Re*Move

Post consumerism? A crisis in design, a crisis of ethics: a time for change

I just got married. Hence have been away for a while, and why the lack of posts. It's not unknown for such activities to cause people to reassess their priorities, and begin to question stuff they previously took for granted. So, this could just be me. Yet I sense something is in the air. Something feels different...

Take the election in the uk right now. The media-spun forgone conclusion we began the campaign with has been thrown open by a number of things, including a TV debate which shook-up the status quo. Every day, social media channels are exposing the bias and vested interests of traditional publications and big business. The entire event feel not only more open, but exciting, and 'different this time'. As Gordon Brown discovered yesterday, you are never 'off record' anymore. And in all of this, among the optimists such as your author, there's a sense that we - the people - can make a difference. Our say somehow feels like it 'matters more' this time.

Then take the auto show in Beijing last week. The western auto companies unveiled products that whispered of a sense of relief. The crisis is over, and now China's growing auto market will allow them to simply continue as they were, thanks very much. Ford, at least, showed a city car. Yet I haven't found many people who are impressed with Mercedes' vulgar - and dubiously dubbed - 'shooting brake concept'. Or anyone who actually needs, or cares about the BMW Gran Coupe concept. And while many were still busy laughing at Chinese 'copies' of western models, those who stood back saw a set of Chinese car designs that had a level of genuine credibility that was unthinkable just two years ago. Some even noticed the Chinese Government initiatives, and the impacts they are having on development of Chinese electric cars, which could have some interesting consequences for the old guard. Better Place gained a foothold in the world's largest country - despite being increasingly poo-pooed by some in the developed world, but Chinese firms are developing similar charging infrastructure plans of their own...

There's a sense that the more switched on people are looking, scrutinising, and questioning the status quo more than ever before. It's apparent in design and design criticism as much as anywhere else. Ultimately, the very role of the designer is being questioned. While this may be somewhat frightening, it at least means we may be moving to the next stage of the debate, beyond dubious tick-box, shiny apple-green sustainability. Rather than become all preachy, the main point of this piece therefore, is to draw your attention to a series of important articles and events reflective of this new, deeper line of questioning. If you're a designer, or design student, I'd argue they're required reading...

The underlying contention they all make, is that many designers are - far from making things in the world better - complicit in simply encouraging people to consume at an ever growing rate - messing up peoples' heads, and screwing the planet in the process. So what role for the designer?

Core 77's Allan Chochinov perhaps framed this most eloquently some time ago, in his 1000 word manifesto for sustainability in design. Now a couple of years old, it nonetheless still resonates and provides a useful starting point. More recently, Munich professor Peter Naumann's "Restarting car design" looks set to become a seminal piece, and is one all students of transport design need to read. Judging by the shock-waves it has generated, and the response to it from those I've spoken to in the auto, design and education sectors, he has hit the nail on the head. Because increasingly, it isn't just industry that's in the firing line, but design education institutions that are being questioned. For its part, the Royal College of Art is currently hosting the "Vehicle Design Sessions". There have been two so far, and both have touched on the areas I'm discussing. As Drew Smith's write-up chronicles, the panelists at the first - sustainability focused - debate, were unanimous in their view that vehicle design students should now look outside of the established industry if they were truly intent on using their design skills to have real impact in the world. Perhaps not what you'd expect from an event held at one of the world's leading vehicle design courses.

For those students of design interested in more than just the design of the next sports car, all of this raises a dilemma. How do you balance the necessity to find employment and money, without simply tramping up a well-trodden path, or falling into big-industry - pandering to whims and being emasculated from affecting meaningful change?

I doubt many will find that quandary any simpler after reading Carl Acampado's piece, but it's a necessary read nonetheless. Entitled  "The product designer's dilemma", it is bound to strike a chord with many of its readers. Acampado touches on the conflicts that the average designer - and indeed typical consumer - today faces in balancing personal desires, ambition and personal success, with the best way not to fuck up the planet. It's an impassioned piece, and just like your author here, Acampado has no real silver bullet solution to many of these problems. Yet his "dog for life/do it with love" message resonates loudly, and without wanting to sound all soppy, could be an interesting mantra to apply both as a consumer and in whatever area of design you practice. Please read the piece to see for yourself what I mean, if you haven't already. It echoes the voice of many of those I have mentioned above, and contrasts starkly with the PR-spun froth that consumers are (hopefully) growing increasingly sick off, yet which nonethelesss still dominates media 'opinion' that we are bombarded with every day. Stuff that I might add, is now the domain of much online green media, not just the likes of auto.

