Another micro-car: The Electra Meccanica 'Solo'

I saw this article from Electrek.co come into my Twitter feed and thought, 'Aha! This is getting close (to my imaginings of a disruptive car)'.  Here is an image of the Electra Meccanica 'Solo'.

The Electrek article goes on to state:

"The automaker has some ambitious specs for the SOLO:

• Top speed: 87 mph (140 km/h)
• Acceleration: 0-100 km/h in 8 seconds
• Range: 100 miles (160 km) on a single charge
• Charging time: 3 hours at 220v, 6 hours at 110v
• Price: USD$15,000 (~CAD$20,000)"

As I have stated here, I believe the price needs to be around USD$10,000 to play into the minds of consumers as a cheap car alternative.

BMW i3 Production Process

Many are wondering whether Apple's collaboration with BMW will give clues as to the future shape of the Apple Car.  Some have even gone on to speculate that Apple may use the BMW i3 as a design or basis for its own electric car. This morning, technology analyst and avid Apple-watcher, Horace Dediu (www.asymco.com) retweeted a 22 minute clip of the BMW i3 production process.  His accompanying tweet cryptically read 'Watching how BMW makes the i3, it's obvious why Apple had a chat.'

From this first clip alone (it is part 1 of 4 clips) we see two very important features of the BMW i3 production:

i) High levels of automation - very few people are involved in a predominantly automated process

ii) High levels of automated carbon fibre production - This is important because carbon fibre is traditionally a cost choke point due to its difficulty of manufacture in large quantities as this quote from Wikipedia suggests (CFRP stands for Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer):

'CFRPs can be expensive to produce but are commonly used wherever high strength-to-weight ratio and rigidity are required...'

It is clear from the video clip that BMW is able to manufacture carbon fibre at scale and that the i3 has a substantial amount of carbon fibre in it.

In an earlier article I speculated that the Apple Car will need to be extremely light, but also extremely strong.  Such a material would cause a 'virtuous cycle' for an electric vehicle of being a) reduced weight since batteries weigh a lot b) better performance through better power to weight ratio c) cheaper as batteries are presently one of the most expensive components of an electric car.

Validated instruments for use in arts impact research

I was putting together a table of various validated instruments which have been or could be used in arts impact research, and thought it might be useful for others working in this area. The table is a list of instruments which can be used to measure empathy, self-esteem and self-efficacy, wellbeing and so on. I have also included links to the instruments if they are available for free or purchase online.

You can access the table in html or pdf.

• Validated Arts Research Instruments Table - html
• Validated Arts Research Instruments Table - pdf

Please feel free to comment - the list is not exhaustive and doubtless there are some in there which have more or less efficacy than others!

Happy measuring :-)

Jackie Bailey, Principal, BYP Group

Can we measure the value of enduring artworks?

(This post is a continuation of my ruminations on Ann Markusen's work)

There is something else I saw in Ann Markusen's report on California's arts and cultural ecology which I found really interesting.

I saw these words:

'California’s arts and cultural nonprofits generate new and enduring artworks—they commission an estimated 41,000 theater, dance, musical compositions, and artworks annually (p.33)'

and had one of those moments of nerdy, impact evaluation realisation (you know the ones ;-).

I have never tried to capture the value of the enduring nature of works of art. Sure, we all talk about heritage value, bequest value etc (thanks to John Holden). But normally when I do impact or value assessments for arts clients, I am very focused on the intrinsic experience of the art and the social, educational and personal outcomes for the participants.

I have always included 'contribution to society and culture' as an element of Artistic Vibrancy (a framework for measuring the health and impact of an arts organisation). But I never thought of measuring the contribution to culture through the creation and continued public experience and enjoyment of enduring works.

How can you value the contribution of Shakespeare, for example? Well, it's invaluable - as you can can always say with the arts. But you can try to translate the value of enduring works into a language that funders can work with ('Invaluable' does not cut it in the Cabinet room).

For example, could you start to count the number of works likely to endure over say, 2, 3, 5 years and longer? You could probably come up with a statistical formula based on big data (PhD project anyone?!) And then how many people are likely to see it, engage with it, perform it, derive some meaning from it, and be transformed by it (a kind of pyramid effect)?

I think this would be completely awesome or terribly hard to believe ,depending on how carefully it is done. There is nothing worse for arguments about arts impact than seemingly ambit claims of creating $X in value. But when it's done well, it's - well, invaluable.

I'd love to hear other evaluators' thoughts on this. Do you think it could be done and done well? Or perhaps it has been done?

Jackie Bailey - Principal, BYP Group

Why it is a good idea to talk about 'ecologies' rather than 'economies' when we talk about the arts

I was just reading some of Dr Ann Markusen's work (Dr Markusen is the Director of the Arts Economy Initiative at the University of Minnesota), as you do. A few things cropped up which I wanted to flag here as interesting which I would love to hear others' thoughts about.

Arts and cultural ecology

In her recent work on the Californian creative economy, Markusen uses the same terminology that arts policy types in Australia have also been using for the last few years - 'ecology' rather than 'economy.' Since at least 2009 (and probably before), people working in arts policy and strategy in Australia have called the arts an 'ecology' or 'ecosystem', as a way to try to capture the the nature of the arts as a system of fluctuating relationships, and the primacy of authentic connection - between artists, organisations, audiences - the list goes on.

This is kind of like my Artistic Vibrancy Onion, so named because I think of the arts as a web of relationships across different layers of society and culture (perhaps Artistic Vibrancy Spiderweb might be more apposite?)

Here is how I tried to conceptualise the arts ecosystem for the Australia Council for the Arts when they asked me to, last year.

I drew it like this because a) I am a pretty crap drawer and b) it seemed a better way to describe the slightly miasmic soup in which artists operate, as opposed to the more traditional supply or value chain diagram of arts production.

The ecology concept allows us to think of arts happening in non-linear ways - as innovation does too. Arts happens in relationships and conversations, as does most human interaction and the fruits of human creativity. Rather than talking about it as an economy, or an industry, the arts is this space, a field (if we are going to get Bourdieuian, and why not?) in which people commune with each other and what's going on inside and outside their heads, hearts and bodies.

Naturally artists also operate as economic actors. And some parts of the arts are industrial and could be described as an industry, which implies the making of stuff and selling it and creating economic value and employment. These terms are used interchangeably, but really depend on the political goal of the conversation. For example, we talk about creative economies when we want to make the point that arts make money and contribute to GDP. We talk about the arts industry for a similar reason - to be able to talk about it in the same breath as the car manufacturing industry, or the pharmaceutical industry.

When to talk about ecologies

And so we talk about creative and cultural ecologies and ecosystems when we want to make a different point. When I use the term arts ecology, I am trying to convey quite a lot in that one word:

1. There are a myriad of inter-related factors that are prerequisites for the making of art. I make this point when advocating to funders to not get rid of one part of the ecology and expect the rest to continue to survive.
2. Artists are not at their core, doing it for the money. Yes, they get paid, and they sell things. But intrinsic motivation is critical to the making of good art. Prioritising process over outcome. Journey vs destination. This is documented in the 'flow' and creativity research (Czsikmihalyi). This could apply to a number of other jobs too. I use the 'ecology' terminology to remind funders and policy makers that they cannot solely rely on industrial or economic rationalist modes of thinking when they make policies about the arts.
3. Audiences are not just 'consumers,' but part of the ecosystem. In the arts, the experience of art is something that happens in a relationship between the art and the audience member. This is partly why products like the iPhone do so well - the makers of that object understood that people are not just consumers, but experiencers, and the 'product' becomes theirs - it changes and is modified by the person experiencing it. It's the same with art - art cannot exist in a vacuum - it is experienced and therefore 'created' by everyone who experiences it.
4. I know this sounds a bit fluffy, but it is essential to understand that the relationship between an artist and their work, the work and the audience, the artist and the audience, is a gift relationship as well as a consumer transaction. This means that audiences open themselves up and give something of themselves, more than just the money for the show. You see this understanding spreading to other sectors, like artisan foods and wines, or handmade gift products - people understanding that people don't want to be mere consumers, - they want the things they eat and buy to be extensions of their identities, a gift to themselves or a gift of themselves to others. (OK, I might be writing my dissertation on art and writing as a gift. But you get my point!)

Jackie Bailey - Principal, BYP Group

Film-makers as fluffy artists or tough-minded operators - you be the judge

This article has been summarised at Urban Cinefile. I am uploading it here, importing from our old website, because it has some still-useful insights from still-expert experts.  The clue was on the flyer: a picture of the hairless Sphynx, one of the world’s jarringly un-fluffiest of cats. At the 2012 AFTRS seminar, “Not Fluffy: Reimagining the Creative Enterprise,” six of Australia’s leading researchers in screen business each tried to answer the question: are screen practitioners fluffy-minded artists?  Or are they like the Sphinx  – tough-minded creatures, with little more than their keen nose for a business opportunity to protect them from the ravages of a competitive industry?

David Court: The King’s Men – Five great lessons from William Shakespeare’s theatre company

David Court, the Head of the Centre for Screen Business at the AFTRS, explained to the gathering of 30 screen producers and practitioners that even the great artists like Shakespeare are not as fluffy as everyone might think.

According to David, William Shakespeare’s theatre company, 10% owned by the Bard himself, was run in a most pragmatic fashion.  The Bard’s first company, “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men,” faced a steep rent increase.  At that point, pragmatic Shakespeare brought in a gang of “strong men” who pulled the theatre apart, from pillar to post, then re-assembled the theatre across the river.  The newly assembled theatre was renamed “The Globe.”

Shakespeare then tapped into what we would now call “market segmentation.”  He established a new theatre within the exclusive, and expensive, precinct of The City of London. The Globe charged only 1 penny for admission, whilst the newly built Blackfriar’s Theatre, with its smaller capacity, charged a steeper entry price of sixpence.  By setting up in a more expensive location and charging a higher entrance price, Shakespeare and his theatre company, now called “The King’s Men”, took what was then an art form for the masses into “high art”, for an elite and wealthy audience.  Think Woolworths, selling apples for $2.98 a kg, and its high-end store, 50 metres away, selling them for $5.98 per shiny punnet.

David dispels the myth of the artist as “a lonely man (and then, it was typically a man), sweating away at his art in a dusty garret.”  He blames this common, but misguided belief, on Romantic era thinkers such as Lord Byron, and later repeated by non-artists such as John Maynard Keynes in his acceptance speech for the position of Director of the British Arts Council.

David suggests that at least Shakespeare clearly did not conform to this stereotype. Shakespeare worked closely with his troupe of actors, borrowing liberally from other creative sources, and repurposing old material.  This was a great artist, and one actively engaged with realizing his art in a practical, and responsive business-like fashion.

David draws out five business lessons for screen practitioners from Shakespeare’s story:

1. Build common purpose companies.  David sees Matchbox Pictures, Cordell-Jigsaw and Zapudra’s Other Films (Andrew Denton’s production company) as local examples of this.
2. Negotiate terms of trade.  Clearly, The King’s Men were not passive in accepting the terms dealt them, but David sees too many filmmakers prepared to accept less than profitable deals “just to see their films released.”
3. The Audience is the Asset
4. Build the Brand
5. Embrace the Business

Box Office Prophecy, presented by Dr Jordi MacKenzie

Dr Jordi MacKenzie of Sydney University is trying to bring some predictability and measurability to estimates of likely box office takings of a yet-to-be-released feature film.  The boldness of this experiment flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says box office earnings of a film are too unpredictable to allow meaningful forecasts.

The study, now in its 5th year has managed to strip back the information required to make accurate predictions about box office to nothing more than the key cast and crew list.  Good results have also been obtained with only a small number of screen industry participants, sometimes as few as 10 in each “game”.

The researchers have found a correlation of r = 0.95 between actual box office results and their predictions.  In statistics-land, this is very, very robust.  A correlation of ‘1’ is a perfect correlation, with ‘0’ being no correlation – and a correlation like what Jordi and his co-researchers obtained is virtually unheard of in natural phenomena.

The question researchers asked participants was not “What do you think [film X] will make at the box office?”, but “What do you think others will think this film makes at the box office?”  This was a conscious attempt to divine the “Wisdom of the Crowd” phenomenon.  In academic-speak they call it a “pari-mutuel” technique.

Another benefit of the study in using this technique is that they were able to have the predictions naturally render themselves into probability distributions, rather than a single point prediction.  This enabled the researchers to then quantify the uncertainty surrounding each prediction.

Whilst his statistical figures were too small for me to scrutinize from my vantage point, Jordi is confident that the research team has found a methodology that could be extremely useful in guiding early investment and financing decisions of individual film projects.

For those who are curious, the research paper is available online for free and entitled: “Nobody knows anything? Applying pari-mutuel information aggregation mechanisms to the motion picture industry.”

