America and the world can’t live with another 4 years of right-wing conservative hypocrisy, divisiveness, lying, secretiveness, and disastrous economic and international policies. That’s why I endorse Obama for President. Get involved, or donate now.
I’m a product strategist and writer. In my day job, I’m Director of Product Strategy at frog design. I also write for Cnet on the Matter/Anti-Matter blog. This is my personal blog and does not represent the views of frog or Cnet. More details >
Interviewed by Jess McMullin of BplusD
Sustainable Design Seminar, Design Management Institute
Design Green Now, Bellingham, WA
Panelist, UT Austin Sustainable Business Summit
The System is the Product / Speaker at Inverge 2007 Conference
The System is the Product / Presentation to Silicon Valley PMA
The Tragedy of the Commons, frog Design Mind
Monday, August 25 The always provocative Jamie Kitman, columnist for Automobile magazine amongst others, has a piece in the September issue calling out the Big Three automakers (or The Moderately Large Three, he demurs) for their decades long lack of responsiveness on the issue of fuel economy.
Game over. After almost half a century of fighting battles, America’s Big Three have at long last lost the war. Yes, it’s official. From this day forward, fuel economy matters… Too bad Detroit carmakers weren’t prepared. They only had fifty years to get ready.
Detroit didn’t have to encourage profligacy, it chose to. And some will argue that the power of advertising dollars could and should have been used to encourage efficiency. The American industry could have planned the same patriotic card it deployed following 9/11 to advocate fuel conservation instead of throwing around billions of dollars to make sure there were large SUVs in every garage. It didn’t have to spend some four decades fighting safety, emissions, and fuel-efficiency standards.
Clearly this is not just a down year, it’s a total paradigm shift… Cars that seemed like pretty good ideas suddenly seem less inspired. Cars that appeared bad ideas before now seem like the worst ideas ever. The Hummer brand, for instance, is on target to sell fewer than 35,000 units this year, or about twelve percent the number of Oldsmobiles GM was selling when it decided to shut that venerable brand to concentrate on…Hummer.
Strangely enough, while typing this up I’m listening to a Tivo’d recording of Charlie Rose’s interview with GM CEO Rick Wagoner. It’s a good interview, but obviously he gives quite a different perspective than Kitman (who points out that Wagoner got a 64% raise to $15.7M in 2007, despite GM’s heavy losses). And I can’t say that I can entirely blame the automakers for the large trucks. People bought them, and they didn’t buy small cars, for the most part, so the financial imperative in the near term was fairly clear.
But one thing Wagoner just said jumped out at me: he thinks the US government should get behind funding the startup costs for new energy sources, such as fuel cells and batteries, in order to kick-start the growth and innovation. But 15 minutes before he was bemoaning the role of governments outside the US supporting their domestic auto industries because it makes it unfair for competitors (i.e. GM) to compete. Seems to me that you can’t have it both ways though - either government intervention in helping domestic manufacturers get rolling in a new industry is OK, or it isn’t.
Related posts:
automotive, global warming, gm, rick wagoner, toyota, prius, green, electric car, chevy volt, fuel crisis, $4 gas | IN CATEGORIES... Business, Culture, Automotive, Sustainable Design, Management Tuesday, August 12 Sculpting clay on the 2009 BMW 7
Here’s an outstanding series of photos describing the design development for the new 2009 BMW 7-Series. It shows step by step from drawing to renderings and clay how the exterior and interior of the car have been refined. In particular there is a lot about the clay process, which is unique to automotive design. Even in this day and age of CAD and 3-D goggles, there’s nothing like seeing a car physically represented at full scale with masterfully crafted clay.
The BMW Group’s process of designing a new vehicle and finding the ideal shape is based on a concept of keen competition. In the development of each new model, several design teams compete with one another in their design of the exterior and interior in a truly creative contest. Made up of designers and modellers, the teams then, in the second phase of the design process, complete models in original, 1:1 size clearly showing the aesthetic harmony of the car’s proportions and surfaces. To do this they use a simple but very important material in the design process - clay.
