Re*Move

Auto parking? The new power seats?

I am not a technophobe, or a technological luddite. While not the most tech-sympathetic (witness how many computers and phones I’ve gone through in the last couple of years) I will typically give new tech, and geeky gadgets a fair crack of the whip. If they’re attached to a car, then all the better.

So give me ipod integration, navigation, cruise control and power seats. I’m up for them. I can even see the point in onboard fridges, TVs and the like. But I just don’t get auto parking, which has been around for a while now and have recently experienced first hand. I realise that might put me at odds with many who'll welcome this feature as a boon, but here's my take...

It was standard on the top of the line Prius that we tested last month, and Ford rolled it out as a feature in some of its 2010 MY cars starting back in the summer - even winning awards for it. As you can see from the video below – using the systems in action, they vary only in the minor details: Press button. Car identifies big enough space. Slot car into reverse. Car steers, you brake. Done. Parked.

They work well enough, up to a point. As the guy in the Ford video suggested, the system needs a space around 120% the length of the car to get in to. That’s my first problem. In a lot of spaces in the city, that’s too small. I reckon on about 6-8 inches either end of the car is what I need (and often, what you’ve got to play with in a typical London street). Secondly these systems take longer to slot the car in to the space than an adept human driver. That might seem a small detail, but in the city, you’re often on a street, blocking traffic and under pressure to park, and park fast.

I'm not trying to gloat about my parking prowess. Seeing these systems in action is impressive – has a ‘wow’ factor even. But fundamentally, they aren’t as good as a good human. For me, until that changes, then I’m not interested. They simply become another techy thing for car makers to sell as extras – just like they do sat navs, power seats and more powerful stereo systems. In a way, part of my problem is that they don’t go far enough.

Perhaps the next step on from these systems could offer something really useful. Link it – via the sat nav – to something like IBM's parking space sensors as part of a Smarter Cities programme – to help you actually find (and reserve) a vacant space. Then allow the car to completely take over – parking itself, controlling brake and throttle pedal. So the car really parks itself. You might even want to get out at the entrance of a parking lot, and let the car drive itself up three or four levels and slot into a tight space. Now that’s something I can see the value of.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 18th November 2009

2010 Toyota Prius - positioning, hybrid system and interior design (on video)

Just before I took off on a recent holiday, a man from Toyota came to pick up a (by then) not so shiny, white, new shape Prius that he'd dropped with me the previous week. It's a sign of how much this car moves the game on from the previous generation vehicle that I was slightly sad to see it go.

We've not hidden the fact that we aren't huge fans of the previous generation car - both as a vehicle in its own right, the image that exists around it, or the generic 'type' of person who seems to drive it. We therefore went into this test with a decent level of scepticism. But the new car is in a different league to its predecessor. It's bigger, yet feels even more at home on city roads. It has a bigger petrol engine, yet is more economical. The thousands who will buy this car, especially those upgrading from the previous model, will doubtless be delighted. For the rest of us who weren't fans before, it's true to say that the Prius is now a competent car which makes a decent case in its own right - you no longer need to make excuses for its hybrid drivetrain nature.

You can read some previous musings I had while actually living with the car here and here, but a couple of weeks after it left MDB towers, three things stand out - and we've split them in to three short videos:

• The image and positioning of this new car - (includes our snapshot verdict)

• The hybrid system, how it works and its three different modes

• The car's interior design, features and equipment (and what we don't like)

For all that we were impressed with the new Prius though, we still can't get over one or two key issues and a few of the bigger picture questions it asks, rather than answers. We'll talk more about that next week in our post test wrap up and review - which will include a full details photoset.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 2nd November 2009

Fast charging EV batteries and the future of the fuel station

We're heading down a road where large numbers of cars will be powered by batteries in the future. Aside from the cost of batteries (dropping fast), the main reason for consumers to hesitate about jumping into an electric vehicle (EV) in the next few years, is range anxiety. We are not suddenly going to develop cars with batteries in them which will cover 500 miles on a charge, so how are we going to cover longer distance journeys?

The auto industry is (sensibly) proposing a solution which meets the average driver's needs about 95% of the time. You'll be able to drop the kids at school, get to work, and then home again via the shops all on one overnight charge, which you'll do either at or outside your home. But for road trips and non-average commuters, a host of new partner firms (and industries) claim to have a solution to the range problem. Best know of these is BetterPlace - who are developing an electric car charging network in several countries, and who will provide roadside swap stations in Israel and Japan within a couple of years, where you drive in and a depleted battery will be swapped - within two minutes - for a fully charged one.

But there's another solution which falls between the standard eight hour overnight charge, and the battery swap solution. It's known as the "fast charge" and it's a term which is being bandied about with increasing frippery. We've seen a section of the emerging EV industry (both start ups and established auto OEMs) change their tune about this. Back in 2007, no one had an answer to the problem of how to juice up the car's battery quickly if you ran out while on the go. Yet just two years later, here's the stock answer:

User research is in the detail: Ford Grand C-Max fold-away seat

What were your favourite details from cars in Frankfurt? The vents on the lower body sides of the VW L1 were far and away my personal highlight, until I looked more closely at the door handles on the Rolls Royce Ghost. But back in the real world, I was quietly impressed with the fold-away centre seat design in the Ford Grand C-Max, a car that otherwise leaves me quite cold. Aimed squarely at young families, I suspect it’s a design feature that will not only make people go ‘oooh’ in the autoshow or dealership, but that they’ll really use in day-to-day life - watch the video below to see a quick demo of how it works.

To say that the seating layout in family cars is important, is as obvious as saying that cars need wheels. But it’s easy to forget that, up until the age of about 20, many of us had difficult relationships with our siblings. Certainly, the idea of sharing a rear bench for several hours with my younger brother rarely filled me with joy, and there would often be a spat ensuing before we’d got beyond the end of the drive! So when the first Renault Scenic (the car that essentially created the c-size MPV segment in Europe) arrived, we’d pestered my dad into buying one within just a couple of months of its launch – mainly because we wanted separate, reclinable chairs, fold away picnic tables and cubbies to keep our own books and walkmen in (no iPods in those days). 

Ford Grand C-Max. Pity the name isn't as original as the folding chair design...

However, the price of all that independent rear chair malarkey was that to fold and remove them was quite a job (I seem to remember reading each chair weighed something like 15kg.) – folding and removing them usually resulting in skinned knuckles. So when Opel moved the game on with the seven-seat Zafira, it invented a very neat seating arrangement termed ‘flex-7’ which meant you could convert the vehicle into a van, without needing to take out all the chairs and leave them at home.

Access to that rearmost row of seats in the 7-seat MPV sector remains something of an issue, however. In the smaller, c-segment market that the Grand C-Max enters, the rearmost pews are only really big enough for kids. Yet to get there, they need (and this applies to most vehicles in the Segment such as the Scenic, Verso etc) to tilt and slide the outermost centre row seat forwards to access the rearmost row. Given that the chairs tend to be heavy, and the strength needed to operate the lever mechanisms which tilt the chairs, this isn’t an ideal arrangement when small people with tiny fingers are typically the ones trying to scramble into the back.

Now you see it...

...and now you don't

In fact, it's quite rare that seven full seats are used in these cars, typically it’s just five or six on the school run. So by allowing the middle row centre seat to be ‘disappeared’ into one of its neighbours, small kids can just walk straight through the vehicle to the back row without needing to get mum or dad to perform chair gymnastics. Ford have spent time designing a centre chair which makes all this possible. As the back tumbles forwards onto the squab, a secondary part of the backrest folds in, allowing the seat to be compact enough to fit inside the outer seat squab. The second device which allows this arrangement to work – and a critical change from the designs found in the opposition, is that instead of being secured to the floor, this centre seat is in fact supported by cantilevering off the outer chair. Once folded away, what’s left is a clear gangway between the two outer seats, allowing kids to simply climb in and walk through to the rearmost row.

