Looking Out #3
SUV backlash, Auto monocultures, Robot prehistory, "Street"
July 5, 2019
A newsletter about the auto industry, mobility, design, and the cultures that surround us. Brought to you by Joe Simpson and Drew Smith of The Automobility Group. If you like what you see, tell your friends!
Auto
Is another SUV backlash coming?
Why it’s interesting: SUVs have powered auto growth and profits for more than a decade. But trends tend to be cyclical – and the green shoots of a possible backlash are emerging, and that would be seriously bad news in the industry’s current state.
Readers with long memories might remember the first SUV ‘backlash’ that happened around the turn of the millennium. Keith Bradsher’s exhaustive book on the SUV, High and Mighty, summarised a movement against the typology. The Ford Explorer / Firestone tyre scandal kicked it off, and on the streets of London a guerrilla movement was playing out against ‘urban 4x4s’.
But GM’s Keep America rollin’ campaign which heralded the cheap finance era, cheap gas prices and the arrival of car-based crossovers helped turn the contemporary SUV into the cash-cow and car for everyone it is today.
In Europe, where diesel literally fuelled the SUV boom and is now fuelling its own collapse (see below) amid renewed governmental pressure, we’ve started to see the reappearance of articles which take aim at the SUV. The anti-SUV message focusses on their fitness for purpose, impact on culture and others’ quality of life. And it sits within the context of sirens about a climate catastrophe, which are getting louder by the day. Pair with Volkswagen’s conclusion that ‘traffic collapse will kill off car use in cities’ and we could well be seeing the first signs of the SUV-as-force-of-nature faltering. And then again, perhaps not. Context, as ever, is everything.
| JS
Diesel’s death spiral ($)
Why it’s interesting: the introduction of London’s Ultra-low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) has caused diesel sales to collapse in the city, further compounding sales woes for new and used oil-burners.
Hot on the heels of the revelation that Audi, Porsche and VW were using not one but four defeat devices on their V6 diesels comes news that sales of diesel vehicles in London are continuing to collapse. This offers, perhaps, a taste of what’s to come for vehicle sales as cities clamp down harder on vehicle emissions.
Searches on AutoTrader, an online marketplace, for diesel vehicles within Greater London have dropped from 50% in April 2017 to 19% in the same month this year. Searches for hybrid and electric vehicles rose from 3% to 11% in the same period.
While it’s hard to lament the removal of the most polluting cars from city centres, it’s important to recognise the impact on transport equity for people who can’t afford to replace ageing diesels on which they rely: the ban affects diesel cars built before 2015.
**STOP PRESS**
As of July 1, Paris has banned all diesel vehicles over 13 years old from the city centre. En Marche!
| DS
Mobility
Breaking out of automobile monoculture (is hard)
Why it’s interesting: Automakers are increasingly dipping their toe into the Micromobility space, but have struggled to break out of a product-led paradigm. Ford’s latest patent show some smarter thinking.
How an auto OEM adds value in the Micromobility sector is hard to see. How do you break out of your monoculture and make any money? Seat’s Minimo is illustrative of the auto industry mindset, where the value is in the physical vehicle (read anything about this trend, and you’ll quickly realise that – for Micromobility users – it tends not to be, which is why every e-scooter is a re-branded import from China with an average lifespan of a month).
But Ford deserves more credit than most. It’s on a stated path to transform its business, has bought up operators like Spin and Chariot (subsequently shut down). And its latest patent shows a new product form factor, in the shape of a segway-like self-balancing platform. The corporate Ford face that’s visible, kind of proves my earlier point, put the patent actually relates to the system in which the unit operates, how it is stored (fits in the spare wheel well of a car), might be dispensed (from a vending-like machine), and is charged. Signs that Ford is breaking out of the monoculture and working out how to add true value, for the user.
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Roaming mobility
Why it’s interesting: As the transport network companies (TNCs) recoil from taking a a one-size-fits-all approach to rolling out international ride hailing, aggregators are stepping up to join the dots for consumers.
