There are roads in Hungary that plays music!
A musical road was first created in 1995 Denmark, by two artists. Given how brilliant a concept, I wonder why its Danish origins seem almost obvious. Just like the concept of hygge and especially Lego.
Musical roads also exist in other countries like Hungary, Japan, South Korea, the United States, China, Iran, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Many of these are either created by artists, or as in the case of Hungary, in memory of an artist. The Japanese interestingly stumbled upon it by a fortunate accident involving engineer Shizuo Shinoda, who unintentionally scraped some markings on the road with a bulldozer. Driving over that section created tunes.
[Read more on musical roads here].
Once you get past the amazement of musical roads in general, you can’t help realize the possible solution it presents for controlling speed on roads and highways across the world.
Imagine popular tunes are recreated onto roads notorious for speeding. Anyone going faster or slower than the popular tune that a road plays, which would be adapted for the speed range on that road, riding or driving outside that range would simply sound..wrong.
And it might nudge you to adjust your speed to within the prescribed limit! 💡
If the installations are affordable and convenient to install/remove, they could be updated with the latest tracks regularly, to keep up with times.
Another aspect that might contribute to its possible effectiveness is the fact that unlike the car music system, it cannot be turned off. The flipside of course, is the possibility of teens (the usual suspects and culprits of speeding) intentionally speeding to make the tune sound funny.
A subsequent study could perhaps look into finding any correlations between those who tend to speed, and those who don’t have a ear for music… 😉
When it comes to automotive light designs, a few occasionally catch your eye.
Like the sweeping indicator lights from some years ago. Those still are impressive. I think Audi SUVs were among the first to have them.
And you occasionally see some very strange designs. Like those on the Toyota Innova Crysta. What I call vampire taillights.
That said, indicator lights on a lot of vehicles seem a bit too small to be safely spotted at a distance.
And in general, most headlights and taillights are beginning to look boring and similar now.
Got me wondering if designers were close to exhausting shape/ design possibilities with the current technology?
They seem to have tried most imaginable possibilities in triangular, circular and trapezoidal.
If I were to predict what might be next in automotive light design, I’d imagine they will be light modules covered by the vehicle body, allowing designers to play with more shapes/ patterns by cutting out the body itself, without being limited by the available lighting tech and shapes, or ending up looking similar to the competition.
There have been aftermarket products like this chrome-effect, ABS Plastic cover above, that addresses this need. But perhaps going forward, it will become an integrated part of the manufacturing process itself, making use of the car body to create more unique light cluster designs.
Do you feel there’s room for improvement in the existing vehicle lights cluster?
A 2020 Hyundai Sonata here with interesting but not completely unique taillights.
Pic: AutoGuide
India – More highways or Better National & Public Transport?
This is an email I had sent to our Minister for Road Transport & Highways in January this year. Of course I am still optimistic (or delusional) enough to hope for a response or an opportunity to further discuss this topic. Either way, I hope they at least consider it for a moment.
—email–
I have two thoughts to share with regard to your ministry’s awe-inspiring INR 3.3 lakh crore highway development plan [23 highways, 4-5 years]. It might help to reconsider the scale of the projects.
Please consider these two historical events:
Scenario 1: In the late 1800’s, electric car prototypes existed [William Morrison and others]. But given limited research and push, fuel-powered cars won, leading to a century of polluting vehicles and climate damage.
Imagine the world today if a more long-term view was taken in the late 1800’s and electric vehicles were pursued and developed!
Scenario 2: In the 1950’s, a few leaders and businesses saw great potential for plastic in consumer goods. Almost instantly, entire industry sectors were created around plastic goods and packaging. Half a century later, our helpless dependence on plastic continues, and its resulting ecological disaster is becoming irreparable.
Imagine the world today if a more long-term view was taken in the 1950’s and plastic was to be used sparingly and responsibly!
Sir, we are now at a similar crossroads with regard to vehicles in India. And you have the power to choose one of two possible routes for us. Please let it be the one that remains relevant half a century later.
Here are two thoughts for your consideration:
1. As autonomous vehicles become prevalent in the next 1-2 decades, we will most likely shift from a car ownership to a Transportation as a Service (TaaS) model, taking the usage efficiency from the current ~10% to ~90%. With this, the total number of cars needed could reduce to 1/5th its current growing demand [Ref.: https://www.slideshare.net/Ideafarms/transportation-2050-the-future-of-personal-mobility ]
While cargo related road expansion plans could continue as planned, if we only add sufficient road infrastructure for passenger cars to factor a future TaaS model, our planned highways might not need to be as wide as planned, and the project cost need not be as high as it is.