It’s one of those ideas that gets you thinking ‘why didn’t anyone think of this before?’ But is a neat, if small, example of user-research led design, where actually observing how families use cars and spending time with them as they go about their lives has resulted in something genuinely useful and new. It’s amusing to hear, too, that Ford’s engineering and design teams aren’t above playing with Lego Technic in order to help them work out how the mechanism would work. We wonder if it was spending time observing kids that gave them that idea too.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 22nd September 2009

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring the Movement Design Bureau's research work in 2009

Videos a go-go: Frankfurt auto show 2009 concept car videos

There was a huge amount to see in Frankfurt, so if you're pushed for time and want the quick whizz-around check out my "Frankfurt in Four minutes" review video. However, on the off-chance that you missed some of the concepts or want to have a (slightly) longer look, I've clipped out some 2-minute long videos for a few of the key concepts. So, without further ado, here's the:

BMW efficient Dynmaics Concept:

Renault Twizy:

Citroen ReVolte:

Renault Zoe and the 'ZE' range video:

As with the four minute video, you can watch most of these in HD mode, so it's worth clicking through to Youtube (logo in bottom right corner) and then clicking on high quality mode if you want them to see them in full, clear view. We'll have more thoughts and a bit of indepth coverage on some of these, plus more Frankfurt coverage, shortly.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 18th 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

John Fleming - CEO Ford of Europe, talks technology & EVs

Watch John Fleming - Ford's CEO intoduce the company's green technology plans at the IAA in Frankfurt. Like nearly every other major car maker, Ford was focusing on green - as you can see, this is what they opened the show with.

The headline stories were a battery electric version of the European Focus - once again, using a powertrain built by Magna (the ones who just bought Opel and Vauxhall off GM). Then there was the unveiling of EcoBoost - in 1.6l, and 2.0l four cylinder format. EcoBoost is a new design of petrol engine that gives more grunt with less cylinders and cc. We saw and drove the V6 version in the Lincoln MKS and Ford Flex recently. Finally, there was a fitter, sharper Focus Econetic, featuring technology like stop-start, bringing the CO2 down to 99g/km.

It says a lot about the pace of movement in the car industry right now that what might have been an impressive set of annoucements just six months or a year ago, seems comparatively pedestrian when held up against other manufacturers at the show. Most German firms have gone "stop-start", with smart alternators and low-rolling resistance tyres to boot, some time ago. And shortly after the end of this press conference, Renault pretty much hung their corporate future on the electric "Z.E." (zero emission) vehicle - unveiling four concepts, and saying it was committed, in a very big way, to the technology. 

The (animated) power of dreams

Highly recommend this beautiful animation by Michele D'Auria creative studio, which tells the story of the life of Soichiro Honda, and the genesis of the brand. There's a glorious soundtrack by Lino Cannavacciuolo and the UK version is voiced by Ken Bolton, which feels kind of fitting.

A powerful embodiment of the idea of ‘the power of dreams’ – this animation is worth watching not only for the enchanting story, but just for how beautifully it has been done. We’re surprised we haven’t heard more about this from the guys over at Honda...

Click on the link for Michele D'Auriea studio, and then play...(or watch via Youtube vid above)

Hat tip to Monkchips for the link to this – via 3dJamie.

Driving an electric vehicle (EV) - what's it like?

Right now, the vehicle revolution looks set to be electric, but very few people have driven an EV to date. So to dispel a few myths about electric vehicles being about as quick as a milkfloat, or as attractive as a noddy car, we though we'd use our recent experience in the Smith Electric / Ford Transit Connect BEV to tell you what driving an electric car (well, van-based car) of the future might be like.

Starting up

Getting in to Smith’s demonstrator Ford Transit Connect EV is just like stepping into a regular Transit Connect. It looks like any automatic transmission vehicle. There are two pedals and a centrally mounted gearshift, with park, drive and reverse ratios. It’s when you turn the key in the ignition that things get different. Instead of the churn of a starter motor and the flare of revs as an internal combustion engine bursts into life, what you’re instead greeted with is a barely perceptible whining noise, as the car’s 12volt system powers up, and the diagnostics run a check on the traction batteries. Once that’s done and they’re powered up, you hear a ‘pop’ noise as the connectors kick in, signalling the vehicle’s ready.

Moving off

From there, it’s simply a matter of slipping the gearshift into drive, and then silently, eerily, moving away. The lack of sound is – quite unsurprisingly – the thing that takes most getting used to. If you’ve ever sat in a car being pushed or towed with its engine off, the first few yards you cover driving an EV will feel familiar. Your brain, used to the gentle rise of revs from an internal combustion engine, struggles to comprehend that you’re moving without sound. Video:

Accelerating and on the move

Moving away from rest is a doddle. Simply press the accelerator, as you would in an automatic car and the van hurries away from the line with no fuss. Electric motors produce nearly all of their torque from zero rpm, which means good acceleration at low speed, and instead of the rise and fall in acceleration rates (and engine noise) you’re used to from an internal combustion engine, there’s simply a constant, linear accelerative force – as if a giant elastic band has been attached to the front of the van, and is hauling you toward the horizon.

One thing that's worth noting is that you do become more aware of other vehicular noises - from the tyres, wind, and interior of the vehicle. We wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of work going into the next generation of electric vehicles to really try and muffle or eliminate some of this other ambient sound, as we suspect that if - say - the interior developed a creak or rattle in your electric car, it'd really draw attention to itself and prove to be much more noticeable and annoying than in today's internal combustion vehicles. Nontheless, the lack of motor noise makes this whole experience feel, as Vinay suggests from the back seat, “a little star trek” – the van has only one gear ratio, which means you just don’t feel the same sense of acceleration. So it comes as a surprise to look down and find you’re doing 60 miles per hour. This thing is not slow. Video:

Braking

The most noticable driving difference in the Transit Connect EV over a regular car or van is the regenerative braking system. Prius and other hybrid drivers will already be familiar with such systems, which capture energy when a vehicle is slowing down, and feed it back into the battery. The Transit Connect EV has the most aggressively set up type of this system I’ve yet driven – and if you’re clever and read the road ahead, it means you’ll rarely need to touch the brakes. Simply lift your foot off the accelerator, and the vehicle begins to slow – quite quickly – to the extent that, when exiting a motorway at 65mph, the van had brought itself to a stop at the end of the off-ramp, without me touching the brake pedal at all. Video:

Our view

If you’re British and of a certain age, your perception of what an electric vehicle will be like is probably rooted around the milk float – the ancient morning delivery vehicle with a top speed of around 15 miles per hour. Smith Electric, Ford’s partner on this project, actually used to build those vehicles as far back as 80 years ago, but the Transit Connect EV bears so little resemblance to such a device that the method of propulsion almost ought to be given a different name. Both are electric vehicles, but comparing the two is like comparing Issigonis’s original Mini with a contemporary Porsche.

The most complementary thing we can say about the Transit Connect BEV is that it drives at least as well as its internal combustion counterpart, and in many regards it’s better. It easily keeps up with traffic. The lack of drivetrain shunt, engine noise, and not needing to change gear significantly reduces the load on the driver – meaning they’re free to concentrate on the road. Smith report that fatigue and strain levels in drivers of its EVs are significantly lower than in equivalent internal combustion powered vehicles. Critically, in the small delivery vehicle market, this should lead to safer, more aware drivers, who have fewer accidents. The proof of that particular pudding will be in the eating, when these vehicles go on sale in the US next year. But Smith report that of the drivers on its existing fleets who’ve made the jump from gasoline to electric drive, not one now wants to switch back to an internal combustion engine. From a group of drivers who are notoriously hard to please, that’s the best endorsement going.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 2nd September 2009.

