The venerable Ford Model T

Here's a splendid presentation on the significance of the venerable Ford Model T, which remains on the all-time Top 10 models sold list.

This car was remarkably well-built and capable. From 4:29, watch it how it deftly handles fording a river, deep snow, muddy roads with deep ruts, and steep downgrades - how many SUVs today can perform as solidly?!

How a differential works

Emerald knows a legend when she sees one

You didn't think I'd post a picture of an Aztek, did you?

I've written about my son's engineering inclination (one article/video posted here, and others waiting to be posted). Something my daughter said recently made me chuckle and pause to recognizer her.

While we were driving the other day, she said "That's a weird-looking car? What the heck is that thing?" I looked to where she was pointing, and there was a Pontiac Aztek, legendary in that it finds itself on every "ugliest/worst cars list" that has likely ever been written. I'm pretty sure she hasn't read any of said lists, so her comment was no effort to be part of the gang, or to join the pile-on.

I could have prevented the Toyota recalls

I saw this article today and a particular quote jumped out:

"Toyota had a stellar reputation for quality until massive recalls that began in 2008.

"Executive Vice-President Atsushi Niimi said the recall fiasco showed that Toyota had neglected improvements in production while pursuing growth. [my emphasis].

"When production plunged, we could see big-scale production was a burden," he said. "We needed an assembly line that could respond to the ups and downs of production needs."

Why did they have to experience it to know it when I wrote, before it happened, not to go down the "volume road"?

MyIdeas - Graduated Brake Lights

Of all MyIdeas of the past, I may be most proud of this one because it speaks not only to technology but also to human interaction as a critical component of the social phenomenon of driving in traffic.

The idea is this - when driving in traffic, when people just rest their foot on the brake pedal, their brake lights turn fully on, and when they remove their foot, the brake lights turn off. There's no in-between, even though there are several degrees of urgency between just coasting without slowing down significantly and jamming on the brakes to avoid an imminent collision.

MyIdeas - New Car Smell

The year was 2007. I was hanging out with J (the other half of J and  D's Auto Talk) at his place and somehow, for whatever reason (the inspiration escapes me right now), I said to him "wouldn't it be cool if you could get that 'new car smell' in a spray bottle? People would buy it, and get that new car smell in their not-so-new cars." J never said a word, he just smirked. We went on with whatever it was we were doing and ended up in the garage. He reached up on the shelf and handed me a bottle. I had no idea what he was doing and when I looked at the bottle, there it was - a sprayable bottle of "new car smell".

This is not the most compelling idea from a safety or technology stand point. This is more along the lines of the Pet Rock"; nonetheless, that harmless fun fad made money.

Sure, it's possible my eyes had etched an image of the bottle in my brain without my conscious mind being aware of it. But, at the time, we just chalked it up to another example of a "silly idea" I had that someone else, somewhere else, had run with and (presumably) made money. And, even if they didn't make money, they had come to market and could say they "did that."

I've got to learn how to "do that."

Next - Graduated Brake Lights

Previous - Airbag Seatbelts

MyIdeas - Airbag Seatbelts

"We're going backwards," I thought to myself, back in 2004.

We had two car seats in the back for our six year old and three year old, and I thought about giving my six year old the treat of "riding up front with dad," like my dad did with me when I was a kid.

But, I was cautioned that it was unsafe. Why? Airbags.

It's not "safe" for a child to sit in the front seat in a vehicle with airbags, because the deploying air bag could cause head trauma in a frontal collision. "But," I thought, "aren't cars today supposed to be safer?" And it got me to thinking.

MyIdeas - Active Suspension

I had a bright idea the other day, and I was reminded that I've had some pretty good ideas in the past.

In fact, if I was born ten years earlier, I might already be a gazillionaire, because all my bright ideas have already been translated into actual inventions before I could figure out how to bring them to market myself (some might suggest that I wouldn't have had these ideas as I was just a product of the times and that, had I actually been born ten years earlier, the ideas I had still would have been actually developed by someone else ahead of me just the same, but that's just spoiling the fun here).

"I'm okay"...in my F-Series truck

{EAV_BLOG_VER:02fc2ada86547525}

Approximately 241 tornadoes swept across 14 states in a 3-day period last week, perhaps the largest tornado outbreak in recorded history.

Here's a real-life commercial for the Ford F-Series...

When in Rome...don't walk like an Egyptian

A buddy of mine asked me if I ghost-wrote Mark Rechtin's AutoNews article "Acura finds sales, still seeks luxury identity" http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101220/RETAIL03/312209984/1274 as it reminded him of our three-part series written earlier this year, in which I discuss Acura's identity problem:

• Audi & Segmentation (May 13);

• Segmentation Part 2 - Acura needs a true flagship (May 13), and

• Segmentation 3 - Cleaning up Acura (August 8).

The frustration with Acura is that, while on one hand it continues to say that it's happy with the intelligent value shopper, articles like Mr. Rechtin's yet belie a keen sense of misgiving at Acura that it apparently actually wants to measure up to "real" luxury brands where it matters most - in the perception of the consumer. This is where I scratch my head.

Fool us once, shame on you. But twice? Say it aint so.

 

The Globe and Mail today observes that "accounting issues raise big red flag over reborn GM".

How "reborn" can it be if it's carrying over accounting issues from before its collapse? (discussed, for example, here and here).
Sadly, having previously observed other practices that hearken to their shifty ways, there remains enough bad habits to make any investor pause before trusting GM. 

I've got to ask, having seen them burn through over $60 billion dollars en route to one of the biggest failures in corporate history, and now seeing bad habits resurfacing, why should tax payers be putting ourselves in a position to get burned again?

VW's make or brake play

First, I know the title should read "make or break," but this is an auto blog...brake. Yeah, all righty then.

Anyway, a buddy of mine asked me what I thought of Jeremy Cato's article in the Globe and Mail this morning, VW's impending comeuppance.

Almost a year ago (back in January) I wrote Oh no, not another one (I must, however, credit Mr. Cato - I remember wanting to use the word "comeuppance" in one of those posts and opted against it. Shame on me, what a great word...but I digress...).

Having said that, it's not too late for VW to avoid this comeuppance. In our posts since last January, we've talked about emerging paradigms and buggy whips - the landscape which befell GM and Toyota over the last decade is changing.

Stay tuned - there are some fundamental realities that may remain relatively the same, but there are also new realities being created as we speak. We'll make sense of it all here at J and D's Auto Talk with insights that are not infrequently months ahead of the mainstream media.

Gas engines and buggy whips

 

I read this article today, Electric cars give Japan anxiety over fate of gas engines and I'm reminded of the stockholder meeting speech delivered by Danny DeVito's character Larry 'the Liquidator' Garfield in the movie Other People's Money when he said "I'll bet the last buggy whip maker made the best damned buggy whip you ever saw. How'd you like to own stock in that company?"

The point he was trying to make was that times change, and as they change, companies must change with them. Making buggy whips was big business when horses drew carriages. When the internal combustion engine became the heart of the horseless carriage, it was only a matter of time before the last horse-drawn cart would be left behind. The companies who accepted this reality and migrated their core competencies survived; those who held on to a dying paradigm died with it.

Which brings us to the gasoline engine, and the cloud of parts manufacturers surrounding it. Like the horse as a mode of transportation, and the ancillary components surrounding it such as buggy whips, it's all long in the tooth.

An emerging paradigm

A few years ago, back when I worked at a leading OEM, I floated an idea to my supervisor during a casual lunch conversation. He said I was nuts. These few years later, it's becoming clear that, if I am nuts, I'm not alone. I've been sitting on this idea for a little while now, and a couple of articles and auto industry posts of late reminded me to finally put something down.

The Crazy Idea

The idea was that auto manufacturers could not sustain a profitable future based on a "consumer ownership model;" as such, a "loss leader service model" could build up and extend the industry's strengths.

While this idea was my own, I would eventually find that I wasn't the only one to conceive of it. Not by a long shot.

Segmentation 3: Cleaning up Acura

Too many models muddling up the middle. That's a problem with Acura.

• In the space of the 3-series, Acura offers CSX and TSX and TL.
• In the space of the 5-series, Acura offers TL and RL.
• In the space of the 7-series, Acura offers...um...nothing. We've already firmly established that this is not good.

Blend the best of the CSX and TSX into one and run it against the BMW 1. Leave the TL to run in the 3-series space. Any sport mod to the TL can use the X as a "type".

In the 5-series space, run the RL.

Introduce the Acura SL into the flagship space, upwards of $100,000.

Let's grow up - accountability for efficiency supply

I like asparagus.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like asparagus. Or broccoli. Or bok choy. Or a big salad. But, evidently, I’m not a kid anymore, because I like them all now.

When I was a kid, I wanted breakfast cereals full of sugar and food coloring. However, Mother usually made oatmeal. When I was a kid, I’d rather eat candy than healthy food. My parents knew what was good for me, which was a good thing because, as a kid, I sure didn’t. My parents took the responsibility to provide what I needed, not what I wanted, because what I wanted tended to be bad for me, and I didn’t like what tended to be good for me. Consumption in my house was not determined by my child-like demand for junk food - I was consuming healthier food because my parents were responsible for the supply.

Segmentation Part 2 - Acura needs a true flagship

Our first installment in this series introducing luxury branding and segmentation, presented the A8 flagship as a key component in Audi's turnaround, as well as a critical piece of the segmentation puzzle. I'd like to look at the Acura brand through the lens of segmentation to reveal the not-so-hidden fundamentals that provide a constructive answer to the question "why isn't Acura - with all its technical and engineering quality - more recognized as a luxury brand?" I'm not even going to entertain discussion of "near luxury" as a segment (does Honda really need an entirely new brand to compete with a Chrysler 300 or a Buick or a Nissan Maxima? I don't think so either).

Audi & Segmentation

Audi recently announced that its 2011 A8 would be 130mm longer than it already is, ensuring that its flagship remains the quintessential expression of Audi luxury. It reminded me of an article I drafted some time ago but never got around to sharing, and prompted me to finally share it, so here it is.

Audi had been a premium brand with its popular 4000 and 5000 series sedans in the 80s, but went through some tough times in the late 80s/early 90s. Down for the count, the turnaround is a nearly peerless business success story. Audi's revitalization can't be simplified as though it happened overnight, and I certainly had no seat on their board by which I can reveal any secrets, but one prong of their attack can be readily identified - a clearly defined segmentation strategy.