Copyrighting the Future, presented by Professor Michael Fraser

Professor Michael Fraser of the University of Technology Sydney next took the lectern and argued quietly but forcefully for a copyright registration database, which he dubbed the “National Content Network” (NCN).

The professor is realistic about the environment that faces IP enforcement, acknowledging that enforcement causes alienation within society.  This is because digital film piracy is practiced by 1 in 3 of the population. Consequently, in his words, “enforcement alone won’t fix this market failure.”

Michael proposes a solution, simply stated:  “Creators have to offer a better service.”  His National Content Network would give both consumers and creators what they want.  Creators want to be paid for their IP.  But what do consumers want?  According to Michael, they will pay for:

-       Instant access

-       Freedom to repurpose the material (“mash-up”)

-       All of this in one transaction

Of copyright’s importance, Michael says that a fair and enforceable copyright law was the essential ingredient to the Industrial Revolution.  He noted Imperial China had copyright law well before Europeans, however, it gave all copyright to the Emperor.  British law dating from the late 17th century on the other hand specifically protected a citizen’s intellectual property (IP).  It was this difference, he feels, that allowed the West to surpass China in technological terms, and how it came to dominate the World.

To further support his argument, he referred to Article 27 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the effect that “If you can’t make a living from your work, you are silenced.”

Creative Futures – presented by Tony Shannon

Tony Shannon, Acting Director of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) described some of the work they are doing for the Creative Industries (CI’s).  According to Tony, all of the creative industries seem to struggle with a basic level of business-mindedness.

Tony urges creative businesses to make use of resources on the CIIC website (www.creativeinnovation.net.au) such as the Revenue Master.  As simple – and he himself admits, simplistic - as the tool is, he says it is too often that he comes across creative businesses that have not done a basic revenue forecast of this nature.

Tony mentioned an analysis which I am currently working on with CIIC.  We are looking at Centre’s findings across the hundreds of creative industry business reviews which the Centre has done over the last three years.   The picture which is emerging is that creative businesses’ key challenges arise because of weaknesses in business fundamentals, such as strategic planning, sales, finance and systems and processes.

Whilst the study does not yet include the screen sectors, Tony and the audience speculated as to how much these attributes of the broader creative industries might apply to the screen industry.

For Love and Money – presented by Simon Molloy

Simon Molloy spoke on the topic of “Psychic Income”.  Psychic income is the difference between what a producer does earn through their films, and what they could earn in an alternative profession.

In 2007, AFTRS surveyed 4,500 Australian producers.  The survey found that Australian producers work for love and not money, sacrificing professional careers and tens of thousands of dollars in incomes in other fields to become screen producers.  Drawing from and building upon results from the 2007 survey, Simon is investigating and attempting to be more precise about the reasons why Australian producers forego such large amounts of money.

Whilst Simon was reluctant to testify to the rigour of this research by conventional academic economic journal standards, he takes heart from the achievements of Daniel Kahneman, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2002.  A psychologist by training, Kahneman is recognized for his work in disproving the economic rationalist assumption that all people work in an economically rational self-interested manner.

For more information, see Urban Cinefile’s previous article on psychic income at http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=18807&s=Features.

Insights into the changing roles of producers in the new Australian screen culture, presented by Professor Deb Verhoeven

To avoid what Deb, Chair of Media and Communication at Deakin University, self-deprecatingly described as “an incredibly boring talk about data”, she refocused her question to “How do you survive as a screen producer in a hostile IP environment?”

In a vein strikingly resonant with that of Professor Fraser earlier in the day, Deb argued that what matters in this new environment is the “interoperability of content with data.”  This ‘interoperability’ has 3 layers:

1. Copyright owners must align their content with archival facilities
2. Copyright owners must align their content on a semantic level
3. Sharing of data

Deb foresees the second layer as the most difficult.  She says it will involve standardizing meanings, which will require an army of what is known in academic circles as ‘ontologists.’  The layperson would probably identify them as the humble librarian or “information manager”.

The upshot of the above she says, is that we should be thinking more about production workflows (e.g. AGILE production techniques, Just-in-time (JIT) film production etc) instead of just production or distribution.

Deb’s notion of “interoperability” predicts that the difficulty in Michael’s National Content Network (NCN) will likely be setting up definitions and standards.  I asked Prof Fraser if he knew Deb’s talk was going to align with his work so neatly.  He confessed he didn’t, but added wryly, “We nearly embraced after her talk.”

Panel Discussion:  How can Australian screen businesses become more sustainable, profitable and long-lived?

The panel consisted of Sandra Levy, CEO, AFTRS, Brian Rosen, President, Screen Producers Association Australia (SPAA), Neil Peplow, Producer and Director of Screen Content at the AFTRS, Dr Chris Burton, UTS Business School, David Court, AFTRS Centre for Screen Business.

The usual questions populated this discussion, such as “What is the correct business model for screen content creators?”, “What will happen to the independent film?” (left unanswered), and “How do we lift the Australian screen industry out of being a cottage industry and what is the role of Government in this?”

On the correct business model for screen content creators, Brian Rosen ventured that television has it pretty much right, with pay TV operators like HBO branding high quality content, and broadcast television producing “event” television.

One upshot of this for the feature film industry, is that he suspects there is a gap emerging in the film market at the $20-25 million budget level.  This is because Hollywood’s response to the paradigm shift occurring in media has been to make big “event” movies, with lots of CGI.  It was not mentioned in the discussion, but there was a pre-World Wide Web precedent for this gap in the Working Title films (e.g. Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Merchant Ivory films of the 80’s and 90’s (e.g. A Room with a View).  The success of these films probably prompted the studios to create spin-off specialty studios such as Rogue Pictures, Miramax (created by the Weinstein brothers, but later purchased and remodeled by one of the big studios), and Fox Searchlight.

With regards to the last question, on “How do we lift the Australian screen industry out of being a cottage industry, and what role does Government play in this?”, it was Brian Rosen again that ventured an answer.  He argued that to create a viable screen industry like Hollywood, you have to look to what Hollywood has that attracts the best ideas from all over the world.  His answer to that is i) capital and ii) infrastructure.  Consequently, he says it would be better to invest the $42 billion being invested in the National Broadband Network (NBN) instead into film production in Australia.  This would attract film productions from all over the world, and the rest would follow.

The main disagreement (and there were many) between the panellists and some audience members appeared to revolve around the “business-mindedness” or otherwise of screen practitioners.  Leading the “for” camp was Sandra Levy, who claims that the producers she has seen in her career, both in television networks and as CEO of the AFTRS have always “been market savvy, known their audience and are highly entrepreneurial in getting their films to market.”  This was a claim supported by David Court’s own view of his AFTRS students.

On the “against” camp, i.e. screen practitioners do not appear to be business-minded, was Tony Shannon and other members of the audience.  Clearly, Tony Shannon’s experience of creative industry practitioners, as well as Simon Molloy’s presentation would appear to suggest there is some evidence for this position too.

One attendee commented after the event that one of the statements by the panelist Neil Peplow was telling of a non-commercial mentality typical amongst even successful film producers such as Neil.  Neil was describing the ravaging effects of piracy on his film income.  He said that his film, Waking Ned Devine, had been illegally downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.  “If”, he speculated, “every one of those illegal downloads were to be charged 50 cents, I would nearly have made a profit on my film!”  The suggestion was made by the attendee that if Neil were truly “business-minded”, he would have been seeking to make millions rather than just breaking even.  If this assertion is correct (and let’s give Neil the benefit of the doubt here – he was speaking off the cuff and his statement could equally be interpreted as a keen desire to redeem money from an irredeemable situation), then it is a mentality that runs against the lessons from David Court’s paper that a good creative business should be prepared to “negotiate its terms of trade”.

Perhaps though, the two opposing opinions can be reconciled.  My own penny’s worth (or sixpence, if I was feeling especially wealthy in Shakespeare’s time): most Australian screen practitioners make films for love and not money.  It’s such hard work that your heart has to be in it.  However, once they have made a film, they can and do work in entrepreneurial and business-savvy ways to bring their film to a paying audience.

Yen Yang - Principal, Creative Industries, BYP Group

Appreciative Inquiry - change and evaluation rolled into one

We are often asked about the different types of evaluation approaches.  We will try to summarise them from time to time here, on our site, and hope this helps people sort through the jargon of evaluation and get to the bottom of what suits you and your needs best. We have started with an explanation of Appreciative Inquiry, because I was asked about it at a presentation in Melbourne to arts organisations.

What is an Appreciative Inquiry Evaluation?[1]

An Appreciative Inquiry evaluation is based on the principles of Appreciate Inquiry (AI), an organizational development method which is focused on building on what an organization does well.  The principles of AI are summarized below.

In an AI evaluation, evaluators and participants work together to share their views of the present, and “co-create” the future. An AI evaluation does not ignore problems, but approaches them as opportunities for change.

In an AI evaluation, the evaluator and participants:

• become fully engaged in the learning journey
• work to “co-create” the future
• acknowledge that there are multiple, equally valid interpretations of reality
• share their individual interpretations of reality, with an aim to gain a shared understanding of experiences
• envision possible positive futures which build on present strengths
• use language and foster relationships which create that positive future

In a pure AI evaluation, traditional evaluative methods – eg qualitative and quantitative research – are used only as the need arises, and are driven by participants.

Principles of Appreciative Inquiry

“Appreciative inquiry” is an approach to evaluation based on the assumption that an organization wants to improve.  Accordingly, the evaluation has a fundamentally positive focus on what the organization does well, and how it can build on this.

The core principles of Appreciative Inquiry are:

1. Constructionist principle: people’s realities are “constructed” through their social interactions.
2. Simultaneity principle: change and inquiry are simultaneous.  Inquiry can itself effect change.
3. Poetic principle: the “story” of an organization is a product of the ongoing narrative of its members and others.
4. Anticipatory principle: envisioning a positive future can help to guide people towards one.
5. Positive principle: focusing on the positive can help create a positive energy for the future.
6. Wholeness principle: wholeness brings out the best in people, so supporting people to share the whole story from a position of individual wholeness can build a “collective capacity for change.”
7. Enactment principle: positive change occurs when people create the future through their words, images and relationships.
8. Free choice principle: free choice stimulates positive change and liberates personal and organizational power.

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[1] This explanation of AI is drawn from Howieson, Jill, “A Constructive Inquiry approach: blending Appreciative Inquiry with traditional research and evaluation methods,” Evaluation Journal of Australasia, 11(2) 2011.

The Artistic Vibrancy Onion

I keep coming back to the artistic vibrancy framework in my work for arts organisations, and hearing of how it has been adopted across Australia and overseas. I thought it might be time to unleash my Onion of Artistic Vibrancy on to the unsuspecting arts world. When I was at the Australia Council for the Arts, I worked with the performing arts sector to develop an artistic vibrancy framework.  For a long time, the arts organisations and funders had struggled to articulate artistic merit.  We needed a shared language to talk about, and to some extent, evaluate, measure or at least record, artistic vibrancy.

We identified five core elements of artistic vibrancy:

• Great Art

• Great Artists

• Engaged Audiences

• Engaged Communities

• Vibrant Society and Culture

Great Art

This is about how well you do your art - eg your technical proficiency as an orchestra or the production values of your play.  Your peers are probably the best people to ask, eg through peer review, benchmarking against organisations you are like or which you aspire to be like, or less formal conversations.

It also refers to how well you contribute to your artform. Again, your artistic peers would be the ones to comment on this, as well as the community of the artform you are in and the artists you work with. You could do this via interviews, conversations, a peer committee, and opportunistic conversations eg with visiting experts or well-respected guest artists.

Great Artists

This refers to your organisation's contribution to the development of artists.  Your artistic peers, sector experts and the artists themselves would be the best placed people to talk to about how well you are doing in this area - eg through conversations, a peer review panel, and artist surveys.

Engaged Audiences

This is a question for the audience of your work - either for live performances, readers of your books, or online viewers or listeners to your music.  We want to find out how emotionally moved, intellectually stimulated, challenged and captivated they were by your artwork, coining Alan Brown's language or artistic impact.  The best people to ask about this are the audience members, via interviews or a survey.

Engaged Communities 

This is about your organisation's connection to its community beyond the audience. For example, an orchestra can be relevant to its wider community through education programs, or perhaps through programming decisions to engage target groups.  "Community" can be your organisation's target communities, eg disadvantaged youth or particular ethnic groups, or it could refer to your local community or your entire nation.  The key question is to ask how relevant you are to these people.  And the best people to ask are naturally the community members you are interested in connecting with.  You can do this via open days, community surveys and community consultations, or perhaps conversations with community representatives.

The above is a quick summary.  There are a bunch of resources and 2 e-books which I worked on with the Australia Council, designed to help organisations reflect on their own artistic vibrancy and engage with communities.

