Re*Move

Geneva auto show 2010 - some things you might have missed...

By now, you'll no doubt have read all about the cars and concepts that you were interested in at last week's Geneva auto show. But if you've still apetite to digest and cogitate, Drew Smith - of the Downsideupdesign blog - and myself are producing a two part podcast with pics to cover all of the major production debuts and concepts, which you'll be able to see/hear in the next few days. For now though, you might be interested in some of the details, elements and irreverant bits and bats that I noticed in the Palexpo last week. So without further ado...

Citroen reimagined the ReVolt from Frankfurt as a racer for the road in the form of the SurVolt (above). Only Citroen could get away with painting it gloss blue, matte grey, pink and orange. But they did. Note these graphics - they were quite fun, a play on PCBs - used to signify the electric drivetrain.

Meanwhile over at Mercedes (above), they'd got wood... (sorry, couldn't resist). The use of wood laminates in this interior was fantastic - it vied with the Pegueot (see below) for concept interior of the show, and previews an altogether more 'light of touch' future Mercedes interior design language...

Peugeot marked its return to form with the SR1 (although special note to the glorious bike also on the stand) - which previews the brand's altogether more acceptable new face (thank god the rictus grin's gone). But it was the interior that really stood out in this car...great work Julien et al:

Speaking of gorgeous things, here's a shot of the superb little Pininfarina Alfa Duettotanta that makes me go a little bit weak at the knees...

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

Toyota Prius - a photographic review

Rather than simply post a load of photos into a huge post here on the blog, I've uploaded some Prius photos, to form a photographic review which is hosted on my Flickr account. This set is fully captioned up, so do take a look through and feel free to comment. Click here to go to the set, or on the screengrab preview below:

All our photos, video and material is sharealike creative commons 3.0 licensed, so you can lift and reuse these images as you like. All we'd ask is that you link back to this site.

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

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)

Prius Week: Is it going to make me fat?

It'd be stupid to suggest that more efficient, cleaner cars are a bad thing. Surely, getting to a point where cars produce little or zero emissions, and use no oil, would be a good thing - right?

To me, the biggest and most useful role the Prius plays today, is in acting as a technological stepping stone from where we are now, to where we're going to go in the future. It introduces the notion of a car being powered, and driving, differently to what many of us are used to, while still operating in a way we can understand and not looking so odd as to spook people out about our automotive future...

But last night, one unintended consequence of a future with zero-emission cars struck me right between the eyes. Allow me to explain. My own car sits outside the house most of the week, largely because I'm quite dictatorial about it not being used for short, local trips. Pick-ups at the station, shopping in Kingston, popping to the corner shop or supermarket - these aren't jobs for the internal combustion engine, they're jobs for my legs.

Yet at 8 o'clock last night, halfway through a Nigel Slater Japanese noodle recipe, I suddenly realised we didn't have a critical ingredient - the noodles. Normally at this point (besides swearing a lot), I'd have given up and cooked something else, or run half a mile up the road to Waitrose to get some. Yet, with a Prius parked outside, I didn't hesitate to jump in and glide up to said Supermarket, because hey, going in the car certainly was quicker than walking, and this was a hybrid car, so I could do most of the trip in electric mode and hence without guilt or emissions.

The issue this causes - potentially - is that we reach a point sometime in the future, where people stop thinking about the most appropriate mode of transport for a trip, and simply use their car regardless. I may be wrong, but today I think a healthy proportion of people now think about whether their car is the best vehicle to use for a very short local trip. I suspect two primary factors in this are cost and environmental concerns. But if we remove these two factors (which hybrid or electric cars potentially do) the unintended consequences are clear to see - worse traffic, more parking issues, all the usual stuff bandied about by the anti-car brigade. I'm treading a tricky line here. I'm not suggesting the Prius and the green car movement many credit it with creating is a bad thing, or that we should attempt to stop it. Lower carbon, less guilt car travel is largely a good thing. Yet I can't help wondering if we're asking the wrong question when it comes to urban travel. Electric cars are now seen as a panacea. But we should be wary, particularly about the impact on urban environments - of a future where we're using what is still a 1400kg, 10 square metre sized device to move one 80kg human a mile down the road.

Oh, and perhaps because of this type of driving behaviour, our average fuel economy has now fallen to 52mpg. Food for thought.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 16th October 2009

A week with the Prius

Toyota have lent us a new Prius for the week. Regular readers may remember that the last time we were in LA, we rented Toyota's ubiquitous hybrid for a few days, and came away somewhat unimpressed. We ended that piece by saying this:

"The final irony? For all its technical wonder, at the end of our trip the Prius came out with an average of around 45.5mpg. Which is 5 mpg short of the diesel Fiat Punto I use on the clogged streets of London."

