Looking Out #7
Piech’s passing, the humans behind the robots, the 30-minute commute, and the importance of human dignity
6 September, 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
RIP Ferdinand Piech: the end of an automotive era
Why it’s interesting: Ferdinand Piech’s passing will be mourned by car enthusiasts the world over. But his death represents more than simply the end of an era at VW, Piech’s passing will come to represent the bookend of this automotive era.
Ferdinand Piech’s passing, last week, at the age of 82 has a poignancy given the current automotive landscape. Piech, at his core, was an engineer. And as this excellent eulogy from Christopher Butt points out:
To Piëch, nothing was ever too ‘premium’, ambitious, expensive or exhaustive. He would obviously always strive for what he considered excellence, depending on each context.
Piech changed Volkswagen forever, and under his rule, the group gave us products –A8, Phaeton, Golf IV, Veyron, XL1 – which changed the shape of the automotive landscape.
Throughout the 90s and 2000s his approach, obsession and attention to detail – manifest through engineering and design decisions – defined what a modern, ‘premium’ car is. In essence, premium meant technically better than a mainstream car – but technically better in a way that a consumer could feel, see or in some way sense, through design, engineering and expression of quality. Even if that consumer couldn’t articulate quite why it was better.
Piech was estranged from Volkswagen by the time of his death, and in the shadow of dieselgate, the company has already changed significantly. VW’s new leaders are - like most in the industry today, cutting costs and on a mission to drive profit, while struggling with the context of electrification. Products are conservative – well executed, but they don’t dare, break the mould or advance the industry.
Piech’s passing, therefore signifies the end of an era where premium represents some form of true superiority or advancement. Priorities – for the consumer and OEMs – are changing. Right now, it seems unlikely we will ever again see an era again where groundbreaking, ‘to hell with profit’ products make it to market. Piech gave us many of those, and the industry is better and more diverse today for them having come into existence.
But today’s new generation of automotive leaders aren’t - by and large - engineers. They are commercially ruthless. The market has changed, the industry is in turmoil. And that has spelt the end of commercially risky, daring projects. Electrification in itself is risky and costly enough.
His death represents more than simply the end of an era at Volkswagen, it seems likely to represent the closing of this chapter in automotive history.
| JS
The death of the drive-thru
Why it’s interesting: beyond the positive impacts on the health of cities and citizens, the decision by Minneapolis to ban new drive-thrus poses questions about service provision an autonomous future.
In an episode of my other side-project, a podcast called The Next Billion Cars, I asked Chris Bangle for his take on autonomous vehicles and the idea of car makers becoming service providers.
In a typically Bangle move, he switched the topic to trains, and the wealth of staff that are on hand to keep you fed and watered, and the toilets clean.
Of course, in the world of the personal car, the services don’t so much come to us, as we go to them. Born of its particular affinity with the car, America gave us the ultimate in vehicular/service sector interaction: the drive-thru.
Offering everything from marriages to banking, there are early signs in Canada and Minneapolis that the tide may at last be turning against this particular automotive convenience.
But it does beg the question: should our fully-autonomous, fleet-managed future arrive, how will these services be delivered? To the door, a la Deliveroo or Uber Eats? Or via in-vehicle vending machines?
Whatever the solution, automotive service design and delivery will take on a new dimension as our various needs remain, but the means of meeting them continue to evolve.
Photo: Larry D. Moore
| DS
Mobility
Amazon’s logistics empire is challenging UPS and FedEX
Why it’s interesting: goods delivery is the oft-forgotten other side of the mobility discussion. It’s in this sector that giants like Amazon may in fact have their biggest impact on the transportation industry.
Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece charting the growth of Amazon as a logistics provider. While we think of Amazon as disrupting the world by replacing the high-street and big-box stores with its online marketplace, a less acknowledged impact is how it has moved from using third party delivery firms, to operating its own logistics network:
'Amazon now delivers nearly half of its orders, compared with less than 15% in 2017’
It’s a significant step-change in a short time, and as the piece relates, it’s been partly driven by the prime network and the behaviour of the large logistics companies. As this commentator sums up:
“FedEx and UPS have been raising prices to the level that is almost unaffordable by businesses and consumers. Amazon realized that they could save billions by setting up their own delivery business. Prime is one of the best deals around.”