A final point. "Drive less. Save more" proclaims the title of the most recent email to land in my inbox, which is from the Energy Saving Trust - a UK Government sustainability body. In terms of missing the point completely, yet perfectly representing a very particular 'old way' of thinking that I'm taking issue with, I can't help thinking that it sums things up rather neatly. New approaches are needed. Thoughts on a postcard please... or alternately in the comments box below.

Image credit: "Consumption reflected" - Zohar Manor-Abel on flickr

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 29th April 2009. Full disclosure: Joseph Simpson is a visiting lecturer in Vehicle Design at The Royal College of Art. The thoughts expressed here are his own, and in no way necessarily reflect the views of the Vehicle Design Department or the wider College.

Following Ford in 2009 - a year in five minutes

For those of you who regularly follow this blog, it won't come as much of a surprise to learn that during 2009, we closely followed Ford of North America's sustainability and design work, so we thought it would be fun to pull together some of the best bits in a video - five minutes of Ford:

The video makes me realise how many interesting and genuine people we've met at Ford over the past year - thanks to all of those who gave us their time and made us feel so welcome. Ford has had a good year - especially compared to GM and Chrysler, but that doesn't mean it should rest on its laurels. As you can see from my last article - The 2009 Ford Hedge - we don't think they're front runners in the green space, but that's not to say they're not doing some interesting things. You can dig deeper into our archive, by searching our Ford tagged articles, which will flag up everything from the past year. Personal highlights included interviewing J Mays, Sue Cischke telling us about Ford's interest in things like Zipcar and High Speed Rail - and the response pieces from Dan Sturges, Amy and Robb, and Drew Smith. 

And, just for laughs and because it's Christmas, here's one of our favourite videos of the year. For anyone seduced into believing that car companies can suddenly get good at in-car IT, enjoy our hysteria as we try to use the voice recognition of Ford's Sync, on a 2009 Mercury Mariner. 

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 22nd December 2009

Full disclosure - Ford of North America sponsored the Movement Design Bureau's research work during 2009

Re*Move word cloud 2009

We found this great word cloud visualisation tool at Wordle, so here's our cloud for 2009. We think it makes for a nice graphic, and it's always interesting to remind yourself what you've been writing about over the past 12 months (click on the image for a link to fullsize via flickr). Unsurprisingly, a certain company from Dearborn dominates, but we were pleased to see 'People' up there as one of our biggest themes too. If you think there's someone we should be profiling or talking to in 2010, do drop us a line.

The 2009 Ford Hedge – A Review

Like a prized suburban garden, Ford is cleaning up in the neat-and-tidy-American-car-company stakes. Joe Simpson pushes past the perimeter and asks, is it enough?

Last week, 100 ‘agents’ pulled the covers off the 2011 Ford Fiesta at the LA auto show in the climax of the six month-long “Fiesta Movement”. Just a couple of weeks before, Automobile magazine named Ford’s CEO, Alan Mulally, their man of the year, which must be all the sweeter for Dearborn considering GM promptly lost its second CEO in eight months.

Yet there’s another way of looking at where Ford currently stands, a viewpoint that throws away the rose-tinted spectacles. Ford is lauded in America because it has avoided the traps fallen into by Chrysler and GM. But is that enough to define success? As someone who has just spent the last year looking at Ford’s approach to sustainability, I should be well placed to do that.

One year ago, the company quietly opened its doors to us, two British researchers armed with video cameras, and said “go in, ask questions and poke a camera where cameras haven’t been poked before, let people see how Ford is changing”. They had no control over what we said - a potential PR rep's nightmare. Yet it was just one part of Ford’s strategy to communicate more openly, and be more social. Crucially, it also wanted to show the world it was going green – Ford was changing.

"Poking a camera in.." in this instance with Nancy Gioia and the Plug-in hybrid Escape

Standing up

So what’s changed? Last December, we found a company reeling from the fallout of the auto bailout debacle. Auto CEOs were just one rung down from bankers in the evil stakes, and many commentators had wrongly lumped Ford into the same boat as GM and Chrysler, saying it needed bailout money to survive. It didn’t, and wanted to let the world know, so then newly appointed head of social media, Scott Monty, spent the next few months contacting and correcting every blogger, analyst and media commentator on Ford’s position.

Come January’s Detroit Auto Show, the wind was changing direction. The Lincoln C concept proved Ford was in touch. A downsized, premium vehicle for Ford’s limping upmarket brand, based on a Focus platform, felt very of the time. More importantly, Ford’s self-titled “electrification” program got underway in the form of a Magna-built Focus Battery Electric Vehicle, and a commitment to build two electric vehicles (EVs), more hybrids and plug-in hybrids by 2012.

Ramming home the point about Ford’s seriousness was an actual car – one available to buy right now. The Fusion Hybrid could not only run fully electric up to 47mph, but it bested the Camry Hybrid’s EPA figures and wowed critics at how ‘right’ Ford had got the powertrain. It also featured a driver interface that in a nutshell encapsulated what the new Ford was about. Developed using ethnographic research techniques, in conjunction with Ideo and Smart Design, ‘Smartgauge’ was a reconfigurable, four-level coaching interface which helped drivers to ‘learn’ their Fusion Hybrid, ‘grow’ with it and become more efficient drivers over time. Developed by engineer Jeff Greenberg and his team using simulators in Ford's incredible ‘Virtex’ lab on its Dearborn campus, when we got to drive it, we thought it was proof Ford was truly going places on the eco front.

Mark Charmer 'driving' in Ford's Virtex lab simulator

Sitting down

Yet it’s a sign of how fast things are moving in the green car world, that today we no longer feel Ford is level pegging with the front runners. We know Ford possesses some world-beating engineers, who are developing things entirely cogent with what other car companies are doing, yet the company’s strategy feels conservative and the message isn’t clear.

In September, at Frankfurt, John Flemming pulled the covers off a euro-spec electric Focus and announced a trial fleet of 10 cars for the UK. Sadly, no one noticed because in the very next press conference, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn stood up, said that the auto industry had until now been merely tinkering around the edges, pulled the covers off four Renault EVs which will all be on sale by 2012, and effectively bet Renault's future on electric cars. Meanwhile, BMW's quietly built 600 Mini Es already, GM’s letting anyone with two legs drive a prototype Volt, and come last week in LA, VW showcased not just another Up! variant – but one that will do 96mpg. What did Ford do? Launched a car we’ve been able to buy in Europe for 18 months…

Ford's strong corporate culture has shielded it from accepting reality. I sense that within the corridors of power in Dearborn, there’s a frustration and lack of understanding as to why people don’t see Ford as green, and why there doesn’t seem to be the same level of interest and excitement in Ford’s electric cars as there is in – for instance - GM’s Volt.

But having watched Ford and the wider industry through this period, it’s clear to me that one reason for this is that Ford’s proposed ‘clean’ vehicles don’t have the same design-led, risky, visionary, ‘exciting story’ elements to them as the current crop from GM, Renault or BMW. The electric Focus and Transit Connect simply look like regular Focuses and Transits. Compare that with BMW's Vision Efficient Dynamics, which is a design and materials–led radicalization of a future coupe. Or Renault’s Twizy – a small car/scooter cross which feels ideal for the world’s growing number of mega cities.

The BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics - an all together different look for the car

Indeed Ford's green future looks more conservative than GM’s Volt – which while nearly three years old, is a fundamentally different car to anything GM has produced before, and one which – thanks to the company's ‘troubles’ – has a bet-the-company, edge of the seat, ‘will they won’t they manage to make it’ PR story wrapped around it, which has the world gripped.

Don’t scare the neighbors

Part of the problem could be J Mays, Ford's global design chief. Asserting to me this summer that "I have this crazy notion that an electric car should look like, shock horror, a car" Mays' view that electric cars shouldn’t look weirdly different might be a major weakness. Of course, in times of economic uncertainty, and when consumer acceptance of cars with radical new powertrains is far from assured, this may turn out to be a safe and sensible approach.

Yet it is just that - safe. And I can’t help but say that if Ford really wants to go green, and have people believe it is green, then it has to stick out its neck. It needs a halo, a vision – a car and a story – that grips, wows and inspires people. Because I suggest to you that in the next five years, there will be more change and upheaval in the automotive world than there was in the past 100. And that those who dare most boldly, will be rewarded most handsomely – with long term profit.

There’s a strong sense of history and tradition at Ford. In recent times, that tradition – the Ford family tradition specifically – has provided the firm with a backbone to cope with the horror scenario that has engulfed the US car industry, leaving it as the only one of the big three not in bankruptcy. But that strength could stifle the company, too. Dearborn, Ford’s home, resembles a suburban estate, with still carefully trimmed gardens and a freshly painted fences. But beyond are derelict lots and empty streets.

Now ought to be Ford's moment to be truly inspired by its past. To look back to the man who started - and risked - it all, Henry Ford. Because Ford needs its Model T for the 21st Century. And it needs to remember what the great man said: “If I’d have asked people what they want, they’d have said faster horses”.

Joseph Simpson is a researcher at The Movement Design Bureau, a think tank.

Posted on the 7th December 2009. Full disclosure: Ford has sponsored The Movement Design Bureau's research in 2009.

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

"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.

Mad Men won't save Ford

I'm sitting here tonight trying to make sense of Ford's belief that the Fiesta Movement campaign is an example of the kind of social media that will translate into a successful Ford.

Here's a picture of what it's all about. A video by Parris Harris and Yoga Army, aka Phashion Army.

Fiesta Movement is getting quite the PR push at Ford right now and it'll only get worse as the December LA show draws near, when the Fiesta is actually launched in the US. What's the product? A car that Ford designed in Europe several years ago and launched there in autumn 2008. It hasn't even gone on sale yet in the US - it'll be a 2011 model year car.

This quote from an awesome Clay Shirky article earlier this year (about newspapers but don't worry about that) says why this is flawed, better than I ever can:

"Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’'t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away."

The reality is that this is what's happening right now in much of the car industry. And I fear it's happening in Ford, too.

Fiesta Movement is an ad campaign - nothing more. The philosophy that ever more "sophisticated" marketing can solve problems. Web-savvy, video-producing creative people will transform Ford's brand image and reconnect it with a new generation. Meanwhile Ford, despite thinking it's had a terrible year, has had a lucky one. Both of its major US competitors have gone into bankruptcy. General Motors and Chrysler are probably fatally wounded.

Let's talk about real stuff - well electric cars, which aren't real yet, but will be soon. Even in a world short on EVs and high on rhetoric, Ford's current global 'electric' product range is weak - the company has one star car - the fantastic Fusion Hybrid - and a scattering of dated Escape and Mariner SUVs. The next generation? Ford has been hanging on the fence about which suppliers to use for a Focus EV – and unless there's a big surprise, we're still in limbo on that and much else as Ford insists the numbers don't add up. We're so, so far, from the car Ford really should build - an electric F150 truck. Parris and Yoga talk about Ford reconnecting with the American psyche. But Americans, beyond a few areas on East and West coasts, don't want small cars. Most of them don't even want cars. They want trucks.

But the guys who design trucks are seemingly sitting elsewhere right now, watching a football game. So cars is the only place where innovation is happening. As GM and Chrysler fade away, Ford's key competition in that zone is now global. And be in no doubt that the global competition is about to become truly formidable. Renault Nissan has the boldest strategy of all - we were there to see Renault blow everyone away at Frankfurt in September, with bold plans for four production pure-electric cars by 2011, and Nissan is deadly serious about its mainstream, mass-market Leaf, due in 2011, and undoubtedly the first global car that will shake the Prius out the tree it's got right now all to itself.

And that's just the start. Volkswagen is doing intriguing things with very efficient diesel vehicles, BMW's Efficient Dynamics strategy makes Ford's new EcoBoost petrol engines look pretty conservative. And that's before we talk about Honda, Toyota or anyone else.

I can't help but think that Ford will default to present Renault Nissan as the crazy radicals, imagining an unrealistic future. When the reality is Renault Nissan are the pragmatists, because they and others have the pieces in place to push ahead. They've forged partnerships with entire countries to roll out electric cars, while Ford is trialing 15 electric Focuses in Hillingdon in North London, and in patches around the US.

Right now Ford is not a global car company. It is a multinational car company - in fact the granddad of multinationals - with different product, management and marketing teams on different continents. And it thinks it can treat customers in different places in different ways. Imagine if Apple did that, fobbing off its American customers with a social media campaign, to launch a product it introduced in Europe over 12 months earlier. Advertising guys, dressing up social media as big change, would get nowhere. Customers would see through it right away.

"Imagine if Apple did that, fobbing off its American customers with a social media campaign, to launch a product it introduced in Europe over 12 months earlier."

Unless we get something better - unless we get genuinely great marketing - Ford faces slow decline. It's a long time since the ad guys alone could create a winning product.

Mark Charmer is founder of the Movement Design Bureau. Related reading:

The future of cars. Please? (December 2007)

Three New Shapes for Ford (April 2009)

Sue Cischke meet Dan Sturges. (April 2009)

Drew Smith on the car industry's failure to "do digital". (May 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:

Futurama

I was speaking yesterday at Burning Rubber, a LowCarbonSouthWest event.

