Maintaining Cars in Use Lessons from the classic car world

1
Maintaining Cars in Use Lessons from the classic
car world?

• Paul Nieuwenhuis
• Centre for Automotive Industry Research (CAIR)
• ESRC Centre for Business Relationships,
  Accountability, Sustainability and Society
  (BRASS)
• Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK

2
About me reconciling car and sustainability

• Key Publications
• 1992
• The Green Car Guide
• 1994
• Motor Vehicles in the Environment (ed.)
• 1997
• The Death of Motoring?
• 2003
• The Automotive Industry and the Environment
• 2006
• The Business of Sustainable Mobility (ed.)

• Member Foresight Vehicle External Advisory Panel
• Member Motorsport development UK Research Group
• Member Society of Automotive Historians
• Affiliate member Institute of the Motor Industry
• Member, Guild of Motoring Writers

3
Sustainable Consumption Production

• We need to move from consuming quantity to
  consuming quality
• i.e consuming fewer, more durable products that
  deliver lifetime satisfaction

4
Theoretical basis

• Anthropological approach to consumption (G.
  McCracken)
• Design approach to consumption (J. Chapman S.
  Walker)
• Psychological sociological approach to
  consumption (e.g. T. Jackson)

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Durability

• Product durability has long been an issue
• If a car lasted longer it would use fewer
  resources in production (but note use/non-use
  split 70/30)
• The impact of disposal and recycling would be
  reduced
• Issues
• Modern cars are less polluting in use - true
• Modern cars are more efficient open to debate
• Do people want long-life cars - ?

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Ford v Sloan

• Ford
• It is considered good manufacturing practice,
  and not bad ethics, occasionally to change
  designs so that old models will become
  obsoleteOur principle of business is precisely
  the contraryWe want the man who buys one of our
  products never to have to buy another
• (Henry Ford, 1924, My Life and Work)

• Sloan (GM)
• Consumer dissatisfaction with todays car was
  engendered by the innovation of the annual model
  change, which called for major styling revisions
  every three years, functional or not, with minor
  annual faceliftings in between.
• (Flink, 1988, The Automobile Age)

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Who won that argument?

• consumers of the 1900s were not born wasteful,
  they were trained to be so by sales-hungry
  teachings of a handful of industries bent on
  market domination.
• (Chapman, 2005)

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Yet, most people buy their cars used and are thus
only distant followers of fashion.
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But a hierarchy of modernity still exists

• Nearly new
• Pre-owned
• Used
• Second hand
• Old banger/clunker

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Technical durability has improved
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Technical v emotional durability

• waste is nothing more than symptomatic of a
  failed user/object relationship, where
  insufficient empathy led to the perfunctory
  dumping of one by the other.
• material possessions remain hopelessly frozen
  in time. This incapacity for mutual evolution
  renders most products incapable of sustaining a
  durable relationship with users
• (Chapman, 2005, p20)

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Professionalisation of design has taken control
away from people

• Modern products demand passive acceptance by the
  user there is nothing to be added and
  contributed by the user. Even the repair of a
  simple scratch or break is not invitedThus the
  user cannot truly own the object if he or she
  cannot engage with it, understand itor maintain
  and care for itthis can foster a lack of valuing
  of the object and lead to its premature
  disposal (Walker, 2006, 118)

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Yet some objects retain their value over time

• Art, antiques, collectables, classic cars retain
  or increase in valuewhy?

14
Grant McCracken

• The virtue of pursuing collectibles rather than
  merely consumer goods is precisely that they have
  their own special scarcity, they are not
  available to any one with means
• (McCracken 1988, 113)

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Classic/historic vehicles

• Not just Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, etc.
• Even everyday cars become desirable when old
• Owners can make them last long beyond their
  design life
• Owners are able to retain an emotional link with
  these cars for many years, even decades
• But they do often add personal input through
  restoration, modification or modernisation

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Car Symbolism

• Consumer goods have a significance that goes
  beyond their utilitarian character and commercial
  value. This significance rests largely in their
  ability to carry and communicate cultural
  meaning.
• (McCracken, 1986, Culture and Consumption)
• There are few places where the insight that
  material goods have symbolic value is more naked
  to the popular scrutiny than in the case of the
  automobile,
• (Jackson, 2004, Models of Mammon A
  Cross-Disciplinary Survey in Pursuit of the
  Sustainable Consumer)

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Classic Car Symbolism

• the meaning carried by goods has a mobile
  quality
• (McCracken, 1986, 71)

• Thus a car can be desirable when new, become
  undesirable when old, and cool when classic
• elements of counterculture, rebellion against
  consumer culture, etc.

