[I collect stories, experiences, and observations that don't particularly have anything to do with the regular focus of this blog. To shake up the pattern, I feel inclined to post about them anyway whenever it seems enough have collected to put into a Non Sequitur post.]
In the past several years, car manufacturer have been falling all over themselves in a race to get an electric vehicle (EV) on the market, something that differentiates each of them from the others. It’s starting to look like the smartphone market, only on a much, much grander scale. Smart phones have been around for 15 years and they come bloated with crapware and battery-draining widgets. I’m lucky if I get two days of battery life with the phone just sitting on my desk. (I use my cell phone very little. In fact, my data usage every month barely registers on the monthly quota.) Worse yet, the call quality and reliability - the primary reason I have the damn thing - hasn’t improved over the years.
Supersize this scenario to electric cars.
“2023 BMW iX M60 Is about EV Theater - More power, less range, and a significant price hike come to BMW's iX electric SUV,” is the view from Car and Driver. Excessive focus on building the bling and shiny bits while the actual purpose - to reliably and efficiently get us from place to place over distance - suffers.
A more compelling indicator that EV’s are on the smartphone track comes from Sony: Sony Aims for High-End Electric Car That Bills Extra for Entertainment. Sony - an entertainment company - is building an EV not for transportation per se, but as a platform to surround the passengers with entertainment. For a recurring price, that is. And, presumably, advertisements while moving them from A to B.
That an electronics and entertainment company would build an EV isn’t so surprising. Apple has been working on an EV since 2014. It’s just another electronic device. What’s new is the intrusiveness of our smartphones will be extended further into our lives and the smartphone annoyances amplified:
Attention grabbing crapware…check
Useless, anti-right-to-repair features…check
Expensive…check
Fit for purpose…well…
Words you don’t expect to see together in a sentence: Minimalist Mansion.
Some jobs are tougher than others.
Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash