Re*Move

"If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." *

* Henry Ford - upon the introduction of the Model T

Dan Sturges is a transport visionary. For twenty years he’s foreseen and been tackling some of the transport-related problems the rest of the world is only just starting to grapple with. Sturges isn’t anti-car. He is simply pro shaking up mobility full stop, and believes that far from just moving people in to electric cars, we need to introduce people to a variety of vehicles - ones that are the right size for each journey they make.

A couple of months back, I chatted to him over skype about his current thoughts on his company Intrago, the future of mobility, and what the auto industry is up to. You can see an edited highlight of that video below, and then after the jump I’ve pulled out and discussed what I think are the key points he made.

Burning Rubber - What future for cars?

As we hurtle towards this December's Copenhagen summit, there's almighty global momentum building around how seriously to tackle climate change. And in the end, whatever anyone might say, drastically reducing CO2 emissions implies drastically reducing energy consumption.

I'll be in Bath on Friday, that great Roman and Georgian spa city and powerhouse of British engineering, to talk at a Low Carbon Southwest event on a fairly contentious topic - cars.

It's been organised with Greenbang and the University of Bath. Joe and I have already been doing research for Greenbang - here's Ford's Nancy Gioia talking mass market electric vehicle with us in Detroit back in April.

We'll be exploring what meeting the energy reduction challenge in the car economy really involves. The event quotes the total number of new cars on the road as having risen by 17 per cent in the last decade.

But let me set this out more vividly, with numbers from the Worldwatch Institute:

The world vehicle fleet is estimated to be 622 million. In 2007, 71 million cars were produced, made up of 52.1 million cars and 18.9 million light trucks. In 2000 (remember, Millennium bug, parties, not long ago huh?) the fleet was 500 million. That's a 24% rise in just 7 years. Oh, and in 1950 the entire global vehicle fleet was just 53 million.

So when does the number of vehicles in the world saturate the market? Well it's already happened in key western markets. Yet the car industry still sees the answer as being to plough on and return to sales growth. Every big auto maker (there aren't any others) needs to see growth of at least 2% per year to survive in their current form. Who'd want to be in auto sales right now?

The first question is can this growth be sustained at the big picture level - can people move around with more and more vehicles on roads, while overall energy consumption from auto manufacturing, distribution and daily use gently falls, if we move to cleaner fuels and engines? The second question is what happens if sales growth isn't sustainable - if car sales are about to tip into permanent structural sales decline?

I'm going to focus on the latter and explain how it wouldn't be such bad news - great alternative stuff can replace those lost sales - vehicles we can use more, not less. Services that let us swing between modes of transport in ways we just can't today visualise. All this is possible with existing technology. And it can all be designed in a way that lowers overall energy consumption dramatically.

Of course, there's a third alternative. Moderately more efficient vehicles, gradual decline in auto industry, which adapts more slowly than society and its customers. Occasional death of car makers. No change. That's the one we need to try to avoid.

There's more details on the event here. It's free if you're a company researching low carbon stuff, if you're a designer or engineer or you are involved in low carbon startups.

The event runs from 9.30am to 12.30pm on Friday 2nd October at The Guildhall, Bath BA1 5AW.

Posted by Mark Charmer on 29th September 2009

Frankfurt in four minutes - IAA 2009 review video

Frankfurt auto show is so huge that, even having spent three days there, it's hard to cover everything that's in the halls of the Messe. So here's a fairly personalised view of the 2009 Frankfurt auto show, edited into just four minutes. There are things in here that will doubtless seem strange to you, and there are plenty of interesting things missing - simply becasue I didn't get time to video them, but hopefully you'll enjoy and get a flavour of what it was like to be there. Note, if you click through and run this in Youtube, you can watch it in HD too.

Just in case you watched it and are intrigued as to what certain things are, then in rough order from the top that was:

BMW's Vision Efficient Dynamics concept, The Mercedes Gullwing (nee SLS), the original Smart concept from 1994, Aston's Rapide, Ford of Europe's CEO John Fleming, Renault Nissan CEO Carlos Gohsn, the Renault Twizy, Joe Paluska of Better Place, Better Place's battery swap system, Mini's (loud) birthday celebrations, details of various cars  and concepts - BMW, Citroen, Renault, Aston, the fold away seat in the Ford Grand C-Max, Mark getting annoyed at being filmed, Stefan Lamm - Ford of Europe's exterior design director, talking about touch screen HMI influences, BMW's touch screen concept Apps store, the HMI in the Hyundai iX Metro concept, and finally Drew Smith enjoying saving the environment...