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Even in advertising

• A classic VW Typ2 (bus) used in Norwich Union
  advertisement in
• The Guardian

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EU UK

• EU
• 1,950,000 historic vehicles owned by club members
• Less than 1 of vehicles in use
• But employing 55,000 people in support sector
• Elements of a product service-system?
• (Frost et al., 2006, The Historic Vehicle
  Movement in Europe)

• UK
• 540,000 historic vehicles owned by club members
• 1.3 of vehicles in use
• Employing more than 27,000 people
• Morris Minor Centre in Bath won Green Apple Award
  from UK government for environmental contribution
  to the car industry
• (Frost et al., 2006, The Historic Vehicle
  Movement in the United Kingdom)

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Consumption of classic cars(Practical Classics
survey 2006)
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Conclusions

• It is technically possible to make a car last a
  long time
• Many classic car owners make cars last that are
  not designed to last
• Can we transfer the emotional ties of classic car
  owners with their cars to cars in general and
  thereby make them last longer?
• Or are classic car owners marginal types?
  consider
• Europes 700 transport museums attract 75 million
  visitors a year
• Classic car events attract many non-owners
• Sales of classic car books, models, memorabilia
  are far greater than could be supported by
  classic car owners alone
• However cars would have to grow with their
  owners, be capable of personalisation and
  personal input (right to tinker
  de-professionalise design) this is where the
  work needs to be done

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The End
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References

• Chapman, J. (2005) Emotionally Durable Design
  Objects, Experiences Empathy, London Earthscan
• Elgin, D. Mitchell, A. (1977) Voluntary
  simplicity lifestyle of the future?, the
  Futurist, 11, 200-261
• Etzioni, A. (1998), Voluntary simplicity a new
  social movement?, Twenty-first Century Economics
  (ed. by W.Halal and K. Taylor), New York St
  Martins Press, 107-128
• Flink, J. (1988) The Automobile Age, Cambridge,
  Mass MIT Press
• Ford, H. with S. Crowther (1924) My Life and
  Work, 2nd edition, London Heinemann
• Frost, P., Hart, C., Smith, G. and Edmunds, I.
  (2006) The Historic Vehicle Movement in Europe
  Maintaining our Mobile Transport Heritage,
  Research Report, Steeple Aston FIVA.
• Frost, P., Hart, C., Smith, G. and Edmunds, I.
  (2006b), The Historic Vehicle Movement in the UK,
  Research Report, Taunton FBHVC
• Jackson, T. (2004) Models of Mammon A
  Cross-Disciplinary Survey in Pursuit of The
  Sustainable Consumer, Working Paper Series, Nr
  2004/1, Univ. of Surrey Centre for Environmental
  Strategy
• McCracken, G. (1986) Culture and consumption a
  theoretical account of the structure and movement
  of the cultural meaning of consumer goods,
  Journal of Consumer Research, 13, june, 71-84.
• McCracken, G. (1988) Culture and Consumption,
  Bloomington Indiana Univ. Press.
• McCracken, G. (2005) Culture and Consumption II,
  Markets, Meaning and Brand Management,
  Bloomington Indianapolis Indiana Univ. Press.
• Porsche (1976), Long-life Car Research Project
  Final Report Phase I Summary, Stuttgart Dr.hc F
  Porsche AG
• Practical Classics (2006) The Big Survey Results,
  Practical Classics, October, 13-16
• Walker, S (2006) Sustainable by Design
  Explorations in Theory and Practice, London
  Earthscan