2. India, compared to North America, has four times the US population living on an area that is 1/3rd that of the US landmass. Therefore, higher individual ownership of vehicles made more sense in the US given the distance between people and places.
The Indian scenario is quite opposite. Many people on a smaller land mass. This means, a world class national and state based public and private mass transportation would be a more logical option to pursue than individual car ownership. If we simply build wider highways and push car ownership from an auto industry that is largely dependent on a captive domestic market but struggles to compete globally, we would end up with (i) an inefficient auto industry, (ii) traffic-jammed cities and towns, and (iii) huge, inefficiently used automotive assets sitting idle at homes and offices. We might lose our global efficiency and edge due to challenges this inefficiency would present not necessarily now, but in the decades to come.
So, if we create more efficient public and private mass transportation infrastructure like Singapore today, we can save investments on the current highway projects by making them more future-efficient. And the saved funds could be diverted to boost relevant economy sectors that will give us a global edge in the coming decades, while creating more efficient lives in a cleaner and traffic-free India.
I recently saw this video of a ENGESA Mercedes truck. Something obviously very fascinating about it. So I thought I’d attempt to recreate it in some way, using Lego. This is a quick, crude first attempt. I clearly don’t have enough relevant pieces.
Below was an improved variant to the earlier one. The last model was built simply to see the beauty of the multi-axle movement. But the last version hadd traction/ground clearance issues, as the wheels would hit the undercarriage at certain tilts. So I went a step further and replicated the rear multi-axle on the front too. And, the cab roof sloped up (for better aerodynamics).
And, a final variant of my idea of an ENGESA Mercedes truck, before I was done with this concept. This one has a double swivel multi-axle and a horizontal swivel link after the cab, to allow it to turn better.
Own, manage or work at a company that is grappling with business challenges, or needs more innovation for growth? Get in touch! More here.
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About a month ago, Honda introduced a new concept airbag for their vehicles. The challenge for them, was protecting drivers from angular collisions. In such cases, the driver’s head seemed to slide off the airbag and cause injury.
The inspiration for them…Baseball mitts (or gloves).
The result. A frontal airbag system that deploys three sub-airbags that secure the head similar to how a baseball is caught.
After you check out the video below, is another challenge I was wondering about.
Here’s something I’ve been wondering about.
When an airbag deploys, there is a rapid inflating of the airbag [more on how that works, here], and a more gradual but simultaneous deflation by way of tiny holes in the airbag. This is to reduce the damage done by the face hitting the inflating airbag.
Shorter people are closer to the steering wheel, and therefore the airbag.
Which brings me to a question. Since short adults driving are closer to the steering wheel, from where the main airbag deploys, is it possible to vary the inflating pressure based on how front or back the driver’s seat is?
Let me know your thoughts.
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
Most of you must have seen this image (or a version of it) in the last few years. I remember a lot of people sharing it or referring to it with almost a sense of pride and relief. It was almost as if the world had found a way to get the rewards without the work. I also remember using it about 2 years ago during my design thinking workshops. My objective was more about slowing down any wild imagination among participants, about creating business models without firm, underlying foundations.
Oddly, this would be the only section or slide that would find a small amount of resistance and counter-views. Apart from the losses Uber was amassing, there wasn’t much else to disprove it. Its valuation certainly fuzzied plain reasoning for many business folk.
And while the jury’s still out on the success or failure of Uber, I’ve been trying to see if there are any indicators in their drivers’ views.
On a recent Uber ride, the driver was telling me about their reducing margins. How Uber initially started with a very lucrative 15% (share of revenues Uber retained, leaving the rest for the driver partner). And how, with time, that share has increased to 20, 25, and now 28%. I also inquired about why I was often getting surge prices in the afternoons.
The driver explained that they prefer the mornings and evenings because of surge pricing. And since their revenue sharing is lower now, a lot of them go home to rest in the afternoons. A few afternoons ago, the app showed nearly half a dozen cars around me. Yet it took an hour of trying to get a confirmed booking. And the few drivers who cancelled, suspiciously called to ask where I was going, before cancelling. And recently, a few drivers have also asked how much I was being charged for the ride. Something never discussed before.
In an earlier post, I shared a story of another company before Uber, that perhaps did not have a good pulse on its different stakeholders. And how it eventually disappeared from this space in the face of Uber. By these recent signs, seems that if Uber doesn’t disrupt itself, someone soon enough might.
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
We live in strange times. And in interesting and amusing times.
A recent article I read, spoke about how most automotive manufacturers are misleading (or are confused themselves), when they claim to offer autonomous driving features in their vehicles.
Their mindset seems hugely flawed, if not shocking. Article here
Don Norman could have a field day ripping this mindset apart.
I have heard numerous stories since when I was a teen. Of people falling off to sleep while driving to or from work in the US. It never made sense to me. However, in the years since, I have seen and personally known fatigue while driving.
I worked in Pune in the manufacturing sector for a year and half. Work largely involved workday trips to relatively far off industrial sectors and every other weekend trips back home, I was mostly driving alone.
Then there were outstation trips, where I would leave early one morning, pick up one or two colleagues, and drive to another city, attend meetings at companies spread across a large industrial sector. The next few days would involve more meetings all day, before either driving back to Pune. Or driving to the next city for an encore. In all, over 33,000 km in under 18 months.
What auto manufacturers apparently offer with autonomous driving, is different versions of driving systems that take care of driving for you. It could be identifying and staying within lanes, measuring vehicular distance and safe braking, and using GPS to drive you to your destination.
You would assume you could completely disconnect and do your thing, as your car takes you places. However, auto manufacturers still expect you to be as alert as if you were driving, in case a sudden manual intervention is needed.
That expectation of theirs is absurd at best.
Humans are either engaged or not. Or as my Statistics professor would often quote the popular idiom, ‘she’s either pregnant or not, there is no somewhat pregnant’.
If you have someone drive a car, you can hope they are awake and alert. And yet there’s no guarantee, proof being the numerous accidents that occur due to distracted driving.
But the moment you are not driving, your brain switches off, or switches to something else. Unless you are a professional rally car navigator, or in the armed forces.
On most long distance drives, be it with friends, family or work colleagues, the person in the passenger seat eventually nods off, and I’m almost certain it is not because of the company.
So, expecting someone not to drive, but have the alertness and rapid response times of someone who is, is asking for a lot!
The biggest reason for this expectation is not so much the flaws or limitations in technology, but rather in human ability and our disposition. Many autonomous vehicle accidents are due to unanticipated human errors – be it pedestrians or other human-driven vehicles.
So the effort should be on improving that unpredictability in erratic human driving, before rolling out technology that could potentially cause fatal harm to customers who come with a very different expectation of the technology than what the manufacturer offers them.
Look at the quality revolution and process improvement. They took industry by storm several decades ago. And their impact on our machines and automated processes is unquestionable. But are we humans more efficient today, or are we far more distracted and poor managers of our time than we were? Phones, entertainment and noise to blame.
Maybe manufacturers are explaining the gaps in tech to customers before the purchase. Maybe even spelling out the risks and precautions to them. But there’s only so much you can change human behaviour in short periods of time.
And finally, it was amusing how this potentially life-threatening flaw got reported. The article was titled, “..a UX risk!” Why dilute a crucial message? It’s a f@€k!^¢ risk to life! Far more than a risk to the customer experience. Can’t have a bad experience if you’re dead. Why not highlight that?
If you own, manage or work at a company, and are grappling with a complex challenge or are in need of innovation for growth, get in touch. More here.
And you might find my book, ‘Design the Future’ interesting. It demystifies the mindset of Design Thinking. Ebook’s on Amazon, and paperbacks at leading online bookstores including Amazon & Flipkart.
The 106 Ladies at the Auto World Vintage Car Museum
I was in Ahmedabad for a meeting earlier this year. Had to visit the Auto World Vintage Car Museum before getting back. With 106 cars there, it is a car-lover’s heaven. The cars are owned by Mumbai-resident Pranlal bhogilal Patel. A must-visit if you find yourself in the city.
Reached the museum around 1:30 pm on a May afternoon. Was probably about 42°C, and the open place just had roofs over the car halls. Had planned to get at least a picture of each of the 106 cars. Hope I did. The phone screen felt like it was on fire, but thankfully it held.
You might want to keep your laptop or phone a little away from you so you don’t drool all over it.
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India has seen an almost meteoric rise in the number of SUVs and compact-SUVs in the last few years. Perhaps the size fits in well with our gradually growing economy, disposable incomes, and egos. Among things that haven’t grown, is our sense of driving and responsible presence on the road.
India’s roads are getting more dangerous. And the higher seated position makes it tougher for SUV drivers to see, especially around the vehicle. Add to this the narrow, blocked or poorly-lit (and therefore unsafe) footpaths/ sidewalks, and you have more and more pedestrians choosing to walk on roads instead.
This is why it becomes even more important for pedestrians walking with small children, to keep them on your side that is away from the traffic. This also means moving them from one side to the other on dividers, when crossing bi-directional traffic. Or carrying them when crossing roads. It is tough enough for drivers of hatchbacks and sedans, thanks to the lack of lane discipline and distracted pedestrians. But it will be more dangerous if pedestrians bank on just the cautiousness of SUV drivers, given their limited proximity view from their high seats. And slightly more so with women drivers.