More video and thoughts from Frankfurt are on their way. Check back soon...

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 18th September 2009

Driving the Tesla Roadster Sport... at 120mph

Joe in the Tesla Roadster Sport at Millbrook after lapping the high speed bowl

I'll get the disappointments out of the way first. There is no video to accompany this blog. So you'll have to make do with my words and your mind's eye. And yes, when you thrap the knackers off a Tesla Roadster (to coin a colloquial Yorkshire term - ed), then the quoted 225 mile-odd range probably isn't achievable  - as Jeremy Clarkson was so keen to point out when he tested it on Top Gear last year. Yet to dismiss what Tesla has achieved with the Roadster, and specifically the new, faster Roadster Sport version I drove yesterday, is to do the company an absolutely huge disservice.

Words struggle to describe what happens when you plant your right foot in this car. In a 'normal' sports car - let's say a Porsche 911 - when you flatten the gas pedal from low revs, the car takes a moment to build a sense of acceleration, before screaming towards a red line of - typically - 7000 rpm. You then change up a gear, the sense of acceleration diminishes slightly, and the process starts again in the next gear. It's terrific fun, addictive, but the noise - from the engine - is central to the experience.

So in comparison, you'd expect an electric car - with no engine noise, and only a single gear speed - to feel perhaps anodyne, unexciting, and maybe uninvolving. But the reality is different. Very different. Setting out from Millbrook proving ground's central area, I pick my way silently between other cars, exhibits and people unaware of the Tesla's stealthy, silent presence behind them (apparently, it being bright yellow isn't enough for them to notice me). Already though, I can feel the sporting intent - the tiny steering wheel, heavy, feel-some, unassisted steering.

Navigating the roundabout on the way out onto the proving ground, I squeeze the throttle pedal perhaps a quarter of an inch, and the Tesla rockets round, limpet like, feeling like a heavier, planted Lotus Elise (which isn't exactly a surprise). Then we turn onto the access road to Millbrook's famous high speed bowl. Built by GM in the 60s, this is a high speed proving circuit. Two-miles long, it is banked, fiercely, across its 5 lanes. As we round the corner to join the bowl, a familiar, British speed limit sign appears. But it causes me to do a double take. Instead of the usual 40 or 50, the number in the red circle says '130'. If only you saw that every time you joined the M1...

View Larger Map

Google maps aerial view of the Millbrook proving ground.

Not knowing how many other cars will be on the circuit, I approach things gingerly, just slightly squeezing the throttle to join the track. We're doing about 30mph. Audra from Tesla, who's sitting to my right, glances over her shoulder, turns to me and says "you can just go, plant it".

So I do... Foot to the floor. And even though I've driven a number of electric cars now, and even though I reckon I've read nearly every road-test of the Tesla Roadster, I'm still unprepared for what happens next. It feels like we've been hit from behind by a silent express train. One which has no intention of stopping. We're positively flung forwards - 40mph, 50mph, 60mph, 70mph... the numbers coming up on the speedometer faster than you can read them. I let out a stupid laugh, and glance across at Audra who's now grinning wildly. "Wow" I say. And we're not slowing down. The acceleration rate hasn't let up, I haven't changed gear. We're just pilling on speed as if we're attached to a manic bungee chord which is intent on 'twanging' us towards the horizon, with all its might. This is the roadster sport, after all. It does 0-60 in 3.7 seconds...