The onion of artistic vibrancy

AV-Onion

Now we come to the onion.

My underlying idea when developing the artistic vibrancy framework, is that arts organisations are all about relationships.

We can think about these relationships as a series of concentric circles, like an "onion."

At the core of the onion is the organisation's relationship with the artform itself.  For example, 'excellence of craft' is really about a strong relationship with the artform, as is the 'development or preservation of the artform'.

At the next ring out is the organisation's relationship with itself.  This includes the organisation as an idea, a brand and an institution, as well as the organisation's more tangible connection with its own staff, both artistic and non-artistic.

Then we move to the organisation's relationship with artists who may be external to the organisation, and the wider artistic community.  The organisation always sits in relation to its "field," to be Bourdieu-ian about it.

At the next level is the organisation's connection with its audience - those who watch, listen and experience the art.

Then we have the 'community relevance' layer, which is the skin, the interface between the 'inner onion' and the wide world.  This is about the relationship of the organisation and its work with its identified community and specific communities of interest.

Next is the general public - those who might see or hear some of the 'art' created, or might walk past the gallery or exhibition and imbibe, by osmosis, some benefit or challenge from the existence of the art (ambient participation, according to Alan Brown, or institutional value, according to John Holden).

And then there is the air, the wide wide world in which the onion sits - the relationship with society and culture.

Why the onion is a useful tool

By conceptualising it this way, arts organisations can start to map their own efforts and energy when it comes to each dimension of vibrancy. If you wanted to, you could actually draw an onion and map your resources and programs on to it, to see where you might be strongest or where you might want to concentrate more energy.

The layers don't have to represent waning connection the further out you go.  Your aim is to have strong weaves between all layers.

This could be a useful way of communicating your organisation's foci to others.  Importantly, it is a good way to understand yourself, keeping the art at the heart of the onion but strongly weaving its connection to all layers.

Jackie Bailey - Principal, BYP Group

A Good Summary of the Chinese 'Maker' Scene

Most people know that if you are an entrepreneur or businessperson who needs something made, you go to China - the manufacturing hub of the World.  As one Western friend reported to me 8 years ago upon returning from his first trip to Suzhou, 'You think of anything, it can be made in three days!' However, going to China may be confusing for most Westerners.  This article from TechCrunch, entitled 'The Six People you meet in Shenzhen' summarises what to expect and resonates deeply with the types of people my friend described meeting in his week in Suzhou.

The Verge article 'This tiny electric car could be the future ...'

The Verge article, entitled 'This tiny electric car could be the future of urban transportation' echoes my own articles here and here from a couple of weeks ago. (You heard it here first. ;-). )

 

Modelled on the Renault Twizy (also mentioned in that piece) Nissan is conducting research & trials around the very questions I raised, for example:

 

- Business model: subscription?

- [From the article] "Is this a real trend? What would make a better product [for Nissan], if we need a better product? Is there interest? What are the demographic breakdowns? How do younger people use it, how do older people use it? How do females use it? How do males use it? How do those that are mobility challenged use it?"( checkout this for one example of the 'Cambrian explosion' of electric vehicles that emerged in the past few years)

 

Note also the criticisms of the vehicle by the writer and how they echo the troubleshooting I described will need to be done to provide a comparable user experience to a car. From the article:

 

'One of the models comes with a rear seat, but good luck comfortably fitting a full-grown adult back there for more than a few miles. And there are no side windows, so you're probably going to want to avoid driving one in anything other than the best weather.'

As I argued in those earlier posts, these are precisely the types of issues Apple or some other prospective disruptor would need to solve. i.e. make the new personal transport vehicle as easy and comfortable to use as a car (or easier), and make it more convenient to park, drive, maintain and own.

Andy Grove's legacy - a (slightly) dissenting view

With the recent passing of former Intel CEO, Andy Grove, there have been many tributes to his remarkable abilities and achievements,[1] not least of all, his ability to admit that he was wrong.[2]

This article is not going to say anything to attempt to detract from the great man he was, and his incredible achievements. But in the harsh glare of history, there was one key mistake he made that is oft overlooked. This article will examine that mistake with the benefit of ‘20/20 hindsight’.

A Great Legacy: Avoiding Disruption Pt 1

Firstly though, we should put into context Grove’s achievements which were truly World transforming. Grove is credited with being the man to execute upon his predecessor, Gordon Moore’s, famous ‘Moore’s Law’[3] . It was under Grove’s reign that much of this was achieved.

Tributes extend even further, to Grove’s epitomizing and propagating Silicon Valley’s culture of continual, relentless improvement. Also, when faced in the 1970’s with the existential threat of Japanese competitors ‘dumping’ dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips - Intel’s core market at the time - it was Grove who suggested leaving the DRAM market to refocus upon the fledgling microprocessor business. One disruption event avoided!

The Celeron Chip

And again in 1997, Grove famously invited Clayton Christensen, the author of a now seminal book, ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ and the man attributed with coining the term ‘disruption’ in the sense we know it today, to speak to his employees. As this story from the New Yorker recounts:

‘Grove had sensed that something was moving around at the bottom of his industry, and he knew that this something was threatening to him, but he didn’t have the language to explain it precisely to himself, or to communicate to his people why they should worry about it. He asked Christensen to come out to Intel, and Christensen told him about the integrated mills and the mini mills, and right away Grove knew this was the story he’d been looking for.’[4]

From this meeting, it is said Grove famously decided to produce the Celeron chip – a cheaper, lower-powered chip than Intel’s core offering at the time.

The Orthodox View: Grove’s successor, Paul Otellini made the big miss for Intel

Consequently, Intel’s big ‘miss’, of not picking the mobile chip market, is seen as the fault of Grove’s successor, Paul Otellini.   A typical account is that portrayed by one of my favourite analysts, Ben Thompson on his Stratechery website, in this case relating a story told by Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic:[5]

‘There is a sense, though, that the company’s strategic position is much less secure than its financials indicate, thanks to Intel’s having missed mobile.

The critical decision came in 2005; Apple had just switched its Mac lineup to Intel x86 processors, but Steve Jobs was interested in another Intel product: the XScale ARM-based processor.

The device it would be used for would be the iPhone. Then-CEO Paul Otellini told Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic what happened:

“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do…At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”’

Since that time, ARM Holdings have gone on to become ‘market dominant in the field of processors for mobile phones (smartphones or otherwise) and tablet computers.’ [6]

My dissenting view: Grove made the big miss for Intel

In contrast to this mainstream view, I argue that it was actually upon Grove’s watch that the mistake was made. In my opinion, it was at that fateful meeting between Christensen and the people at Intel in 1997, that a proper understanding of disruption theory as we now come to know it[7] would have pointed to the likely disruptor of Intel’s core business.

It appears that all Grove and his people took away was that the disruption was going to ‘come from below’ i.e. a cheaper competitor. Intel responded with the cheaper Celeron offering.

However, this was not the paradigmatic shift in thinking that Disruption Theory truly requires. Disruption Theory[8] goes further to suggest that the competitor was likely to be so ‘asymmetric’ that the incumbent would not even think of the disrupting force as a threat.

Disruption: Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s) morph into Smartphones

In 1997 the eventual disruptor was already beginning to take shape in the form of personal digital assistants (PDA) handheld computers such as the ‘PalmPilot’[9].

With their puny processing power, limited functionality and gray-scale LCD screens, they were clearly no threat to the mighty Pentium processors for which Intel is still famous.[10] But in time, these PDA’s would become the basis for the first smartphones such as the Handspring Treo 180[11] which used the PalmOS operating system.

Disruption: About the business model, not just the technology

What is more, ‘disruption’ in the Christensen sense also tends to come with a new business model. In other words, it is not just the technology that disrupts, but the business models that the technology enables that do the disrupting. Think Dell’s business model (selling personal computers online sales) to the conventional retail model adopted prior to that point.

ARM Holding’s business model is a classic case of this. Rather than investing hundreds of millions in a chip fabrication plant, instead they focused upon licensing the designs of the chips for others to fabricate.

To be fair to Grove, it is impossible to be omniscient – especially after he managed to avoid one major disruption. Instead, I look at the contribution (or failure?) by Christensen, who in his account[12] of the meeting professed to his clients at Intel that he didn’t know anything about the chip industry. But even a rudimentary understanding of the chip industry would have suggested the Achilles Heel of the chip industry was in the expense of the chip fabrication process. This barrier to market entry, or ‘moat’ would be flipped on its head by a business model such as ARM Holdings’.

These two clues – the easily dismissed processors in the meager hand-held devices, and the inversion of the business model of processors – should be apparent to anybody studying disruption theory today. However, we cannot blame Andy Grove for not being able to better articulate the ‘gut feeling’ he had in the late 90’s that disruption was about to befall Intel, when the father of Disruption Theory himself was still decades away from being disrupted on this point. Grove and Christensen, both great men, but not infallible.

[1] http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/21/silicon-valley-legend-and-former-intel-ceo-andy-grove-passes-away-at-79/

[2] http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-andy-grove-came-fortune-refused-meet-editors-rik-kirkland

[3] "Moore's law" is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

[4] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/14/when-giants-fail

[5] https://stratechery.com/2016/andy-grove-and-the-iphone-se/

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings

[7] Arguable one more sophisticated than even Christensen himself understands – See my earlier post citing the Techcrunch article that points this out.

[8] http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot

[10] Grove is also credited with the ‘Intel Inside’ and Pentium promotion that made ordinary consumers stop and consider the CPU in their machines.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handspring_(company). Nerd that I am, I owned one of these when they first came out.

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

Specifications of the Apple Car

In this piece I drill deeper into speculating what the Apple Car may be like, contemplating its likely specifications and performance characteristics, based upon existing cars. Following on from my piece that sought to describe the physical parameters of the Apple Car, in this piece I go one step further (too far?) and attempt to apply performance characteristics to the Apple Car. Using specifications from existing and upcoming micro-cars (REFERENCE LINK), I attempt to extrapolate the likely possible specifications for a future ‘disruptive’ micro-car[1], scheduled for 2019-21 release.[2] The existing micro-cars that I referred to, and their specifications can be found on the next blog post here.

For the purposes of our exercise, we anticipate that the future ‘disruptive’ vehicle will have the following characteristics:

Passengers: 1 adult (with some type of convoying technology required to link other cars of the same type, either ‘in-line’ or side-by-side.) In Australia research suggests that over 90% of trips only carry the driver.[3] But note, that percentage would count a trip to drop off the kids at school as 2 trips, with one of those trips, the return trip, likely to be only 1 passenger.]

Dimensions: Not much bigger than an electric wheelchair – perhaps slightly longer and wider for safety reasons and cargo capacity i.e. Length: Approx 1.5 to 1.6m; Width: Approx 1m: Height, Approx 1.35 to 1.6m (similar to a Mini, 1.4m, or ‘Smart Fortwo’, 1.56m)

Weight: Less than one quarter the weight of a conventional family sedan, or 300-450kg; Less is more due, to the weight of batteries. I anticipate it to use super-strong lightweight materials like carbon-fibre, perhaps custom-made for the ‘Apple Car’ similar to Gorilla Glass or the gold alloy used in the Apple Watch. Note, the Morgan EV3 is said to be less than 500kg and will be larger than this vehicle. I therefore anticipate it should be capable of reaching 2/3rds to 80% of its weight. However, it is also likely to have more ‘mod cons’ than the Morgan EV3 (e.g. a ‘hardtop’ roof; air conditioning; entertainment system; ‘smart’ technologies/sensors etc, which might take the weight from say, 400kg to 500kg.)

Engine: 30kW to 55kW (I anticipate it to be similar to the electric Smart Fortwo, or slightly less to give it similar performance but with lower weight.)   Weight calculation: [Est. 400kg + 100kg (large male) = ] 500kg vs [880kg +100kg (large male)] = 980kg. Consequently, I anticipate a 30kW engine could have the same performance specifications as the electric Smart Fortwo. Elsewhere I suggest that those performance characteristics are all that are needed.

Battery capacity: Approximately the same as for the Smart Fortwo i.e. 17.6 kW·h lithium-ion battery by Deutsche ACCUmotive^[44]

Range: Approximately 200-300km. This should account for more than 95% of trips.[4] 145 km (90 mi) range is available from the electric Smart Fortwo. Note, the range could be much higher considering the anticipated reduced weight of the proposed Apple Car. Consequently, it may be possible to have a smaller battery, reducing weight considerably. I think the weight/battery/performance/range equation will be a very well optimized balance.