In service design and delivery, understanding context and culture is critical to success. So it’s unsurprising that TNCs like Uber have failed to simply lift and shift a model that worked in New York or London to Jakarta or Chongqing. The culture and context that influences how, when, and why people use these services require a far more nuanced approach.
Of course, the inability to use one app across multiple cities is an irritant to the globally mobile consumer, however, leaving them to download and deal with multiple apps.
Enter Splyt, which aims to simplify booking and payments across TNCs. Currently, they enable multi-service access for Alipay users through the Alipay app, but are negotiating with multiple TNCs across Asia to become the connective tissue for consumers who want one-app access to mobility services.
| DS
Design
Robotic prehistory
Why it’s interesting: as automakers scramble to introduce digital assistants and in-car robots, understanding the differences between Western and Eastern cultures takes on renewed importance.
This talk by Genevieve Bell is a wonderful anthropological romp through the history of robots and why they engender fear in the West and wonder in the East.
Pair with Conversational Design, by Erika Hall, to learn how to design better, more human interactions with products and services.
| DS
If you read only one thing on Jony Ive leaving Apple
Why it’s interesting: Jonathan Ive might lay claim to being the most influential living designer. And you won’t have got far this week without reading some analysis on why he’s leaving Apple. Kottke rounds up three key takes on his legacy.
We didn’t feel it was appropriate to sign off this issue without talking about the big design news of the last few days.
If you’re looking looking for positive, critical take aways from Ive’s departure, Kottke’s round up of three different takes, is a great step-off point. The three pieces thread together around the issue (or should that be idea?) that design is now something that’s much more than the aesthetic. And despite being (mostly) for the better, Ive’s aesthetic obsession has created some issues for Apple. It feels representative of a much bigger conversation that is starting to happen around why design is (not a typo), what design’s role is and what skills are needed to run a successful design department.
Either way, the piece is rather more thought provoking for designers than the salacious whys and wherefores of how and when Ive’s departure started, that latter article in the WSJ heavily rebuked by Tim Cook personally.
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Culture
Decoding “street”
Why it’s interesting: streetwear is rewriting the rules of luxury and the old guard are signing up in droves.
French luxury house Goyard made a $15,000 (£11,765) “Rich as Fuck” suitcase for Kris Jenner. Nike Air Jordans are selling for C$42,000 (£24,779). And Virgil Abloh went from collaborating with Kanye West’s Yeezy clothing brand to becoming the Creative Director of Louis Vuitton.
Streetwear’s takeover of the world of luxury is in full flight, traditional notions of good taste are being torn up with gay abandon, and any old-guard brand with its eye on the money is clamouring to find its streetwear match.
Pair with this fascinating deep dive in to the business of streetwear by Strategy& and Hypebeast.
| DS
To transform your industry, look at someone else’s
Why it’s interesting: With transformation and disruption two key buzzwords in so many industries right now, where do you start if you’re after insight and inspiration or looking to change internal cultures? Analogous research is an interesting example.
Yes, we’re highlighting an article about business transformation in the culture section. Bear with us. We’re currently thinking and talking a lot about the culture that exists within companies, and how important it is to have a strong, diverse and open culture – especially in these times of change.
So it seemed relevant to highlight an article in IDEO’s journal, which coincidentally launched this week (hey, if this week is good enough for them, who are we to argue?), with this feature on analogous research. It illustrates the insight and new perspective that can be gained from looking outside your industry, and the power of immersing busy, expensive professionals in such an exercise (surgery analogous with airline travel).
The outcome for the surgery team exposed to the ‘process of airline travel’ highlights the outcome of prototyping new systems. But what it ultimately fosters is a better, stronger and shared internal team culture – and that will have the biggest impact on the end user – in this case, patients.
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That's it for this issue. We love feedback (positive and negative), and to answer any questions you have. So email Joe or Drew and we’ll get back to you.
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