By now I'm up in the fourth highest lane of the banked bowl, the car tilted at perhaps 15,20 percent against the horizontal. But looking down at the speedo, I'm doing 95mph, and the notional 'speed limit' in this lane is 80mph, so with a big deep breath, I squeeze the throttle once more, and gradually slip out into the fifth - and highest - lane of the banked bowl. I'm scared. In the top lane, all you see to your right is a crash barrier, and then the sky above it. You're pitched at a crazy angle against the flat horizontal, very aware that your passenger is sitting much higher up than you are because of the tilt of the car. A thought flashes through my mind - "god she's brave - putting her life in my hands (and feet)". The manic whine of the electric motor is being drowned out by the noise of the wind as we cut through the air at nearly two miles per minute. Such is the angle of the banking, and the forces that they generate, legend has it that at 100 mph in this top lane, you can take your hands off the steering wheel, and the car will simply continue to stay where it is, circling the bowl.

Snatching a glance at the speedo shows we're doing 120mph now though, so I think better of taking my hands off the wheel, and then a thought briefly flashes through my head - "what if we had a tyre blow out, what if I let go of the wheel... we'd be gonners, what would people say to my fiance if they found me in pieces amongst a mangled yellow sports car on the other side of the car barrier?" I quickly banish the thought from my mind, but it's enough to make me back off the accelerator, and filter into the next lane down. I take a moment to savour what I've just done. As a gearhead, circling the Millbrook bowl in the top lane has always been on my "things to do before I die" list, and I've just ticked it off. In an electric car. The weirdness of that thought distracts me from the fact that I've just overtaken a new Saab 9-5, still covered in disguises and camouflage tape. And then I think "sod it", and mash the throttle pedal again. And this is all you need to know about the Tesla Roadster: it feels like it's accelerating as fast at 80mph as it is at 30mph. And it's addictive. So much so that I complete another couple of laps. Who said the future wasn't going to be fun? What a car.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 11th September 2009. Joe was attending LCV2009 at Millbrook proving ground, on 09th and 10th September.

There's a New Daddy in the Luxury Motor Market

The new Jaguar XJ, Saatchi gallery, Chelsea, London - July 10th 2009

Sticking with our Callum brothers theme today, Jaguar chose Chelsea in central London as the place to launch its new XJ last week. This big cat is what Jaguar's design boss Ian Callum calls a return to the values of Jaguar during the William Lyons era - to "produce the most exciting cars in the world". Callum, impressive and passionate, described the launch of this new car as a "tipping point for the Jaguar brand - one Britain should be proud of".

Tipping points are tricky to pinpoint and if I was asked what was tipping right now, I'd say it was luxury car sales - off a cliff. But Jaguar is buoyant and claims modest recent sales growth, while other makers universally tanked. 

But while the wealthy car buyer is feeling rather less flush, he or she now has something entirely new to angst about. Despite looking from assorted angles like a Maserati Quattroporte, an XF, a Lexus SC (ouch), a Citroen C6, Granada Scorpio, Hillman Avenger and a Morris Marina Coupe, the Jaguar XJ is a quite lovely thing. In a great BBC TV moment this April, writer Michael Smith's documentary "Me and My Car"  featured a scene where Smith sank into the passenger seat of a vintage Jag saloon and said "I'd like to get pissed in this car". Clearly Callum was listening. "People are gonna have a good time in a Jaguar" is his boast. I'd get pissed in the back of this car any day of the week.

The car's got some neat, really focused technology, too - without getting silly. As the great Jean Jennings said to us recently, "If it doesn't make me drive better, make it go away." All of the dash instruments on the XJ (the bit in front of the driver with the speedo, etc) are a screen, with the dials all digitally rendered. In demos it looked fantastic and it's a flexible place where info like where to turn left and what music is playing appears. It's also the place where prompts appear for the voice command features. This is infinitely preferable to putting that stuff in the centre console, as Joe and I had to endure recently in the nervous-breakdown-inducing Ford Sync system.

There's other cool stuff, too. A huge 'dual angle' video screen in the centre dash which can display two different images at the same time, with each appearing clearly to driver and passenger. Which is, well, just so much fun.

The body is aluminium, so is as light as its smaller, steel sister, the XF. The 3.0 V6 diesel is claimed to do more than 40 miles per gallon, gets to 60 mph in 6 seconds and emits 184 grams of CO2. Which is pretty impressive.

Jag has also focused on making the hi-fi sound really good. While recognising you will probably bring your iPod along. But it has a hard disc that rips CDs uncompressed and has a Gracenote database.

But back to those looks, which have thrown the cat amongst the pigeons. Although Jaguar has been saying for months that the new XJ was radical, no one was totally prepared for this long, fast-back look, complete with blacked-out D pillar and a rear end that marks a complete departure for Jaguar design.

Never before has an aspect of a Jaguar's design caused so much kerfuffle...

There's an old adage which says never judge a car's design purely from photos; wait until you've seen it in the flesh, and even then - make sure you see it moving, on the road, and in traffic before you make a true call on the design. This is truly a design to which this applies. I sat at the launch breakfast on Friday morning riveted to the thing rotating in front of me, trying to decide whether it was beautiful. I've concluded that the XJ is quite a looker - with much less of the heavy, lumpiness around the rear three quarters than seems in the photos and with a rear haunch that does, as Callum claims, make it very coupe-like. 

If you, too, fancy staring open mouthed at the thing revolving, you can watch this video I took. And below is a (car-nerd-level) outline by design director Ian Callum talking us through the design.

And if you still haven't made your mind up about whether that rump works or not, check out some of our detailed shots in this photoset (click anywhere on the photos to link through to the original flickr set):

Mark Charmer is a founder of The Movement Design Bureau, a think tank.

Eric Britton's shared vision for future transportation

Eric Britton has a plan. The man behind worldstreets.org, thinks a lot about the future of transport, and its connection to the overheating nature of the planet. His 'Plan B' vision is a radical twelve point blueprint that he thinks needs to be gone through to stop us cooking the planet - and is an interesting read.

In the green transport field right now, alongside electric cars, high-speed rail, and all the usual stuff that gets tossed around, perhaps the most intriguing idea concerns not the development of new products, but the networking together, and sharing of existing ones. Our cars, bicylces, space - how do we 'use' them more effectively? Take cars. Right now, we're fast-forwarding to a world of hybrids and EVs - but what's the point when we've still got single vehicle occupancy, one-person-to-one-car ownership, and one hour in every 24 utilisation rates?

The problem is that at the very heart of the notion of today's car is a concept built around ownership, freedom and the ability to cut yourself off in a little glass and steel box. Your car is a space that, right now, you probably only choose to 'share' with your friends and family. Sharing a car with a complete stranger (even if you're not both in it at the same time) is a relatively big leap to make, but it's something worth thinking about.

That's what Eric wants to look into in more depth. So in the video chat (above) we had with him a few weeks back, he described the idea of a conference - for want of a better word - to draw people together to talk about sharing within the bounds of future transportation. On the first day, Eric suggests transportation-related talk should be banned. Instead, the attendees - linked together with experts and interested parties across the world via video and internet, would seek to understand the human psychology behind sharing things. Then on the next days, this would be developed into the field of transportation applications. The big news? Eric doesn't think it will work without a woman at the helm...

Can we make this happen? Can you help? Watch the video, let us know what you think, and check out Eric's pages for more.

Three New Shapes for Ford – Sue Cischke, meet @amydoesdesign and @potatowedge

Last Thursday we interviewed Ford's Sue Cischke about the company's sustainability strategy. Then on Saturday we met design students in the DAAP (Department of Design, Architecture, Art & Planning) at The University of Cincinnati (UC).  Two of those students - Amy Johannigman and Robb Hunter, now follow Dan Sturges and Drew Smith in giving their views on what Sue said, and what Ford should do next. Over to Amy and Robb...

Sue has a great base of conversation. We loved that she dropped the “T” bomb (TRAIN!) right at the beginning. Her knowledge of Ford’s current sustainable facts and figures proved her credibility. The mention of a “Hub Concept” got us hopeful that Ford has big plans in this space.

But while she seems to be developing some models for Ford’s future, we would like the shape of these models to reflect more progressive shifts. Peter Drucker reminds us that "wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision".

We’ve three key points, and have represented each one graphically. We call them “Shapes for Sue”. The ideas they contain are explained in the text below each diagram.

1. Be a Game Changer


At a recent Designer’s Accord meeting in NYC, Allan Chochinov of Core77 said "we know too much not to design in a sustainable manner”. He’s right. The facts are in, and climate change has created a situation that is in urgent need of addressing. Sue's talk of "transitional changes" will not suffice, when one considers the magnitude of our problem. We need bold actions and strict practices from industry leaders.