But now there's a new Prius on the block. Toyota have moved the styling away from the dumpy, but highly identifiable shape of the second generation car, to something that is more crisply styled, and for want of a better word, 'dynamic' looking. The new car also agressively attempts to shut up those of us who've never been great hybrid fans, and who've long thought a good turbo diesel would be its fuel economy equal. The headline figure is 89g/km of Co2, and 72.4 mpg.

We'll run a regular blog/update over the week with our views on the car, but for now, first impressions are very favourable. The Prius is incredibly quiet - its new three way EV, Eco and PWR modes meaning you can switch the car's character quite decisively. In EV it will run electrically, up to 30mph for a couple of miles. Which means in stop start London traffic you barely have the motor kick in at all. In PWR, it's actually quite sprightly and responsive. Most impressive is that in 15 miles of chock-a-block London traffic, and without 'trying', we're getting 65.5mpg so far.

Wonder if we can keep that up over a week...

Check back for more soon. Right now, I have to dash and pick up my fiance, who demanded to be picked up in it from work once she heard I was in central London with it. A self proclaimed hybrid-hater, it'll be interesting to see if she's impressed as I am on first acquaintences. Oh and if you've any questions or things you'd like us to test, leave a comment or drop us a line.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on the 13th October 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:

The last 12 months of auto design - Joe's favourite things

I returned from France a few days ago to find Robb and Mark discussing the last 12 months of cars and car design, because they were thinking about which ones ought to be entered into the upcoming Spark design Awards.

While the auto industry’s been in the doldrums for some time now, Spark Awards provides an opportune moment to take a look at some of the more interesting cars, concepts and automotive details of recent times. So without further ado, here’s a scratch list of some Simpson favourites…

BMW Gina

Designed years ago, but then dumped in a secret hanger until such time when BMW needed an on-demand concept to unveil (the opening of BMW-Welt proved to be just such an occasion), BMW’s Gina is arguably the single most innovative thing to have happened in auto design for years. As its mastermind Chris Bangle remarked at unveiling “what do we need the skin of a car for anyway? What is it made out of? Does it have to be made of metal?” Too few ‘what if’ questions are asked in the auto world, and the moments that they do happen are typically hidden from public view – as this one was for so long. But we’re glad it finally saw the light of day, and that like all the best concepts it asks more questions than it answers.

Nissan Cube

In a world where even family hatchbacks are competing to set the fastest time in the class around the Nurburgring, Nissan offers a leftfield approach. The Cube has been around in Japan for years, but now Europe and the US are getting the second generation. Why? Nissan realise that most drivers aren’t interested in the minutae of cornering finesse, or top speed; they’re interested in something that manages to provide huge utility, but have personality at the same time. The Cube has both in spades. Essentially a box-on-wheels, it features a ‘sun and moon’ set of dials, ‘curvy wave’ seating, and asymmetric styling in the shape of one side rear window turning around the corner into the rear windshield. When he had one on test recently, Michael Banovsky noted “I feel awful leaving the cube downstairs at night. He looks so sad”. It’s the kind of car that elicits such feelings. Jean Jennings, Automobile Magazine and long-time Spark friend, raved about it to us recently, too.

 

Audi LED lights

They’re by no means universally loved, nor were Audi first to introduce LED headlight technology, but through smart design strategy and brilliant detailed execution, Audi have taken ownership of the LED headlight. Subtly different on the R8, A6, A5 and A4, the wavy bands of bright white lights, piercing through the daylight when in DRL mode, are now as much an Audi identification hallmark as the shield grille and four rings - leaving you in no doubt as to just which type of car is behind you, and would like you to move over, thank you very much…

Big Brother's Little Brother

If you want to know what the future car’s going to look like, it’s worth having a chat with one of the Callum brothers. On Friday, Ian Callum unveiled Jaguar’s new XJ - which set tongues wagging around the world. But while big brother is grappling with the future of luxury cars, little brother has an even more interesting job – working out the future of mainstream, global car design. So a few weeks ago we spoke with Moray – man behind many recent Mazdas and the new Ford Taurus, and recently made executive director of Ford’s design Americas. Check the video, and then see our take on what he said below:

“What makes a car good is going to change”

Here in Europe, since the Focus I of 1998, Ford’s cars have stood out because they’re fantastic to drive. Ride and handling balance, steering feel, and control weights are all top of the class. It’s true that in the motoring press at least, a car will rarely be deemed “good” unless it drives dynamically well. But Moray believes that “the technologies that make a car good will change” - and he implies that the focus will move into vehicle interior functionality and connectivity. Today’s cars suffer from a problematic mis-match between their development lead times and the pace of technological change. Acknowledging something needs to be done about this, and tallying with what J Mays recently told us, Moray makes clear that Ford is lining up to position itself as top of the tree in this area too.

