19th July, 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
Asleep at the wheel: break-neck change, but little vision
Why it’s interesting: while electrification and autonomy dominate the automotive landscape, for customers it’s unclear what the short and medium-term benefits of all this change are going to be. The auto industry is in need of a clear, customer-focused vision.
Fast Company’s long read muses on the auto industry’s current predicament. Two themes dominate today – automation and electrification. The challenge of making autonomy work in a way which transforms business models and the customer’s experience is quickly becoming apparent (it’ll be decades ‘til door-door, go anywhere driverless cars exist). And the transformation from internal combustion engine to electric propulsion creates issues for customers (more cost, potentially less value) and businesses (capital investment, supply chain, re-skilling). Which is why we’re again seeing consolidation and alliance.
The article points out the obvious risk: that the auto industry is going to massively under-deliver on its promises and, in the process, burn customer trust and let others eat its dinner.
Our take? The problem (in a nutshell) is that automation and electrification are industry issues that don’t (directly) solve customer needs, or inspire fresh, must-have products and services. Despite being in the midst of one of the most significant revolutions we’ve ever seen, there’s no real vision.
However, the industry needs a vision, because automation – which was the next big thing – isn’t going to deliver the nirvana of door-to-door driverless vehicles that some customers are dreaming of any time soon. It needs visionaries too – to dream big, communicate and make the next big thing relevant to customers. While he’s loathed by many, Musk through Tesla has provided exactly the sort of vision we’re talking about.
For most OEMs today, it’s technology rather than customer benefit setting the agenda. We’re racing along the road at break-neck speed, but there’s no clear destination in sight. Perhaps it’s time to decide where we’re going.
| JS
IIHS confirms what many of us already know: ADAS are really confusing
Why it’s interesting: as manufacturers pack increasingly sophisticated advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in to their vehicles, the driver’s being left out of the loop.
Alex Roy said as much in his 2016 review of Mercedes Drive Pilot and Tesla’s AutoPilot, but a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research institute, confirms the perils of introducing automation without education:
"Current levels of automation could potentially improve safety," IIHS President David Harkey says. "However, unless drivers have a certain amount of knowledge and comprehension, these new features also have the potential to create new risks."
The lack of standardisation of interfaces, terminologies, and the capabilities suggested by the branding of systems (here’s looking at you, Tesla AutoPilot) risks consumer confusion at best, and injury or death at worst. Which ever way you look at it, leaving customers to work out ADAS on their own risks damaging the reputation of potentially life-saving technologies.
While we work towards better alignment across the industry, it seems that a dash of dealer-delivered driver (re)education wouldn’t go astray in the interim.
| DS
Mobility
Taking the night train
Why it’s interesting: as Greta Thunberg (pictured above) popularises the concept of flygskam (flight shame) and takes to trains, Europe’s rail operators are revisiting their overnight service offerings. So what does the era of eco shaming foretell for car makers?
You know there’s a movement underway when the enabler of collective shame takes hold of the initiative and publishes a mea culpa. That’s what happened at the end of June, when KLM Royal Dutch Airlines launched their “Fly Responsibly” campaign.
In order to fly more responsibly, KLM asks us to consider - among other things - taking the train. So it’s a good thing that the night train is currently undergoing a resurgence in Europe. ÖBB, the Austrian rail company, is seeing increasing passenger numbers and profitability, and is placing orders for new rolling stock to meet demand. Sweden’s expanding its network deeper in to the continent.
Considered close to death just a few years ago, night trains are now being sold as the climate-friendly alternative to the middle-distance flights of up to 1,000km. With city-centre to city-centre connections, the opportunity to work, eat, relax and sleep in relative comfort and a value proposition that often includes saving on the cost of a hotel room, it’s not hard to see the appeal for the pragmatist and the eco-aware alike.
For those of us interested in the future of the automotive sector, the logical questions to ask are when will drive shame join the lexicon alongside flight shame, and how will manufacturers respond?
We’re already seeing city authorities enacting increasingly harsh legislation against those who chose to drive within their limits (see London’s ULEZ, Madrid’s city-centre car ban and Oslo’s removal of street parking).
But where’s the open-armed, brand-building welcome of this change from an OEM? The closest we’ve got is this rather limp admission from VW AG, contained within a press release announcing their micromobility vehicles:
Answers are needed to avoid the threat of traffic collapse on the one hand and to meet the changing demands of modern mobility on the other.