Top Speed: Not capable of doing much more than maximum speed limit in most Western Countries’ i.e. 125 km/h (78 mph). This is the top speed of the electric Smart Fortwo. This speed was chosen because Apple has a strong tradition of not competing in ‘specification wars’, eschewing adding specifications for the sake of them, and instead aiming for qualitative benchmarks. For example, its iPod was not the smallest music player, nor the music player with necessarily the largest memory. Instead it went for ease-of-use. Likewise, the Apple Car will not be built for the purposes of drag-racing conventional motor cars. It just needs to get the passenger/driver from A to B.

Price: Comfortably below multi-passenger micro-cars, with multiple Apple Cars being about the same as a mid-luxury family sedan (e.g. Honda Accord) i.e. Sub US$13,000. Preferably under US$7-10K. Note, because it’s only a single passenger vehicle it may need to be substantially cheaper than most of the two seaters to provide a convincing ‘value proposition’. This is also why the ‘convoying’/platooning capability described in the earlier article is so important. There may also be economic pressures for this vehicle to be a subscription vehicle or some other business model of usage/ownership. (See other article on ‘Thinking behind Apple Car speculation’). Most micro-cars are sub US$15,000. It may be possible to achieve price ranges below US$10K with sufficient economies of scale e.g. Dediu’s suggested ‘1 million car’ mark for an Apple Car to be ‘meaningful’.

Smart Technologies: Pontooning/convoying’ technology will be important to allow for the Apple Car to disrupt the family car. An example of this concept is given for the EO Smart Connecting Car 2.

[1] Due to the highly speculative nature of this article, I am attempting to cover my bases here. Perhaps if Apple doesn’t make this, someone else will???

[2] According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the Apple Car is scheduled to be released in 2019. Dediu notes this usually means the product would be available to the public one year later (2020) at the earliest. More recently, Tim Cook, when asked about the Apple Car did not deny the rumour, but instead implied it was a lot further away than people were expecting, saying: ““Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve, it was so exciting, you weren’t sure what was going to be downstairs? Well, it’s going to be Christmas Eve for a while.” Source: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tim-cook-on-apple-car-its-going-to-be-christmas-eve-for-a-while-2016-2?r=US&IR=T

[3] http://chartingtransport.com/tag/car-occupancy/

[4] http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/efficiency/stop-worrying-your-electric-car-will-have-plenty-of-range and http://jalopnik.com/the-chevrolet-bolt-will-be-a-200-mile-electric-tesla-fi-1678649485

What will the Apple Car look like?

This article provides a playful look at what the Apple Car might look like. For the (slightly) more serious reasoning on how I came to the parameters of the possible Apple Car, please click here and for the performance characteristics click here. For the specifications of existing micro-cars I used as reference points to inform the parameters, please click here.

In this piece, I seek to flesh-out and illustrate the likely ‘envelope’ and specifications of the Apple Car. In an earlier post, I described the broad characteristics of what I imagined the Apple Car to look like, drawing upon the thinking of well-known Apple observer and analyst, Horace Dediu.

Primary Parameters for the Apple Car

Together, Dediu's criteria and my own reasoning pointed towards the primary characteristics relevant to visualizing and specifying the Apple Car as being:

• A small vehicle, likely a ‘microcar’ or ‘autocycle’
• It would fit only one or two people – we will assume one person here
• It was a given that it would use a large amount of ‘smart’ technology e.g. autopilot, collision prevention, auto-balancing/leaning technology etc., but only that likely to be available at its speculated time of release in 2019-2021.
• It would likely be electric
• It would be unlikely to compete with the specifications of a conventional vehicle, making performance trade-offs to more specifically focus upon the job to be done (taking a person from ‘A’ to ‘B’)

  

Dimensions of the Apple Car

Consequently, I arrived at the following dimensions for the future Apple Car (assuming of course, one is ever made):

Length: From 1.2 to 1.6m long or comfortably less than half the length of the average modern family sedan[1]. An important criteria is that the vehicle can park ‘nose to kerb’ and not be wider than a conventional car.

Width: Approx. 1 metre; or more than half but less than 2/3rds the width of the average modern family sedan. This is to enable the division of the regulation traffic lane into two, hence potentially doubling the carrying capacity of existing infrastructure.

Height: 1.35-1.6m or around 10-15cm less than the average modern family sedan. Note this dimension is one of the most constrained due to the assumption of a normal seating position. Going too far from a normal seated position risks alienating many people (the old, inflexible, tall, overweight, unfit, unusually proportioned etc). Historically, this is something Apple has sought to avoid.

[1] For comparison, the Honda Accord is 4.86m long. See the blog post here for the vehicles I have used for reference.

Marc Tarpenning 2013 talk – A summary of thoughts from Tesla Motor’s co-founder

As I have noted elsewhere in this blog, some in the car industry remain skeptical of Apple’s ability to make a great car. Their reasoning is essentially, since Apple has no history in making cars they can’t appreciate the difficulties in making a car. They are mainly software engineers and mobile phone engineers and won’t understand the important mechanical aspects and all other important things in making a great car. This 2013 talk by Marc Tarpenning, one of the co-founders of Tesla Motors, shows how a group of archetypal ‘Silicon Valley types’ did just that. Their cars have won many major car awards.[1] Some interesting thoughts and statistics from the talk:

- Why he formed Tesla Motors: Tarpenning sought to solve a large world problem.  As a firm believer in 'Peak Oil', he thought the electrification of cars would be a worthy problem to solve.  Noting the failure of earlier electric cars, he reasoned that one issue was the misdiagnosis of the true market for electric cars.  Rather than poor people seeking to save on petrol, the experience of the GM Volt and Toyota Prius was that the buyers were mostly wealthy people who were seeking a 'green' car as a type of status symbol.  Thus, he diagnosed the 'job to be done' as being to provide wealthy people with a 'green status symbol'.

- Efficiency/Sustainability of Electric Cars: Early on he answers the question 'Why electric cars?'. Answer: They are much more efficient than petrol. Interestingly, he calculated that even electric cars recharged by coal power plants are better than petrol in terms of efficiency of resource usage.

- Batteries are getting cheaper (and better): Batteries have gotten 7% cheaper every year for many years.   Near the end of his talk he also mentions this decline in price may accelerate due to the 'sheer amount of money they are putting into this thing.' By ‘thing’ he means, for example, the Tesla ‘Gigafactory’[2] and various other large manufacturing facilities that are starting around the World.

- Most car manufacturing is outsourced: In answer to the doubts about whether a newcomer can make a car, the obvious retort is that most of the car business as we know it today is outsourced.  What most car manufacturers actually do is just the internal combustion engine - thus the car company's internal vested interests and politics against electric. The car manufacturers have mostly outsourced the rest.  E.g. Transmission is outsourced.  Styling is frequently outsourced, I already knew things like brakes, suspension, electrical, entertainment systems etc, are outsourced.

- Incumbent car industry inertia - It's 'worse than he thought possible': In response to a question asking how quickly he thinks the incumbent car industry will adapt to change, he is quite clear.  He describes them being 'worse than he thought possible'.  He explains the internal politics that occurs within such incumbent car companies.  From the above point regarding outsourcing, we can see that all that remains of most incumbent car companies is the internal combustion engine engineers.  Tarpenning argues that the internal resistance comes from car companies belated realising they sacked the wrong people.  They got rid of their electrical engineers (through outsourcing), and now would have to admit they were wrong and rehire them.

- Battery companies reawakening by Tesla Motors: Battery companies such as Panasonic and Sony thought their addressable market was to sell 7 battery cells per person (e.g. one in the mobile phone, one in the tablet, etc etc). Tesla Motors advised them that their customers would need 7000 battery cells just for one Tesla car. What happened next is kind of funny.

- Tarpenning isn't always right: Tarpenning got the oil forecast wrong: He got the oil forecast wrong, saying we'd reached 'peak oil'.  The oil price plummeted below the US$60-70/barrel he said it cost to drag this stuff out of the ground. He did not anticipate that about 2 years later, OPEC would slash oil prices to drive out US CSG oil production. The move by OPEC also might be seen as a prescient move against the electrification of cars, which would severely reduce demand for oil. In the US, they use 28% of their energy to move people and goods.[3] Personal vehicles use 60% of that 28%, and buses and trains use 3% of that 28%.

- Where Tarpenning is putting his money: Note also where Tarpenning and his Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard have invested their money – to an electric motorcycle maker called Alta Motors (formerly BRD Motorcycles) which they did in 2014 (Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/10/01/brd-motorcycles-raises-4-5-million-to-ship-its-all-electric-racing-bikes/).  Readers of this blog will already know that I believe disruption of the automotive industry will come from the ‘lower tiers’ of the personal transport vehicle, probably from a vehicle that the incumbents deride as not a threat. Of course, the more obvious play for Tarpenning and Eberhard is to simply do to the motorcycle industry what Tesla Motors did to the sports car industry. However, with the Redshift, released in October 2014,[4] carrying a 5.2kWh battery weighing 70 pounds (approx. 32kg), producing 40hp (roughly 30kW) we are talking about a power plant that is already capable of powering a ‘disruptive’ micro car at acceptable performance specifications as we have envisaged in other posts (e.g. top speed of 110km/h, range >150km etc). Their bikes sell at US$15,000 so we imagine that the greater economies of scale achieved by a consumer motorcar, when compared to a luxury sports bike, it would be possible to bring the price of a ‘future car’ below the critical US$10,000 mark.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors#Model_X

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1

[3] http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-use/transportation/

[4] http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/17/brd-now-altha-motors-reveals-new-redshift-electric-motocross-bike/

Reference vehicles and calculations for my 'Apple Car' model

Below are some of the cars I have used to inform my speculations on the size, shape and characteristics (performance and 'smart' technologies) of the Apple Car.  I have also included the scale calculations for the models I used in my earlier piece.  Together, this data informs my reasoning in the articles posted here and here. Toyota i-Road Concept Car

Toyota has not released full specifications on this vehicle, but they have allowed several test drives mainly for the automotive media since the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.

Development status: Working concept car

Length: 2,345 mm

Width: 870 mm

Height: 1,455 mm

Wheel base: 1,695 mm

Tire size: (Front)80/90-16 (Rear)120/90-10

Minimum turning radius: 3.0 m

Occupancy: Japan:１   Europe:2 *1

Curb weight: 300 kg *2

Powertrain: 2 electric motors

Maximum speed: Japan: 60km/h   Europe: 45km/h *1

Cruising range on a single charge: 50 km*3

Battery type: Lithium-ion

• *1 In accordance with European regulations for vehicles in the i-Road's category
• *2 Vehicle weight without occupants or cargo
• *3 Target distance when traveling at a fixed speed of 30 km/h

Comments: The Toyota i-Road is the closest concept I have seen to what I think the Apple Car, or some other motorcar 'disruptor' will look like.  It is primarily designed for solo transport (but fits 2 at a pinch - an adult passenger can tuck behind the driver with knees akimbo).

To make this product more 'accessible' and 'desirable' I imagine Apple will seek to improve the following:

- Appearance of safety: Although the i-Road already has an airbag in its steering wheel, perception matters.  Perception of safety could be influenced perhaps by adding smoother curves and reinforcing around the side to bring it in line with nearly the thickness of a conventional car door - say 10cm.

- Convenience: A hidden issue with motorcycles, bicycles, electric bicycles, scooters etc is that they all require some degree of 'preparation' by the riders as well as on-going maintenance.  By 'preparation' I mean, for example, putting on protective equipment such as helmet, protective riding leathers, high visibility clothing, locking (e.g. to a nearby pole, as bicycle stands are relatively few and far between), charging, turning on/off safety equipment e.g. flashing lights, helmet storage, strapping of cargo/luggage.  By maintenance, motorcycles and bicycles require considerable maintenance relative to a car.  Taken together, these issues form a 'sub-conscious' impediment to many prospective users of those modes of transport.   A future micro-vehicle should be able to easily overcome these issues.

- Comfort (seating & ride): For a vehicle of this type to appeal to people of all ages and physical abilities, the seat would need to be softer and more 'plush' than the cheap, thin vinyl seats provided on the i-Road, though not as substantial and soft as a car seat.  Some suspension would also be expected.

- Comfort (noise levels): Some effort will go into sound suppression, although making it too quiet will make this vehicle dangerous to pedestrians.  Electric motors of the size used here tend to have a high-pitched whine which will be difficult to suppress in any case, although road noise could be reduced by more sound and temperature insulation.

- Comfort (protection from elements): Expect this to be high on an Apple Car's list.  A major inhibitor to people using motorcycles, scooters and bicycles more often is the level of physical comfort and protection from the elements.  To serve as a commuter vehicle, it must enable people to arrive at work without being sweaty, drenched, hot, cold or exhausted.

- Comfort (entertainment system, 'smart' technology):  This is a given in a proposed Apple Car, considering Apple's known foray with CarPlay and Apple Maps.  Ease of integration with Apple products and sophistication of smart technologies would be one of the key differentiators of an Apple Car to future competitors, such as the i-Road.

