
Detroit and Silicon Valley don’t hold the keys to the auto’s future; Henry Ford does. - robg
http://www.thebigmoney.com/print/933
======
jerf
That wasn't insightful, that was gibberish. It further's Congress' continual
confusion between "cars people will buy", "cars good for the environment", and
"cars automakers are actually making"... that's _three_ distinct categories,
and it is wrong to collapse them. (The most frequent collapse is that "cars
people want to buy" are "good for the environment". This is wishful thinking.
People will prefr good fuel economy, _all else being equal_ , but they're not
going to pay twice as much or give up those little niceties like "a heater".
Hold the auto companies to this wishful thinking, as Congress wants, and you
might as well just finish digging their grave and throw them in.)

Watch the switcho-changeo in action: "Detroit's goal has never been to sell
the cars that consumers want to buy; it's been to sell the cars that will
yield the highest profits. By contrast, startup car companies such as Tesla,
Aptera, Fisker, Bright Automotive, and Commuter Cars have adopted the Silicon
Valley mojo, using indie, engineered-in-a-garage values to develop cars that
people _should_ buy." That's content-free. Along with the category confusion,
it also appears to praise the Silicon Valley companies for not chasing
profits. Yeah, _that's_ the path to success alright!

And why on Earth would the startups _want_ to deal with the unions? Almost by
definition of "union", they do not. That was just gibberish. They may _have_
to deal with unions (ideally a nice new one, IMHO, UAW 2.0 to go with Car
2.0), and hopefully they learn from how UAW 1.0 badly hurt their host, but
_wanting_ to deal with a union is just stupid-talk. (Dealing with pay and
stuff: probably OK. Defining every job down to the n-th degree so theres no
flexibility, aka "work rules", and creating thousands and thousands of wasted
worker-days per day: deadly.)

Unions aren't free. In fact, they are quite expensive if they have an
effectiveness at all.

And as Erik says, I can spec the perfect vehicle too, that doesn't mean it can
exist.

------
erik
"a vehicle for the exurbs of both our large cities and our less densely
populated rural areas. It would be easy to assemble and wouldn't require
expensive new lithium-ion battery technology or exotic composite materials. It
would seat at least six, have a range of 400 miles on a fill-up, and get 35-40
miles per gallon with greatly reduced emissions. It would run on gas, diesel,
biodiesel, or ethanol. It could probably be sold for around $25,000 to
$30,000."

And it would come with a pony. And it should fly.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
How about a flying pony?

No assembly required, no exotic technology (except for the flying thing),
seats two or as much as four with the optional buggy attachment, _and_ it runs
on pre-processed ethanol.

I'd like a brown one. With racing stripes.

------
pongle
Linking to the print version caught me slightly off guard, but otherwise an
interesting article.

The author appears to be asking for a car manufacturer to build a one-size-
fits-all car and make it cheap enough for everyone to be able to afford. I
would be unsurprised to find that a car that meets his specification already
exist, but is hidden by the wide range of options and alternatives offered by
the various manufacturers (the curse of choice). So what the author is really
asking for is for a manufacturer to pair-down their range and only offer one
car, in black... While this might be possible for a start-up this is not
possible for any of the large car companies. My example would be the Smart
car, started with one design, and now has at least three or four different
offerings to diversify their customer base.

Can anyone provide an example of an industry where choice has been
significantly reduced over time?

Link to original article:
[http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2008/12/29/nex...](http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/articles/judgments/2008/12/29/next-
years-model)

