Here’s a street-legal, open source American car (combustion engine).
It’ll do 0-62 mph in about 5 seconds and about 149 mph top speed. About 69 mpg. It uses race car tech., some race car parts (recognized from past personal experience) and is doable. Very low cost for what’s there (cost for an individual depending on building methods chosen).
Free plans.
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Wikispeed_SGT01
Very low cost for getting into manufacturing (see WIKISPEED site) and adding value with your own modifications.
I would like to see more utility vehicle projects in open source design.
There’s also a European open source car project—street-legal in the U.K., at least (electric or hybrid). Extremely low cost for European folks.
http://www.osvehicle.com/osv-platform/
There’s some new open source textile equipment. Just found it. It’s working but still in development (beta) and extremely low cost to build. Like much of the other open source design equipment, it’s robotic. So all the robots are belong to us.
Most likely, the economy is about to go through some extreme changes, some very bad and some very good.