2009 Focus RS. Steers and handles like no 300bhp FWD car has any right to...

Yet while Ford rhetoric currently focuses on “Sync” and the Fiesta’s centre console (which apes the design of a mobile phone keypad), there’s clearly the potential for a car’s interior to change even more radically with implementation of touchscreens, and soft – rather than hard – ware. A radical vision might be that the vehicle interior becomes a blank, digital canvas. Removal of heavyweight hardware could reduce weight, improving overall vehicle efficiency. If interiors became endlessly reconfigurable, added to or subtracted from with software applications, then individualization and configurability increases massively - allowing users to tailor cars to their precise needs. It may sound strange, but such developments have the potential to make a vehicle more sustainable – by allowing them to be reconfigured for different drivers and usages.

As Moray suggests, what sofware based apps means is that "it doesn't mean to say you need to get a new car to get the new technology". Potentially, this means consumers get bored less quickly, and cars survive for longer. Whether a new 'model-upgrade' culture would be allowed to replace the model-change culture of today's industry, itself a product of the need to maintain mass production, is of course open to debate. But the idea of car companies making money from software services and upgrades, rather than just mechanical maintenance and vehicle sales, is fascinating.

“[Car sharing] gives us the chance to make cars more specific for specific tasks”

We know car sharing’s on the radar at Ford. Sue Cischke surprised us earlier this year when she talked about how the company had been looking at it. But if you ask car designers about such ideas, you’re often met with a blank response - the organisational structure meaning it isn’t what design departments do or think about. At first, Callum does the same, suggesting “it’s outside of the realms of the design side of things”. But as we talk more he seems interested in what the increasing popularity of models such as Zipcar might mean for future vehicle design. What excites him is the potential to design more targeted, specific (and by implication, efficient) cars – targeted at specific usages or users: “if you’re going to use one sort of car to do one sort of motoring, and another to do a different sort, you can really pinpoint the design to something that’s much more applicable to the task, but at the same time much more exciting.”

  A current Mustang Zipcar - but could car sharing allow Ford's designers to develop much more targeted, specific, efficient designs in the future?

What Ford’s designers should do next

As one of the big-name designers now brought together under the ‘One Ford’ umbrella (others that stand out are J Mays, Freeman Thomas and Martin Smith), Callum has both an enviable and unenviable task ahead of him. He’s with some of the best designers in the business, and Ford appears to be on the right track – yet the car industry is rapidly changing (just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, and hadn’t noticed). The past fifteen years have seen an unrelenting march toward ‘prestige’ and a push up market by many car makers. Everyone has chased, but few have made inroads into, the dominance of the Germans - particularly BMW and Audi. The German’s are now ‘micro-nicheing’ - creating new vehicle segments, to questionable effect. Their brand cachet means they’ve got away with it to date, but this questionable nicheing (BMW 5 series GT anyone?) is an entire world away from the sorts of really useful, targetted 'niche' cars Moray mentions which could be developed for specific usage purposes as part of larger car share schemes. Such a policy would make much more sense for a brand such as Ford to be looking at, than some of the niches the Germans are pushing. Today, having sold off its premium lines, Ford is happily 'non-premium' and is instead focusing on a series of core models, creating ‘world vehicles’ or platforms.

Such consolidation looks smart right now. It saves money, and millions of brands probably aren’t that best thing to have today (ask GM). Yet creating cars that are all things to all people – across four continents, is a tough brief. On top of this, the Blue Oval’s core areas - mainstream hatchbacks in Europe, and trucks and Mustangs in the US - are likely to come under increased competitive pressure over the coming years, of the like never seen before. So is the ‘core-line’ approach enough to keep Ford’s head above water in the mid and longer term?

Maybe. Ford has a clear strategy for now, but it needs to go further and really utilize the talents of people like Callum, especially if it’s committed to being a sustainable leader. So while BMW ruminates on Project-I, which has somehow become a “premium” urban mobility solution for cities in 2014, and Toyota tinkers with the ‘I’ Series (iSwing, iReal) of personal mobility concepts chairs, there’s an opportunity for Ford to become the true world leader in the sub-car personal mobility sector. The market doesn’t exist right now, but it will – and this is what Ford needs to see. Not only does the brand carry exactly the right down-to-earth, ‘of the people’ image to suit such an area, but it would instantly give the company a jump on Toyota, positioning it close to the political decision makers and city leaders, and as the car company really thinking about a future generation’s mobility needs in the growing metropolises of the world.

Toyota's 'i' Series. Today people scoff at these vehicles, but Ford is missing a trick by not letting its designers loose on this space

We know that Ford is already looking at urban mobility issues, involved in research at places like MIT and Stanford, and we also know that while existing mobility projects from these teams are systematically and technically appealing and advanced, they hold little aesthetic appeal. So Ford is well placed to let its latent design talent off the leash, to allow them to define and develop a ‘Ford’ look for transportation in our 21st century cities. A Model T for the city of 2020? I’d love to see what Moray Callum thinks that would look like.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 14th July 2009

Images: Focus RS - jonanamary, Zipcar Mustang - charmermrk, Toyota i family - Jedi.RC - all under creative commons via flickr.

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