We need to impress behavioral change within users to set firm attitudes and outcomes. Ford has the opportunity to be a "Game Changer" as P&G’s A.G. Lafley would say, and implement large scale shifts. Traditional business models would see Sue's prescribed strategy of "near-term, midterm, and long-term" solutions as smart. But these are strategies for a previous era - comfortable change rather than radical rebirth. If Ford claims to be an industry leader, it needs to step up, and differentiate itself as such. The danger is that the world is now changing much faster than Ford.

2. Mash-ups not Mix-tapes


Mash-ups are a current, popular form of music created by taking parts of many existing songs and overlapping, restructuring, and recreating them into an entirely new compilation. A mash-up creates a song from familiar parts but creates an entire new way of hearing it. Artist Greg Gillis (aka GirlTalk), may mix Pras's "Ghetto Superstar" and Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater" all in less than 30 seconds. We think Ford should see this as an inspiration and analogy for creating industry partnerships. Currently, Ford’s partnerships feel more like a mix-tape, a mix of single tracks from different albums on one tape. Most of Sue’s discussion paints Ford as merely a hardware maker. Ford needs to reach out and begin partnerships that embrace service design, infrastructure change, mobile urban living. The possibilities are endless when we are open to creative, collaborative, non-traditional forms of ourselves.

3. Co-Creation

 
Sue spoke of Ford’s interest in current thought leaders and Industry conferences. It seems to be talking with many of the industry's tastemakers to make more informed decisions. The fact that Ford has created positions for sustainable strategy and social media are impressive in themselves. Yet while creating all these new positions and discussions, Ford seems to have forgotten the primary rule of ‘sales’: be a good listener. Ford’s product development models a collaborative inner-circle of new-age hybrid leadership. This model resembles a funnel and seems to focus more on "a perception’s game" as Scott Monty describes in a January 12, MDB interview than a receptive open-source model.

Traditional leadership models will not meet the pressing needs of our current economy, and climate change. We propose a co-creation model similar to the work of academic design researcher Liz Sanders, in her "Make-Tools" workshops. The idea of co-creation is not design by democracy, but rather design by listening. The advent of social media penetrates today's participatory culture in completely new ways - ones that are highly digestible by the public.

So come on Ford, let's cut the jargon, turn up our tweets and begin a real dialogue. One that's devoid of traditional marketing and watered down plans.

Amy Johannigman and Robb Hunter are both currently undergraduate students in the Department of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning at The University of Cincinnati. Amy majors in Product Design and has worked at The Ford Motor Company among others, while Robb majors in Transportation Design and has worked at Hasbro toys, DEKA and Intrago.

Both bring a multi-disciplinary approach to what they do - favouring collaborative processes over demarcated disciplines.

Want a Fiesta? You've got just over three hours...

 
Ford's 'Fiesta Movement' is gathering pace as the deadline for video entries nears. If you haven't heard, Ford is offering 100 lucky Americans the chance to bag a new Fiesta for six months, complete with free gas and insurance, before the model's full introduction in the USA in 2010.

We're hoping to find out more about Fiesta Movement once the deadline for video entries has passed, and when we visit Dearborn next month. Here's hoping the last minute videos are weird, wild, funny or just plain beautiful and that they're not all of the "hey Ford, GIVE ME A CAR" or "look, aren't I wacky"- typology. In fact, perhaps along the lines of Davey G Johnson's "Baby bets on a brown Fiesta", which we (among others) are tipping as an outside bet to bag a Fiesta already. Agree? Check it out below, and other fiesta movement video entries here.

Anyway, more soon - but if you fancy a 'Festa, better get cracking quick!

Check out Fiesta Movement here

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 23rd March 2009

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau's design and research work in 2009.

Watch: "The History of the Future: Cars"

It's easy to forget when you live in a world of road humps, speed cameras, parking fines and perhaps reduced speed limits, that there was - and occasionally still is - a time when cars, driving and 'motoring' was something to enjoy.

