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Apple’s Electric Car Project Titan: The Most Dangerous New Entrant to Auto Industry

By
paul
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0

Rumours are rampant about Apple’s automobile project. The latest is from Bloomberg saying that Apple is going to partner with an established automobile firm to produce a new car. So Apple will make the self driving software and Ford or another automobile company will make the physical car. Something like Apple does now with Hon Hai and their iPhone. Apple designs it, Hon Hai makes it in China.

Apple Titan Electric Car
Apple Titan Electric Car: The most dangerous competitor the automotive industry has ever known

The thing is, I believe that many people are underestimating Apple’s danger as a new entrant to the industry. They have entered new markets time and time (mp3 players, cell phones) again and ended up dominating the industry within a few years. However despite what most people think, it’s not often because of a better design.

I think the main reason Apple succeeds in new markets is due to them rethinking the revenue model. With mp3’s, the Koreans had the market locked down by the year 2000. They had hundreds of models with excellent quality and full of great features. Better than Apple even has now. Better sound quality, the ability to record voice, radio, longer battery life the list goes on. So if Apple was late to the market with a substandard product how did they take over?

 

In the case of mp3’s, they won by bringing in the record companies instead of ignoring them or trying to beat them outright. The Korean mp3’s were setup to play almost any file. And they did. Users downloaded files on the torrents and their mp3 players could play practically any file you threw at them. (reflecting the random nature of downloaded files. mp3, aac, tiff, flac, OGG, WAV. Anything really. Apple knew they couldn’t beat them on flexibility or quality. So they went back to the drawing board.

Who are the players? In this case, record companies and music buyers. The problem was that buyers were tired of buying whole albums. They wanted the song they liked and nothing more. So Apple worked a deal with the record companies (largely because they had not other options. i.e. work with Apple or let their stuff all be ripped off) So they created the .99 cent download. One song, any song. 99 cents. Simple.

Once they got users credit card it was easy to sell more songs. One click and boom. Singlehandedly Apple saved the record companies and also destroyed the competition. I don’t think many people realise how earth shattering that was. It literally saved the record companies and with it recording artists. So there is a heck of a lot of goodwill on Apple’s side.

They created a profitable ecosystem that didn’t exist and paired it with their hardware. That’s exactly what they did with the next market. Cell phones. iPhone plus apps = the destruction of the Japanese cell phone market. Once again it wasn’t just a better design. It was a whole new profitable that was created along with their hardware. It’s a brilliant plan and that’s exactly what they will do with Titan, their coming electric car. Check this video and let me know what you think. I think this is one of my most interesting videos because the topic is fascinating and much is unknown. Here I take a stab at it. Love to hear what you think.

How to eat Durian (The sexy fruit)

By
paul
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0

Step by step how to enjoy durian to the max

Durian the sexiest fruit
1. Wait…. till you find someone you really like. Who drives your senses wild.
2. Find a ripe durian in season.
a. It should have cracked open naturally or feel ever so ready
b. Wiggle your finger in the crack and check consistency. The meat inside should be soft to the touch. Similar to the feeling of a ripe mango.

Look for the crack. Insert finger and feel for the soft, ripe mango texture.
Look for the crack. Insert finger and feel for the soft, ripe mango texture.

3. Try to get the biggest one you can find.
4. Go somewhere no one can find you. Hotel, trip etc.
5. Throw your mobile phone out the window.
6. Lock the doors & windows to increase the smell and overall sensory experience.
6. Relax, eat durian together, kiss. Breathe the smell deeply. Look into each others eyes. Kiss, eat durian. Rinse wash repeat

How Apple Blew Its Lead in Laptops

By
paul
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0

Ever since the Macair was released an blew the world away in January of 08′, Apple has enjoyed a huge technological lead on all of it’s competitors. It was unprecedented. In the ultra competitive world of electronics, a unique product to handily beat every competitor so badly that it embarrasses them; astonishing.

Compare a 2008 Dell with the same year Macair. Clunky piece of junk compared to a sleek piece of art! A Tesla vs a Fiat 500L.  Let’s face it. It was downright embarrassing to walk into a presentation with anything else.  At times it even seemed like an intelligence test. Why on God’s Green Earth would you burden yourself with an unreliable, ugly, heavy, laptop that crashed often, would break by dropping ever so slightly and had a battery with a shorter life span than a Japanese Prime Minister??

My how times have changed. Xiaomi just announced what I believe to be if not a Macbook killer, a true competitor at half the price. Tough as nails. Solid aluminum case. Intel i5 processor (superior to the $1,299 Macbook’s mobile processor), more memory and did I mention half the price. And a discrete video card so you can actually play games on it! USB-C charger and many other goodies yet to come out with an Apple logo on them. And Apple is still the leader….?

And to make things worse, the Xiaomi Laptop is cool. Xiami knows it and has a million ready to sell. They have Hugo Barra from Google on their team and they know they have a winner on their hands. Not a copycat. Also ran. A fast, tough, cool workhorse for half price.

Apple lost touch with laptop consumer needs
Apple lost touch with laptop consumer needs

I think this loss of market leadership can be traced to Tim Cook endless proclamations that the iPad will replace laptops. I know he’s right. Eventually. But in today’s world, with software and iPad limitations as they are (no USB for storage, no workhorse editing software, minuscule internal storage) and the statement is laughable. Really someones gotta put a gag on Tim. No more “iPads are going to replace laptops” and a lot more “I’m sorry we neglected our key users.:The graphic designers: The video editors.

He needs to get on his hands and knees and find Jesus right quick if he doesn’t want a full scale shift away from Mac. Mac OS is still great. But iTunes sucks eggs. Photos are hard to work with. Why can’t you just open the iPhone like a folder, take photos off, drag and drop photo’s on like… well like Windows.

Apple has ignored their users real needs for too long and the world has caught up. And now the things that we lived with. Gritted our teeth but eventually forgave are coming back to haunt Apple. Let’s face it. There are still a hell of a lot of things that are inconvenient on Apple Laptops and devices. And Apple better start listening. And responding.

Or maybe this is how it’s supposed to play out. Maybe the walled garden model that Apple has was bound to fail like so many people have said. Like Open Source Software. The wisdom of crowds. Maybe the days of geniuses like Steve Jobs ended with the Great One. And now Apple needs a Renaissance. An opening to developers. To the world. Maybe just maybe if Apple opens up, the pieces inside will be so valuable that developers and collaborators around the world will take them and create the next generation.

But I have my doubts. I remember walking around the Macworld Expo in Japan in 1996 when Apple was at it’s lowest point. Everyone was talking about the inevitable Apple bankruptcy. Japanese were all asking me, “why don’t Americans believe in Apple?” “Why would they let it die?” And I couldn’t say anything. In front of me I saw the true believers. Graphic designers galore ready to give it all for Apple. Even at their lowest point.

I believe these are the same users Apple has been taking for granted. Ignoring. Telling a hardcore graphics designer that he can work on an iPad? Like he’s some kind of idiot who hasn’t tried one? WTF was Tim thinking? Why didn’t someone stop him?

So the issue is multi-faceted. Competitors have caught up. Loyal users like me are fed up. And we are ready to bolt if something better comes along. And I think, for the money, this Xiaomi Laptop is just that thing. I’m buying one on August 2nd and having it shipped from China. And I haven’t had a Windows computer since the days of steam engines.

Like it? Hate it? Comment below! 

Chrome OS Killing Apple: Skype Works Now

By
paul
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0

As of today, July 6th, 2016, Microsoft quietly conceded that you can make Skype calls on Google Chrome OS. This is a huge development as running software like Skype has long been Google Chrome OS’s main limitation. In fact, it was the reason Chrome OS has been derided as non-starter in competing with Windows and Apple.

This was the very reason, that when Google released the Chrome Operating System in 2008, tech analysts collectively shrugged their slumped shoulders. It was a non event. ‘Google just released ‘a ridiculous beta browser that they call an operating system. And it can’t even run Skype!’ was the reaction in tech blogs. Not one blog I read had anything good to say about it. ‘Why would anyone want an Android operating system on a laptop??’ was another common reaction. No one predicted it’s demise because no one thought it would actually even make it through childbirth.

 

Fast forward to 2013, when Business Insider announced that ‘two of the three best selling laptops on Amazon were Google’s Chromebooks’. At that point people started to pay attention or at least to look into it. ‘How on God’s Green Earth could Chrome OS pass Windows and Mac when no one I know has one?’ was the reaction of my friends. ‘This must be a mistake’ another friend said. But the reason they missed the trend was because they were old. Or at least they were over 18. All the action was happening in primary, jr high and high school and under the radar of tech journalists and self appointed experts.

By 2015 Google’s Chromebooks make up half of US classroom devices including both laptops and iPads. The key market, youth, the education market has already fallen. See tobacco company data for the value of this market. How could Google have stolen the education market from a loved and entrenched company, ie Apple?

4 things changed.

1. The rise in the power of apps. Apps are doing what software used to do. Photo editing, filters, video editing are not only possible but have more intuitive interfaces and thus require less training. Click, swipe, save.

2. Consumer needs have changed. Just like few predicted the rise of ‘fast fashion’ and fall of French designers (classics) few saw the rise of Chrome OS. It’s a new breed of consumer with different habits and needs. Just like many will stick with high quality classics, and there is certainly a benefit to that, most go with cheap clothes worn for the moment. Good enough. Fashionable enough. Easy to update and change. Bang for the buck, they deliver.

3. Rise of mobile and the subsequent shift of programming talent to apps. Mobile = apps. Desktop and laptop = software. Until now. Now we have a laptop that is all apps and the market is pumping out endless awesome apps that make our lives easier to manage.

4. Security. It’s simply not possible to install key-loggers, malware, roofkits, viruses because you simply can’t install software. It’s physically impossible. So Chrome computer don’t need a lot of things other computers need. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the best computer for on-line banking or Bitcoin.

5. Internet speed and hardware advances. It’s a perfect storm. The modern iPhone is estimated to be 120,000,000 times faster than the onboard computer on the Apollo space mission. Times have changed. Mobile flies.

Although I have to say I called it early, if you scroll way way back on my Facebook, I predicted the Chrome OS would be the future. You have to scroll way back because it was about 8 years ago. I remember, Dave Lore, my friend in Hong Kong commented that he was going to keep an eye on my prediction.

But this is not my ‘I was right proclamation’ but it still kind of is lol. I’ll save the main one for 15 years from now. FYI, I don’t have a Chrome OS laptop and am not planning on buying one. (I want the new redesigned Macbook or possibly the Mi Laptop -to be unveiled next month… But I can see the train coming and when the technology is ready for the vision, I’ll jump on board.

As a final thought, I want to amend my previous pronouncement. It is possible that Chrome OS won’t run the vast majority of devices in 15 years. Google could mess it up somehow (I doubt they would blow a lead this solid) but, even if that were to happen, someone running their model will.

It could be a competitor no one sees coming. An app itself like WeChat. WeChat already functions very much like an operating system for users. Remember those pesky apps edging out software… They could possibly edge out operating systems themselves.

Thrilling Motorcycle Ride Through Fruit Markets, Tiny Lanes and Ghetto’s in Bangkok, Thailand

By
paul
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0

Today turned out to be quite the treat. My friend Beven stopped by with his bike and asked if I wanted to take a tour of Old Bangkok. Even though I had plans to work on some stuff, this offer was too good to refuse. And off we went flying down the highway towards one of Bangkok’s last remaining ghetto, old school areas in the central downtown area.

Not one to miss a moment, I whipped out my iPhone and tried to hold on with one hand as we careemed through the narrow lanes, barely missing garbage, trucks, a cement truck, babies, carts laden with massive piles of construction materials and plenty more. If you have time, it’s worth watching through to the end as the scenery changes several times throughout our journey.

Driving a motorcycle in Asia is one of my favorite hobbies and one I’ve faithfully practiced for the last 29 years. Everything from crazy street racing NSR’s in Japan around the Imperial Palace to riding all the way up and down India on an old 350 Bullet over a 4 month period in 1999 to a full tour of Vietnam complete with a tour of the DMZ. I’ve seen it all and can tell you, it’s damn good. Bikes are the only way to see Asia. Forget bullet trains, planes, buses are boring and only take you to places everyone else has been.

Even if you live in Asia for years, a bike ride to a new area always will get you excited. There is so much to see and run into. Literally sometimes. Like when I hit a 4 foot tall wall of rice in Southern India and crashed off the side of the road. I found out later that the villagers used traffic to separate rice from chaff and meant us to drive over it. They simply couldn’t afford to buy the threashing machines and did it old school. I picked up my bike, had a laugh with them and headed on my way. It wasn’t easy getting rice out of my chain though. That stuff really sticks in there good.

