SAE Convergence 2008, Monday panels

The Monday panels for Convergence were pretty good, but it was usually some ancillary comment by a presenter that got me to thinking the most. For instance, John Waraniak from the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) made a mention that this was a great time and that the success of MySpace showed that people were also ready for a concept like MyCar, where they would spend lots and lots on aftermarket gizmos to personalize their car. That got me thinking that he had really hit on the success of MySpace, heck, people have been putting decals and gizmos on their cars for 50 years. MySpace satisfies that same need— to be different or special or just plain better than those around you. This got me to thinking about the age demographic for both the car customizers and the MySpace crowd, which definitely skews to the young in both cases. This made me wonder if MySpace and car customizations don’t really depend on the narcissism and self-absorption of youth, that trait so well captured by Frank Zappa when he sang about the teen groupie on the bus that would spurt “Wanna see my bandage?”. That led me to think about the whole concept of customization and a very tedious conversation I heard between to meth-addled bikers about the difference between customization and personalization. It was like when the monks argued about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, pretty pedantic stuff. But there is a transition from some stupid noodling on a MySpace page versus making a real website, and there is some analog transition between putting a sticker on your rear glass and trying to get your car to turn a 14-second quarter mile. As always, we can argue when something is a silly passion for kids versus a driver for innovation and change, and since it is analog there will always be room for interpretation. All I know is that when I was younger I would spend weekends putting custom aftermarket radios in my car, and now I just turn on the crappy stock one in my 1992 Honda. I guess the real challenge for MySpace and SEMA is making all act like we are kids again, and maybe that is not a bad thing.

Next up was Anup Sable (Pronounced Saab-lee). He spoke about autonomous vehicles, the thing that always got me thinking about Astro-Boy cartoons and how the autonomous vehicle will run on software and if Microsoft is involved we are all going to die or get maimed just like Astroboy did. But Anup tossed out a little joke that was really a profound comment. He said in India you can get a fully autonomous vehicle for only 100 dollars a month—- you hire a driver. I guess that is the appeal of the technology, it gives all a Jeeves or Cedric that can chauffer us around the town. This got me thinking why the rich and the elite are just fine with car-hostile hell-holes like San Francisco, its not their problem, Caruthers just drops you off and he has to find a place to park or just circle the Embarcadero for four hours. This might explain why the elite, the carriage-conservatives and limousine-liberals are just fine with sardine-packed cities where we peons have to take the train and the streetcar. Having us in sardine cans makes more room on the road for their drivers to get them to very important places full of very important people who are clearly superior to us peasants. This is why I like Detroit, at least you can park. That and the people are nicer and they play soul music and R&B in the restaurants.

I then caught Peter Rieth from Continental, a big sponsor of the event. He pointed out that weight is a dominant factor in the design of automobiles, something I have been trying to convey when everybody gets all starry-eyed about replacing a 4 pound plastic fuel tank with 1000 pounds of batteries. He also pointed out that in Europe they are about to adopt laws that force your car to call emergency when it gets in a crash. I think OnStar does this now, if the airbags deploy, the car calls 911. That may appeal to some people and if they want to pay for it, fine. What is clear from Peter’s talk is that the auto executives really want the governments of the world to pass laws forcing you to pay for this.

Laws, over and over in different sessions I heard people pining for more laws. That is a sure sign of a bankrupt industry. When you can’t come up with something people want to buy, just get your cronies in the government to pass a law forcing them to buy something. That way the executives get their million dollar salaries and the driving public ends up with complex junk that really doesn’t’ do much form them Think I am ranting? Well there are many tests that show in the vast majority of cases, anti-lock brakes do absolutely nothing to make people safer. Most people just crash without touching the brakes, the rest manage to apply brakes but ABS would not change anything and a vanishingly small percentage just steer out of the crash and don’t use the brakes at all. But the auto biz made sure there are laws so every car is more expensive. Same goes for “stability control”. Ford Motor, continuing a tradition they started 40 years ago, cheaped out on the suspension of its SUV and then put in cheap tires that were under-inflated so you would get that Boulevard Ride that Ford executives so love. Well, as my Nissan engineer buddy pointed out: “Since when is a blown tire supposed to make the car roll over?” Well, since when Ford saved a few bucks and put the roll center 4 inches too high in the Explorer. But rather then sue Ford and put those executives in prison where they belong, lets just pass a law that every car needs traction control, even if their management is not incompetent and their cars don’t roll over when it get a blow-out.

While we are at it, let’s force people to but tire pressure monitoring systems and a lot of other stuff. Now I personally think tire pressure monitors are great, but it should be an option, not something forced down out throat. It broke my heart 25 years ago when I left Detroit. I came there do design cars. Ten years of working for Ford and GM made it clear that the finance idiots were the ones that designed the cars and engineers were just considered barely-human peons that were supposed to implement the cheap pieces of crap that the finance guys figured would put more short-term cash in their pockets. When the analog semiconductor companies start crying for government laws to force people to but their product I will know that my current industry is corrupt as the one I left in Detroit decades ago. I guess I will have to move to China or better yet Korea where they let engineers run the companies instead of the corporate politicians and finance weenies.