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Ordering a Cappuccino from the driver's seat and other bunk ways to save Detroit
In a New York Times opinion piece published today, a Stanford professor of computer science (Sebastian Thrun) and a product manager at Google (Anthony Levandowski) propose four ways Detroit can "save itself." The suggestions are striking for their prohibitively high costs and complexity, and frankly, I can't see how any would address the American automotive industry's single biggest problem: how to make cars that have fuel efficiency high enough to counter the rising cost of driving.
In a nutshell, they propose the following:
Suggestion 2 is just plain ridiculous (as is the accompanying sketch of a "highway train" made up of robotic cars, all lined up in an orderly file on the highway). I'm not an engineer but I think this one belongs to the realm of science fiction. If it were feasible, as it may be in a decade or two, I think cultural issues would prevent it from functioning well. Moreover and yet again, the complexity and cost of pulling such a thing off would be enormous.
Suggestion 3 is probably the best of the bunch but the authors themselves acknowledge that as a technology, it's far from perfected. It's not a short-term solution to anything, really.
Suggestion 4 is the most puzzling, not only because it echos suggestion 1 so closely (yet with a different but equally insulting image) but because it's entirely unnecessary with smartphone technology already achieving most of what it suggests.
Overall, I think these suggestions reflect the professional mind-sets of the authors. Notice how each relates to the advancement of computer infrastructure and Internet use? There's absolutely nothing on new legislation, bio-fuels, or alternate business models.
The biggest failure of this piece is that it lacks a clear problem to solve. They claim to want to "save Detroit" yet give no explanation for what's broken about it.
I have my own ideas on this topic but what do you think? What is the problem and how would you "save Detroit?" More fundamentally, should it be saved at all?
Thanks for recommending and commenting.
In a nutshell, they propose the following:
- Prevent fatal traffic accidents by installing WiFi technology into all the nation's cars, traffic lights, bridges, and intersections, allowing each to "communicate critical information" with each other.
- Fix the problem of highway congestion and allow people to relax behind the wheel by building robotic cars that drive in a tight formation automatically, creating what's called a "highway train."
- Build cars covered with photovoltaic cells to save fuel and "reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
- Connect cars to the Internet. This will enable people to (ready for this?) make restaurant reservations or place takeout orders all from their cars. They will also be able to purchases instantly the songs they hear on their new Internet radio. Installing sensors on such things as parking spaces too, the authors suggest, will help drivers save time and fuel.
Suggestion 2 is just plain ridiculous (as is the accompanying sketch of a "highway train" made up of robotic cars, all lined up in an orderly file on the highway). I'm not an engineer but I think this one belongs to the realm of science fiction. If it were feasible, as it may be in a decade or two, I think cultural issues would prevent it from functioning well. Moreover and yet again, the complexity and cost of pulling such a thing off would be enormous.
Suggestion 3 is probably the best of the bunch but the authors themselves acknowledge that as a technology, it's far from perfected. It's not a short-term solution to anything, really.
Suggestion 4 is the most puzzling, not only because it echos suggestion 1 so closely (yet with a different but equally insulting image) but because it's entirely unnecessary with smartphone technology already achieving most of what it suggests.
Overall, I think these suggestions reflect the professional mind-sets of the authors. Notice how each relates to the advancement of computer infrastructure and Internet use? There's absolutely nothing on new legislation, bio-fuels, or alternate business models.
The biggest failure of this piece is that it lacks a clear problem to solve. They claim to want to "save Detroit" yet give no explanation for what's broken about it.
I have my own ideas on this topic but what do you think? What is the problem and how would you "save Detroit?" More fundamentally, should it be saved at all?
Thanks for recommending and commenting.
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Agree. Investment in projects like these, useful or not, would do little except distract from Detroit's core mission -- which is making fuel-efficient transportation.
I've devoted a couple blog posts to this issue. To me, job #1 is keeping the Big Three alive and functioning because they remain a huge component of what is left of our manufacturing base. Specifically, this means preserving jobs, wages and benefits. It also means business strategies that effectively position American carmakers for the future of U.S. transportation.
None of this will happen without cleaning house in the boardroom. Asking line workers to take pay cuts when executives make 19 times their foreign counterparts is both absurd and, frankly, morally wrong. The industry needs leaders that are competent, innovative and willing to work with pay commensurate with the value they add to their organizations.
January 4, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can you imagine an internet connecting all the drivers? In real time? We get carried away with obscenities enough on this site (me included). Can you imagine what the drives would be saying to one another?
Flipping the bird would become passe.
January 4, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Massive investments in public transit might work. If detroit got busy building light rail cars and components that would be the best long term use of public funding.
January 4, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the chicken said.
Also, components for wind generation, the manufacture of which is by any measure the province of heavy industry. And perhaps tidal and current generation as well. Think of it - foundries that made engine blocks making motor and generator housings, machine shops being retooled to make armatures and bearings, among other things, there's lots of unused capacity out there, despite the supply-siders' blind insistence that more is what's been missing.