Anyway, most of my biking journeys pictures have been lost over the years so I’m very happy to have today’s video. Thanks Bevan!

Stressed out? Here’s a simple, bulletproof method and takes one minute and is impossible to forget

By
paul
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2

Stress management is a funny thing. You learn all these great techniques for managing stress when you are feeling good and you never remember them when you need them. Or at least if you’re like me you don’t. Even for those of us who are relatively stress free, there are times when it’s essential.

To make it worse, I travel light. And I travel a lot. And I hate carrying things. So usually it’s just me and my brain. So I never have that handy yoga mat. Or relaxation mp3. Luckily I came across this effective technique years ago and it’s really served me well.

It’s simple as heck and really works for relaxing in the heat of battle.  So here it is:

  1. Close your eyes
  2. Slowly breathe in through your nose
  3. Let the air fill your belly and let it rise up like a pregnant woman (avoid upper chest)
  4. Breathe out of your mouth and an make a sound as it goes out

Get totally lost in focus on the air going in your nose, filling your belly, feeling it rise up, the awesome slow pause at the top and making a cool sound like in some refreshing gum commercial as the air exits your rounded mouth.

That’s it. That’s all their is to it. Try that for 1 to 5 minutes. If you’re like me, you’ll feel amazing.

911 REDUX’s fantastic co-work creative space in Bangkok

By
paul
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0

The 911 REDUX team has a co-work creative space to gather, plan and raise funds in Bangkok.

Our team co-work space. We got a great deal and the space is fantastic. Come, join the team and enjoy a month in Bangkok!
Our team co-work space. We got a great deal and the space is fantastic. Come, join the team and enjoy a month in Bangkok!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I looked long and hard for the right combination of location, internet speed, and accessibility for the various people volunteering time to make this project a reality. There is still a long way to go. Banks have rejected this project and we are working on solutions to take donations. At this point, there are only two ways. Offline and online. Offline, contact me directly for potential solutions and online please send Bitcoin to this address:

xpub6DikmJw7wpH3Qt2Hh2itDeHfJ5B6u1P7E61QpDTKL4iyyy5DA8JD9o3n7hCA9UsBFsEunFsSgdupYSBqLYk1qKBYAdL8zNuW6avABdQgmP8

Thank you very much for your emotional support, time and material support (donations). We are going to complete this project and your help is essential. Any questions hit me up at [email protected]

6’5” Thai cop uses ‘Find my iPhone’, his rice rocket bike and gumshoe detective skills to track down my iPhone in a random part of Bangkok. Then we all posed for selfies

By
paul
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0

 

Thai Police, iPhone Recovery Squad
Thai Police, iPhone Recovery Squad

I spent a pretty lengthy day yesterday at Thai immigration, which is way out in the sticks at the old international airport in Bangkok. To get there and not blow all your dinner money on taxis, you have to take a subway, then a beat-up old bus, then ride on the back of a scooter till you’re finally there.

This time I had all the right paperwork and the staff were helpful. Awesome luck. Visa paperwork submitted, check. Everyone smiling and the right stamps in my passport, check.

Getting back again is a bit easier. Once you jump off the scooter there are more comfortable mini-buses that will take you back to the subway station with all the office workers.

With the sun still blazing down we managed to score the last two seats on a mini-bus that was just leaving. Awesome luck again.

Guess I’d used up all my luck by then, because I got out of the bus, walked over the overpass to the other side of the highway, got all ready to chill out in a park, and… realized I’d left my brand new iPhone 6s Plus in the back seat of the minibus.

That kinda unwound all the good experiences I’d had that day – leave your iPhone in a bus in any city in the world (except Tokyo maybe) and that phone has left your world forever. I ran back to the road. My bus was long gone, of course, but there were others from the same company. I tried to get one of the other drivers to help and he tried, but with about a hundred similar mini-buses buzzing past it was looking pretty hopeless.

Damn. That was more than just a phone, that was 90% of my work. I make instructional videos for a living and the iPhone is such a complete package that I use it and almost nothing else to make them.

Everything I’d made so far, everything I would’ve made in future, was now taking a free ride through Bangkok to an uncertain future. My best hope was that its new owner would get as much use out of it as me, instead of wasting that beauty on Facebook or WeChat.

Tried calling it, no answer. Not really surprised.

A really helpful Thai guy (the kind you can always find in Bangkok if you’re in need) was translating for the bus drivers for me, and he suggested we ask some tough-looking cops and soldiers that were sitting at a table under the underpass. I was pretty sure they had better things to do than help me and my stupid phone, but we tried anyway.

They didn’t speak much English but we got the message across somehow. Then the younger of the two cops whipped out an iPhone, fired up Find My iPhone and pointed at the login screen for me to try.

I punched in my Apple ID. Awesome luck again! Almost straight away I had a map showing me exactly where my 6s was having its adventure. Still one problem though – this is Bangkok, rush hour is starting, and… well, if you’ve ever experienced Bangkok traffic in rush hour you’ll know what I mean, and my mission was to find a moving target somewhere in that mess.

Did I mention that Thai cops are nothing to be afraid of, despite their badass uniforms? Here’s where they decided to go the extra mile (literally) to help out. The young cop put on his helmet, jumped on his police bike and motioned for me to jump on the back. Alrighty.

And off we rode into eight-lane hell, armed with the cop’s iPhone showing the target on its GPS. Dodging between the cars and trucks (plus a few wrong turns and side-streets) it took us about 10 minutes to find another row of those mini-buses, one of them with my iPhone inside. One of them. GPS is great, but couldn’t show me exactly which bus had my phone on its seat.

We worked that row of mini-buses, up and down, waking up drivers, asking questions, finding no English, no phones, till suddenly I saw a driver that looked ever-so-slightly familiar. Maybe. He was trying to avoid me but I had a 6’5” Thai cop with me and we broke him down. He opened his sliding door and made it clear that he didn’t have any iPhones. I did my best monkey climb in and under the seat until voila! My iPhone!

Thai military was on the scene too
Thai military was on the scene too (photo credit Jon Southurst)

The policeman seemed very happy with the situation and I threw some money the driver’s way, which he pretended to be happy about but I could see his iPhone 6s Plus dreams of glory evaporating, moment by moment. 

And so it happened that I recovered my phone in a city notorious for finders-keepers rule of the jungle. The young policeman, full of confidence and vigor, jumped on his bike and I jumped on the back and he deftly whisked me back to his boss, the old guy with the huge ‘Police’ reflective sticker on his chest.

Everyone seemed overjoyed for some reason and the cops took turns looking at my phone, and they did the international hand motion for selfies and all the cops lined up to get in the shot.

Obviously this picture was going to be used back at the station for ‘we did something today’ evidence and I got plenty of handshakes and smiles from the crew of cops. It was a surreal experience and I was quite taken aback as I had been warned many times that “nothing happens in Thailand unless baht changes hands first”. But I found that to be totally untrue. These cops listened well despite language challenges, were tech savvy (quickly whipping out ‘Find my iPhone’) and were meticulous as we went back and forth down the street, grilling the same drivers time and time again until we stumbled on the right one.

Grilling Thai Bus Drivers Over and Over
Grilling Thai Bus Drivers But No Waterboarding

As I use my iPhone for everything from shooting videos to editing videos to recording podcasts, shooting and editing photos with those annoying positive self-help-type quotes, without my trusty phone that would come to a halt.

Essentially my phone is the key tool keeping me working as I cruise through the world looking like I’m not working. So I have iPhone’s awesome ‘Find my iPhone’ to thank in addition to the Thai police, who I’ve found to be both polite and capable. Did I mention that I got my retirement visa (basically a green card for Thailand) today too!  It’s been a very good day indeed.

Auto mafia turf war: Faraday taking BMW’s i3 (key design team) is like a car bomb

By
paul
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0
Auto Turf War is On!
Auto Turf War is On!

The Model 3’s record sales were just a harbinger for the coming bloody turf war in the auto industry. China’s mysterious Faraday Futures just poached a key BMW team. And when I say key. I mean it.

The BMW i3 was the only team working on something that will make Elon Musk’s blood run cold. An innovative manufacturing model that could put them years ahead of the competition. Lighter, more flexible, the list goes on.

To get perspective, let’s take a quick look at what Tesla’s doing first. Tesla moved into a Toyota factory. Why? Because, like all current cars except for the i3, their production process is very similar (100 years old).

