On continental trips, diesel engines and autobahn speeds, pilgrimages to Porsche and BMW’s brand meccas.
How to understand the world through toy cars, from Matchbox to Hot Wheels, Siku, Majorette to Tomica.
On the business of car distribution, “channel stuffing” and the origins of state franchise regulation.
Reflections on Apple’s routing around now-defunct computer retail channels via its highly successful stores.
We discuss the zeitgeist of automotive decline.
We marvel – again – at the industry’s glacial pace of change and contrast the auto industry’s tiny volumes to smartphones and personal computers.
via Asymcar 12: Cycle Times | Asymcar.
We explore the strategic and tactical considerations behind BMW’s i sub-brand. Why did BMW attach a new BMW sub-brand to a new powertrain rather than using another brand, like Mini? The answer helps explain how innovations and brands inter-relate and how incumbents can attempt to absorb what is potentially non-sustaining.
We consider the pros and cons of innovation within an operating business – “intrepreneurship” – compared with creating an autonomous enterprise for the “new new thing”. I contrast BMW i with General Motors’ failed Saturn experiment.
We consider the burden that regulation, girth, cycle times, legacy practices, financialization and strategy taxes place on incumbents.
Finally, we look at what it takes to cross over the line which separates the device-based nice-to-have infotainment options from the must-have driver and ownership assistants that will inevitably find home in these devices.
The orthodox vs. the unorthodox: Tata, Tesla and Toyota. Why might an asymmetric competitor lose and a symmetric competitor win?
We begin with Tesla and Apple. We continue with aluminum vehicles and re-visit information asymmetry as Horace exploits it to buy a Mercedes on eBay.
We talk about car APIs (Aux input jack and ODBII) and much, much more.
A brief discussion considers the perils of endless line extension up and down the market, perhaps fueled by financialization.
This is a good one.
Horace and Jim discuss shopping online for used cars and how and why the value of cars disappears so quickly. The conversation drifts into information asymmetry, the declining interest in auto maintenance and the perpetual closed-loop auto information model. We hypothesize on the impact of the coming self-monitoring and awareness of the lives of vehicles. Finally we ask whether the dysfunction in the industry is the cause or the effect of the ancient integrated factory model and the sustaining auto eco-system incentives that impede transformation.
Asymcar 9. Stasis: Depreciation, Brands, Information Intransigence | Asymcar.
In this episode we move beyond just talking about our pet theories of automotive disruption and interview someone who is doing something about it.
Asymcar 8: The EcoV | Asymcar.
If you want to know more about Toyota’s secret sauce, why GM could not make an electric vehicle and how decisions are made in the auto industry then you should listen.
The Transportationist, David Levinson @trnsprttnst joins us to discuss the technical, human, environmental and economic factors driving change to the auto-ecosystem.David helps us smartly survey the landscape via:
Asymcar 6: Peak Horse | Asymcar.
Steve Crandall brings a new perspective as a guest. Steve’s analysis of complex systems has given him a huge pool of wisdom into which we dip our dainty spoons.
We survey the interlopers seeking to replace many jobs that cars have traditionally done, from horses to bicycles, planes, trains and buses.
We dive deeper into a few earlier Asymcar topics including energy, regulation, infrastructure, power train evolution, societal changes, distribution networks, urbanization and consider the promise of electric bicycles.
Several innovation timing lessons temper our expectations for immediate improvements.
Finally, we revisit the emerging transportation information layers and how such services may change public behavior and the auto-ecosystem.
Asymcar 6: Peak Horse | Asymcar.
(Honorable mention to anyone who can identify the vehicle shown above.)
Of Phaetons, Coupés, Shooting Brakes, Broughams, Hackneys, Cabriolets, Landaus and Limousines. Horace and Jim step back in time to revisit the raison d’être for carriages and the emerging “horseless” carriage. We explore how evolution rather than revolution of networks influenced the technologies of transportation.
The question of foothold markets comes up and we explore which jobs-to-be-done affected early car design. The leap from these early jobs to the modern segmentation of the market is observed through the contrast between Henry Ford’s approach to the then agrarian market compared with Alfred Sloan’s portfolio strategy at General Motors.
The discussion morphs into a brief infrastructure review where the development of roads is compared to today’s telco operator business and regulatory models.
Finally, Horace and Jim drift into insurance and discuss the risk pooling implications of driverless cars.
Horace Dediu and Jim Zellmer discuss the pleasures of traversing continents by road. This leads to a grand tour of powertrains, composites, fuel efficiency, regulation and Tesla’s luxury market entry. Which naturally leads to a conversation on emerging auto modularization, apps and ecosystems and where value will accrue.
