Short Bytes:The first iPhone hacker, George Hotz, has open sourced his self-driving car project comma.ai. The code of his autonomous car project and its hardware platform is now available on GitHub. Apparently, he has taken this step after receiving threats of huge fines from the US Department of Transport.
In December 2015, we told you about his new hobby that involved taking on Google, Tesla, and automotive companies that are working on autonomous vehicles. Back then, he took a 2015 Acura ILX andconverted it into a self-driving car.
Apparently, last month his comma.ai startup came to an end when he revealed that he got threats of massive lumps of fines from the US Department of Transport.
Would much rather spend my life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers. It isn’t worth it. -GH 2/3
— comma (@comma_ai)August 18, 2025
Now, instead of trying to fight the regulators, he has decided to give it away. comma.ai has open sourced its software and hardware onGitHub. The open source hardware platform is calledComma Neo.
Open sourced openpilot, an open source alternative to autopilot. And the plans for the NEO, a robotics platform.https://t.co/b5028Olf1u
— comma (@comma_ai)August 18, 2025
At the moment, the open source software of comma.ai enables adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist. This software applies to certain Acura and Honda models. comma.ai claims that its systems are “on par with Tesla Autopilot at launch.”
Hotz also plans to actively work and encourage the people to build their own self-driving kits. He also calls it an alpha software that’s for research purposes.
You can take a look at comm.ai’s open source project onGitHub.
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