More than anything, people are driven by nostalgia, so BBC4's current "The Joy of Motoring" series has been a great watch. It's featured a programme on "Great British Drives", one about the history of Ford's Dagenham plant and, tonight, promises a real star piece. "The history of the Future: Cars", at 9.30pm, examines cars from the '50s and '60s and the culture around this time, when "they hadn't quite yet worked out how to make cars fly and instead just made them look like they could".

Interested in the wider series, or don't have satellite or digital TV? Then check out the other shows via BBC4's website here, and (if you have a UK IP address) watch shows screened in the last seven days on the BBC's excellent iPlayer here.

"The History of the Future: Cars" is at 9.30pm, on BBC 4, tonight - Thursday 12th March.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 12th March 2009

Geneva 2009: Ford 'Maxes Out' Kinetic Design

Geneva 2009 saw Ford launch the third in a series of 'Kinetic design' Iosis concept cars. Following the Iosis, and Iosis X, here we have Iosis Max (Gavin Green says it sounds like an energy drink). As with the Iosis - which essentially became the Mondeo, and the Iosis X, which previewed the Kuga, most commentators expect the Iosis Max to preview the upcoming C-Max - Ford's European MPV, which competes with the likes of the Renault Scenic and Opel Zafira.

You can see my quick walkround, and overall take on the vehicle in the video below:

So this concept holds great significance, as it's the first vehicle to sit on Ford's new world Focus platform. In other words, the production version of the car you see above, looks likely to land in North America. This will no doubt cheer blue oval fans stateside, who've long been clamouring for Ford of Europe's sportier, more dynamic range of models.

This Focus platform is a pretty special one, too, for it is designed to accept a whole host of different engine technologies. This concept was launched with the new four cylinder, 1.6l EcoBoost gasoline engine - like Detroit's Lincoln C Concept. But according to Ford's director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Platforms Nancy Gioia, this platform will be capable of accepting not only petrol, diesel and hybrid motors, but full battery electric technology too (see the video for more on this).

Show goers could see what the underside of the electric versions of the future car might look like around the corner from the Iosis Max. Magna Steyr, Ford's EV partner, showcased the electric vehicle chassis and layout it is developing (watch the video below for more). It was largely ignored in a sea of shiny metal but it, and the battery electric Transit Connect sitting just to the other side, quietly demonstrate Ford's intent to go electric in a big way, something CEO Alan Mullaly affirmed yesterday.

All of this leads me to ask two questions. Firstly, can Ford make its global platform strategy work? American's say they want the dynamic European vehicles - Fiesta, Focus, S-Max. But Ford has brought euro-designed cars to the USA before - the first Focus, and the Mondeo (Contour) amongst others (Merkur XR4Ti anyone?) - and they didn't meet sales ambitions. The current economic and environmental climate suggests they should fair rather better this time, but if the production version of the car you see above is named Focus, I wonder if it will be hampered by association to the current - somewhat apologetic looking - North American Focus? (I've discussed this over on a blog with MPGOmatic, which you can check out here.)

The second question is a nagging doubt about how much further Kinetic design can be pushed. I was one of the few people in Geneva who wasn't hugely blown away by the Iosis Max. Plenty of commentators and designers have sung its praise over the past few days, but the hints of visual similarity to the Mercedes B-class - which come from its wheelbase and proportions, together with questionable colour/trim and the hinge-fest that are the doors and trunk lid, sullied a fundamentally sound idea in my eyes (watch the video above for my thoughts and the full tour). The question is, as this is the third in the series of 'Kinetic design' concepts, where do Ford - particularly Ford of Europe - go next, in design terms?

Kinetic design is intended to express - in the exterior form language of the vehicle - how 'fun to drive' and dynamic Ford's vehicles are. I'd say they've achieved that to some extent. Yet this vehicle was supposed to herald a new phase of design for Ford of Europe. Instead it feels like the topping out of the current form-language theme. So, rather like Mazda with their 'Flow' series of cars which appear at every auto show and feel rather long in the tooth, might Ford need a proper change of design gear before too long?

Ford Iosis Max photoset below - click on the link to go to the full Flickr set. All photos are creative commons licensed, please credit Joseph Simpson and link to this page.

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau's design research work throughout 2009

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 6th March 2009