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Automobile Reviewers: Stuck in the Past
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VW Vans from the late 50's and 60's moved people efficiently and comfortably in much the same manner as the 356. Great looking and a lot of fun to drive and decent gas mileage for a family of five.
If we came out with those two vehicles again we pretty much cross the devide of what people need. Our world is constantly losing what was great for something we hope will be better. Sometimes good enough should just be left alone or simply refined.
Least I forget... the average dad with a box of tools could work on these cars in his garage.... hummmmm... now we're on to something.
The reality is that people in America buy boring cars. Toyota Camry. Honda Accord. No one wants to read reviews on them, because you know exactly what you're going to get.
Absolutely, mainstream auto reviewers should write about products for a mainstream audience. This includes reliability, safety, cost of ownership, all the mundane issues that a family faces in its choice of transport vehicle.
I'm glad someone mentioned Top Gear as a forum for car reviews. I watched a bunch of episodes and once you get past the jokes, it's really a celebration/preservation of the internal combustion engine maker/oil company duopoly. If it doesn't make a shouty noise or feel like it's going to kill the driver, it doesn't get a lot of love. It's their show and given their popularity, they're giving people what they want. But I would like to see a mix of information about practical, zero-hassle cars that are strictly utilitarian transport as well as enthusiasts' dreams.
Somehow, the fuelheads have missed the point, that if all the family cars were electric or otherwise pollution free, the restrictions on performance cars might be lifted or at the very least fuel prices might drop/supplies might last longer. Most families would never miss their internal combustion engine if someone swapped it for a pure electric or hybrid: the range of the Volt in pure electric mode would over most people's daily driving, and they would still never risk being stuck without power. Clever as the hybrids are, I think the Volt is a more realistic approach. And both concepts will get better.
As for the idea that hybrids are bad because they have hidden manufacturing/disposal costs, what new technology doesn't? If people 100 years ago had seen the future of air pollution and climate change, mechanized warfare (does WWII happen without petroleum as a fuel source?) that would result from adopting gasoline as a fuel, maybe they would have walked away from it. The different between now and then is that we know more now.
We need more variation, more form factors/sizes, alternate power systems, more competition.
He now just appears as a disgruntled academic who is now in the twilight of his career who has more to say about journalism than that of design. It is clear that he does not spend his time designing, but rather reading and writing about it. He may visit universities and repeat his career CV ad nauseum, but I have yet to read something of his that is ground breaking or revealing a successful example of what he is pushing. It is all about the failure.
Don we love you, but it is obvious you are banging your head against the wall. Your reputation as an industry curmudgeon is further reinforced by this Core77 posting of yours.
Like others have said, if you want facts and figures, read consumer reports, if you want to know what Jeremy Clarkson type people think about cars, read the magazines. A person who is truly interested in buying the best car for them will research both.
Magazine writers are trying to excite their audience and to sell more magazines, not cars. therefore they review cars that most of the readers will never be able to afford, are hopelessly impracticable and far from 'green'. Who wants to read about a Prius when they can drool over a Ferrari?
Wouldn't it be the designers concern whether the car will take pets and people, be as safe and economical as possible and still look good?
Again, no disrespect intended, hopefully all I've said makes sense...
Car purchase is still an emotional choice, and people aim to reflect their desired personality with what they drive. So being sensible, automated and environmentally responsible is still a step to far for us.
Hybrid cars are far from what they promise, the production costs and constraints make them very non-environmentally friendly and they are still premium products, because it is perceived as an opportunity by market and sales people.
We live in a world of four wheel drive jeeps that never leave the tarmac, race cars that fly down the highway and people carriers used by one or two ...
We buy cars that do twice, three times the permitted speed limit, that have unreasonable consumption values, that are too big, too heavy, too expensive. The whole concept of the car must diverge and two very different products will be generated in the future. The transporter and the toy, and when we get to that we will no longer have any doubt about what it is and what it is made for.
All the while we casually keep walking into walls and texting /playing bumper cars on the roads while navigating the reality of all those cars from the last century.- sidewalks. etc.
ooh. shiny interface on that ---bam!.. oops i fell into a fountain. but it was an iphone 5.0 ..im cool:)
I reject the idea that hybrid/electric cars are necessarily better for the environment, and with it, the idea that making our transportation capability equal with our power grid is somehow a good idea.
I also completely reject your statement that automated vehicles would be superior to manually operated ones. Humans are already disengaged enough with reality. The microscopic safety improvements are not worth the increasingly passive culture technology is creating. If anything, the relative lack of accidents is an amazing testament to the fruits of liberty, given a minimal foundation of law.
