alt Hacker NewsIt would be cool if we saw the separation of drivetrain from body in the automobile market. This happens with heavy trucks, you can buy a "glider" which is a completely new, finished rolling chassis and you provide your own engine. Originally done (I think) to skirt emissions laws but it would be cool to be able to buy the body and the EV drivetrain (and maybe battery packs?) from different vendors, and for EV drivetrains to be more easily fittable to older chassis.
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The team sat Electric Classic Cars are doing that, you can soon buy a skateboard chassis and drivetrain from them, and bolt whatever body you want to it.
Their recent videos showcase what they're doing in that area https://www.youtube.com/@ElectricClassicCars/videos
that's what Waymo is doing, in their implementation of this idea the "waymo driver" is software intended to be licensed out to vehicles or vehicle chassis with applicable hardware
so if you thought the waymo car rollout was fast and sudden, wait until companies no longer need their own training data, it'll be like a switch got flipped
This was very common in the early days of the automobile, at least for luxury cars. Bentley or Rolls-Royce would deliver a chassis with the entire drivetrain, and a coachbuilder like Mulliner would add a body to the customer's liking.