric steering rack- they're fairly standard dimension wise, installing a fully manual rack from a Volvo 240, or adding an A/C compressor clutch to the hydraulic power steering pump to disable it above parking speeds (the only time torque would be high anyways). Moreover, these racks are strong enough to simply work with the hydraulic assist removed, because people in the Volvo racing/performance community do it all the time. 3) This car does not have a carburetor- it is electrically fuel injected. You can see the fuel injectors and rail above the throttle body. This could be just a mistranslation if the author is not a native english speaker. However, more importantly there was a factory system on this car to electrically control the throttle for the cruise control. They are missing those parts, but they are cheap and common, and would have just dropped in to a bracket and cam already on his engine. They consist of a vacuum servo on the throttle itself connected to a box that can actuate this with an electrical signal.

DebboR 2y ago
Author here! Super surprised this made hackernews It does indeed not have a carburator (I wrote this while half asleep on a plane, I meant to say that it has a mechanical throttle/air valve which is cable operated). It also doesn't have ABS (although I believe this was an option on the car starting this model year), so swapping out that pump wasn't an option. The iBooster is a great and easy retrofit, definitely recommend! Haven't done it yet, but I'm just going to lower the pressure of the hydraulic steering by shimming the regulator, should be enough. It already steers somewhat ok without this mod too

grepfru_it 2y ago

Amazing story! I have been involved in openpilot development for the past 5 years, and I am always interested in the user stories of this project. I drove my car 2500 miles on Openpilot this holiday and it was wonderful. I took over maybe 10% of the trip and let automation handle the rest. That said, there are many many many areas of improvement and I have devoted this year to creating an openpilot fork to bring it's ADAS functionality closer to modern vehicles (read: tesla). I will Show HN the first release!

mdaniel 2y ago
"I would like to subscribe to your newsletter" But, in seriousness, if you don't mind pointing to your GH fork that'd be awesome, in case I miss the show hn My wishlist, as soon as I work up the nerve to build and flash my own image, is: - recognize lane change blinkers and decelerate (since currently it only decelerates once the car has intruded into the lane). I am aware of the innumerable edge cases about this, but it still seems like it should be a pretty safe (and polite!) change to make - recognize multiple brakelights and lay off the accelerator; I believe it currently uses the radar from the car immediately ahead but if 75% of the other cars have their brakelights on and the car in front is just lazy or driving aggressively, there's no reason for the Comma to cause me to further that chain really nice to haves: - have it recognize speed limit signs and adjust the cruise accordingly this change is related to my desire for it to decelerate on exit ramps versus screaming into them at 65mph and then whining because the curve is too sharp for its speed. If it recognized the "recommended speed limit" sign on the exit ramp then we'd all get what we wanted, and if the exit ramp was going into a new highway no driver action would be required (versus exiting into a stop sign intersection) - have it recognize stop signs (and yellow or red lights would be awesome). I don't need it to detect traffic or whatever, but I also don't enjoy it screaming at stop signs and red lights at full velocity causing me to have to take further action - I need to investigate whether the Comma is bright enough to know I have an electric car and to merely let off on the accelerator versus applying the brake. My car also has multiple levels of regenerative braking, so I'd be open to it taking that into consideration but for me personally I always run in the highest level of regen because that's how my BMW i3 drove and I got used to it

levocardia 2y ago

Comma is actually hosting a hack in February, if anyone is feeling up to trying something like this on another "vintage" car https://blog.comma.ai/comma-hack-5/ https://blog.comma.ai/comma-hack-5/

INTPenis 2y ago

I must be getting old because this blog post scares me to death. Knowing this will be sharing roads with me, scares me. And it's not the DIY:ness, I don't care if this blogger is 10x more competent than all the engineers at Tesla, I don't trust a machine with my life or my family's life. Obviously it's illegal so I don't expect them to use this while in Sweden.

nbzso 2y ago

Nice project. Wow. Sidenote: Since 2018 all my cars are carbadge. Restored fully a CLK 200 Kompressor and Jaguar X308. I cannot stand the current cars. Neither designwise nor tech. There is a lost art of honest design, aesthetic and pure functionality in today's automotive logic. All the infotainment needs you have is live in your phone/tablet. You can use it with every carbadge car you can imagine. I enjoy my cars. They are stylish and reliable. Something that I would not say about my 2016 BMW 6. Next stop Toyota Land Cruiser from 1995.

deleted 2y ago

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ehnto 2y ago

I must say, the elegance of a vacuum brake booster stands out in contrast to the electrical variant. Barely 5 parts, stamped steel probably. Then, in contrast, the electric power steering assist seems so much easier compared to hydraulic, just because of the fuss that hydraulics introduce. I may be a bit biased from dealing with rotted 90s hydraulic power steering systems.