Detroit and Silicon Valley don’t hold the keys to the auto’s future; Henry Ford does.

http://www.thebigmoney.com/print/933

by robg • 18 years ago

7 5 18 years ago

erik• 18 years ago

"a vehicle for the exurbs of both our large cities and our less densely populated rural areas. It would be easy to assemble and wouldn't require expensive new lithium-ion battery technology or exotic composite materials. It would seat at least six, have a range of 400 miles on a fill-up, and get 35-40 miles per gallon with greatly reduced emissions. It would run on gas, diesel, biodiesel, or ethanol. It could probably be sold for around $25,000 to $30,000."

And it would come with a pony. And it should fly.

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

How about a flying pony?

No assembly required, no exotic technology (except for the flying thing), seats two or as much as four with the optional buggy attachment, and it runs on pre-processed ethanol.

I'd like a brown one. With racing stripes.

anthonyrubin• 18 years ago

There are a few cars that fit that bill other than the "seat at least six" part.

pongle• 18 years ago

Linking to the print version caught me slightly off guard, but otherwise an interesting article.

The author appears to be asking for a car manufacturer to build a one-size-fits-all car and make it cheap enough for everyone to be able to afford. I would be unsurprised to find that a car that meets his specification already exist, but is hidden by the wide range of options and alternatives offered by the various manufacturers (the curse of choice). So what the author is really asking for is for a manufacturer to pair-down their range and only offer one car, in black... While this might be possible for a start-up this is not possible for any of the large car companies. My example would be the Smart car, started with one design, and now has at least three or four different offerings to diversify their customer base.

Can anyone provide an example of an industry where choice has been significantly reduced over time?

Link to original article: http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2008/12/29/nex...

jerf• 18 years ago

That wasn't insightful, that was gibberish. It further's Congress' continual confusion between "cars people will buy", "cars good for the environment", and "cars automakers are actually making"... that's three distinct categories, and it is wrong to collapse them. (The most frequent collapse is that "cars people want to buy" are "good for the environment". This is wishful thinking. People will prefr good fuel economy, all else being equal, but they're not going to pay twice as much or give up those little niceties like "a heater". Hold the auto companies to this wishful thinking, as Congress wants, and you might as well just finish digging their grave and throw them in.)

Watch the switcho-changeo in action: "Detroit's goal has never been to sell the cars that consumers want to buy; it's been to sell the cars that will yield the highest profits. By contrast, startup car companies such as Tesla, Aptera, Fisker, Bright Automotive, and Commuter Cars have adopted the Silicon Valley mojo, using indie, engineered-in-a-garage values to develop cars that people should buy." That's content-free. Along with the category confusion, it also appears to praise the Silicon Valley companies for not chasing profits. Yeah, that's the path to success alright!

And why on Earth would the startups want to deal with the unions? Almost by definition of "union", they do not. That was just gibberish. They may have to deal with unions (ideally a nice new one, IMHO, UAW 2.0 to go with Car 2.0), and hopefully they learn from how UAW 1.0 badly hurt their host, but wanting to deal with a union is just stupid-talk. (Dealing with pay and stuff: probably OK. Defining every job down to the n-th degree so theres no flexibility, aka "work rules", and creating thousands and thousands of wasted worker-days per day: deadly.)

Unions aren't free. In fact, they are quite expensive if they have an effectiveness at all.

And as Erik says, I can spec the perfect vehicle too, that doesn't mean it can exist.

Detroit and Silicon Valley don’t hold the keys to the auto’s future; Henry Ford does.

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