Southwest England is Britain's first official UK "low carbon development zone". The region has an amazing technology legacy - think Roman Baths, Georgian Cities, Brunel, SS Great Britain, Concorde. It's got great coastline, a strong surf culture, hilly, beautiful cities and green icons like The Eden Project. It's also the part of Britain most closely linked to the idea of the permanent traveller - the South West is Britain's leading hippie region. If it had good, flexible flows of investment capital and more inward and outward migration I'd almost call it Britain's California.

I argued to the audience that while the car industry is working out how to replace combustion engines with electric motors and batteries, it's worth asking whether in twenty or thirty years' time it's what we'll need. Are they simply servicing a declining market, while something else altogether different happens outside the window? Rather than being about electric powertrains, could the real answers be related to something else - how we live and work?

The dangers of designing for a false future

The writer Hamish McRae once told me (in the Hole in the Wall pub in Waterloo) that "the future of how we move is entirely connected to the future of how we work", and his thought has shaped my thinking ever since. Those British and French engineers built Concorde for politicans concerned with national prestige and jobs, and for airlines who where, in the early 1960s (Concorde was launched in November 1962), in the middle of a jet-age boom fuelled by postwar technology and wealth. This had seen tremendous wartime advances in aircraft design and propulsion take us on an incredible performance curve from 1940 through 1960. For context, remember that Concorde was only launched four years after the first transatlantic jet services were launched in 1958 between London and New York. It seemed reasonable back then to believe that speed would dominate as business people would want to be in London for a meeting in the morning and then an evening reception in New York.

Of course, aviation's development curve took on a different path. Instead of getting ever faster flights for an elite, minority "jet set", the 1973 oil shock and the flight of creative engineering talent in the early 70s from mechanical to information technology meant supersonic became a step too far. The reality of work and leisure took over and the world embraced flights for the masses. In the 1960s, airliners replaced ocean liners and airports supplanted seaports (Britain effectively moved its main passenger ports from Southampton and Liverpool to Heathrow) and subsonic airliners went on to redefine flows of migration and underpin and expand globalisation through the '70s, '80s and '90s. Boeing, while getting government funds to develop an SST, cannily developed the 747 as an insurance policy. Pioneers like Juan Trippe (who led Pan Am and is why we have the 747) eventually moved over and people like Freddie Laker and then Herb Kelleher, Richard Branson, Stelios and Michael O'Leary created today's air travel reality. Today we have incredibly low cost flights for the masses supporting migration, everyday business travel and leisure (unfortunately all still powered by 1960s-era engine designs).

Norman Belle Geddes and the 1939 New York Expo

I remind you of the above for context - about how technologies and visions developed in one era often only really create massive change in another one - and how some distract and others define what comes next. Which brings me back to cars, home and work. Today, the majority of people outside the centre of cities live a lifestyle that was first showcased at Futurama, the General Motors' pavilion at the 1939 New York Expo. Americans (and everyone else) were dazzled by designer Norman Belle Geddes's vision that people would live in communities linked to highways, using their own fantastic vehicles to flow smoothly and comfortably from one place to another. We would finally face the death of distance.

Lots of people and businesses loved Futurama. It helped the car industry find a way forward from a Fordist world of slightly dull, standardised mass-made cars, and it influenced the entire world's concept of what urban development should be. The economics of vehicle manufacturing could scale to meet it, property developers loved it, and it suited employers who could access a bigger workforce pool, all addicted (often through debt on car and house finance) to perpetuate the lifestyle. Yet the reality of the cost and blight of the resulting highway infrastructure, congestion, high energy costs, pollution, and the enduring draw of dense, sociable old pre-1940s cities undermined Futurama in fundamental ways.

So in 2009, 70 years on, with General Motors just bankrupt and great tracts of suburban America covered in unwanted repossessed, stripped out McMansions, are we facing the end of Futurama as a blueprint? Has it literally stopped being sustainable?

Hamish McRae's wife is Frances Cairncross. She wrote a book in 1997 called "The Death of Distance". Written 12 years ago, that's as good a place as any to start working out what comes next. It explores how the communications revolution - the internet and mobile phones - will change our understanding of, and response to, distance.

And perhaps the ultimate irony here? Norman Belle Geddes, architect of Futurama, was the father of Barbara Belle Geddes. Some of you will remember that Barbara played Miss Ellie, the epicentre of the Ewing family, in the 1980s TV series Dallas. The one all about the excesses and lure of '80s capitalism, and the power of American oil.

It's ok. My head hurts too.

Mark Charmer is founder and managing director of The Movement Design Bureau. Images: Futurama exhibition. Source - Wikimedia Commons Update. I added Southampton as a key passenger port. Northern bias, overcome. 19/1/10

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