Large investments, huge machines, plenty of chemical baths, robots that are so large they look menacing. In a nutshell, sheet metal, stamped, welded, painted, Think huge investment. Very little flexibility. Thousands of cars a day from one production line. Very little ability to alter the basic structure.

Basic carbon fiber process: injection of resin, under heat creates immense strength and rigidity. Aluminum frame with the beams connected by a cross beam. Separation of chassis and coach.

Think of the i3 as the car version of the Boeing 787. Modular. 3D printable. This isn’t a perfect analogy but think of the Boeing 787 as a lego airplane. Easy to clip together. Easy to change parts, standardized. Light. And the 787 is already changing the whole aviation industry. It was a huge risk. It threatened to take Boeing down. It caught on fire or the batteries did. But they fixed that. And now we have a more flexible, more efficient, lighter, stronger, easier to maintain airplane that put the US ahead of the industry again. It was a huge risk. I followed it closely. It’s the kind of bet I like.

Black and white. Win or lose. And Boeing won. Now Faraday is trying the same thing with cars. And they got the best team in the world to help them.

BMW Team Did Not Move for Money but Love
I owned and operated a recruiting company in Tokyo Japan for several years and have a very good feel for why executives switch companies. The first thing you learn as a new recruiter is that it isn’t about the money as everyone assumes. Even though candidates will tell you it is. If you believe it, you’ll fail.

It’s about intangible things. Technology, leadership, dreams. Recruiters only deal with the top talent as they charge (or we charged up to 35% of annual salary) for a successful introduction. For us it kind of was about the money.

But I can smell a rat here. if they whole team left. Top guy, all the team. It tells us something very important. A high performing director with a crack team of designers using advanced technology are generally happy. They get paid to play around with stuff they like. Remember we’re all kids at some level. And engineers love to monkey with stuff.

Faraday Design Team (Ex BMW-Tesla)
Faraday Design Team (Ex BMW-Tesla)

So we have a real mystery on our hands. Why would a team. Who likes each other (they moved together), is working with the coolest stuff out there (new production processes and new materials likely to upset the apple cart globally) at a top manufacturer (BMW), working on a car that was by all measures cool, leave?

The essentially means kicking the teeth in of their former colleagues if you don’t realize. It’s a big deal. People get violent when their whole team leaves like this. I’ve been in a meeting with a world famous CEO talked (joked of course…ha …ha..voice gets deeper and drops off menacingly) about getting an aluminum bat and going to a competitor to cap a few guys.

Luckily he was just blowing off steam and we were old friends. But I’m telling you, this is an emotional thing. And you throw in the nationality thing too. A top German team going to a Chinese startup? And you have hot stuff man. Human emotions boiling over.

I wasn’t there. I’m just assuming. But I will bet my Model 3 downpayment that BMW was not letting them use the technology to the best of it’s ability. That they saw a future that BMW did not. And Faraday shared that future. And, lucky for us, we will soon find out what that was.

Breaking: Mitsubishi Motors Scandal involving 625,000 cars

By
paul
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0
Auto Execs Buying Time... We'll get that money back to you tomorrow... yea. Thats it
Auto Execs Buying Time… We’ll get that money back to you tomorrow… yea. Thats it

Pop quiz: What do the breaking Mitsubishi Automotive Scandal and the VW Scandal have in common?  Why can we guarantee there will be more?

Fossil fuel powered cars are already at their limit of efficiency

There is no where to go from here folks. It we keep demanding the impossible, we will keep seeing these scandals. One after the other.

It got so bad that we had a previously reliable, proud German icon, Volkswagen, go into panic mode and actually make up a category to meet new emission standards.  Think about that for a moment. .Volkswagen was backed so far into a corner that they had to literally made up the “Clean Diesel” category.

I can only imagine that they reasoned, “we simply cannot make the numbers. We need to buy time until the technology catches up. For now, as a stopgap measure, lets make up a fake clean category and own it. In the meantime, lets try to get something real going. Come’on boys!”

I hope that sinks in to your noggin. How unrealistic and untenable this situation is. Governments are demanding fossil fuel cars to do what they cannot do. Simple as that. It’s like when Kim Jung Un stops by your factory and asks for monthly sales figures. You make it up. And you make it just a little better than the last one.

“So Kim, just for sheets and giggles, what were the last prefectures numbers? And a nervous weak laugh….KIM: “One trillion dollars a day!”. Smiles all around, “Those slackers! We passed that figure on the 28th!”. Ha ha ha…ha.

We are trying to get gas cars to do what they cannot do. Be clean, cheap, reliable. It ain’t gonna happen. But if we keep asking, they will keep trying to make us happy somehow.

Don’t bring up the story of how Ford demanded his engineers make an 8 cylinder car despite it being “impossible”. Ok maybe that was true that time but it’s not true every time. Sometimes it’s too much. And you get to the point where you force people to cheat.

Which brings me to the latest scandal. Bloomberg broke the news today that “Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has admitted to manipulating test data in order to improve fuel-economy claims” on over 600,000 cars. They were making cars for Nissan and Sheriff Carlos Ghosn busted them. So once again, we have a scandal. And governments didn’t catch it. Some random event happened and it became public.

No matter how we dress fossil fuel up....
No matter how we dress fossil fuel up….

So how about this some common sense for once: “instead of making laws that defy the other laws (of physics) why don’t we start asking manufacturers to start producing electric cars as a certain percentage of their total volume?” If we are going to regulate the industry why don’t we listen to them? If we keep demanding stuff they can’t do, we will continue getting scandals like Mitsubishi Motors and Volkswagen back.

So basically, gas cars have gotten about as clean and efficient as they can get given our current level of technology: Can’t get blood from a stone.

My real life partner: 1989 Honda NSR
My real life partner: 1989 Honda NSR

Reminds me of my trusty NSR back when I was living in Tokyo. For those who don’t know the NSR but love motors, you would have loved the NSR. 250cc, two stroke and I think the finest bike ever produced. It was perfect in every way. They called it the “Suicide Bike” in Japan…and in Italy. It was so fast and engineered so well, that, if you loved racing, there was nothing else. NSR owners are psycho about their bike.

The only problem was that it was a 2 stroke. And 2 stroke meant that if you rode it hard, you basically painted 4 lanes of road behind you black. I road raced at night in Japan. It was upstanding citizen (Clark Kent) in daytime until my alter ego evil clown appeared on the streets of Tokyo and Chiba.  And Japanese guys loved it. A foreigner racing around the Imperial Palace at 180+ km got their blood racing too. And much fun was had. One high speed accident where the Japanese God Amamatsu was looking out for me but besides that good luck all around.

But back to that nasty 2 stroke technology…. All around the world the 2 stroke was being phased out. Japan was one of the last to do it. Mainly because Japan made all the bikes then. Japanese bike makers tried in vain to make a 2 stroke that didn’t raise earths temperature 5 degrees for every mile driven: but in vain. New 2 strokes were finally outlawed. Then after the bell, Honda announced their 2 stroke that almost met the new standards. We all held our breath. Surely the government could fudge the numbers a tiny bit to keep the funnest engine ever made running? With all the money stake. But, alas, the decision was final and 2 strokes would no longer be made.

I often think back to that time and wonder if Honda would have announced their invention just a bit earlier (before Japan’s bureaucracy was set in motion) would they have let them make it. I’m sure they would have. And to me, literally it was the worst case of homesickness for a technology that I ever had and likely ever will have. The 2 stroke Honda NSR was like a wife to me. Seriously. Man I loved that thing. But when I had to let her go, it changed me.

In contrast, letting go of gasoline engines is easy. Electric is fast, powerful, instant. Letting go of gas is not a problem. But that’s where we are folks. It’s time to let go of gas. I doubt it will be as painful for you as losing the ‘NSR was for me, but if it is, you have my full sympathies. Really. You do. Email me at [email protected] if you have a story about that. Would love to hear it.

So that’s where we are. Electric cars are already faster than gas cars and battery technology is moving along nicely. They have zero exhaust so we no longer need emission checkups so we win there too. The more we get behind electric and constructively guide the automotive industry the faster it’s going to adjust. If we keep being morons we will force their hand. And make no mistake a proud Japanese company like Mitsubishi fudging numbers, means they are at the wall. Let’s help them to the right thing and eliminate auto exhaust totally. No more checking. No more cheating. Less BS and cleaner air. How bout it?

PS: Companies that make things we need are not our enemies. If we work with them, great things can be accomplished. If we try to make pigs fly, then all bets are off.

Link to breaking story.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/mitsubishi-motors-admits-manipulating-fuel-economy-test-data

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