Local Motors Open Innovation

This is an open innovation group producing a car based on public input. Great idea. It appears they're doing so on the basis of design (styling) competitions and then doing the engineering in-house, and will farm out production to shops in various locales to produce the vehicles.

This is a good first step to open innovation. Later on it would make sense to draw more expertise from participants and enable them to become more deeply involved with the engineering work. This and the RiverSimple concept are two examples of the inevitable move toward open innovation in the automobile industry.

Growing Interest In Open Innovation

While the technical aspects of the RiverSimple car of are certainly relevant, the most interesting thing about this story is the idea of open innovation, allowing independent companies being able to lease (license) the intellectual property.

Several organizations and companies are proponents of "open source" automobiles, and I believe it is an idea whose time has come.

However, there may be segments where it would be more appropriate than the common OS target which is mini cars and basic transportation.

Source: AutoBlogGreen, AutoCar