It’s time for the industry to acknowledge the unease many consumers will sooner or later be feeling, and start supporting the alternatives.
image: Greta Thunberg
| DS
Travelling no distance
Why it’s interesting: The use of a car as a semi-public, static space raises numerous questions about the scenarios for which its interior is designed. It also presents an existential question about the value (and cost) of space in dense, urban environments.
Car sharing firms in Japan have discovered an increased incidence of their cars being rented for a few hours, but not driven. On investigation, they discovered users hiring cars to take a nap, hold a meeting, eat lunch or store shopping. These scenarios relate closely to some of the scenarios that the Volvo (360C) and REDS (Redspace) have both envisaged, albeit at very different ends of the contextual scale.
With square-footage value of land in large cities now so high, cars - which spend 90% of their lives parked - benefit from comparatively cheap space. This raises more existential questions for the car, beyond the obvious challenges of designing vehicle interiors for numerous, less driving-orientated scenarios.
The car share company in Japan predictably responds:
we do not recommend our customers rent vehicles for purposes other than traveling
But given that a car-share vehicle itself tends only to be used 15-40% of a given day, doesn’t marketing the asset as a static space present an interesting additional revenue opportunity for car share firms?
Given the failed Autolib project in Paris (reports of homeless people sleeping in cars, being used for drug use, widespread cleanliness issues), they’re likely wary of the maintenance implications.
Yet this tale is important because it leads to a bigger conversation about land values and allocation in cites. With many city authorities taking parking spaces away to discourage car use, if this trend of static vehicle use were to develop, it presents some very interesting questions about the value of vehicles in cities, how we use and manage space, and who derives financial gain from its use.
Pair with: news that San Francisco city supervisors are considering a dedicated parking area for people living in their cars.
| JS
Design
Grocery stores as rapid cultural calibration
Why it’s interesting: when conducting design research, visiting everyday places can help you quickly get to grips with a foreign culture.
As I read this lovely article about getting to know a city through its grocery stores, I was reminded of design researcher Jan Chipchase’s approach to what he calls rapid calibration.
Deployed as a means to develop an initial understanding of a new city, country or culture, rapid calibration involves engaging in and actively observing things which will be transparent to the people for whom they are a part of their every day lives.
Some examples you might explore include:
The official and unofficial commerce that takes place in major transportation hubs like main train stations and international airport terminals
Morning and evening commutes and how people short-cut their cities
International chains and how they modify their presence in the new place compared to where you come from
And of course grocery stores, what they contain and how people behave in them.
In grocery stores in Sweden, where I’m currently living, it’s customary to put down the little divider on the conveyor belt after you’ve placed your last item. Failure to do so often results in a passive-agressive placement of the divider by the person after you in the line. In Australia, where I’m from, the person after you generally accepts it as their job.
Of course, I’m still to decode what it all means.
image: Peter Bond
| DS
Design thinking and the importance of empathy vs sympathy
Why it’s interesting: Design thinking is now a much-used term. But some designers are now suggesting it stifles creativity. The key – we believe – lies in practicing empathy, not sympathy with the user.
Provocatively entitled The perils of design thinking, this article by Scott Henderson will resonate with many working in product, industrial and automotive design fields.
It asks whether design thinking methods are a short cut to helping non-designers feel like experts in design. It also posits that design thinking can rob the designer of the ability to be creative, kill innovation and lead to less visionary, ‘by committee’ designs.
It’s an interesting read, not least because it suggests that we might reject user-centred approaches because the visionary creative genius knows best, a notion that runs counter to prevailing design thinking wisdom.
He says
Design thinking talks a lot about selfless design… Abandoning your preconceived notions and opening your mind to groundbreaking observations you never expected to see in your user interviews. Doing so literally strips away the value inherent to a designer’s life—one dedicated to observing the human condition, sensitizing yourself to the visual, honing your ability to see what others overlook, appreciating art and design history, understanding cultural change and knowing where the industry’s bar is set. Dismissing these influences is to guarantee mediocrity.
Henderson’s recommendation is not that we dump the scientific method (which informs and predates design thinking by 500 years), nor does he suggest a rigorous approach need be the enemy of creativity. But he does make a passionate argument for allowing designers to express their soul.