The image above shows how you should never cross the road when accompanying children. You should be between the children and oncoming traffic.
Here’s an older post highlighting the risk [link here]
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Earlier this year, Tata Motors announced a new brand identity. ‘Connecting Aspirations’. Sounds good, but how well is the company truly connecting aspirations?
For many years now, I have wondered why Tata Motors isn’t among the top 2 selling passenger cars in India. Despite being, what I believe, is a company and group that represents an image of the ideal Indian citizen. Grounded in values, and always striving for the seemingly unachievable; but never at the cost of people, country or values. I have also been concerned about Tata Motors’ preparedness for the future of passenger transportation.
So, a few months ago, I thought of doing a little research into why the brand in general, and its Indian lineup in particular (excluding the JLR lineup) might be coming short, in the face of competition from Maruti and Hyundai. And then in September, I took my views and recommendations and requested one of the former stalwarts of the Tata Group to share the same with their CEO, Mr. Butschek. Subsequently I sent a copy to Mr. Ratan Tata. Didn’t hear back from anyone at Tata Motors. Below are the key points I highlighted on the file I sent them.
On the upside, I found they had a good range of vehicles to cater to a wide economic strata.
On the flipside, I highlighted 3 broad areas of concern, going deeper on some, and making some recommendations for the future. The 3 concern areas were:
Design/ Styling
The Nano
The Indian buyer/ brand perception
Going a little into the details…
The Design/ Styling:
Apart from a general carry-over of styling from their earliest models onto many, if not most of their recent range, in particular, I found something wrong about the Tigor, a car they have a lot of hopes riding on. Even though the company website puts the car in a category/ sub-category of its own called StyleBacks, the design isn’t intuitive. And the company hasn’t taken much efforts in educating the masses either. So most people put it in the compact sedan segment by default. And that’s exactly what I did too. Which brings me to my first recommendation to them.
The above cars (from top to bottom): Tata Tigor, Maruti Swift Dzire, Ford Aspire, VW Ameo, Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent
If you consider the heights and widths of the above popular cars in the compact sedan segment, here’s how they compare.
Numbers in millimeters
My view was that customers who buy sedans are looking for luxury and status, among other aspirations in their car. And one of the key, unexpressed expectations, is a wide and low sedan. The Tigor, however, is exactly the opposite of that. It’s taller than most of its peers, and is narrower too. Could that be a reason it hasn’t become as popular as the company might have wanted it to?
The only other car that probably compares, at least from a thought-process of ‘why’ point of view, is probably the BMW X6, that was first launched sometime in 2008-09. This crossover however, made more logical sense at least, compared to the Tigor. Firstly, it was a merging of the capabilities of an SUV, and the styling of a coupe. While the Tigor tries to do something similar, the concept falls flat when it is done in a category that expects something completely opposite. The X6, compared to peers in its segment (more SUV), is a giant, longer and wider than most SUVs. Which fits in well with what a prospective SUV customer might intuitively want.
Next concern, the Nano:
I have always held that the Nano was, and is a brilliant concept. [also here] Sometimes, the customer is too ignorant to deserve a great product. In India, the Nano is a shining example of that. However, Tata is also been a little vague and limited in marketing it correctly. What I perhaps would have done differently, is dramatically narrowed the target segment, and focused my marketing effort on them. Perhaps college students, or individuals in their first job. This segment is looking for ways to express their individuality. The Nano perhaps could have been that canvas. It would have taken an elaborate but easy-to-use and affordable customization program, but perhaps been worth it.
Finally, the Indian buyer’s perception of the Tata brand:
Well over a decade ago, the Tata lineup was branded by many, as a tourist vehicle brand, despite there being at least one company with a higher share in tourist vehicles. The peculiar Indian customer wants premium and affordable! Even leaps of refinement by the company have been met with disproportionately lower sentiment (and money!) from prospects. Many people continue to paint its new models with the same old brush.
My suggestion was for them to create a new sub-brand, or a new subsidiary, without the Tata name in it. Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, among others pulled it off well. And now, Maruti is trying something similar with the premium Nexa brand.
Tata has futuristic and beautiful cars like the Pixel and Mega Pixel in the lineup. And electric cars in the near future. They should consider introducing it under another brand, to avoid the brand-perception hangover.
Just a week before that, I recently met someone at a Design Thinking workshop I was conducting. She said she used to work at Tata Motors before. Excited, I mentioned having sent some suggestions their way. While she seemed to share the admiration I had for the company, she laughed and said that when it came to new ideas, they ‘were a wall’. For the company’s sake, I hope they’ve evolved since.
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A 2020 Hyundai Sonata here with interesting but not completely unique taillights.