Detroit has two options available: Transformation or extinction. The problem is, they are run by the short-termers who will likely choose extinction, as it may reflect well on one or two quarterly balance sheets, over transformation, which may take years to amortize.
January 4, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Obama's energy/environment/employment (or "E cubed" as I call it) plan is to be implemented successfully, there is going to have to be some pretty intricate choreography involved. What Detroit needs, as you point out, is to diversify.Instead of making transmissions just for trucks and cars, start making them for wind turbines, as well. Get the glass industries involved with amorphous PV cell manufacture and R&D. Get the automakers connected with the aerospace guys to come up with composite materials suitable for use in turbine blades and lightweight vehicle body skins.
First thing to do is get rid of the "leaders" of the companies and install people who aren't stuck in the 20th century "we only make cars" mindset.
January 4, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you going to force people to buy hybrids? Car sales have fallen sharply recently, but overall car sales have fallen by a greater percentage than gas guzzlers such as Ford F-150's. If consumers think gas prices will stay in the $1.50-$2.00 range do you think they'll stop buying gas hog SUVs?
January 4, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evidence already shows that the cheap gas is returning the sheeple to the SUVs. Sad. Is this country so stoned they cannot remember what prices were just 6 months ago? Do they think we will never see those prices again? Europe has been living with those prices for years. We merely passed through it once, but we will again.
January 5, 2009 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the reasons, I believe, that the auto industry "Detroit" is failing is because the executives believed their own advertising.
The American public expressed a desire for a 'safe and roomy' vehicle to cart their kids back and forth to soccer practice. (I guess everyone was tired of the minivan.) So, Detroit gave them the SUV. They over did it. Now big gas hogs are all over the place with Mom and jr. and a soccer ball rattling around inside. And surprise, surprise. Turns out those big SUV's aren't nearly as 'safe' as one was lead to believe. Rollovers increased, some of them deadly.
Meanwhile, Americans whose incomes were skrinking were asking for a 'safe and affordable' vehicle. Detroit wasn't listening. Their profit was bigger on the SUV's so that is what they concentrated on. They pushed/advertised the big vehicles and at some point began to believe their own hype. That every American wanted an SUV.
But, they forgot to look around and notice that the annual incomes of average Americans was shrinking. They didn't acknowledge the wars and unrest in oil producing countries that could disrupt gas supplies and make their products unattractive.
They didn't look around and notice that Asian carmakers, now manufacturing vehicles in the U.S., were outselling them with the 'safe and affordable' cars average Americans had asked for.
Detroit didn't respond to what had been requested and now they are paying for it.
Should Detroit be saved?
Sigh.
I don't want to say yes, but I want to say no even less...if that makes any sense.
If Detroit, in it's reconstruction/reorganization, formulates some device that forces them to pay attention to the real world, to take into account what is happening beyond their priviledged view, to respond to the REAL consumer demand and not the one their marketing dept. fabricates, then, yes. Detroit should be saved.
January 4, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
there are alot of reasons for automaker problems. just to name a few:
UAW won some stupid (business wise) concessions.
UAW vs management conflict causes inefficiencies.
CAFE is poorly designed, and biased against domestic automakers.
pension, and health care costs put them at a competitive disadvantage.
i see alot of bashing of management for making products that people would buy (SUVs and trucks) and they could make money at. they can't make money on cars.
January 4, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if only American workers would accept the wages they pay in Japan and Korea, everything would be all right.
Oh, if only people would stop depending on corporations for their healthcare, everything would be all right.
Look, smaller companies have pretty much all managed to demolish pensions they once offered. Why can't the automakers keep up with the broken promises of those managers and stop trying to honor the promises made so long ago.
Let's face it, if management could just consider their people as tools and discard them when they were not needed or were less then totally efficient, the company would be mnore efficient and that would be great for the company and the shareholders. It's really all about the demands of the shareholders. And what have they done lately to deserve anything, besides demand?
Management screwed up! End of story. They essentially conceded the small car market in exchange for the higher profits of pick-ups and SUVs. They were not sufficiently diversified to withstand this recent economic stagnation. Thrity years ago they could have committed to the small car market. Instead we saw some Chevette and Escorts get some traction but these cars were not nurtured to keep up with Japan.
What is unfortunate is that management has changed over the years so the people who actually made the decisions Detroit is living with today are probably not in the game at this time anway.
January 5, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
they lose money on the small cars they make. they make money on the SUVs. why would they make small cars?
If the goal is fuel econ, then implement a gas tax. that there is no gas tax is not detroit management's fault.
gm makes 1/2 the cars they used to. they can't keep the same number of workers (number of management is probably a bigger problem).
the heath care system we have is a wealth transfer system from manufacturers (and workers) to lawyers, insurance companies, and a few more...
January 5, 2009 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink