Re*Move

Sue Cischke, meet Drew Smith

 

On Thursday we interviewed Ford's Sue Cischke about the company's sustainability strategy and put the interview online. Now we're gathering comment from key thinkers we know. First up was Dan Sturges, next comes Drew Smith, currently based in Germany working as a freelance design strategist for an automotive design strategy consultancy. He also runs the downsideupdesign blog. Over to Drew...

By way of introduction, during a live interview last night at the Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN conference, Bill Ford went on record saying “One thing I’ll tell you for sure: our ability to forecast has been just horrible.” He added that despite bringing in external advisors to help forecast three-to-five year market developments, the company “might as well have just tossed darts” given their lack of success in defining the future of the Ford. Apart from demonstrating a, frankly, shockingly short term view on Ford’s future, one other thing occurred to me: Ford is talking to the wrong people.

Comfort zone

Against this background, I was, in some measure, pleasantly surprised by what Sue presented in the interview. It showed that the company is at least cognisant of some of the longer-term (i.e more than five year) mobility issues that the company will increasingly be party to.

Sadly, however, there was little to quell my fear that there’s not much in the way of a strategic approach to defining a sustainable role for Ford as part of an sustainable mobility future.

Furthermore, evidence abounded that old-school business thinking continues to reign supreme in Dearborn. From choosing to partner with an oil company, BP, in devising future vehicle strategy because “...they know... the fuel side of the business, we know... the vehicle side of the business” to continuing to interface with the old guard of the business development networks, there’s a sense that Ford is sticking, largely, to it’s comfort zone. 

Yet Sue goes on to say that it’s going to “...take a different mindset” for America to make the transition to smaller, more efficient cars and, in the longer term, to alternative modes of mobility. She never communicated, however, how a change in mindset, either Ford’s or America’s, might come about.

Sowing the seeds of change

The cultural climate, to my mind, has never been better for sowing the seeds of substantial change in the way societies relate to mobility. It’s clear, based on Bill’s comments and this interview, that if Ford wants to participate in, and profit from this moment, they need to start talking to a different group of advisors. Now.

From an American perspective, issues surrounding energy independence, environmental degradation and the collapse of the credit markets (with the resultant modification of consumer values), provide the right environment for a visionary car company to take the lead in presenting an alternative, more sustainable transport future. Importantly, the American political leadership is in a responsive, supportive frame of mind too.

"I can’t help thinking that Ford would do well to stop seeing themselves simply as a producer of cars and more as an active component in a sustainable mobility future."

Creating a vision, taking it public

Imagine the possibilities if Ford sat down with the real thought leaders in sustainability (I include in this group anthropologists, designers, design strategists and urban planners among others) and developed a wide-ranging, flexible series of options for sustainable mobility in urban and suburban areas. Then, through a document/movie/multimedia extravaganza (Scott Monty could define the form), picture Ford taking this vision to the public.

On the one hand, the event would act as the touch point for opening up grass-roots community discussion about how we would like our lives to be lived in relation to cars and the urban environment.

More importantly the discussions would provide feedback and an opportunity for in-depth study of how the culture surrounding mobility is changing at the end-user level on a local scale.

It’s not as if the idea of going public with a broad vision of the future is unprecedented in the car industry. The GM Motoramas that ran from ’49 to ’61 sold an entire nation of eager consumers the idea of expressing themselves through how they moved from place to place. Ford could do the same to usher in a new age of sustainable mobility and, as a bonus, get themselves truly back in touch with the consumer, a vital relationship that the Big Three have squandered over the last 30 years.

For Ford to attain global relevance as a mobility provider, and for their products to dovetail elegantly with local transport infrastructures, the company needs to provide solutions that are at least regionally and, ideally, locally appropriate, assembled close to their final destination. This is a concept that Gordon Murray is already working towards with his T25 small car.

Ford: Think beyond the product, think entire ecosystem

Needless to say, this shift towards system thinking is risky for Ford because, as Sue said “..systems aren’t our core business, cars are”.  But systems, beyond computer and OS, weren’t Apple’s core business either. Yet from the introduction of the iPod in 2001, via the opening of the iTunes Music Store in 2003 to becoming the world’s most popular online music and movie store, Apple transitioned from simply selling a product to providing the entire, highly profitable ecosystem.

At one point during the interview, Sue talks about the shift in environmental discourse from a binary, “black and white” approach to a more nuanced, “middle ground” view. I can’t help thinking that Ford would do well to undergo a similar shift in their thinking so that they stop seeing themselves simply as a producer of cars and more as an active component in a sustainable mobility future.

Drew lives in Frankfurt, Germany but originally hails from Australia. He holds a degree in Industrial Design from The University of Technology in Sydney, and a Masters Degree in Automotive Design from Coventry University - one of the world's premier automotive design colleges. He was recently named as one of Design Droplets top 10 industrial designers to follow on twitter. You can check out his profile here.

Sue Cischke, meet Dan Sturges

On Thursday we interviewed Ford's Sue Cischke about the company's sustainability strategy and put the interview online. Now we're gathering comment from key thinkers we know. Here's Dan Sturges, president of Intrago Mobility. Over to Dan...

I think Ford is a typical company that would communicate sustainability issues to engineering teams, design teams, sourcing people, etc.. I would bet that 85% of Ford's employees do not get a view over the "dashboard" - the view she or Bill Ford see of this complex new emerging mobility + access landscape un-folding. Sure the employees hear they should recycle their paper, fill their tires with air, etc.. But not about bold new vehicle sharing business models - Robin Chase talking about open-source transponders for every car and any car can be a rental car - how iPhones can make any car into a taxi (or so many other developments). Unfortunately for Ford employees they don't get to see all that is possible, but may get laid off because those who see what is ahead too often don't know what to do about it.

I think Ford should have an intranet site for their people that shares these bold new possibilities - to every employee that wants to look + learn. Why not let even a janitor at their St. Louis plant see what's happening. Perhaps he has some cool idea for a business offering seniors rides in mini-ev shuttles around his community. While Ford should really have a VC arm for employees starting new ventures - even if they didn't - it would be an important service to someone you might have to layoff at somepoint - to have a better sense of what the future of transpo might be and opportunities for them beyond Ford. Most likely, this type of creatve collaboration with 100% of your employees would bring amazing ideas to the business as well as a lot more happy excited "employees".

So, no, I think Sue and I have a very different idea as to who should be involved in sustainability at Ford.

Here are some things for me that stood out:

1) Vehicle Microrental.

Sue Cischke seemed to know more about the Zipcar business model than I had expected – about how consumers would have more choice in vehicles by moving past the ownership model, to instead match mode to trip.

This made me think that a Ford announcement in car-sharing might not be too far away. Perhaps they'll make an investment into Zipcar, or help a few Ford dealers test a “Flexible Lease” approach where a consumer’s car can be exchanged on the fly for another type of Ford car or truck at the nearby Dealer's lot. If this is true, and Ford will put their foot in the car-share pond, how odd it will be that they sold Hertz only 4 years ago. So much for the “vision thing”!

2) Mega City Mobility HUBS.

Sue said their work in the mega cities was not their core competency, but they were bringing IT to consumers in cities regarding transpo choices. Oddly, with 80% of Americans not able to get to or from public transit with ease, why not bring the Hub Concept to USA? Allow communities that need to match personal mobility with existing and new transit options to meet at the Community Mobility Hub? Why study Hubs with no connection to personal mobility in South America or India?

3) Small Car Safety.

Why do we never hear about how car companies are working with communities and cities to leverage IT to really reduce the chance of big and large vehicles hitting each other? Making travel in local communities like traveling in a boat is a Safe Harbor. Most of the tech she talks about is for freeway travel. But why not make it so small vehicles for community or urban travel are less likely to hit? We don’t design planes with bumpers, we make it so they won't hit.

4) Custom Solutions.

She said they make a car different for the Europe from the USA. But why not make these "local cars" I've mentioned - in a shape that's right for the Midwest or the Southwest? We tooled up the first Neighborhood Electric Vehicle for $1M. Now that fleet (of 50,000 NEVs) generates around 80 million one-way zero-emission trips a year in the USA! The digital revolution is poised to change the way we travel, as well as how we DESIGN, MAKE, and SELL this future. Ford just doesn’t think all that differently.

5) Working with others.

Yes they do, but the right groups? I don’t see any intent to really find the true disruptive thinkers in the space. I lived in Ann Arbor and heard all of the intent, but never saw it lead to the right folks.

I guess this last point relates to one of the first thing Sue said - that her job was to get the sustainability message to the right people in the company. I think there is likely a big difference between who she and I think are the "right" people.

Dan is based in Boulder, Colorado and designed the G.E.M, still to date the world's best selling EV. He is widely recognised as one of the world's leading evangelists for new vehicle and mobility concepts.

The future of the urban car? It's a 'PUMA' say GM and Segway

P.U.M.A on the streets of New York yesterday

GM appears to have been vying for the prize of ‘World’s most hated company’ recently. Right now it might be losing that battle to AIG, but consolation is at hand – because there are clearly some bright people still left in the Renaissance Center. They appear to understand what the term ‘vision’ means, and are not treating the word ‘future’ simply as a threat. And they’ve teamed up with the guys behind the self-balancing human transporter, the Segway.

GM and Segway have been friendly for a while. They’ve worked together on the Opel Flextreme, a concept car shown at Frankfurt in 2007. It featured the Chevy Volt’s range-extended EV drivetrain, a euro-friendly sub-MPV body shell and (the collaboration bit) a pair of Segways that tucked away into the rear bumper and charged off the car's battery when they weren’t being used.

Opel Flextreme concpet featuring integrated Segways

But no one really took any notice, and the Volt steals the headlines to this day. But while GM has been forced to can or put on hold many of its more ‘traditional’ new car programmes, another collaboration project with Segway has popped up today. A signal that GM thinks there’s a future beyond today's car? Take a deep breath now…

The press release for this project proclaims “GM and Segway Join Forces to Reinvent Urban Transportation”. In doing so, they’ve created ‘P.U.M.A’ - Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility. Utilising a similar gyroscopic, two wheel-based, self-balancing platform to today’s Segways, PUMA addresses some of the flies in the ointment of the Segway concept. PUMA can carry two people, and they can sit down (rather than one standing up on the Segway). There’s a roof (rather than just a stand and a stick), and it’ll do 35mph (bit speedier than 12.5, eh?). Quite how that’ll feel when you’re actually driving the thing is another matter, because speed lover that I am, 12.5mph on a Segway feels giddily quick at times.

President Obama’s team (among others) are focusing on keeping everyone moving in the same way as before but with different motive power (ie: shifting people into more economical, or electric cars). But as Joel Makower points out today, this is – to put it mildly – only a very small part of a very big problem. For once, GM’s read the script in advance (or more likely it talked to Segway, and probably MIT for good measure) and has seen that getting people using a 300lb electric PUMA rather than a 6000lb electric SUV to nip three miles down to the shops to grab papers and coffee is going to have some seriously big environmental and spatial advantages. Even Larry Burns (GM’s VP of research and development) who in 2002 suggested “only 12% of the world owns a car and we need to get that up to 40% ASAP" is now talking up the advantages of PUMA - big style. We wouldn’t say he’s done a complete volte-face yet, but it’s a start.

PUMA concept sketches

There’s not much point in conducting a design critique on the pictures of what are currently prototypes. However, a serious question and note of caution rides on whether GM and Segway see this as a product or a service. Right now that’s a moot point, but the fact that GM’s a car company and talks in the press release of this being “one-fourth to one-third the cost of what you pay to own and operate today’s automobile” suggests it’s thinking about it as product, and therefore in terms of sales. If that’s the only route to be taken with this idea, then our spirits are dampened, no make that drenched. Outside of the boardwalks of LA, San Diego and the police departments of Rome and Chicago, the Segway is still as rare as the lesser-spotted flying pig. As a product to buy it's a toy – rather than a mobility device to displace the car on small trips and change the world. If people are going to buy just one, expensive ‘mobility’ product, then we’d bet that thing looks like a car for a good number of years to come.

So instead, for PUMA to fulfill its true potential, we hope that GM and Segway are looking to push this as something to rent, something to share, something for city authorities, large coporations and institutions to implement on a wide scale – at a local level. Intrago Mobility – headed by Dan Struges, and who Makower talks about today, showcases a clear route to how this could be done. [Full disclosure, Dan is a long time friend and supporter of The Movement Design Bureau]. MIT’s smart cities car (concept), Paris’s Velib (bike rental) and Daimler’s Car2Go (car share) are other, obvious example models of where PUMA could – and should – go.

To reinvent the production form of urban movement is only half of the answer. To create a path by which citizens can get their head around, and easily, cheaply use a service-based mobility system is the critical bit. Still, GM and Segway should for now be congratulated. In one jump this puts them level with Toyota and its iSeries (iReal, iSwing) suite of concepts from recent years. Into the bargain, we bet they’ve caused much head scratching in Dearborn, Auburn Hill and on Capitol Hill this morning… something we encourage them to try and make happen much more frequently.