- Performance: For the vehicle to succeed in the First World markets, it would need to be more versatile than purely a 'last mile' commuter (e.g. to the shops and transport hub).  Rather, the vehicle should be able to be used on the highway 'at a pinch'.  Consequently, increasing top speed to 80-110km/h would be likely.  It is likely these performance improvements will be possible considering the 6-10 year span between the i-Road's debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show and the Apple Car's earliest launch date.

- Price: No price has been provided by Toyota, but a price under $10,000 has been suggested.  This would bring it in line with the critical threshold I believe it would need to achieve to provide a sufficient 'value proposition' in the mind of the consumer.

EO Smart Connecting Car 2

Technical Details

Size:	2.58 m x 1.57 m x 1.6 m; Or rather 1.81 m x 1.57 m x 2.25 m (The indication of the length of the vehicle depends on the type of tire / tyre section. The values have been recorded with tires of type 200/60 R 16 79V.)
Weight:	750 kg
Power supply:	54V – LiFePo4 battery
Speed:	65 km/h (40 mph)
Actuation/ Engine:	4 x 4kW wheelhub motors; 10 x longstroke-Lineardrive with 5000N 1 x Folding Servo
Sensors:	Hall-effect as well as string potentiometer sensors for angle and length measurementStereo-Kameras at the front and at the back32-Line Lidar for 3D-scans of the environment6 ToF 3D cameras for near field overview
Communication:	CAN-Bus RS232 RS485 LAN

Comment: The EO Smart Connecting Car demonstrates (or at least conjectures) the types of technologies that would be important in solving important 'jobs to be done' e.g. parking and traffic (through it's convoying/platooning idea).

General Motors EN-V 

Specifications

Dimensions:

Jiao (Pride)        1,500 mm (L) x 1,425 mm (W) x 1,640 mm (H)        [59” x 56” x 64.5”]

Xiao (Laugh)      1,540 mm (L) x 1,420 mm (W) x 1,770 mm (H)        [60.5” x 56” x 69.5”] Miao (Magic)             1,520 mm (L) x 1,405 mm (W) x 1,635 mm (H)        [60” x 55” x 64.5”]

Overall Track:   1,150 mm [45”]

Weight:

Jiao (Pride)             400 kg [880 lb]

Xiao (Laugh)           410 kg [900 lb]

Miao (Magic)          415 kg [910 lb]       

Chassis Platform      210 kg [460 lb]

Body Construction:           Painted carbon fiber

Closures:                 Front access (single door, with polycarbonate glazing)

Seating:                  2 passengers side by side, fixed bucket seats

Chassis Construction:      Magnesium casting (lower chassis)

Aluminum box (battery and gearbox housings)

Stainless steel (guide rails)

Wheels and Tires:              MC 120/70R17 on 17” x 4” wheels

Performance

Top Speed:                    40 km/h [25 mph]

Range:                     40 km [25 miles]

Energy Consumption:       70 Wh/km [125 Wh/mile]

Turning Radius:         1.74 m [68.5”] wall to wall diameter

Propulsion System

Motor Type:           Brushless DC motors for propulsion, braking and steering

Power:             440 Nm (max. torque) and 18 kW (max. power)

Battery Type:        Lithium-ion phosphate (air cooled)  

Output:              3.2 kWh and 5 kW (regenerative braking)

Autonomous Systems

Sensors:         Vision, ultrasonic and Doppler sensors

Wireless:          5.9 GHz dedicated short-range communication and GPS

Autonomous Functionality

-       Automated retrieval, via app-linked smart phone

-       Automated door opening, via app-linked smart phone

-       Platooning

-       Infotainment options (geo-locating other vehicles, audiovisual information)

-       Web-conferencing (social networking)

-       Collision avoidance between vehicles

-       Object detection

-       Automated parking, via handheld device

2016 Morgan EV3 specifications[1]

Development status: Mooted for production some time this year. Debuted at 2016 Geneva Motorshow (early March 2016)

Year: 2016

Make: Morgan

Model: Three Wheeler

Horsepower @ RPM: 62 (46.2kW)

0-60 time: 9 sec.

Top Speed: 90 mph

Weight: <500kg

Passengers: 2 adults, side-by-side

Battery pack: 20kWh lithium battery

Range: 150 miles on a single charge (241km)

Dimensions:

Price: (Estimated) US$38,375 to $42,640 (NB: Morgan is a ‘prestige’ car maker)

2013 Renault Twizy specifications[2]

Specifications

Development status: Concept car

Year: 2013

Make: Renault

Model: Twizy

Passengers: 1 adult

0-60 time: 6 sec.

Top Speed: 68 mph

2013 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive Specifications

SPECIFICATIONS:

Production status: In production since 2009 (2nd generation model)

Year: 2013

Make: Smart

Model: Fortwo

Price: € 18910

Engine: 55 kW

0-60 time: 11.5 sec.

Top Speed: 78 mph (125.5km/h)

Passengers: 2 adults, side-by-side

Specifications for the Smart Fortwo in non-electric configurations:

Production	2014–present
Body and chassis
Body style	3-door hatchback2-door cabriolet
Related	Smart Forfour (C453)Renault Twingo
Powertrain
Engine	0.9 L turbo I31.0 L petrol I3
Transmission	5-speed manualtwin clutch automated manual
Dimensions
Wheelbase	1,873 mm (73.7 in)
Length	2,695 mm (106.1 in)
Width	1,663 mm (65.5 in)
Height	1,555 mm (61.2 in)
Kerb weight	880 kg (1,940 lb)

Specifications from Wikipedia for 3rd generation Smart Fortwo electric engine:[3]

Power: peak power output of 55 kW (74 hp)[5][28]

Torque: 130 newton metres (96 lbf·ft)

Top speed of 125 km/h (78 mph)

0 to 100 km/h (0 to 60 mph) in 11.5[43] seconds and 0 to 60 km/h (0 to 37 mph) in 5 seconds

Battery capacity: 17.6 kW·h lithium-ion battery by Deutsche ACCUmotive[44]

Range: 145 km (90 mi)

Miles per gallon equivalent: 122 MPGe city, 93 MPGe highway, 107 MPGe combined[45]

Artificial warning sounds for pedestrians automatically activated in the U.S. and Japan, and manually activated in Europe.[46]

Kyburz eRod

Specifications (translated from the Kyburz website using Google Translate)

Weight: 570 kg (incl. Bat.) Battery: 18 kWh, 100 V / 180 Ah Power: 40 kW / 140 Nm Range: 100 - 130 km Drive: brushless AC motor on the rear axle Braking recuperation: switchable Helmet compulsory: No

Price: US$28,000 unassembled. US$38,000 assembled.

Comment: The eRod is almost twice the width and 25% longer than what I expect a future disruptive vehicle would look like.  However, it does have the tubular frame I anticipate will be key and helps illustrate the sparseness of the underlying chassis that the 'future car' might have as its underpinning.  Recall, Gordon Murray's 'iStream' car manufacturing methodology that seeks to scale the types of methods used in the manufacture of Formula 1 race cars.  Note, the weight would need to be significantly reduced (to about 2/3rds or 400kg) - probably through super-strong composites.  An enclosure for passengers is a given.

Specifications for Mini Cooper S

I used a Mini Cooper remote control car as a model for illustration purposes.  The Mini Cooper S has very similar dimensions, and they are provided here for reference.

Production	2006–November 2013 (Hatch)2009–present (Convertible)
Assembly	Plant Oxford, Cowley, England
Body and chassis
Class	Supermini
Body style	3-door hatchback2-door convertible
Layout	FF layout
Related	Mini Coupé, Mini Countryman, Mini Clubman
Powertrain
Engine	1.4 L Prince I4 (One)1.6 L Prince/BMW N16 I4 (Cooper)1.6 L Prince turbo I4 (Cooper S)1.6 L Peugeot DV6 diesel I4 (Cooper D and One D)2.0 L BMW N47 diesel I4 (Cooper SD)
Transmission	6-speed, automatic or manual
Dimensions
Wheelbase	2,467 mm (97.1 in)
Length	2007–2010: 3,698 mm (145.6 in)2007–2010 S: 3,713 mm (146.2 in)2011–2014: 3,729 mm (146.8 in)
Width	1,684 mm (66.3 in)
Height	1,407 mm (55.4 in)
Kerb weight	1,150 kg (2,535 lb) (Cooper)1,210 kg (2,668 lb) (Cooper S)
Chronology
Predecessor	Mini (R50/53)
Successor	Mini (F56)

Honda Accord dimensions:  The Honda Accord is used as an example of a typical 'family sedan'.

Dimensions
Wheelbase	Sedan: 2,776 mm (109.3 in)Coupe: 2,725 mm (107.3 in)
Length	Sedan: 4,862 mm (191.4 in)Coupe: 4,806 mm (189.2 in)
Width	Sedan: 1,849 mm (72.8 in)
Height	Sedan: 1,466 mm (57.7 in)Coupe: 1,435 mm (56.5 in)
Curb weight	3,193 lb (1,448 kg) sedan[51]

Calculations from Mini Cooper remote controlled car model

Actual Mini Cooper S dimensions: 3.7m long, 1.68m wide, 1.4m high.

Mini Cooper remote control car model dimensions: 200mm long.

Calculation of scale ratio:

(Actual length) 3700mm to (Model length) 200mm = 37:2 = 18.6:1 ratio.

Therefore width converts to: 90mm

Therefore height converts to: 76mm

Hence, the speculated dimensions of ‘future car’ converted to 18.6:1 ratio are:

Unscaled dimensions of the Apple Car:

Length: Approx 1.5 to 1.6m

Width: Approx 1m

Height: Approx 1.5 to 1.6m.

Scaled dimensions of the Apple Car:

Approximate Length: 81-86mm

Approximate Width: 54mm

Approximate Height: 81-86mm (can be lower, but it means for a very reclined seating position, possibly requiring seat adjustment technology)

Apple Car Model Dimensions used in photographs:

Length: 96mm (1.79m)

Width: 58mm (1.08m)

Height: 72mm (1.34m)

[1] http://www.topspeed.com/cars/morgan/2016-morgan-ev3-ar172651.html#main

[2] http://www.topspeed.com/cars/renault/2013-renault-twizy-f1-concept-ar153883.html

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_electric_drive#Third_generation

The Inventor of 'Disruption', disrupted?

In my post detailing my thinking on the Apple Car I touched upon how Clayton Christensen - the person who is attributed as having coined the term 'disruption' in the post-Internet age - himself does not believe Apple is 'disruptive' according to his own definition. The following article from TechCrunch details issues with Christensen's definition, suggesting the definition itself, has been 'disrupted'.

How Government Investment in the Culture Economy Led to a Billion Dollar Industry

What burgeoning team sport phenomenon awarded over AU$20 million in prize money[1] this past August to a team of 5 players where the youngest broke onto the international competitive scene last year at the tender age of 15, and the oldest is nicknamed ‘Old Man’[2] at a mere 27 years of age? Here are some clues: Its players, bear nicknames like ‘Piglet’, ‘Faker’ and ‘Amazing’, its 119 pound (54kg) stars can mysteriously burn-out[3] at the age of 21[4], and its audience is already measured at 137 million people around the World. [5] Team names include ‘Evil Geniuses’, Cloud9 and fNatic.

I’ll give you just one more clue: The team is made up of what would typically be considered the least athletic people alive – geeks.

By now, most male readers under 30 will know what I’m talking about. The rest of you are probably scratching your head at this perversely inverted world where pimply nerds are sports heroes and worshipped by legions of female fans. [6]

The phenomenon in question is eSports in which computer gamers play against each other, frequently online, and at the elite level, in the flesh at stadiums including the Wembley Arena.[7] The game that awarded over $20 million in prize money is DOTA 2[8], a computer game that allows multiple players to compete online in a virtual battle arena, or a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) for short. DOTA itself is an acronym for ‘Defence of the Ancients’, which is in turn, a spin-off of the extraordinarily popular ‘real-time strategy’ game[9], World of Warcraft 3 published by Blizzard Entertainment. The ‘2’ in Dota 2 refers to the fact that it is the second official version by Valve Corporation which produces and distributes games.[10]

But DOTA 2 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ‘eSports’. Other games commanding multi-million dollar prize pools include League of Legends, Call of Duty and Smite.[11] These are just a few of the video games played competitively, described as ‘massively online battle arena’s’ or MOBA for short.

People from all corners of the ‘connected’ Earth play eSports against each other making it, in some ways, even more international than soccer/football where players are restrained by travel and passports to play against each other. Of course, in the interest of fairness, and to make their competitions a compelling live event, most competitions at the elite level require players to compete at the same venue on the same equipment live before an audience of screaming fans. Nevertheless, the purely online competitive component has its sophisticated leader boards, through which some child star players have emerged like ‘overnight’ sensations.[12]

Its nerdy star players look so much like you would expect a professional video gamer to look, it makes any parent wonder about the future health of their boy– or their girl.[13] Hailing from all the ‘nerd’ classes; pimply, deathly pale, skinny or overweight (but never physically well-developed), bespectacled, greasy-haired, Asian (even 2 of the Canadian DOTA 2 world champions ‘Evil Geniuses’ are of Asian descent) it is perhaps not surprising considering professional teams have coaches and rigorous training regimes,[14] big brand name sponsors,[15] as well as billionaire owners and backers,[16] just like ‘real’ sports teams.

What has this all got to do with the title of this article?

Here’s a hint. The ‘Super Nation’ of eSports is South Korea[17] where the micro-momentary expression of a pro-gamer losing to the upstart wunderkind, Faker, has its own meme page.[18]

In an impressive display of government intervention triumphing over the free market, the Korean government made a conscious decision nearly 20 years ago to promote its ‘soft power’.[19] Frequently the historical whipping boy of its near-Asian neighbours, China and Japan, and with a mere fraction of the people of those populous giants, Korea’s government felt it needed to somehow compete with its historical ‘big brothers’. During this time, not only did it provide universal superfast broadband, but it sponsored the development of its key cultural industries, including film, television, popular music, and of course, gaming. The rest, as they say, is history.

[1]Source: http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments/12894-the-international-2015

[2] http://evilgeniuses.gg/Profile/13,Fear/

[3] http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/02/one-of-league-of-legends-best-players-gets-benched/

[4] http://lol.gamepedia.com/Piglet

[5] https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/esports-brief/

[6] http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/13035450/league-legends-prodigy-faker-carries-country-shoulders

[7] https://www.google.com.au/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=sse+arena+wembley+wikipedia&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=GBgnVozSJdDu8wfqg7gQ

[8] http://www.playdota.com

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy

[10] The history of how DOTA 2 came to be it itself an interesting illustration of the power of the crowd-sourcing phenomenon, where a fan of the game, known only under the ‘handle’ (alias) of Eul, kicked off a chain of successive iterations by even more fans adept at programming.   Ultimately, Valve commissioned the last in this line of fans, ‘Ice Frog’ to help build their official version of DOTA 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#Development ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#Sequel

[11] http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_%22Faker%22_Sang-hyeok

[13] All-female eSports teams exist e.g. Girls HK, Team Siren, and presently, a select few, earn respectable prize money: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/08/hong-kong-gets-its-first-all-female-league-of-legends-team/ ; http://team-dignitas.net/articles/blogs/No%20Category/3465/Call-Your-Shot-What-Do-You-Think-Introducing-Team-Siren ; http://www.esportsearnings.com/players/female_players . However, they are still a minority in eSports: http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/27/5723446/women-in-esports-professional-gaming-riot-games-blizzard-starcraft-lol

[14] http://www.liquiddota.com/forum/dota-2-general/462152-coaching-in-esports-a-comprehensive-look

[15] http://fortune.com/2014/07/24/esports-sponsors/

[16] http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Invictus_Gaming

[17]http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036844/why-gamers-in-asia-are-the-worlds-best-esport-athletes.html ;

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/technology/league-of-legends-south-korea-epicenter-esports.html?_r=0

[18] https://www.facebook.com/H2K-Ryus-face-memes-480179422135007/ . The original expression can be seen at around 13 seconds in at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPCfoCVCx3U

[19] http://www.creativetransformations.asia/2014/05/the-k-pop-factory-phenomenon/

The Apple Car - a contrary view

For a dissenting view on whether: A) The Apple Car rumour is true and; B) Apple is capable of making a good car

Checkout this link: http://www.mondaynote.com/tag/asymcar/

The thinking behind my speculations on the Apple Car

This article gives you the details of my reasoning behind my predicted Apple Car.

The Thinking of Horace Dediu

The main analyst I refer to in this article is leading technology analyst, Horace Dediu. We cite materials predominantly from his two blogs and podcasts at Asymco (asymco.com) and Asymcar (asymcar.com). Dediu, a former student of ‘disruption theory’ pioneer Clayton Christensen[13], and now a director at the eponymous Christensen Institute, focuses his analysis upon disruption using Apple as a lens for study and comparison.

Although Dediu has made no firm statement upon the actual shape or functionality of the Apple Car itself, Dediu is on record as believing it will be influenced by certain key criteria.  He looks particularly at Apple's past history and its key strategies that brought it success, as well as examining the history of the broader automotive industry itself to try to understand what these key criteria will be.

I go one step further and 'fill in the gaps' left by Dediu's criteria to give the reader a more tangible sense of the type of vehicle that Apple, or some other innovative companies, may seek to build if they were to start a car project from 'scratch' with a view to disrupting the incumbent automotive industry.

Apple’s track record in innovation – a late bloomer

From Apple, Dediu notes that what brings it success is not strictly 'disruption' in the sense defined by Clayton Christensen.  Disruption theory predicts the disrupting company generally starts with a 'lower-end' product that initially appears so insignificant to the incumbents that it is ignored.  Instead, Apple is rather distinctive in that it tends to make 'high-end' products.  Nevertheless, it has been seen since its inception, making what was a previously 'low-end' product category, better designed and more usable, charging a premium for superior execution.

Apple even goes so far as to enter a product category somewhat after a segment has gained traction, but nevertheless succeeds way beyond these pioneers despite their ‘first-mover’ advantage, through superior execution.

These differences in approach are important in understanding how Apple may execute on a future product. Below are examples of ‘the Apple way’.

The iPod and iPhone

The iPod and iPhone are excellent cases in point. The iPod was a late entrant into the digital music player business. Regardless, they became the number one selling digital music player through superior execution. Their big innovation for that device was to develop the digital ‘scroll wheel’ to allow easier use. Additionally they changed the way music was sold through the introduction of the iTunes Store a few months after the iPod’s launch.

Similarly with the iPhone, smartphones had achieved some market success by the early 2000’s with comparably sized smartphones being produced by Palm and Blackberry. It wasn’t until 2007 that Apple entered the smartphone race against the firmly entrenched Blackberry.[14] Apple famously did away with the tiny physical keyboards on these devices that many people struggled to use, and improved the touch screen experience compared to what was used on the Palm devices. Once again, Apple took an already established segment, improved the interface and opened up the market for smartphones to even more people.

Apple’s DNA: A tradition since inception

So much is apparent from Apple’s recent history, but many may not have been around for its early history. However a brief examination of this early history shows the ‘DNA’ of the company emerged very quickly even during its start-up years. For example, the first Apple computer delivered a superior package to the numerous other start-up personal computer makers around at the time in the 1970’s, offering as it did, the first personal computer with an easy to read output (a 'monitor' or TV screen rather than punch cards in binary), and an easy-to-use input device - a QWERTY keyboard, making it immediately recognisable to a population familiar with mechanical typewriters.[15] At the time, these additions were considered revolutionary in a personal computer.Image 5. The first personal computer, the Altair 8800. Note its difficult to understand output ‘display’ and lack of easy data input.

A few years later, Apple went a step further with the Macintosh making the user interface even more user-friendly by introducing the graphical user interface and mouse which were developed at Xerox PARC and essentially given to them by an executive at the then dominant Xerox corporation.[16]  Clearly, that Xerox executive did not understand the value of his company's own research, but Jobs did, appreciating the ability of the technology to allow anyone to use a computer which had hitherto been amenable only through an inscrutable computer command line interface.[17]

In this way, we see Apple, time and again, introduce a new product, which despite its lack of primacy into its segment, still competes with non-consumption.[18] i.e. People who had never purchased these product categories before, would buy one when the Apple version came out.

In the case of the iPhone, it created a market so strong that Apple could weather the 2008-9 GFC, recording stunning growth during that period.  By comparison, despite the far more benign conditions relative to the GFC, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the late 2015 quarter as 'the toughest he's seen for Apple' with their primary profit driver, the iPhone’s sales figures, receding in a year-on-year comparison. This reveals how much difference it is to compete in a rapidly saturating market, compared to the green fields of non-consumption.

Significant Contribution

The second factor Dediu refers to frequently is that Apple's track record and statements by its senior leadership strongly suggest that Apple would only enter into a new market, in this case, the car market, if it felt it could make a 'significant contribution'.  Tim Cook’s statement, taken from before he became CEO, and in response to the inevitable analyst question regarding ‘What will Apple become without Steve Jobs?’ is worth quoting in full (My emphasis added):

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self- honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.”

- Tim Cook fielding analyst questions during 2009 Q1 earnings call

In his podcast entitled 'Meaningful', Dediu is on record as saying he feels this would mean that Apple is intent upon making an 'iconic car', in the vein of the Volkswagen Beetle, the Ford Model T, the Fiat 500, the Citroen 2CV, and the (original) Mini.  Considering the sales volumes of these cars, Dediu asserts that Apple intends to make a car that can sell in the millions, with a minimum goal of 1,000,000, although perhaps achieved over some years.

External criteria – Changing the Means of Production

The third important criteria in understanding what the Apple Car would need to be, comes from an external factor – the history of the car industry itself.

Dediu argues that in automotive history, great changes have always come with the advent of a new means of production. He points out the three big changes of production in automotive history each brought their respective proponents to primacy.  For Ford, it was famously the assembly line for the Model T.  Ford was later overshadowed by General Motors, through a production method that allowed different plants to focus upon different components e.g. Engine, chassis, body, so that greater specialisation, efficiencies and variety of products could be accommodated.[21]  He believes this led to GM's ascendancy in the post-war period.[22]  More recently, Toyota employed its now famous Just-in-time (JIT) methodology that reduced supply chain logistics costs and improved quality through reduced inventory, reduced error and improved response time from factory to the consumer and back again.  Toyota became the number one carmaker in the World in 2012. Consequently, Dediu feels that for Apple to become a significant carmaker, it must look to challenge or change the existing means of production.

The high cost of traditional sheet metal car assembly

For Dediu, this is more than just a historical coincidence. He points to the present high cost of car manufacturing plants, which he argues, cost in the billions to create. Much of the tooling is expensive due to the stamped sheet metal process used by most mass-manufacturing carmakers today. Tesla Motors – a carmaker Dediu frequently argues is not truly ‘disruptive’ in the Christensen sense - was fortunate to be able to buy a disused Toyota plant in Fremont, California for a bargain price of $42 million, but it has spent millions in re-tooling it. [23]  As an alternative, Dediu points to the 'iStream'[24] production method developed by F1 McLaren designer, Gordon Murray.  Using the steel tubing and rapid turnaround methodologies of the race car industry, Murray claims he can cheaply make cars in smaller batches than present car manufacturing plants which are only viable after they make a few hundred thousand cars (assuming the cars sell!). Murray says iStream makes short production runs of 15-65000 vehicles feasible, and improves the customisability of these vehicles too.  Through using a methodology like iStream, Dediu speculates this could save a new market entrant billions.

iStream – a good fit with disruption theory

It goes without saying that these vehicles can be structurally very strong and necessarily light,[25] fitting in with Dediu’s speculation on a small Apple Car. The weight reduction becomes important in later calculations required to make the Apple Car’s speed and dynamics viable for the ‘job-to-be-done’.[26] It also fits in with the overall disruption theory of developing a cheaper product segment that many in the incumbent industry would deride.

Potential ‘disruptors’

Classic disruption theory suggests an incumbent will tend to be disrupted from ‘below’, in a cheaper product category that the incumbents dismiss until it is too late. Below is a quick summary of these ‘lower’ product segments and their issues. Note their compatibility with the iStream production methodology and its inherent strengths:

1. The bicycle – relatively hard to use (balance), unsafe relative to a car, uncomfortable, especially if the distance is far, the weather hot/inclement or the terrain difficult e.g. steep roads.
2. The motorcycle – even harder to use (balance, operate, maneuver at low speeds), unsafe relative to a car (there are innumerable morbid jokes about motorcycles) and uncomfortable especially in inclement or hot weather. Safety gear is extremely uncomfortable in hot weather and riding is unsafe/uncomfortable in the rain.[27]
3. The scooter – a slightly easier-to-use variant of the motorcycle but still requires balance and skill to use at low speed. It is frequently too slow for freeways unless you get an expensive scooter – which begins to cost as much as a second-hand car, defeating one of the prime objectives of scooter ownership - reducing expense.
4. Electric bicycles – similar issues as with the bicycle, although they do increase comfort enough to make longer road trips viable to even people of low fitness levels. Nevertheless the other issues it shares with bikes prevent most people from trying these (lack of safety/comfort relative to a car). In time, I nevertheless predict we will see a lot more of these, and electrified ‘balance’ scooters/skateboards/hoverboards (etc.) being adopted.