Furthermore, I reject the idea that there can not be too many safety regulations on vehicles. All these elitist benevolent notions completely ignore the impact on affordability. Maybe you could just give me a car with a nice big DLO instead of slit windows, and foot-thick walls with 45 airbags in between.
Where I do agree with you is that reviewers should focus more on usability for families, but then again, people are too busy saving up for their nicely style new car that they can't afford to pay for a family, so I guess that's a tough one to solve.
Look, if I want a techy review I will read a car magazine (or website). If I want a techy camera review, I will read a camera magazine (or go to a camera website). But from the New York Times or the everyday newspaper, I expect something for the everyday reader, much as they do in their reviews of consumer electronics. They should write for their readers.
What we need are reviewers such as Walt Mossberg (Wall St. Journal) and David Pogue (New York Times), but writing about cars with the same intelligence and concern for the real person that they bring to consumer electronics.
I happen to be a car nut. I like to read technical reviews. But when I buy a car for my family, i want to know if it fits the lifestyle of my family. And I want a second opinion: consumer reports is good,but it has its own biases.
OK?
Don Norman
Besides so so many car magazines focus on environmental issues now. Maybe you mistook a 10 year publication for a contemporady one.
Also, john is spot on.
If every car was electric we would have a serious problem with batteries.
It is so very popular these days (I would argue that 5 years ago it was more popular when al gore's movie came out) to attack cars because of their 'carbon footprint' but these criticisms tend to often come from people who fly from university to university giving 'lectures'
I think magazines have bigger problems than their editorial staff these days
I think one of the major issues that has plagued these types of vehicle designs is that they are all trying to replicate the experience of driving an internal combustion engine, something that I feel they don't do very well. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a vegetarian friend in which we discussed that the best dishes were those that did not try to replicate "meat" dishes but rather celebrated their own diversity of flavors. I say let's create a new experience of driving that's different than gas. I'm tired of hearing people claim that they want "Green" solutions. This implies that they're still making a comparison. Create a departure point and let people choose to drive electric cars. Revel in the choice.
Finally in the second paragraph, the third sentence, I believe that your editor missed a few issues.
I completely agree. And I would add that car reviewers discuss styling on a rather low intellectual level: using arbitrary, subjective vocabulary and that they rarely dive very deep. What the reviewers (or maybe publishers) don't realize is that sports cars are the MINORITY of cars sold by volume. I'm no expert, but as I look in parking lots around the office park I work in it seems the markets are driven by the cars the fill real needs in peoples lives. I would argue that minivans would not exist if if were not for that fact. There is an opportunity here to engage the public in a discussion about THEIR chosen mode of transportation (Gas, hybrid, bike?) and the design of such. And the person who does engage this neglected segment of the American car buyer will have a very successful publication on their hands.
-Nick
If you are truly concerned about the environment, couldn't you focus on community planning and public transit. And isn't it kind of hypocritical to take this stance on automobiles "Meanwhile, we have an obligation to develop sensible purchasing and driving habits" yet be a VP for Apple? How green are iphones and hybrid car batteries that are made in China and then freighted to other parts of the world? But you may have something, it could be the reviewers writing articles for car magazines that are destroying the environment.
Consumer Reports does a good job of reviewing appliances and may have what you're looking for in a car review. http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/hyundai/elantra.htm
There are a couple problems you seem to be blaming on one person. Environmental side effect is the largest one. Until clean vehicles can make gas power obsolete, in both performance and practicality, you wont get mass adoption which then determines what sells magazines. Using a well-known name and a platform like core77 could be put to better use in achieving this goal than a couple paragraphs on automotive reviewers.
The other problem is stating, "Today, safety, environmental efficiency and comfort are considered desirable attributes". These are all considered desirable attributes by you.
The automobile is many things to different people. It can be a sport, hobby, appliance, tool, home or status symbol. There are plenty of resources that give readers this type of information but rarely will a vehicle, publication or reader be concerned with all those traits at once.
How do we make all these different categories green, safe and comfortable without taking away from the user's attraction to that category? Hell, how do we do that and ADD TO what the user initially found attractive about that category?
That being said, for the most part I agree with you. I've been a gearhead my entire life... but owning a fast car just isn't fun anymore. The combination of a crumbling infrastructure (terrible roads with potholes, expansion cracks, etc), overzealous police force with fines that don't match the crime (Going 15 over on the freeway? Bend over and pay $200+!!!) along with gas prices increasing 300-400% in the past decade = I just don't care anymore. I just sold my sports car for a fuel efficient hatchback. The police and gas prices have taken almost all the fun out of having a fast car.