I wasn’t a big fan of the last 7-Series (though the roof profile and side glass had great lines and proportion), but from the little you can see on this one it looks like the 2009 model could be very interesting and elegant.
Friday, May 30 
I recently had an opportunity to drive a hydrogen fuel cell car and a Smart car while visiting Mercedes-Benz’ tech center in Palo Alto. They had on hand an “F-Cell”, an A-series car fitted with a hydrogen fuel call drivetrain, and the Smart was one of the models that have been available in Europe for years but just came for sale in the US recently.
The fuel cell model inherited the attributes of the regular A series: small on the outside, big on the inside (it’s a 4 seater and room in the back was impressive), and more premium level materials and design than Americans expect in their small cars (though the A is not a budget car). The fuel cell drivetrain moved the car along at a pace fine for getting around town (we didn’t take them on the freeway). A “turbo” mode could be engaged to provide more pep, at the expense of economy.
The drivetrain had a fair bit of whine coming from the electric motors, I’m guessing this was because the prototype wasn’t fitted with much sound dampening. Otherwise it felt very normal to drive and handled just fine.
Mercedes is not making any promises on availability, these are strictly test beds. About half the hundred-plus F-Cells are in California, I think helping Mercedes meet Californias air regulations.
It would be great to see the A-series here in the US, given how gas prices are going and congestion on the roads is just getting worse every year. As clean diesel is now more widely available, the turbo diesels would especially be great.
The Smart car was an interesting experience. I really like the exterior styling, and the interior is better than the original, more toned down and mature (think half way between a Mini and a Civic). It’s only a 2-seater, and it was snug.
Speed was ok, nothing great; it only weighs 1800 lbs, but the engine is just 71hp, and 0-60 is 14.1 seconds. The biggest problem was the gear change. The automatic box took ages to make the shift (a couple of seconds or more) during which time no power was going to the wheels it seemed, and the car coasted. This made shifting while accelerating a frustrating experience.
“You’ll get used to it,” said my chaparone. And I did…by not accelerating very hard and minimizing the obviousness of the lag. But not a great solution. And it doesn’t give a warm fuzzy that the car has the speed when you need it to get out of a jam. (I don’t think anyone buys a Smart with sporting pretensions and I certainly wasn’t judging it against hot hatches).
The weird thing is that the Smart doesn’t get that great gas mileage — 33mpg in town and 41mpg on the highway. There are other bigger and only slightly more expensive cars (the Smart starts at $11,500) that get similar or better mileage and which don’t require premium fuel like the Smart does. If Mercedes had introduced it years ago before the Mini took hold, before Scion was widespread, and before innovators like the Prius, Yaris or Fit appeared, then it would have been more distinctive. Unless you place a premium on fitting into tiny parking spaces (the Smart is over 3ft shorter than a Mini!) or being the unique kid on your block, the case for the Smart today doesn’t seem that compelling.
Automotive Friday, January 11 
99 years after the Ford Model T, the Tata Nano has been announced in India for 100,000 rupees, or about $2500. And you know what? It looks amazingly good. I was completely expecting a Yugo ugly box, but you could drop this 10 foot long car into an urban street in Europe (the most competitive subcompact market on the planet) and it would fit right in. It looks amazingly refined and interesting - heck, it looks better than budget models selling for many times the price from most mainstream manufacturers.
And they have a website that is fairly Web 2.0, with customer feedback, a conversational letter from the chairman, and colored gradient boxes to complete the look.
It also raises some interesting possibilities for domino effects — more on that in a moment.
The car has a 2-cylinder engine and reportedly gets 54mpg. It only creates 33hp, and tops out at 65mph. Of course, if a lot of them are sold then street congestion will be so bad that 65mph won’t be a serious limit and 54mpg is unlikely in stop-and-go traffic. Ecological concerns are of obviously a major issue if hundreds of millions of new buyers suddenly take to the car. Supposedly it produces less emissions than the mopeds that poor Indians currently ride (the next cheapest car is twice as much), since it uses a 4-stroke not 2-stroke engine. Nevertheless, it probably has worse mpg, requires far more energy and resources to fabricate the Nano than mopeds, and takes up more space on the road so density is decreased (so less efficient).
But the Nano has some strong upsides of comfort and safety also:
Mr. Ratan N. Tata [Chairman of the Tata Group] said, “I observed families riding on two-wheelers - the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family. Tata Motors’ engineers and designers gave their all for about four years to realise this goal. Today, we indeed have a People’s Car, which is affordable and yet built to meet safety requirements and emission norms, to be fuel efficient and low on emissions. We are happy to present the People’s Car to India and we hope it brings the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families who need personal mobility.”By adopting the term “the people’s car” Tata is explicitly referring to the VW Bettle, a similarly inexpensive car that was designed to help bring affordable mobility to the German population, and which went on to become a cultural icon worldwide representing freedom and independence (despite its Nazi roots).
And while the Beetle is an obvious reference, the Ford Model-T is a more accurate forecaster of the future the Nano may bring. Just as trains and inexpensive cars like the Model-T led to transformation of population centers, massive shifts in attitudes toward city and rural areas, flexibility of employment and education, broadening of social perspectives through travel, and shifts in family dynamics and roles, the Nano may bring the same to India.
From a business perspective, Tata has had to do some radical things to achieve the $2500 price. They have worked closely with component suppliers and brought them close to the assembly plant to reduce costs (like Dell does).
The design team practiced a concurrent engineering model with many iterative physical prototypes, working in a skunk works fashion away from the “hidebound” practices of the larger Tata organization, and collaborated early on with component vendors to sort through problems.
Like the manufacturing line of the Model-T which had far reaching implications for the American manufacturing industry (and economy), if other Indian companies can harness the lessons of Tata’s Nano, we will see a transformation of the entire country in the next decade even beyond what is already coming.
Business, Design, Culture, Automotive, Sustainable Design, Innovation Sunday, December 30 As 2007 comes to a close, here is my eclectic, contrarian, and surely incomplete list of favorite things that appeared or I discovered in 2007.
Nisus Writer Pro: My bar-none favorite word processor. The Pro version was introduced this year as a step up from the Express version that’s been around for a few years. It’s deceptively simple looking, yet smoothly incorporates a robust feature set with an elegant interface and beautiful display of type. As a processor of words (as opposed to wannabe page layout app) it is unparalleled. If you are in the wordsmithing business, try this app.
Pentax K10D: Everybody else will have the iPhone on their lists (and rightly so), so I’m going orthogonally here to recognize a prosumer digital SLR from a second-tier camera maker. The K10D brought high end features like weather sealing, anti-shake in the body, lots of AF points, large viewfinder, built-in DNG support, and a novel approach to ISO adjustment to a new low price level (under $600 now). Plus I think it is the most handsome of today’s 10 megapixel SLRs, and has excellent ergonomics. It’s shown here with one of Pentax’s unique “pancake” lenses that are great for street photography.The Decemberists, The Crane Wife. Strictly speaking this came out toward the end of 2006, but I didn’t hear it til early 07. It’s been on my “turntable” steadily all year and has remained fresh and interesting.
Children of Men: It’s been a good year for apocalypse movies, kicked off with the stunning Children of Men. Layered with meaning and symbols, and a tension-filled story to propel it along, and great performances all around. Peter Merholz wrote up a good review.
Charlie Wilson’s War: Who would have thought that insider deal making and arms deals could be so uproariously funny? This movie had the audience in stitches, while driving home some hard lessons about not “fucking up the endgame” as Wilson puts it in the closing titles. Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman are at the top of their game.
Made to Stick: At once common sense and profound, this book is a must-read for anyone that has to communicate complex ideas and motivate others to action. Read my earlier review.
Nobel Peace Prize: 2007 was a tipping point in environmental awareness, and the joint awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change was a key contributor. It will be looked back upon as a turning point in mass consciousness.
Design, Culture, Automotive, Sustainable Design, Software, Innovation