Designing A Car

Unless you are fortunate enough to live close to very convenient mass transit, your car is something you have to buy and wrap around yourself before you set out into your community. In North America, unless you live in New York City, or  in downtown Toronto, chances are you own, or someone close to you owns, a car.

Cars are designed by artists to make them appealing, and by engineers to make them functional and reliable. Oops - forgot the marketing and advertising folks, who respond to, or more often, influence, public desire.

So - what would you like to own - a high-powered heavy truck or 'cross-over' vehicle that's touted to make you feel safe and in control of any situation, or a light, fuel-efficient, task-oriented, power-limited, range disadvantaged tiny thing? Of course, you'd like the big, safe and 'in control' thing.

That's the message we've been getting from our governments and manufacturers. They refuse to tax our gasoline prices to properly reflect the cost of the debt we're incurring by buying foreign oil, the extra harm we're doing to the environment by processing tar sands resources, the defense spending to keep the Persian Gulf open, and the added health costs due to our dirty urban air. They continue to exempt trucks and SUVs from the efficiency standards imposed on cars. They continue to ignore Kyoto, in favour of the few resource jobs saved in places like Fort McMurray, Alberta.

No wonder the marketing and advertising folks have such great success promoting big cars and SUVs. They're an easy sell.

It's time for the engineers to take over, with help from the artists. Engineers, when they're not held back by advertisers and marketers, will devise task-oriented solutions, and the artists, working with them, will make sure that their solutions are very appealing. That's all we need to sell cars.

So - light, long-lasting, fuel-efficient, and reliable. That's a start.

I'd also avocate for standardized component mounting systems. This means that no matter who I buy a car from, I'd know that I could purchase any key component from any manufacturer and know that it would fit. All engines manufactured would fit all cars. All disk brakes, all air conditioner compressors, all air filters, and so on. If an upgrade to a new engine technology became available, I would be confident that it would fit my car, forever. Even wild looking individualized body panels could be made with standardized mounting points. The cars could easily be made to look different, but inside, they could all be the same.

It's happened in the computer industry, where all hard disk drives, video cards, and memory chips are made to conform to standardized mountings. Why not with cars?

Now, extend that to our previous post, where you could purchase 1,000 km of driving from a service company. The standardized design now really makes sense. The service company can supply you a vehicle with body panels and interior in exactly the colour and model style that you like. Everything inside the panels and interior facade would have standardized mounting systems so that the service company could source from whoever they think has the most efficent design. Components could be easily switched as needed. Repairs and upgrades would be really easy and inexpensive.

This would be amazing.