[protocolture]

I actually concur, my DPF is a nagging beast and I hate it.

But I am betting that quite a lot of the electronic components of cars these days are tied to things, my DPF is a great example, that come from safety and environmental regulation. If you pull the ECU out and tricked the motor into running anyway, I am betting your emissions profile will suck massively. Ditto transmission. The rest of my car seems to involve safety features, sensors and cameras mostly.

By the time you reinvent the car to exclude all these things, then make it roadworthy again I reckon you would end up with almost exactly the standard modern car again. Car makers arent putting computers in for funsies.

[southerntofu]

> Car makers arent putting computers in for funsies.

There's a bit of everything. Some parts are due to regulations. Some parts are due to providing fancy options (LCD screens, seat heaters..), some parts are useful for diagnostics.

Still, some designs are overly complex because during production it's easier to use a hundred MCUs assigned to a specific task. But for durability purposes, it would be better to have clear circuitry with only a handful of MCUs running open source software.

I'm guessing there's an interesting middle ground to explore between "raw motor + wheels" and "FSD car".