What continues to interest me is how little attention the commercial/goods delivery market gets, in the wider dialogue around future transportation and mobility. Van sales continue to grow, in many markets, but so far there’s been little attempt to tailor their design for the new realities that Amazon, Uber Eats or anyone else requires.
For several OEMs, commercials vehicles are significantly more profitable than passenger cars, and it would appear there are low-hanging fruit opportunities to localise or specialise their design, partly because the regulatory framework is different to passenger vehicles – witness the likes of Deutsch Post designing their own, dedicated delivery vehicles.
Pair with this (somewhat misguided, but nonetheless interesting perspective) by a commentator who believes Amazon will buy Rivian, who are developing electric pick-up trucks.
| JS
Humans: once again a feature, not a bug
Why it’s interesting: in a world of increasing machine autonomy, humans still have a place, of sorts.
It seems that every week, yet another story emerges about the humans that sit behind the apparent automation of our world.
Back in the early days of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, being able to distribute piecemeal tasks to thousands of low-cost human operators was framed as one of the wonders of our connected age.
Then, in our headlong rush to remove the human, “AI” and “autonomy” took the stage, promising to free that same low-cost labour base from drudgery and allow them to... well, nobody has put forward a convincing answer for that.
And then we learned that Facebook’s supposedly-automated content moderation is actually run by humans (many at breaking point). And that Apple’s supposedly non-human - and therefore private - Siri was being assisted by a team of contractors in Ireland (now looking for their next job).
And so to this week’s story in the WSJ (sub may be required) regarding the human operators behind supposedly-autonomous security and delivery bots.
From behind screens in anonymous office buildings, teams of people now oversee the movements of bots around offices, supermarkets and suburbs, helping their mechanical underlings avoid obstacles or establish voice communication with an employee.
It’s an approach that some in the automotive autonomy space are trialing, too: Waymo, Nissan and Starsky are trialing teleoperation of cars and trucks on the open road.
Our robotic, autonomous future continues to be more human than we might have imagined.
| DS
Design
The Marchetti constant and the principle of the 30 minute commute
Why it’s interesting: (one-sentence summary).
Citylab has an amazing piece connecting the impact of historical transport network speeds on city size and development, relative to commute times. It’s something called the Marchetti constant and is a good rule of thumb for city expansion restraint. Marchetti is an Italian physicist, who in 1994 described the idea that generally:
people have always been willing to commute for about a half-hour, one way, from their homes each day
(note how the image above, from another site, is actually incorrect on the time).
The Citylab piece charts the history of city ages through transportation step changes, through walking, to rails, to bikes, the city underground and the present day ‘expressway’ city. But as the piece observes, when considering the city of the future:
Commute speeds are slowing inexorably as congestion increases.
This is creating a restraint on the city’s ability to grow and be an appealing place to live. While the author considers the possibilities that remote working and other new technologies may create (notably, autonomous vehicles and micromobility arent mentioned) he is ultimately dismissive of their ability to drive a significant step in growth, as previous disruptive transport technologies have. The piece concludes that the only real future option for growth is for the city to ‘densify’ – which as it points out, is both hard and expensive.
Pair with Benedict Evans on cars and second order consequences.
Image: Sketchplanations
| JS
Weniger aber besser
Why it’s interesting: Gary Hustwit’s documentary on Dieter Rams paints a portrait of a designer who’s philosophy feels ever more appropriate to the times in which we live .
It was only in the last issue that Joe wrote about Dieter Rams and his later-life reflections on the impacts, positive and negative, that he’s had on the world over the course of his career.
For a deeper dive in to the man, his career, and the philosophy that has shaped his not just his work, but his life, I can’t recommend this documentary more highly. Although it had a limited cinematic release in 2018, it’s now available for a short time on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
Gentle and meditative, like its subject, Rams explores the journey that led to the creation of the essential Ten Principles for Good Design, and Rams’ overarching philosophy of weniger aber besser, translated as less but better.
In a world jacked up on consumerism, in which novelty, feature bloat and ornamentation are recast as “design”, Ramsgives us access to a reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that we all have a choice.