Follow up: We're due to chat with MDB friend and Segway's chief designer - Scott Waters - at some point in the next couple of weeks - keep checking back for an update.

You can see the PUMA official video here at 3pm UK time / 10am EDT, Jalopnik has it being trialled this morning on the today show here

Images: GM & Segway media sites under creative commons

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 7th April 2009

Geneva auto salon 2009 - what do you want to know?

Despite the fairly parlous state of the auto industry right now, one event you can guarantee no manufacturer will pull out of is the Geneva auto show. This is Europe's big automotive deal, and it's a guaranteed draw for the car world's great and good each March.

Because of this, hotel rooms tend to book up about half a year in advance, and because I never like to plan things too far ahead (*ahem*), I won't be staying overnight at Geneva this year because I didn't organise a hotel soon enough... I will, instead, be getting up at a frankly silly hour next Tuesday morning, to drive to Gatwick and hop on an Easyjet flight which will hopefully have me in the exhibition hall before 10am.

Despite there being a lot of stuff to cover in just one day, I'd like to experiment with making my coverage interactive, rather than just trundling round photographing cars, and lunching at the expense of Nissan, Audi, Peugeot or whoever. So what would you like me to try and find out, who would you like me to try and field a question to, and which cars are you particularly interested in? Drop me an email or leave a comment here and I'll do my best to cover it or get you an answer.

What's more, I'll be tweeting throughout the event on Tuesday, so you can follow my thoughts and photos or direct a question to me there, then come back throughout Wednesday and Thursday for reports, updates, photos and video both here on Re*Move, on my flickr account and on our BlipTV and Youtube channels.

Are you keen to know more about the BMW Concept 5 Series GT's general bizarre-nesss (above), or if I've got it wrong about the Citroen DS Inside? Or just who'll spring a surprise? I wonder what the show star will be this year? Stay tuned...

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 25th February. Geneva Auto Salon's press days are 3rd and 4th March. It opens to the public from 5th-15th March.

Scott Monty on Ford's approach to Social Media

Do you use Twitter? That's been the UK media's number one obsession over the past few weeks. And the answer is yes, we do - as you'll have (hopefully) noticed by the widgets down the right hand side of this blog, showing our recent 'tweets'. We know that half the people reading will have turned off by now - because they're sick to death of hearing about it - but stay with me, because the auto companies - those supposedly slow-on-the-uptake, most old fashioned beasts, are quietly using twitter - and wider forms of social media - to dramatic effect.

A few weeks ago, Mashable published an article called "40 of the best brands on twitter and the people behind them" and heading the list were Chevrolet, Ford, General Motors and Honda. If you search closely, you'll also find brands and organisations like Renault, Citroen of Brazil, Daimler and Toyota's iQ on there. In fact Twitter has become a valuable tool - particularly for GM and Ford (no sign of Chrysler yet) - for communicating, updating (and correcting) people on the news that's been pinging around surrounding the recent auto bailout.

At January's Detroit Auto show, we got the opportunity to interview Ford's Head of Social Media - Scott Monty - to find out more. Watch the video below to see him explain how Ford are using various media channels to not only tell their story - but begin to change perceptions about Ford.

Interestingly, Monty has found himself at the centre of what you might describe as a Twitter 'row' these last couple of weeks. His detractor came in the unlikely form of Ray Wert, the guy behind online car site Jalopnik. He accused Monty of being a 'bit of a twit' on the Jalopnik site, suggesting Monty was merely enhancing his own personal brand, and not Ford's, by using his own personal account on Twitter, rather than a Ford one.

Monty is quite clearly capable of sticking up for himself, while Jalopnik is a site we massively admire for managing to do a rare thing in the online automotive world - offering informed, up to the minute news and analysis, laced with a huge dollop of humour. But here's not really the place to analyse this particular game of online fisty-cuffs (check back through this tweet search list of comments relating to it if you want to know more).

All we can really say is that twitter (and most forms of online media for that matter), to us, are about having a conversation (as opposed to simply broadcasting, in a one-way fashion). This is something Monty seems to be doing pretty well at for Ford. By using his own account, he might not be as 'findable' as simply being behind one account named 'Ford', but having heard endless criticism of 'faceless' or 'evil' corporations recently (we're talking about mainstream media vilification of banks and auto companies here), the notion of having a recongnisable, real, individual who reaches out to people from within an organisation to have one-on-one conversations, seems rather smart and refreshing, to us.