Central to re-framing our thinking here, is the sympathy vs empathy challenge. Sympathy is what many designers ultimately practice with regard to users. Just one level up from pity, it means we never truly understand and feel how someone with different needs to our own experiences the world around them.
Nielsen Norman has an incredibly useful explainer on the empathy spectrum, which culminates in a series of suggestions on how to practice empathy – a recommended read. While UX focused, there’s an argument for its application in all areas of design.
Design is about making the world better, not just creating beauty and expression. If we’re only doing that, as Henderson notes, design is actually art, or styling.
A notable reference here (and a good example of an empathy-led approach leading to a rejection of a technological-centric solution) is the story of Mazda dumping the touchscreen in its latest 3. This happened after engineers and designers were blind-folded in the car, and tried to navigate the car’s controls, without looking at them.
It’s a tricky road, but transforming your way of thinking about the user – and truly practicing empathy – does create better design. Done right, it really shouldn’t feel like a barrier to creativity, or result in design by committee.
image: Nielsen Norman Group
| JS
Culture
Historical reverence
Why it’s interesting: in a week that’s seen another automotive icon fall victim to the hypercar cash grab, Hermès shows how to protect and elevate craft and culture.
The headline figure is astonishing: 2000 Hp. That’s the power output of the new Lotus Evija, a battery-powered, £1.5m hypercar with predictably heart-stopping metrics.
But there’s another figure which, in the context of Lotus’ storied history, is just as heart-stopping: 1,680 Kg.
Now while this might be a remarkably low kerb weight with respect to its competitors (the Rimac C Two weighs 1,950 Kg), it’s positively porcine when considered against the backdrop of sub-1000 Kg Lotus’ of yore.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the marketing impact of creating a halo product to foreshadow the (hoped for) resurgence of a brand. I just wish that said halo product paid a little more deference to the brand that was built on maxims like “Simplify, then add lightness” and “Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere”.
The Evija is neither simple, nor light.
So how does Hermès fit in to all of this?
Like Geely must have done with Lotus, Hermès saw in a struggling company the opportunity to bring something unique to the market.
Where the stories diverge, however, is in what Hermès did next.
Rather than discarding the core ethos of the business, and the design approach and culture that flowed from it, Hermès opened up new opportunities rooted in nurturing and refining what made the business so special to begin with.
Look, I get it: Lotus no doubt presents an opportunity for Geely to take yet another nameplate in to the Chinese market and derive more volume from its core platforms.
I’m also well aware that I might come across as an old man shouting at the moon.
But in the headlong rush to produce heavy hypercars and heavier SUVs, it feels like we’re losing a brand, the essence of which couldn’t be better suited to an age in which simplify, then add lightness has a whole new resonance.
| DS
Apollo 11 and the moon landing: 50 years on
Why it’s interesting: significant cultural events often define expectations, behaviours and the outlook of society for years to come. There are few bigger than the first lunar landing – which happened 50 years ago this week
Positivity. Progress. Hope. While neither of us were alive for the first lunar landing, which took place 50 years ago this week, we grew up in an era which was defined by its impact. As the Atlantic neatly puts it
Apollo 11 will haunt the human imagination for a long time to come
Amen to that.
The reason both of us work in this field, in my deep subconscious, can be linked back to projects like the TGV, the Space Shuttle, Concorde and the Porsche 928. All of these, given a little more space, I could link, no matter how tenuously, back to the lunar landing! They represent a pinnacle of human achievement at that time, and were visions of going further, faster and being technically superior to anything that had come before. For many governments, companies and individuals throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, space exploration and the moon landings was the spark of inspiration that drove them.
As I opened this week’s issue with a call for more inspired visions and visionaries in the automotive space, it’s interesting to look back at the build up to the Apollo 11 mission. How it so nearly didn’t happen, the tale of the greatest reboot there ever was, and of Neil Armstrong’s famous words. Of course, a new era of space travel is coming. Can it provide that same galvanising vision of hope and progress, 50 years on?
Pair with: this beautiful, step-by-step replay of humanity’s first steps on the moon.
| JS
Thanks to Drew Meehan, Alastair Sommerville, Alex Roy and Craig Mod for inspiring us this past fortnight.
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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