In Dieter’s own words:
The time of thoughtless design for thoughtless consumption is over.
| DS
Culture
Brunello Cucinelli on the importance of human dignity in business
Why it’s interesting: Brunello Cucinelli provides a thoughtful counterpoint to the hubris and ego that defined the human endeavour of Piech’s Volkswagen
I first came across this interview with cashmere manufacturer Brunello Cucinelli while I was spitballing the kind of company I want to create. I was struck by the combination of head and heart (and emotion and discipline) with which Cucinelli frames his idea of a good business.
Demonstrating a respect for people’s time, respect for the time it takes to discuss and develop ideas, and a reverence for how the deep past can guide our present and future are just some of the ways in which Cucinelli shows that you don’t have to run the show like Ferdinand Piech to have a successful business.
I agree with Joe that Piech oversaw one of the most exceptional eras of automotive engineering while at Volkswagen. Products like the Phaeton and Veyron - whether you like their stylistic or ideological presence - have a way of getting deep under the skin of anyone with an inclination towards understanding the way things work and are made.
What is completely unacceptable to me, however, is the human toll his leadership exacted. Piech chewed up and spat out his underlings and the reputation of the organisation he lead, all in service of his own ego. Most egregiously, his reign has wrought untold damage on the health of the millions of people who continue to live alongside the products of the dieselgate era.
There’s so much to warm the heart and stimulate the mind in this excellent interview, but I’ll let Cucinelli close with his thoughts on the importance of dignity in work:
“Basically, what is human dignity made of? If we work together, say, and, even with one look, I make you understand that you are worth nothing and I look down on you, I have killed you. But if I give you regards and respect — out of esteem, responsibility is spawned. Then out of responsibility comes creativity, because every human being has an amount of genius in them. Man needs dignity even more than he needs bread.”
Pair with this fascinating study investigating the links between rivalry in the workplace and unethical behaviour.
| DS
Werner Herzog on making a living doing what you love
Why it’s interesting: In a world of instant gratification, short attention spans and fear of failure, film maker Werner Herzog reminds us of some of the fundamentals of the creative process, and how to live loving what you do.
The most common question I tend to get asked in life, is how you become a successful car designer. By way of an oblique answer for anyone seeking success in a creative field, it’s interesting to turn back to 2014, and to Werner Herzog for perspective.
One of the greatest film makers of our time, Herzog offers insights on his life and the creative process in the book, Werner Herzog: A guide for the perplexed. Published some years ago, it features a series of conversations between Herzog and film maker, Paul Cronin. The book was reviewed in this excellent piece by Maria Popova on Brainpickings. Some of the highlights, I’ve pulled out below:
Many designers have long proclaimed that creative people only really learn through failure. (I think it applies in business, more widely) Herzog agrees:
The bad films have taught me most about filmmaking. Seek out the negative definition. Sit in front of a film and ask yourself, “Given the chance, is this how I would do it?” It’s a never-ending educational experience, a way of discovering in which direction you need to take your own work and ideas.
Popova, in analysis of Herzog’s perspectives on his own life, suggests that:
this notion of doing what you love is rooted in defining your own success, which often requires the bravery of not buying into the cultural template.
And Herzog’s perspectives on how to work, and continuing to enjoy what you do over time, are interesting in a world where designers work 8-6 and frequently pull all-nighters:
I’m no workaholic. A holiday is a necessity for someone whose work is an unchanged daily routine, but for me everything is constantly fresh and always new. I love what I do, and my life feels like one long vacation.
And for anyone still asking for the answer to that opening question, Herzog’s keys for creative success, can be summarised around the following five principles:
Fail often. Put yourself in a process (or team) that supports and accepts failure makes you better. It’s not a creative environment if failure isn’t tolerated.
Approach each problem in a different way and think outside the system norms. If you want to do something, don’t wait for the opportunity to present itself – try to create it yourself.
Be determined, persevere and be patient with your work. Accept it is rare for great things to happen over night.
To be happy, ensure you can define success on your own terms, rather than relying on the metrics of others.
Don’t turn creativity into a routine – staying fresh, flexible and non-regimented in you approach will help you love what you do.
| JS
Thanks to Brainpickings, Citylab and Autodidakt 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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