At the time, many of the big automakers seemed headed for destruction. In the two years since, they seem to have come back from the brink. Even so, the central question of the blog remains relevant.
Have a read and let me know what you think. Perhaps it’s time for a followup.
The full text is below:
3/03/09
We’ve come a long way in a short 100 years with the automobile. Out of the minds of a few lone inventors and a handful of small bicycle shops and carriage manufacturers, emerged an automobile industry that has developed into a powerhouse of production and employment whose survival now seems inexorably linked to the success of world economies.
But as the big players in this industry stumble in the current mess of financial woes, one wonders if the playing field could fast be redefined by smaller start-up companies.
If so, will these new players need to make a gigantic leap across the entire last century of industrial growth in one jump? Or, will they be something that functions completely different?
Will Detroit’s automakers need to redefine their manufacturing model? Can corporations so massively industrialized become agile enough to rapidly alter production in the face of sudden changes in demand?
Each year, automakers offer consumers improvements and new features in their product lines. The evolution of the automobile into today’s lineup of vehicles has shown remarkable progress in safety, performance, function and durability.
But there’s a difference between what’s new and what’s really new. A new feature does not fundamentally change the concept of a vehicle; a new model doesn’t necessarily mean a totally new automotive entity. A new design is not a new way of bringing cars to market.
When Honda introduced North America to its first production gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle, the Insight, a decade ago, that was something really new. In both design and means of propulsion, the Insight defied convention. Toyota wasted no time in bringing out its hybrid, the Prius, soon afterwards.
The original two-seater Insight was in production until 2006 and is making its way back to market this April as a 2010 five-passenger model. Meanwhile, Toyota has launched a redesigned Prius that is bigger and more powerful.
American automakers were slow to respond to the hybrid challenge and have been playing catch-up since. At times, there were indications that they might not even embrace the technology at all.
Times have changed.
Ford tiptoed into the hybrid market (the first domestic automaker to do so) with a version of the 2006 Escape SUV. Now, it is set to go gangbusters with the Fusion Hybrid – a more mainstream type of automobile that will be in showrooms this spring. Looks like Ford wants a share of the Toyota Camry Hybrid market.
Bob Bancroft, owner of Ashley Ford in New Bedford, Massachusetts described the new Fusion Hybrid as the highest mileage hybrid made in America – chalking up a mileage rating of 41 mpg.
High-mileage is the new mantra.
“Ford’s CEO (Alan Mulally) has made a promise that every vehicle will get better fuel economy than the vehicle it replaces,” noted Mr. Bancroft. “That’s the big story.”
Good news for sure. Ford is showing good effort to change the perception that big automakers are not making the cars people want.
But big automakers worldwide may soon find their foundations being rattled by an innovative start-up company, Local Motors, located in Wareham, Massachusetts. The company describes itself as “the first disruptive entrant in the US automotive industry in decades.”
Local Motors is not looking to mass produce vehicles. If they can build 2,000 vehicles per year at each of eventually 25 locations, that would please company founder Jay Rogers. It will be proof that their idea of “challenging the paradigm of highly centralized manufacturing, embattled dealerships and dispersed service locations,” is the way to go.
Ultimately, it could change the way consumers buy (and think about buying) their vehicles.
“The world changes faster than we develop cars,” observed Mr. Rogers. “It doesn’t need to be that way.”
He expects to turn heads by demonstrating that there is a different and faster way to get the cars people actually want out to market than the way it is currently being done.
But comparing Local Motors to the small manufacturers at the dawn of the auto age is hardly accurate according to Mr. Rogers. There’s a lot of automotive infrastructure that’s developed and capable of producing high quality, off-the-shelf parts and supplies most of which is now going to non-OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) purchasers. This is what Local Motors plans to tap into instead of manufacturing automotive parts themselves.
“You can stand on the shoulders of product development,” explained Mr. Rogers.
Easy access to everything from engines to brakes is an advantage previous start-ups like the ill-fated DeLorean Motor Company did not have thirty years ago.
Aiming to produce lower-weight vehicles that are designed by an online consensus of car enthusiasts (a internet savvy technique called crowd-sourcing), built from off-the-shelf parts and marketed to specific geographic regions, Local Motors’ business model completely redefines the way cars get to market.
But how will selling 50,000 cars shake up the Detroit automotive establishment that looks at sales in the millions per year.
“We hope to be a tipping point,” said Mr. Rogers.
He’s not alone in that wish.
Dean Kamen, the inventive creator of the Segway personal transporter is busy developing an electric vehicle called the Revolt which utilizes his version of a type of external combustion engine called the Stirling (after Robert Stirling, its 19th century inventor) to provide an electrical assist to the vehicle’s batteries.
