In late 2015, iPhone and PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz teased a project that sounded like a dream: his new company would produce a $1,000 consumer product that could grant your car semi-autonomous capabilities. Eleven months and one terse letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration later, Hotz killed the project.
About a month after that, Hotz resurrected it as a two open-source efforts, splitting the hardware and software of the self-driving tech he had created with the rest of his company, Comma.ai. Hotz always talked like he wanted to start a DIY car revolution to take on the car industry (and Elon Musk especially). Open sourcing the plans only increased the chances of it happening.
The start of a DIY revolution in car software? Or just a tool for developers?
Now, just weeks after releasing those plans on GitHub, the first spin on Hotz’s hardware is out. A small company called Neodriven, led by former Tesla employee Matt Schulwitz, is announcing a product of the same name that goes on sale today for $1,495. It’s a modified version of the Comma Neo plans that Hotz open sourced, but if Schulwitz has his way, it will be an early player in that revolution.
Schulwitz brought a prototype of Neodriven’s hardware (and a compatible Honda Civic) to Las Vegas last week during the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s rudimentary at the moment — a blue 3D-printed case holds the OnePlus 3 phone, circuit board, and other components together. But it was finished enough to imbue his car with Comma.ai’s self-driving software during a one-hour demo around the Las Vegas streets and highways.