Whatever your take, one things for sure. The car industry - particularly that much maligned corner of it that resides in North America, has been on to Twitter longer than most. From an industry that is so often slated for refusing to change and embrace new ideas and technologies, it be just be an indication that the auto industry as a whole is now listening, and ready to change. Let us know what you think.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 20th February 2009

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau's design research work in 2009. We have an independent eye though, so tell us if it seems we don't.

Standardising phone chargers: the EU does something smart

As Mobile World Congress gets underway in Barcelona, spare a thought for the humble phone charger... We hear news that the EU Commission is preparing to force mobile phone manufacturers to standardise their plug chargers, in an attempt to eliminate some of the mountains of "e-waste" currently being generated. Legislation, 'foisted' on industry and consumers alike is blamed for everything from the shape of bananas market traders are allowed to sell, to the reason why cars have got so fat and heavy.

But legislation can have a useful role to play in design - I remember being surprised at Aston Martin chief of design, Marek Reichman, telling me that a few years back. And I can't help but think legislation to standardise chargers is a good idea - and long overdue - especially as I survey the box full of old chargers atop my wardrobe. Today, each new mobile phone seems to come with a different means of connection, and a different type of charger. This is annoying if, like me, you fondly remember the days when almost everyone had a Nokia phone, charged by the same unit, meaning that regardless of where you ran out of juice (home, office, car, friend's house...), a phone re-enlivening boost was never far away.  

This isn't just about consumer convenience. Every new phone sold in the EU comes with a charger. Consider it's predicted one billion phones will be sold this year - and that in western European countries new phones tend to come free every 18 months, and it's easy to comprehend how big a problem this could be.

Applying what is, in essence, a 'design pattern' for chargers - where the connection between charger and phone is the same for each phone - would remove the need for a new charger to be sold with every phone. This could allow consumers to go on using a single charger for years, rather than - like me - having a box full of different ones on top of your wardrobe. Design patterns like this make sense, when - as the EU points out - there's no major technical reason why each charger should be of a different design. 

It's an example of an issue where a group of industry competitors can usefully cooperate - rather than compete - to the mutually benefit of producers and consumers alike. It would save waste, reduce development cost burden, save manufacturing energy and cost, and potentially even boost sales. I only hope that as we begin to move our transport infrastructure base towards electricity, we don't see what has happened with phone chargers, happen with vehicle charging units. Proliferations of different designs and methods of doing the same thing, tends to occur when new products first emerge. But to speed adoption of new product types, or market segments, consumers need to be offered simple, easy-to-understand pathways. Setting light design patterns, in certain instances, encourages this. Just imagine what a mess we'd be in if every car had a different type of fuel filler, and every fuel station a different size of nozzle, and you can see what I mean... 

Image: Svanes on flickr under creative commons license

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 16th February 2009

Here are the questions for Ford

Thanks to those of you who've sent us questions for Ford's design and research teams.

Here's a list of some highlights:

(where people openly sent us questions on twitter, we've included their Twitter Handles, if they DM'd or emailed us, we kept it anonymous)

So, from Twitter:

• From @danieleizians What do you think of the new Taurus? Ford definitely made the right adjustments in my book. One of the best Sunday reveals.
• from @endac: why is it taking ford so long to bring an EV to Market? They *had* the Th!nk and ditched that.. - Thanks Endac
• from @TomRaftery When is their 1st EV available? EV, HEV or PHEV? Price? Range? Charge time? Swappable battery? Updatable firmware (for v2g)?
• from @Charmermark my Q is... producing volume EV batteries is surely the No1 challenge. Could the industry collaborate rather than compete here?
• From @monkchips: Where is the iPod moment for auto transport, or do we have to wait for Apple to deliver it? Segway CTO now at @ $AAPL
• From @bjelkeman: Throughout the IT industry it's been proven that networks that are built through open collaboration have worked much better than competitive, proprietary ones. Think of the Internet versus AOL, GSM versus CDMA. In Sweden, Saab and Volvo are right now collaborating, together, with the Swedish government. I wondered if Ford at a global level considered this kind of collaboration to be key to creating the electric vehicle infrastructure we need, or an exception.

