The Model T Paradigm: The Case for a Minimalist Electric Car
The Model T Paradigm: The Case for a Minimalist Electric Car
The case for a “minimalist” design on this electric car rather than a head-turning elegant design is based on three things: function; cost; and positioning. The functional argument is that a vehicle traveling less than 40 miles per hour gets little benefit from an efficient aerodynamic design. Thus, the extra design, tooling, materials, and labor to produce a styled aerodynamic body would not pay for themselves in increased performance. Meanwhile, the marketing high end position of styled elegance and high performance is being fiercely contested by the likes of Tesla and even General Motors with the Chevy Volt. Moreover, those two named companies are apparently hard-wired politically to the U.S. federal government to the tune of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, respectively. The federal government can be expected to protect its investments with further investments.
The market plan of the high end is to have an exotic design that will be purchased by a limited number of rich people. Selling a limited number of expensive (read high-return on investment) would then pay for these companies working down the learning curve to cheaper production and ultimately cars cheap enough for a mass market.
Unfortunately, the car market has not worked that way. Exotic vehicles, such as the DeLorean, generally stayed exotic vehicles. Conversely, cheap bare-bones designs captured large markets and eventually evolved high end models. Honda started with motorcycles, moved to the Civic, and eventually reached the high end. Toyota had to sell millions of Corollas before selling Coronas … and ultimately the Lexus model.
Henry Ford’s Model T is the premier example of starting from the low end. In the early Twentieth Century, there were many excellent handcrafted styled horseless carriages. They were toys for the rich. Henry Ford built a car cheap enough for his workers to buy and simple enough for them to repair. The Model T allowed Ford to become a major player in the internal-combustion car market. Ironically, Ford respectfully declined a job offer from Thomas Alva Edison to build electric cars because the batteries of the day could not complete with the newly invented auto cycle and diesel cycle.
A century later, batteries may be the next car revolution. Higher efficiency batteries are being developed while the fuel for internal combustion engines is getting more expensive and shrinking in popularity politically for reasons of pollution and unfriendly/unstable sources. Petroleum prices rose above $150 per barrel in 2008, and some day those prices may seem cheap in comparison.
Yet, the sociology of car innovation remains the same. Barring a fabulous advance in energy storage, the best market position for electric vehicles is as a relatively cheap short-hop vehicle for trips to nearby work, to the grocery store, drop children at school. Longer trips will remain with the heavier, styled, internal-combustion vehicle. It is hard to rationalize expensive styling for a short-hop vehicle. Thus, the electric car can and should display many of its functional bones.
That said, the designers and marketers of such vehicles can make virtue of necessity. One school of design is the minimalist school that only fabricates what is necessary to do the task. Similarly, the modernist school of architecture ripped out acoustic ceiling tiles and accented cables and air ducts. (Some times they weren’t even real air ducts!)
That is not to say that styling is precluded. Visible struts and springs can have brushed metal with a plastic sealant. Flat surfaces can have the same or any number of decorative, and more importantly protective, surfaces. Even battery modules can run along the sides, back, or front—remember the iconic spare tire on the trunk of many vehicles and the gas can on the side of many trucks.
Then, even a minimalist electric car can evolve styling. Remember, there was another minimalist vehicle, the jeep. With many thousands of them left behind in the Philippines after World War II, many of them evolved into the exotically decorated jeepneys that are still a fixture in Philippine traffic today.
Some times the most graceful swans evolve from ugly ducklings.
Roger Carlson
February 9, 2010
The case for a “minimalist” design on this electric car rather than a head-turning elegant design is based on three things: function; cost; and positioning. The functional argument is that a vehicle traveling less than 40 miles per hour gets little benefit from an efficient aerodynamic design. Thus, the extra design, tooling, materials, and labor to produce a styled aerodynamic body would not pay for themselves in increased performance. Meanwhile, the marketing high end position of styled elegance and high performance is being fiercely contested by the likes of Tesla and even General Motors with the Chevy Volt. Moreover, those two named companies are apparently hard-wired politically to the U.S. federal government to the tune of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, respectively. The federal government can be expected to protect its investments with further investments.
The market plan of the high end is to have an exotic design that will be purchased by a limited number of rich people. Selling a limited number of expensive (read high-return on investment) would then pay for these companies working down the learning curve to cheaper production and ultimately cars cheap enough for a mass market.
Unfortunately, the car market has not worked that way. Exotic vehicles, such as the DeLorean, generally stayed exotic vehicles. Conversely, cheap bare-bones designs captured large markets and eventually evolved high end models. Honda started with motorcycles, moved to the Civic, and eventually reached the high end. Toyota had to sell millions of Corollas before selling Coronas … and ultimately the Lexus model.
Henry Ford’s Model T is the premier example of starting from the low end. In the early Twentieth Century, there were many excellent handcrafted styled horseless carriages. They were toys for the rich. Henry Ford built a car cheap enough for his workers to buy and simple enough for them to repair. The Model T allowed Ford to become a major player in the internal-combustion car market. Ironically, Ford respectfully declined a job offer from Thomas Alva Edison to build electric cars because the batteries of the day could not complete with the newly invented auto cycle and diesel cycle.
A century later, batteries may be the next car revolution. Higher efficiency batteries are being developed while the fuel for internal combustion engines is getting more expensive and shrinking in popularity politically for reasons of pollution and unfriendly/unstable sources. Petroleum prices rose above $150 per barrel in 2008, and some day those prices may seem cheap in comparison.
Yet, the sociology of car innovation remains the same. Barring a fabulous advance in energy storage, the best market position for electric vehicles is as a relatively cheap short-hop vehicle for trips to nearby work, to the grocery store, drop children at school. Longer trips will remain with the heavier, styled, internal-combustion vehicle. It is hard to rationalize expensive styling for a short-hop vehicle. Thus, the electric car can and should display many of its functional bones.
That said, the designers and marketers of such vehicles can make virtue of necessity. One school of design is the minimalist school that only fabricates what is necessary to do the task. Similarly, the modernist school of architecture ripped out acoustic ceiling tiles and accented cables and air ducts. (Some times they weren’t even real air ducts!)
That is not to say that styling is precluded. Visible struts and springs can have brushed metal with a plastic sealant. Flat surfaces can have the same or any number of decorative, and more importantly protective, surfaces. Even battery modules can run along the sides, back, or front—remember the iconic spare tire on the trunk of many vehicles and the gas can on the side of many trucks.
Then, even a minimalist electric car can evolve styling. Remember, there was another minimalist vehicle, the jeep. With many thousands of them left behind in the Philippines after World War II, many of them evolved into the exotically decorated jeepneys that are still a fixture in Philippine traffic today.
Some times the most graceful swans evolve from ugly ducklings.
Roger Carlson
February 9, 2010
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