The Movement Design Bureau team visit Smith Electric's production facility in Washington, Tyne & Wear, UK on 17th August 2009. Thanks to Dan Jenkins and everyone at Smith for being so accommodating and patient. Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau's design and research work in 2009

User research on the Ford Fiesta: the view from some real life Antonellas

Ford is proud of the new Fiesta. It's been Europe's best selling car, pretty much every month since its launch. And having spent much of last weekend driving one, and clobbered through the 400 mile Newcastle to London journey in one, in one go - it's easy to see what all the hype is about. The car is good. It looks relatively fast, even when it's stood still. It drives like any contemporary European Ford (which is to say, extremely well), and Ford considers it good enough to be going on sale in the US next year. It's even full of so-called big car features - keyless entry, leather uphulstery, ipod integration - that sort of thing.

But back to that word 'hype'. Part of Ford's aggressive push around the new Fiesta has been to talk about the importance of utilising persona-based design techniques. A design persona is a completely fictional character, created by the marketing and design departments, to which everyone involved in the development of the car can refer. The persona 'personifies' many of the lifestyle attributes that the car's target customer would have. They behave, have the same types of job, same types of friends and like doing the same types of things that the real world customer will do. And in the case of the Fiesta, the persona's name is Antonella.

According to press quotes from Ford designer Moray Callum, who we interviewed earlier this year:

"Antonella is an attractive 28-year old woman who lives in Rome. Her life is focused on friends and fun, clubbing and parties. She is also completely imaginary. She was the guiding personality for the Ford Verve, a design study that served as the basis for the latest-generation Fiesta."

However, while Ford has been keen to play up the importance of design personae in its current processes, and especially the one behind the Fiesta, many others - including ourselves, are sceptical about their usefulness. As Ben Kraal suggested, in response to the New York Times piece on this subject:

"Are the personae the result of long study of buyers and owners, aggregates of hundreds of tiny specific observations of many real people or are they simply invented from thin air?"

He goes on to suggest that he suspects it's the later, based on the following statement, again from Callum:

"Antonella cares more about the design and function of her telephone than that of her car. Her priorities in the Fiesta are visible in the car’s central panel, where controls inspired by those of a cellphone operate the audio and air-conditioning systems. Designers working on the Fiesta referred to the shape framing the dashboard instruments as “Antonella’s glasses.”"

So when Ford lent us a Fiesta recently, we wanted to try to test this development methodology's success using some real people (among other things - watch this space for more Fiesta content). Believing that, in fact, one of the biggest 'problem areas' that exists in car design today centres around designers rarely getting to spend time with, nor being able to understand the real needs and desires of their customers, we carried out some research in the real world... which consisted of shoving a video camera in people's face, and asking them what they thought.

We don't suggest this is conclusive, nor is it particularly scientific, but this five minute video features eight young professional 25-35 year olds who live and work in London - all of whom are target market customers for the Fiesta. Specifically, we've edited this video around their views on that interior design, inspired by Antonella's phone keypad and sun glasses:

If you haven't watched the video above, then this is your 'spoiler alert' warning. The views we got were quite interesting. Specifically, boys, rather than girls, seem much more won over by the car's centre console design. And judging by our research, the women we spoke to are looking for something in a car's interior that is much more sophisticated and classy than the keypad of Antonella's (presumably now three year old) mobile phone.

Does this illustrate the pitfalls in using design personae, such as Antonella? Partially, yes. While it is easy to see the usefulness of one dreamt-up character around which everyone on the project can focus; a made up character who can't answer back is very different from real people, in the real world who have real lives. Understanding what those people want from their car, asking them the right questions, and then being able to filter the information they provide and turn it into something that they never dreamt was possible, is to me the definition of the role of a good designer.

As one of the people in the video later said, the problem with the Fiesta's interior, is that it feels like something that "was designed by a bunch of male designers, who think they know what women want in the interior of a car", and that "in three years times, it will look terribly dated". Which is a shame, because otherwise the Ford Fiesta is an (externally) good looking, grown up, but still very fun to drive small car.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 26th Auguest 2009

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoing The Movement Design Bureau's design and research work in 2009, and the Ford Fiesta was lent to us by Ford UK's press department free of charge. We have an independent brief, and are free to say what we want. If you don't think that's the case, we want to hear from you.