   

5. ‘Autocycles’[28] and other experimental motorized vehicles[29]. Segways – Though Autocycles are slightly more comfortable and (supposedly) safer due to many adopting an enclosed ‘car-like’ shell, the Cambrian explosion of variants all share in common a tendency to suffer from being more expensive than a small, economical conventional car, obviating one of their main objectives – reducing expense. Examples include the numerous examples we see on such ‘vlogs’ as Translogic (on autoblog.com), most of which are priced above US$15,000 due to the maker lacking economies of scale. In particular, the GM EN-V[30] and the EO smart connecting car 2[31] look close to the idea I am arriving at.

   

6. Handicapped/Seniors electric cart – Every now and again, one sees a bold senior citizen driving their electric cart on a road, outside the confines of their retirement village, usually with a fluorescently coloured pennant to bring their vehicle in line with the higher eye-line of car and SUV drivers. Their lack of power means the speed differential between them and cars is vast, and increases the danger such that this type of usage is understandably not widespread as a transport solution beyond a few hundred metres from the driver’s residence, along a footpath. Also, their association with the elderly probably makes them ‘uncool’ in the eyes of many.

Presently, many in the car industry would not consider the above product categories as threats to the conventional 4-5 seater ‘cabin on four wheels’. However, when these lighter, smaller vehicles are considered in the context of the strong frames and advanced materials used in Formula 1 racing car design that are possible in the iStream production methodology, they can begin to overcome many of the issues these personal transport solutions have in becoming more mainstream. When combined with ‘smart’ technology e.g. to auto-balance, park and avoid collisions, they become a much more viable solution to a broader range of people. i.e. they become product categories that compete with non-consumption.

To add fuel to this speculation is the fact that Apple have been seen to add ‘vehicles’ to their list of company activities in Switzerland.

The paragraph added is reported by Swiss site ApfelBlog:[32]

“Vehicles; Apparatus for locomotion by land, air or water; electronic hardware components for motor vehicles, rail cars and locomotives, ships and aircraft; Anti-theft devices; Theft alarms for vehicles; Bicycles; Golf carts; Wheelchairs; Air pumps; Motorcycles; Aftermarket parts (after-market parts) and accessories for the aforesaid goods.”

Rail cars? Bicycles? Golf carts? Wheelchairs? Motorcycles? Perhaps these are just necessary inclusions in the ‘vehicle’ category in Switzerland, but it serves as a warning to not close off options. For my part, I suspect Apple will adopt a four wheel format but in a ‘micro’ size, slightly larger than the electric cart seen here.

A product that addresses the emerging markets

Another factor mentioned specifically by Dediu in the context of the Apple Car is the importance of the emerging markets to Apple’s revenues.[33] Tim Cook clearly sees the importance of Apple continuing its initial success in China, and achieving similar success in India.[34] Consequently, it stands to reason that whatever future products Apple comes up with, whether a car, or some other device, it must provide a solution to problems that are relevant in not only the established first world markets that Apple dominates, but also in these populous new emerging economies, especially the large cities of China, India, Brazil and Indonesia.

'Jobs to be done' Framework

Interestingly, Dediu does touch upon the above issue when he refers to Christensen’s ‘jobs-to-be-done’ framework.[35] We quote the principle from the Christensen Institute’s website: [36]

“Customers rarely make buying decisions around what the “average” customer in their category may do—but they often buy things because they find themselves with a problem they would like to solve. With an understanding of the “job” for which customers find themselves “hiring” a product or service, companies can more accurately develop and market products well-tailored to what customers are already trying to do.”

Taken in the context of cars, the fundamental job that many cars are trying to solve is to get the person from A to B, safely, comfortably, affordably and quickly. Many cars also try to address stylistic and ego issues as a job-to-be-done.[37] Dediu frequently uses the example of Tesla cars, which he feels people buy to look both cool and wealthy (without being ostentatiously wealthy), but also environmentally conscious – something that no other sports cars could do as well as Tesla Motors.

When we take the ‘jobs to be done’ framework in the context of the emerging markets, we see that they share the problem of many in the First World, only worse. They too have traffic jams – much worse than ours in fact in the big cities of China, India, Brazil and Indonesia - and they too will find it difficult to get parking at their destination. Consequently, if we can envisage an automotive solution that helps alleviate or solve these issues in both the First World and Emerging Markets contexts, then this is likely to be a space that Apple is trying to address as well.[38]

New Business Models – The real disruptors

Another point that Dediu raises frequently, though not so much in the car context, is that people frequently (mistakenly) believe the technology itself is the disruption. However, there are many instances when the technology has been around for years, but the disruption does not occur until the business models the technology(ies) enables begin to operate.

An interesting example in the transportation industry is that of Uber. Using a variant of social media software to solve an information problem (i.e. People wish to find a lift to their destination; Drivers wish to find passengers), Uber is taking over a large portion of the taxi industry’s traditional business.

We also saw with Apple that the iPod in and of itself was not what revolutionized the industry. It was the iPod in conjunction with the Apple iTunes Store. Where previously the recording industry sold most of its content on physical media such as CD’s, in retail stores, the iTunes allowed for easy and legitimate purchase of just a single track at a much lower price point.

Other factors e.g. Aggregation Theory & Modularity Theory

Of course, the above-mentioned factors are not the only factors that may impact upon the success or failure of an Apple Car. Other theories that are frequently described in the context of disruption Aggregation Theory[39] and Modularity Theory. I am not fully abreast of these theories and can only speculate upon how they might impact the automotive industry.

Modularity

Dediu has described his 'Law of conservation of modularity'[40], my loose understanding of which is that he postulates disruption may occur when some significant change has occurred to make a system modular. Modularity, he argues will push some facets of development and slow others depending upon which is the ‘inferior’ component.  In the context of the automotive industry it appears he identifies high degrees of modularity, with specialist suppliers supplying most components of the car, such as suspension, transmission, tyre technology, entertainment systems, etc.  With an electric drive train, even more can be outsourced and commoditised, as electric drive trains are far simpler than internal combustion engines.

In fact, we see a similar phenomenon in the bicycle industry with gears (Shimano), seats, brakes and electric motors coming from suppliers, with the big brands assembling these products and repackaging them under their own brand name. Consequently, it is easy to envisage a modular industry quickly developing around a small form-factor vehicle, perhaps using ‘off-the-shelf’ components that are slightly upscaled or specifically designed for the Apple Car (BTW: Another Apple hallmark as we saw in the case of Corning developing ‘Gorilla Glass’ for Apple’s iPhone).

Aggregation Theory

With ‘Aggregation Theory’, Thompson states:

“Looking forward, I believe that Aggregation Theory will be the proper framework to both understand opportunities for startups as well as threats for incumbents:

• What is the critical differentiator for incumbents, and can some aspect of that differentiator be digitized?
• If that differentiator is digitized, competition shifts to the user experience, which gives a significant advantage to new entrants built around the proper incentives
• Companies that win the user experience can generate a virtuous cycle where their ownership of consumers/users attracts suppliers which improves the user experience

The Uber and Airbnb examples are especially important: vacant rooms and taxis have not been digitized, but they have been disrupted. I suspect that nearly every industry will belatedly discover it has a critical function that can be digitized and commodified, precipitating this shift. The profound changes caused by the Internet are only just beginning; aggregation theory is the means.”

We have already seen Tesla Motors performing software upgrades automatically that boost performance and identify any issues with their vehicles in a much more efficient manner than is possible with earlier cars. It will be up to the Apple Car’s designers and others operating in this space to conceive of what these might be, or alternatively develop a car ecosystem that allows developers the opportunity to address them at some later date.

Summary

When one considers all of these points together, we arrive at:

1. A small car, possibly a very small car that may even be in a product segment that many may presently deride (i.e. asymmetrical) e.g. Micro cars, autocycle, 'smart car', or even electric cart or golf cart.
2. A product that can sell in the millions ('significant contribution'), and competes with non-consumption (innovative or makes the user interface so simple and the product so comfortable and desirable, many more people can use it than its predecessor.)
3. As a consequence, it will probably seek to solve the problem of getting person X from A to B by focusing on the big issues at hand not solved well by the existing dominant paradigm of car formats or other modes of private transport e.g. Traffic (jams) for cars, safety (of motorcycles/scooters and bicycles), convenience (e.g closed in cabin again, though this time to shelter from rain, or eg. Easy to use/steer, even a child could drive one safely, so no balancing required, no instability at low speed, no complicated manual gearbox etc), parking (e.g. Through self-parking smarts) etc.
4. In addition to this, there will be another vector, in technology, that should also be present that will allow further revolutionary changes to essentially the same form factor, e.g. The gradual improvement of driverless technology e.g. Automated pilot software, e.g. 'Linking' of compatible cars to form small convoys, more accurate mapping etc etc.
5. Another important factor around the question of the 'job to be done' that it solves in a superior way to existing car form factors, is that it be as much a 'job to be done' in the more populous cities of the developing world and emerging economies of China and India as it is in the developed world cities of London, New York and San Francisco etc.  We can easily see that traffic jams are generally worse in these poorer countries, and can get much bigger as they experience major net migration to the cities and increased car ownership despite little improvement in infrastructure.  This again helps identify the 'job to be done' as that which we described above, as the problems of traffic and parking are only worse in the big cities of less developed emerging economies due to their generally having poorer infrastructure.  We speculate that a car that can somehow more efficiently use road space will help in solving this job to be done, be it a smaller form factor (perhaps narrow enough to use two abreast in one conventional road lane width), or a method of 'linking' or convoying with other cars in some meaningful way that improves traffic flow safely.
6. We must also consider the possibility that the Apple Car may not be owned like most traditional cars through a purchase, but through licensing, subscription or some other business model. We have already seen Apple’s buyback model deployed.[41] Perhaps they will take it one step further offering a yearly subscription model, displacing the phone retailers and telephony companies that presently bundle phones with phone and Internet contracts.  How then might these new business models apply in the context of an Apple Car? What would an Apple Car subscription or its equivalent buy you?  Use of an Apple Car for one year, after which the subscription must be renewed or the car returned? Membership of a convoying service that allows one to use transit lanes, or relieves the member from driving for some part of his/her journey?  Parking in a highly compressed row of Apple Cars that can auto-park and auto-unpark?

Some rough physical parameters for the Apple Car

To help paint a picture of the specifications and performance of such a vehicle, I refer to the existing performance characteristics and specifications of existing electric vehicles and extrapolate and interpolate from there.

Electric Bicycles

Curb Weight: Around 50-80 pounds (23-36kg)[42] with the lower spectrum being a more expensive ‘lightweight’ bicycle and the higher end being designed with a more powerful (500W) motor and steel frame.

A typical budget electric bicycle would tend to have a 200-250W motor and should push an average adult male (80kg, giving a combined weight including the bike of about 110kg) at around 25kph on level terrain with a standard steel frame.

EO smart connecting car 2 (a small ‘concept’ car)

Size:	2.58 m x 1.57 m x 1.6 m; Or rather 1.81 m x 1.57 m x 2.25 m (The indication of the length of the vehicle depends on the type of tire / tyre section. The values have been recorded with tires of type 200/60 R 16 79V.)
Weight:	750 kg
Power supply:	54V – LiFePo4 battery
Speed:	65 km/h (40 mph)
Actuation/ Engine:	4 x 4kW wheelhub motors; 10 x longstroke-Lineardrive with 5000N 1 x Folding Servo
Sensors:	Hall-effect as well as string potentiometer sensors for angle and length measurementStereo-Kameras at the front and at the back32-Line Lidar for 3D-scans of the environment6 ToF 3D cameras for near field overview
Communication:	CAN-Bus RS232 RS485 LAN

Tesla Model S[43] (a conventionally sized, luxury sports car with a powerful electric motor)

Curb Weight: 4647.3lb (2107.8kg or just a little over 2 tonnes)

Powertrain: 70kWh or 85kWh variant microprocessor controlled, lithium-ion batteries

Length: 196.0” (16.3 feet or almost 5m long)

Width: 86.2” (7.2 feet or around 2.2m wide)

We speculate that Apple would wish to have some more conventional performance specifications, that could propel the vehicle up to a speed of around 110km/h to cater to Western markets, but not much more as few roads allow speeds beyond this. Even those that do allow greater speeds generally allow traffic to go at 110km/h. Keeping the Apple Car’s top speed lower than most internal combustion engines are capable of would be in keeping with Apple’s tradition of not engaging in ‘spec wars’. From the outset, Apple has always eschewed striving to be the ‘most powerful’ or the ‘fastest’, but instead chose to reach only those performance benchmarks necessary to do the job.