Even though Kamen’s DEKA Research & Development Corp. hopes to have a production version of the vehicle on the market in 2 years, his goal may be less that of becoming an automaker and more of becoming the inventor that paves the way for other automakers to use the technology.
The Revolt design is based on the Ford Think which was cancelled in 2002. Ford sold its stock in the company and ultimately the Think brand wound up in Norway and today is producing electric cars for the European market.
Think describes its vehicles as, “emission free and three times as energy efficient as the cars used today.” The Think City model is designed to muster 62 mph with a range of 126 miles on a charge.
But Jim Lutz, president of Alden Buick Pontiac GMC Truck in Fairhaven, Massachusetts is not holding out hope that these new smaller companies will last.
“If you look at the history of startups, it’s dismally bad,” he observed. “Even craft businesses have gone by the wayside.”
For him, the car industry, in terms of its business sophistication, ranks just below the aircraft industry. Starting a car-making business from scratch may be just too formidable a challenge to succeed.
“The development costs are so high, they create such a barrier to entry,” he said.
But faced with the economic battering they are experiencing, the big automakers are taking their hour of despair and looking differently at how they do business.
“At GM, they’ve really put all their focus on the electric hybrid,” noted Mr. Lutz referencing the hulky new Yukon Hybrid.
Although the 20 city/20 highway mpg ratings show the vehicle to have improved fuel efficiency, the numbers themselves seem to come up short of startling. But Mr. Lutz put that into perspective given the size of the vehicle and what consumers could expect in this type of vehicle not so long ago.
“It’s a very interesting technological progression to get to mileage unthinkable 20 years ago,” he said. “This is starting to show the advantage of electric power.”
On both ends of the car making spectrum, at big and small companies, long-established businesses and fresh startups, everyone is using the word change in new hopeful tones. That’s good. A change in perspective is at the heart of innovation.
January 2011 saw the unveiling of a very efficient, logically useful, polymer technologies expanding, 313 mpg on a gallon of Diesel fuel, two-seater car.
Meet the Volkswagen XL1 which was debuted at the Qatar motor show. The car, which has been dubbed by VW as the world’s most economical car, features an 800cc TDI two-cylinder diesel engine linked to an electric motor (emitting just 38 grams of carbon dioxide per mile).
One might think that this engine is way too small, but the performance of this torque-strong Diesel approach delivers acceleration from 0 to 60mph in 11.9 seconds … and a top speed of 99mph which is good enough for any large metropolitan area freeway system.
The VW XL1 gets an additional advantage due to a reduction of weight (just under 1,753 pounds) based upon a newly patented approach for the manufacture of the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) parts called the Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) process.
Further weight savings were made through the extensive use of lightweight materials that include magnesium for the wheels; ceramics for brake discs; and aluminum for dampers, steering system and brake calipers.
The Volkswagen XL1 is expected to make its commercial debut in Britain and Germany in 2013 with no present plan to introduce this ground-breaking 12 foot long (just under four meters) and 3 foot 10.46 inch (1.18m) tall (the same size as a Volkswagen Polo – and sits lower off the ground than a Lamborghini sports car) green machine to the United States/North American marketplace.
Lotus Motorsport’s IndyCar driver Takuma Sato and 1996 Champ Car winner, Jimmy Vasser have also given extensive feedback having driven the Evora Cup/GT4 at the legendary Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca race circuit (pictured here in the middle of the famed “Corkscrew” turn) in early August 2010, giving Lotus’ newest race car a most diverse and comprehensive pedigree. Image Credit: Lotus Motorsport
Over the years, the Lotus Cup Race Series has developed into one of the most successful enthusiasts race series brands in the world. Races feature capacity grids of Elise, Exige, 2-Eleven and Europa race cars racing and jostling for position. Previously operated exclusively from several countries in Europe and Japan, the Lotus Cup has now expanded considerably to include the USA, UK and Eastern Europe.
For 2011, not only has the Lotus Cup grown in size, the organization of the series has been consolidated. For the first time this year, drivers will now race to one set of rules, regulations and formats in championships around the world including:
• Lotus Cup UK
• Lotus Cup Europe
• Lotus Cup Italy • Lotus Cup USA (West Coast)• Lotus Cup USA (East Coast) • Lotus Cup Eastern Europe
• Lotus Cup Japan (new for 2011 in BOLD)
Director of Lotus Motorsport Claudio Berro said: “Lotus sports car racing is one of the most popular forms of accessible motorsport in the world, both at a spectator and participant level. Now is the time to bring these championships under the Lotus umbrella, to ensure consistent look and feel to the competition. This will have obvious benefits to the current drivers and encourage new racers, ensuring that the cars and components remain good value and the competition retains its accessibility.”