...and some of the others:

• ask them if it is really possible to develop a good EV from an existing ICE chassis (Focus) or is this just the best they can do for now?
• ask with whom they plan to work on batteries, as battery engineering and supply is the biggest issue
• what is the actual energy saving by switching to eclectic in CO2?
• are they purely aiming at achieving the technology or are they thinking about driver satisfaction too?
• how will I charge it from my house if I park on street?
• Honda is not even pursuing plug-in battery technology.  And Toyota (which came out with the Prius back in 1997 and knows batteries well) has repeatedly brought up all of the problems with plug-in battery technology. Furthermore, the Toyota FT-EV only gets 50 miles of range and is a very small car. Instead, both companies are aggressively pursuing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.With this in mind, do you think plug-in battery vehicles are being overhyped?
• what do you think about the Chinese electric cars, and what are your plans, in general, for EVs for developing world markets?
• what can car companies do (and how can they make it profitable for themselves, as they won't do it otherwise) to get people to start to buy smaller and more efficient automobiles?  it seems like car companies set the standard through advertising and marketing, and themselves hold the responsibility for the "car culture" in the united states?  why is it that a particular model of car gets bigger and bigger each subsequent year?
• i realise its quite futile to ask car companies to start marketing that people should drive less, but, honestly, what are they doing about that?  are there any business models for car companies that involve either setting up car sharing programs (similar to zip car, hertz, etc.), or to start moving into revolutionizing public transportation, etc.

Any more, let us know, or add a comment.

Welcome to 2009... a brave new world?

Looking back at the past year, and seeing what you predicted for it right back at its start is always a fun game. If you want a chuckle, check here for what I was thinking about this time last year. Back to the here and now, what about 2009? It feels very brave-new-world out there, with the effects of the credit crunch, auto bailout and the imminent inauguration of Pres. Elect Obama all making themselves felt. So here’s some ideas on what might, or might not happen in the next 12 months – and some things we’ll be tracking along the way…

Autos

Much of the auto industry had a terrible 2008. And while most are predicting things will get worse in 2009, I’m watching for things to pick up. People pretty much stopped buying cars at the end of ’08, but people don’t just change the habits of a lifetime, so I believe we’ll start to see an element of 'pent-up-demand' take effect. Suddenly, after two months of nothing, there's a rash of 58 plate (new cars registered from September 08) all over south-east England. And with schemes such as Hyundai's, designed to give customers peace of mind that if they buy a car on credit and then lose their jobs, that there is a way out, I think customers will be buying again before ’09 is out…

We could see SAAB bite the dust in '09 - a shame, Anthony Lo's team look ripe to turn things around, styling wise

SAAB may not be so lucky though. Word is that GM can’t find a buyer for the brand, but despite the Swedish Government saying they’ll step in to help, SAAB’s days may be numbered. We sincerely hope this doesn't happen - SAAB is a truly great brand, with currently unrealised potential - my hunch says, that given just a little longer, Anthony Lo's design team might turn it around.

Watch for a brand that you’ve heard of before, but not for decades seen emblazoned on the front of a car as a brand in its own right – Pininfarina – make waves with their ‘B0’ electric car, developed in collaboration with French group, come battery maker, Bollore. If it looks as good as the concept in Paris, it’ll be a winner with consumers in Europe who are cost conscious and still up for eco-flavoured cars. Fingers crossed Pinifarina innovative on the selling and recharging network side of things…flogging them from the back of a Fiat dealership just won’t cut it folks.

Pininfarina B0 could be a big hit in 2009; was certainly a star of the Paris autoshow

Although Hybrid sales are currently falling off a cliff in the US, European buyers still seem keen on effective auto efficiency. America’s appetite for Hybrids appears on the wane thanks mainly to cheap oil prices – but there are predictions that won’t last forever, either. Watch for a second-wave of hybrid mania, spurred by a new Prius (in Detroit this weekend), and two possibly even cleverer new hybrids in the form of Honda’s new (bargain?) Insight and Ford's hyper-efficient Fusion hybrid.

Aviation

Three carriers now fly the Airbus A380 superjumbo in and out of Heathrow, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. With Air France, Lufthansa and others due to get their first double-decker planes this year, the A380 will be a key selling point differentiator… Do you want to spend 20 hours in the back of a 20 year old 747, or in a brand new, uber-quiet, Marc Newson-designed interior, with on-demand entertainment, snack bar and extra legroom?

Qantas are making the A380 a big sell in the UK and Aus now, Heathrow improved in 2008 with Terminal 5

Speaking of Heathrow, watch for the proposed third runway to finally hit the buffers this year, as Labour MPs vote against their own party, due to sustainability concerns. Much is being made of a potential high speed rail-link to both northern England and continental Europe, instead. Watch to see how that develops as an alternative.

Boeing will finally get the 787 Dreamiliner airborne this year, not that it will go into commercial service until 2010. But the big question is whether they can surpass 1000 order for the plane (currently at 900).

Mobility

Watch for a rise in on-demand rental systems for vehicles, and for the rise to prominence of the mobility service provider. While Better Place project stole the headline in 2008 for their proposed electric car charging networks, others will come to the fore this year, as smart phone and 3G broadband penetration grows, and the number of people able to quickly and cheaply access information on the move increases.

Zipcar hasn't made a profit yet, but such services could come into their own in 2009

The drying up of VC money with recessions has doubtless not done a lot to help this future transport sector, and the fact that Zipcar still hasn’t turned a profit might mean things don't look rosy – but one senses that companies such as this, along with Dan Sturges’s Intrago – are due their moment in the sun. Consumers fearing the big money vehicle purchases, and increasingly questioning the running costs of private cars, might find this year the ideal time to try out renting transportation on demand, particularly in developed cities... Or they might just find all sorts of random things to try out on new rental site eronto.

Support for this theory comes in the form of the first Auto-maker backed car share/mirco rental scheme, in Ulm. Mercedes has been notable by its absence from the auto-meltdown headlines, and experimenting with an idea such as car2go, which instead of leaving unsold cars in fields, puts them on the street for customers to use on a by-the-hour basis, seems like a potentially smart move. Rumours of Merc being in bed with Tesla – despite the San Carlos company’s up-and-down 2008, is probably pretty smart too.

Speaking of which, have you heard that one of the customers on the waiting list for a Tesla Roadster is purported to be one Porsche A.G? Apparently the company that has just swallowed VW was non-too impressed with the performance of a prototype electric 911 (e-RUF) developed by RUF, and has decided to take a closer look at the Tesla themselves. Obviously, this doesn’t mean Porsche are about to produce an electric car, probably far from it, but it’s an interesting development from one of the most powerful, influential and profitable car companies in the world. So we’ll be watching that space too…

Finally, city-based vehicle networks should get a further boost (in publicity, if nothing else) from Paris’s ‘autolib’ system, which will be the most advanced micro-rental system for cars yet seen. Could it do for the genre what the city’s ‘Velib’ bike sharing network did for city bike rental, now on the agenda in cities around the world – including New York?

Fuel

Some analysts now believe oil is underpriced, and in recent weeks, its fall in price seems to have leveled off. Watch for it to rise again in 2009, and for one of Obama’s first ‘unpopular’ decision to be the introduction of a higher gas tax levy – we recommend reading Darryl Siry's and Autopia's well-argued pieces to understand why this matters.

Networks + Technology

Twitter – the online micro-blooging site, which gripped us throughout 2008, will go (if it hasn’t already gone), mainstream. Witness it being tipped as one of the sites to watch for 2009 by all and sundry in the press, at present. But as more people join, the ‘fail whale’ already seems to be returning, and the big question could be whether twitter ends up going the way of facebook – dominated by irritating people you thought you’d left behind at high school..! Our hope, and suspicion, is not. Incidentally, if you’d like to follow us, we're @JoeSimpson and @Charmermark, or click through the widgets to the right.

Tweetdeck has helped make Twitter a powerful, manageable tool for me

Geo-tagging is one of the things we’ll be exploring in much greater depth in 2009. While many have been utilising the feature for some time (it is the addition of geographical location data to media such as photos), we haven't really utilised its potential and usefulness yet, so we’ll be getting to grips with it, and make the most of it throughout 2009.

Cities and locality

As the recession bites in the UK, cherished high-street names such as Woolworths, have disappeared. So does this mean an increasingly homogenised world, with high-streets full of Tesco locals, and little else?

The start of 2009 saw the end of British high street favourite, Woolworths

We hope not, and have long talked about the different undercurrents and trends in each city, which we believe are critically important and of increasing influence in the field of design. With the help of our extended network, and as we move around the world in 2009, we’ll be doing more deep-dive, trend-based research in certain cities. Ultimately, we think there’s value in monitoring and trying to understand how small, subtle changes are affecting large cities around the world, and what trends are emerging where.