Extrapolating and interpolating from the above, I conjecture that a vehicle weighing around 400-700kg (made possible by the use of light, strong materials, with lower bounds limited by the considerable weight of batteries, presumably placed in the ‘floor’ of the car)[44] would need motors totaling from 10-30kW (smaller motors could be placed at each wheel and co-ordinated using software) to propel it to speeds between 80-110km/h with a range in excess of 300km – more than adequate for most purposes, especially ‘short runs’ to the shop/public transport hub or keeping up with commuter traffic in emerging markets.

If Apple were to build a car about the size of the EO smart connecting car 2, then it may attempt to reduce weight by using lighter, but stronger materials as that employed in the iStream methodology. However, because it would have more powerful batteries, which are the components that weigh the most in these types of cars – c.f. the 2 tonne Tesla S) that give greater speed and range (250 miles+), the weight may stay the same at around 500-800kg.

Pricing

As stated before, Apple tend to adopt premium pricing within the product segment they operate in. If they were making a conventional car, we anticipate they would be selling cars priced in the range of the Tesla Model ‘S’, or US$70,000/AU$100,000. However, we do not believe Apple will produce a conventional car for the numerous reasons mentioned above. Instead, we are looking at something more like a highly specced electric cart or autocycle. As mentioned, autocycles frequently are priced at US$15,000+ due to their lack of economies of scale. With a production technique like iStream, we anticipate these prices could be reduced below US$10,000, even with deluxe materials such as a carbon fibre body due to economies of scale. One price range the Apple Car may be trying to gun for is the US$35,000 mark for enough Apple Cars to move 4-5 people. This price mark is what many in Western markets would call the higher end of the family sedan car prices (think the Honda Accord Euro, and Mazda 6) and is also the stated price of the highly anticipated Tesla Model III.[46] So should the Apple Car come in a single seat configuration only, then we would expect four of them to cost below US$40,000.

Conclusion

In the context of personal transportation, we can all foresee that one day people may not even own cars, and instead hail the all pervasive driverless Uber car or its equivalent. But in the meantime – most experts predict that eventuality is at least 10 years away - can Apple come up with a solution that will be needed or wanted by billions?

Perhaps from the above criteria, Apple can craft a high quality, personal transportation vehicle that is more economical than the traditional car, safer, more comfortable and quicker than car alternatives (e.g. motorcyles, electric carts), but above all solves the jobs to be done around transportation much better than the traditional motorcar.

Doubt has been expressed by some as to this ever occurring. In February 2015 Daimler CEO, Dieter Zetsche stated:

“If there were a rumour that Mercedes or Daimler planned to start building smartphones then they (Apple) would not be sleepless at night. And the same applies to me".[47]

Then in late January, 2016, back from a recent tour to Silicon Valley, Zetsche acknowledged his surprise at the progress in Silicon Valley:[48]

“Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought,”

Clearly, with Apple’s track record, no one should be dismissing the possibility of a successful Apple Car anymore.

Yen Yang is the Principal, Creative Industries for BYP Group. 

To contact Yen, email yen at bypgroup dot com

References (cont'd from my short article about the smart car)

1. [13] Christensen is the pioneer of the seminal ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail in which the author first popularized the term ‘disruption’ to describe the phenomenon of small start-ups displacing large, well-resourced incumbents: http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/
2. [14] Blackberry phones were seen as so pervasive and addictive at that stage they were nicknamed ‘Crackberries’.
3. [15] A wonderful account of these start-up years and the context of the making of the Apple 1 (as it is now known) is provided in Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s autobiography, ‘Woz’: Computer Geek to Cult Icon. http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Founded/dp/0393330435.
4. [16] http://www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2012-03-22/apple-and-xerox-parc/2
5. [17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_interface
6. [18] Here ‘non-consumption’ is used in the business sense. i.e. People did not buy computers prior to the Macintosh because they were too hard to use. When the Macintosh introduced a mouse and graphical interface more people began to buy computers: http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/blog/2009/5/competing-against-non-consumption#.VsuWs87ZjAM
7. [19] He also speculates it might be an autonomous ‘Winnebago’ in Asymcar 26: The iPod: http://www.asymcar.com/?p=509
8. [20] Asymcar 27: Titanic: http://www.asymcar.com/?p=521
9. [21] This was in contrast to Ford’s monotonous design made famous by a quote attributed to him: “You can have it (the Model T) in any color you want, so long as it’s black.”
10. [22] Asymcar 24: Get rid of the Model T men: http://www.asymcar.com/?p=491
11. [23] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Factory
12. [24] http://www.istreamtechnology.co.uk/1/what_is_istream.html
13. [25] http://www.istreamtechnology.co.uk/1/F1_for_you.html ; http://www.istreamtechnology.co.uk/1/Lightweight_is_good.html
14. [26] I have only done rough calculations extrapolated and interpolated from existing vehicles, both on the market and in experimental form. These calculations are included below in the section entitled: ‘Some rough parameters’.
15. [27] For those who have never worn full leathers and a helmet on a hot, humid Summer’s day, just take my word for it.
16. [28] http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/the-legacy-of-elio-and-why-defining-the-autocycle-is-important.html/?a=viewall
17. [29] For an interesting selection of experimental vehicles, check out the Translogic vodcast on www.autoblog.com and https://drivingtothefuture.wordpress.com/ . Of particular interest to this author are the General Motors EN V (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25J48arp3D4 ) and the EO smart connecting car 2.
18. [30] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tiHwzGsotA
19. [31] http://robotik.dfki-bremen.de/en/research/robot-systems/eo-smart-connecting-3.html
20. [32] http://apfelblog.ch/apple-marke-fahrzeuge/
21. [33] Asymcar 25: The Selfie Experience: http://www.asymcar.com/?p=498
22. [34] http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/04/tim-cook-india-iphone-apple-watch-android/
23. [35] Asymcar 18: Cars of the People: http://www.asymcar.com/?paged=2
24. [36] http://www.christenseninstitute.org/key-concepts/jobs-to-be-done/
25. [37] This is also argued by Dediu to be a sign of the existing car format’s maturity and stagnation.
26. [38] We can see an excerpt of Dediu’s thinking on one of his blog pages: http://www.asymcar.com/?p=21
27. [39] A theory put forward by technology analyst, Ben Thompson on his Stratechery website: https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/
28. [40] http://www.asymco.com/2010/11/15/law-of-conservation-of-modularity/
29. [41] http://www.apple.com/au/shop/browse/reuse_and_recycle
30. [42] http://www.nycewheels.com/electric-bike-weight.html
31. [43] https://www.teslamotors.com/support/model-s-specifications
32. [44] Batteries in the floor of the car help provide a lower centre of gravity. They have been pioneered in cars like the Faraday Future and the Tesla Motors: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-shows/news/a27797/faraday-future-concept-electric-car-ces-2016/ ; https://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/modelx
33. [45] http://blog.ted.com/test-driving-the-toyota-i-road-concept-car/
34. [46] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/697678962588188672
35. [47] Source: http://www.motoring.com.au/mercedes-benz-dont-build-an-icar-49356/ )
36. [48] http://9to5mac.com/2016/01/25/daimler-ceo-apple-car-effort/

Speculations on the Apple Car: A super-smart micro-car for the masses?

(This is a short article about the Apple Car. For more reading on this topic, please see my detailed blog post on the future of the smart car.)

In February 2015 the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article claiming Apple would enter the automobile market.[1 and 2] It seemed like the final confirmation of a rumour that had circulated for months, if not years, around what was then the World’s largest company and is still the most admired.[3] Since that point in time, no one has seriously disputed the existence of the project,[4] apparently codenamed ‘Titan’, which the WSJ claims is scheduled for 2019 release.[5]

Instead, speculation has turned to the car itself: What will it look like? What will it do that is different to cars today? Will it be electric? Will it be driverless? Since they appear to have entered into an agreement with BMW, will it look anything like the BMW i3 electric car? Or will it look like a minivan as speculated in the WSJ article? How will it be manufactured? What could Apple possibly do to make a profit or improve upon the 5-seated cabin on four wheels format that has dominated the ultra-competitive car industry for over a century?

Using parameters identified by leading analysts and taking the best of experimental car designs visible in the public domain, it may be possible to begin to visualise the rough envelope, and significant features of the upcoming Apple Car or other future vehicles[6] that may eventually supplant the motorcar that we know today.

I conjecture that the Apple Car, or another potential ‘disruptor’ to the established automotive industry, will have the following criteria. It will be:

• Small – perhaps shaped to fit only one or two passengers, possibly ‘in-line’, rather than abreast to make the car suitable for bicycle lane access or ‘split lane’ access (where the traditional lane width is split in two to accommodate double the traffic, but only for narrower vehicles).
• Electric – this is actually as much due to the need for ‘modularity’[7] in production and simplicity as it is for green credentials (which would be another big selling point). Electric motors are very simple, cheap, and powerful (high torque). Reliable variants are already available for electric bicycles ‘off-the-shelf’.[8] Batteries – a substantial part of the cost of electric vehicles - are likely to get significantly cheaper by 2019[9] in part due to production increase initiatives by the likes of Tesla and Panasonic.[10]
• Light (<750kg) – This is likely to be a necessity due to the types of performance characteristics Apple would need to make the car appealing to the mass markets. i.e. Capable of speeds of up to 110km/h (but no faster) using an electric motor. Note, Apple may decide to limit the speed to below 80km/h for safety reasons or because it decides travelling faster than 80km/h is ‘just unsafe’.[11]
• Manufactured using revolutionary production techniques (relative to the conventional car assembly plant ‘pressed sheet metal’ process)
• Manufactured using specially developed lighter, stronger materials enabled by the revolutionary production technique. This is an important consideration to allow people to overcome safety concerns for smaller vehicles and modes of transport. Apple has a history of commissioning bespoke materials for its products with superior aesthetic/performance characteristics e.g. ‘Gorilla Glass’ for the original iPhone, and later ‘Sapphire Glass’ presently used for smaller glass components, as well as the gold ‘alloy’ used in its ‘Edition’ Apple Watches.
• ‘Smart’ – It will of course have not only the latest entertainment capabilities a la CarPlay, but it will have the best driver/safety technologies software can provide, as seen in recent models of the Tesla cars. These will only get better with time, for example, it may later employ other technologies glimpsed in experimental/concept cars such as ‘convoying’ and ‘platooning’[12] and of course, in time become potentially self-driving or ‘driverless’.
• It may be accompanied by a different business model, e.g. a subscription service or ‘upgrade’ service.
• In ‘First World’ markets the main ‘job-to-be-done’ is likely to be a ‘short trip’ specialist (e.g. to the shops/transport hub and back) that parks easily, in more limited space, and is narrow enough to bypass some types of traffic jams. So for many it would act as an ‘economical second vehicle’ for families in more affluent societies and as a ‘sole vehicle’ for the Y-Generation and younger. In emerging markets, it may be the ‘sole commuter vehicle with the ability to expand’. The ‘ability to expand’ may come through an ability to convoy with other Apple Cars, so a family of 5 might stick 2 or 3 together for family trips.
• 200km+ range/endurance – This is to accommodate the emerging markets who would want this vehicle to act in the first instance as a commuter work-horse in the traffic jams of the large cities e.g. Beijing, Jakarta, Mumbai etc.

If you are interested in understanding how I got to this point, you can read more here.

Yen Yang is the Principal, Creative Industries for BYP Group.

To contact Yen, email yen at bypgroup dot com

References

1. [1] Original source: http://yalibnan.com/2015/02/15/apple-designing-new-electric-car-codenamed-titan-report/
2. [2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-tiTtan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072
3. [3] http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-companies/
4. [4] Although, to date, Apple has never confirmed the project’s existence.
5. [5] http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-speeds-up-electric-car-work-1442857105
6. [6] I put in this disclaimer due to my potted history of predicting Apple products. In 2009 I predicted the shape and functionality of the rumoured Apple iPad to my fellow geek friends. I was wrong. I had inadvertently predicted something like the Microsoft Surface Tablet that came out 3 years later and not unlike the iPad Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface ; http://www.apple.com/au/ipad/?afid=p238%7Cs4k61cIsS-dc_mtid_18707vxu38484_pcrid_86931463222_&cid=aos-au-kwg-ipad-slid-
7. [7] http://www.asymco.com/2010/11/15/law-of-conservation-of-modularity/
8. [8] Bafang is one of the leading electric motor OEM’s. Costing only AU$200-400 in ‘kit form’ you will frequently see their motors repackaged under the well-known Western bicycle brands: http://www.szbaf.com
9. [9] http://theconversation.com/affordable-batteries-for-green-energy-are-closer-than-we-think-28772
10. [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1
11. [11] Apple has a long history of making design decisions such as this, e.g. no ability to add additional slot-in memory for their idevices, incompatibility with Flash, few ports for the laptops, only one mouse button etc etc.
12. [12] http://robotik.dfki-bremen.de/en/research/robot-systems/eo-smart-connecting-3.html