Lotus will provide increased support and investment for these race series and will also ensure that the new Cup Championships retain the community feel and friendliness that an enthusiast based race series needs.
The Lotus Cup Championships will receive a new identity, logos, branding, website and Corporate Identity which are aligned closely to Lotus’ new motorsport strategy and initiatives announced over the last few months and consolidated at the Autosport show last weekend.
The excitement and race heritage design of Lotus will be zipping by at a North American track in 2011 at the following venues!
Lotus Cup USA 2011 – West Coast Schedule (subject to change)
5th -6th March
Willow Springs Raceway, Rosamond , CA
9th – 10th April
Firebird International Raceway, Pheonix, AZ
28th – 29th May
Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, CA
25th – 29th June
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Monterey, CA
27th – 28th August
Miller Motorsports Park , Salt Lake City, UT
24th – 25th September
Buttonwillow Raceway, Buttonwillow, CA
15th – 16th October
Spring Mountain Raceway, Pahrump, NV
5th – 6th November
Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas , NV
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Lotus Cup USA 2011 – East Coast Schedule
9th – 10th May
Watkins Glen International Raceway, Watkins Glen, NY
11th – 12th July
Virginia International Raceway, Alton, VA
24th – 25th September
Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham . AL
The only schedule conflict for the inaugural 2011 North American campaign participant would happen on September 24th – 25th. If one wanted to race “bi-coastal”, the campaigner would have to choose between Buttonwillow Raceway, Buttonwillow, California about a two hour drive North on the 5 artery into the central valley from Los Angeles, or the latest rising star dedicated road racing track on the North American racing scene (which hosts the IZOD IndyCar Series – April 10, 2011), Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama.
The series rules may exclude a “bi-coastal” desire to race in all scheduled inaugural Lotus Cup Series races in North America … but this does present an interesting proposition for the first time Lotus Cup Race Series participant.
For further information regarding the Lotus Cup, please contact Lotus Motorsport: motorsport@lotuscars.com
NASA has just published its report on Toyota unintended acceleration. I haven’t seen the full report, but the summary I have read has a familiar ring. And I predict that lunatics and skeptics are going to be far more likely to believe the space agency actually landed Americans on the moon than they will be willing to accept NASA’s findings that almost all cases of unintended acceleration, starting in the 1980s with Audi and now two and a half decades later with Toyota, are the result of pedal error.
Whether it was mangling Audi transmissions to induce UA or, more recently, crossing wires that are impossible to cross to cause Toyota engines to zoom out of control, the legal profession’s eagerness to mimic the tactics of Middle Age witch hunters and the willingness of some less than scrupulous engineers to sell-out their profession are appalling.
These lawyers and their engineer /scientist collaborators are running in circles chasing non-existent electronic ghosts. It’s time to let these ghosts rest in peace.
By the way, what has happened to complaints about unintended acceleration? Attorneys and pundits might say Toyota has swept them under the carpet. But they seem to have disappeared about as quickly as they surfaced. Were they simply an example of mass hysteria, psychosis or hypnosis? Or maybe the ghosts moved on to a parallel universe, leaving the Los Angeles Times scrambling to fill another black hole with its biased reporting.
Toyota is not completely blameless here. There were incidents with faulty pedals and throttles sticking as a result of tolerance stack-up under carpets.
But this ain’t rocket science.
And it’s about time to let Toyota get back to doing what it does best: selling high-quality products to appreciative customers around the world.
The Detroit Auto Show, officially known as the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), comes around every year in early January. So the timing is right for a review of 2010 and a crystal-ball look at 2011. Without telegraphing what follows, I think it’s fair to report that for most automakers 2010 turned out better than expected and that there was universal optimism from pretty much everyone at the show regarding the potential for an even better 2011.
With assistance once again from photographer Joe Tori, join us in a quick review of Media Daze at Detroit.
The Chevrolet Volt and the Ford Explorer received top honors as Car and Truck of the Year, respectively.
My wife and I were up in the Camden, Maine neighborhood a few weekends ago and had the good fortune to be on the Maine coast on the same weekend that the Owl’s Head Museum hosted their Wings and Wheels extravaganza. The Owls Head Museum sits out on a point near Rockland. It includes a beautiful enclosed facility with a nice selection of landmark cars sitting along side reproductions of some of the earliest flying machines and airplanes. The grounds include a large show area where auto enthusiasts displayed their classic and collector cars and an airstrip which sits adjacent to a civil airport with hangers. If you find yourself along mid-coast Maine, I highly recommend a visit.