And above all…

Without wishing to sound twee, above all we want to critically engage you, our readers, with what we’re doing throughout 2009. Rather than mere broadcasting (which is admittedly what this feels like...) We’ll be focusing heavily on areas like video, and social media tools, to try and have a multi-way conversation – between those we meet who are shaping the future of how we move around, ourselves, and hopefully you, as the reader. We want to know what you think, and what you want to know. So we hope you’ll jump in whenever you like. Suggestions, criticisms, thoughts and ideas all welcome. Comment on the blogs, DM tweet me here, or mail me here.

Welcome to the brave new world, and happy new year!

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 8th January 2009

Images - Joseph Simpson and Mark Charmer on Flickr

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring our Design Research Work throughout 2009. Joseph Simpson leads research on automotive and city-related topics at The Movement Design Bureau. He is also an associate at Car Design Research, a contributor to CarDesignNews.com and a visiting lecture in Vehicle Design at London's Royal College of Art.

Apple cars: think future positive, not future negative…

 
The love him or loathe him New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, waxed lyrical in a recent column about Shai Agassi’ Better Place project, and how he felt that Agassi could do for the auto industry, what Steve Jobs has for the music industry.

The idea of a complete ‘outsider’ operation shaking up an industry is always interesting/appealing, and as Apple fan boys, it reminded us of the hope that many other Apple fan boys have at some point dreamed of: that Apple would come up with an ‘iCar’.

The logic of Apple designing a car, obviously, is that it would look like nothing else on the road, be ultra cool and appear ‘simply designed’ – but above all, look gorgeous. Obviously, it would blow every other car currently on the market, completely out of the water… (and probably need its battery replacing within the first year, and a full reset every few days!).

Photoshop monkeys the world over have long render-speculated (often with heavy irony) about what this ‘iCar’ could look like, but there have been few serious efforts. Until now.

Designer Anthony Jannarelly, an MA graduate on Coventry University's Automotive Design course, has not only come up with a credible, appealing and thoughtfully designed Apple-branded car (he calls it iMo), but has re-imagined personal city transportation into the bag. His home page is an extraordinary reinterpretation of the Apple.com website. Check it out here.

 

iMo is a small, spherical bubble, about half as long as current european superminis, yet still capable of carrying up to three people. Looking ever so slightly like Jonathan Ive’s first generation G3 iMac with a set of wheels attached, it balances on its two wheels thanks to the same technology employed on the Segway Human Transporter. Its powered by a battery that plugs into the mains via a neat (and very Apple) module on the back. And the interior is infinitely re-configurable thanks to Nitinol ‘soft seat’ technology.

Yet, what few seem to have caught onto, is that he’s proposing a system which could actually replace the cars we currently use in crowded city centres, with iMo’s stacked up on street corners, working autonomously, and available for use as and when people wanted – in much the same way that Paris’s Velib’ bike system works.

You have to go and visit his site and watch some of the videos yourself to fully understand it, but it seems that Jannarelly has thought long and hard about the concept – implementing technologies that are available now (or will be very soon), simplifying construction and materials in a way that is inherent to Apple’s design philosophy, and which could significantly ‘green’ the process of making automobiles.

The only sad thing is the number of 'troll' and 'naysayer' comments the design has attracted when featured on other sites, such as Wired's Autopia. As an automotive designer, and future optimist myself, it’s really sad to see people completely fail to understand the point of concept cars, of future thinking, or indeed, even letting your mind run wild as a student…

Admittedly, Jannarelly’s idea would be hard to implement tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t makes sense. Technologically, it is (almost) possible. Physically, it’s an aesthetically stronger representation of a vehicle than MIT’s otherwise impressive – and almost production ready - ‘smart cities car’ project are talking about.

In a time when the automotive industry is – frankly – on its arse, we need positive, hopeful, and far-out thinking such as Jannarelly’s to inspire us, and move us forward in the world of automotive design and transportation. It’s easy to say that we already have decent transportation systems in cities – and “that these systems are called mass transit and bicycles” (one of the pithy comments on the wired blog) – but this is neither true, in many cities, nor entirely fair, as a counter argument.

Fundamentally, we will continue to need smart, different-thinking, personal motorised transportation in cities of the future. If, come 2024, it is anything like this – then bring it on. We can only hope that Apple's notoriously protective and heavy-handed team of lawyers see it the same way...

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 19th December 2008

All images by Anthony Jannarelly - Visit his website here. iMo micro site here - the videos, especially, are well worth a watch. Except G3 iMacs photo, by Cle0patra on flickr, under creative commons license.

Anthony asked us to explicitly state that this is not an official Apple product, nor was it produced in conjunction with anyone at Apple.