On this day, in addition to the museum itself, there was an air show and car show. While my little digital camera only captured specs in the sky, this shot is of a classic Curtis bi-plane being started by hand. This fellow, while apparantly in very good shape, was worn down pretty badly trying to start this plane. It did eventually start and the pilot proceeded to put it through its paces, which included numerous flips, rolls, stalls and low passes over the air-strip, all which thrilled the gathered crowd.
There was a pretty nice selection of privately-owned classic cars on hand including this 1949 Ford Convertible, with which my wife fell in love. It’s 239 cubic inch V8 produced 100 horsepower. About 51,000 were sold but not many remain. This one was in fine restored condition but sadly…not for sale. Sorry Honey!
Also on hand was a Blackhawk helicopter. Spectators were allowed to climb around inside and get a sense for what it might be like to ride one of these aircrafts into battle. I have to admit that I have even more respect for our service men and women after examining this well-built but very vulnerable machine and realizing that it is one of the primary methods of carrying troops in and out of war zones.
The museum itself is a great take regardless of whether or not they are having a special event. It includes some spectacular reproductions of historic early aircraft like this Wright Brothers’ Wright Flyer, complete with Orville piloting the historic first flight dated December 17, 1903. The Wright Brothers’ fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium.This method became standard and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft to this day.
There were also a few less noteworthy vehicles such as this 1938 Eliot Cricket III built by Samuel Eliot. It features a stainless steel body and steering via a control stick similar to that used in early aircraft. You would push the stick left or right to steer and forward to stop. The Cricket was powered by a 130 horsepower Franklin four-cylinder engine, more than enough power for this very small car. Eliot, who was an inventor, is also responsible for Boston’s first parking garage, built in 1933 on the corner of State Street and India Street.
Of course, the most famous automobile on display along with a reproduction of the first powered aircraft is a replica of the first patented automobile, the Benz, which sits majestically at the entrance to the museum. Built by Carl Benz of Germany in 1885 and patented in 1886, this vehicle is recognized as the first to use an internal combustion engine to power itself. The single cylinder engine burned gasoline ignited by a spark plug, one of the first to use an electrical spark, and produced just 3/4 horsepower. Steering was done by a hand-lever and pointer.
These are just a few of the many motor vehicles and aircraft on display at the Owl’s Head Museum so if you ever find yourself along the mid-Maine coast near Camden and Rockland, take some time to visit this interesting museum. You’ll have fun and learn quite a few things, too!
Under normal circumstances, this is where I recap one of the Larz Anderson Lawn Events, reporting the winners of each category. That just would not do this past Sunday justice. This was one of those days that reminds us why the car is so important to us. Reminds us that, while many cars have turned into rolling appliances, and less and less people know how to drive a stick shift each year, those that still care have a place to go and revel in what they cherish most about automobiles. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, Mazda invited a bunch of enthusiasts to their technical center in Irvine, California to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MX-5 Miata. Yup, the Miata is 20 years old . . .
I was Editor in Chief of R&T at the time the car was introduced, and we named that first 1990 Miata as one of the five “World’s Best Cars.” And the accolades have never stopped. Read the rest of this entry »
My time spent at the Larz Anderson Museum has been quite fruitful so far this Summer. First, with the classic delights of British Car Day, and then with the thoroughly modern experience of getting behind the wheel of the all-new Porsche Boxster Spyder, its safe to say I’ve had my share of thrills.
That paled in comparison to what was to greet me Sunday June 20th (last Sunday). German Car Day was in full swing, and it was enormous. On the drive up to the museum, Porsche 356 roadsters could be seen darting up back roads in packs. Entering the grounds, I was greeted with the largest collection of cars ever to turn out for the German Car event (the largest single show was one of the past iterations of the Tutto Italiano, taking place August first this year). Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, members of the New England motor press, including yours truly, were treated to automotive wares old and new, as historic automobiles set the stage for some face time with the latest Boxster from Porsche. The setting was the Larz Anderson Auto Museum, the stone and mortar structure is a masterpiece made for a spectacular location. Any automaker choosing this site for a press event surely must keep their product in high regard.
The vehicle in question on this evening was the 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder. What another version of the Boxster? Oh, but its so much more. The Spyder is a holistic approach to lightening the vehicle in the name of a more pure driving experience. Most notably, the convertible top has been completely gutted, and replaced with a makeshift canvas bikini top. It is held down by tension hooks on the corners of what is one of the prettiest rear cowls I’ve ever seen. That lack of a power top resulits in a 46-lb weight savings, and that’s just the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »
