Presently, technical problems prohibit a web-log post of the normative length and detail, and likewise the uploading of an info-based accompanying graphic.
Hence. the remainder of the UK Industrial Strategy web-log to come.
Instead, investment-auto-motives wishes to provide a 'social snapshot', prompted by the major socio-economic challenges the UK faces and the seeds of improvement in the everyday events of the world around us.
The last blog ended with the high praise of BMW's i-series cars, specifically the i3, with now the i4 due; the i8 more of a 'brand halo' exercise that also provided the company with valuable research and production learning, itself somewhat compromised in supercar use
The i3 was born from BMW's Megacity study and concepts initiated in 2007 and having an international team question an array of urban stakeholders, from Mayors to consumers (whom they generally classified as 'eco', 'economy' and 'lifestyle').
At the time Design Chief Adrian van Hooydonk recognised a mentality shift regards the very definition of 'Premium'; from a past of aesthetic extravagance, conventional materials and precision, toward far greater concern for rationality and sustainability (thus repair, re-use and recycling).
By 2010 that message, partly following trends and itself partly massaging trends, had become a central mantra amongst Design Managers, keen to sway their young designers away from the all too obvious cosmetic cues drawn from the icons of auto history (repeated ad nuaseam in 'retro' styling) and toward new holistic thinking.
[NB the innate truism yet irony that to move ahead of the zeitgeist BMW had to perform a 180° reorientation. Having previously backed Frank Stephenson's R50 retro Mini in the mid 1990s over Ollie Le Grice's perfectly packaged and styled Spiritual Mini (which itself as an egg on wheels was so subtly futuristic). The retro R50 Mini (effectively born in Munich) won because of is marketability and obvious long-term commercial promise].
This stuff is well understood in auto-design circles at the senior level, even if true creativity is stifled.
But yet illustrates how to run a business profitably, where abject rationality must prevail over any idealism. Compare the basic egg-like and very good Ford Ka versus the populist style-led New Beetle, in what was an era of ever more easily available credit, and so automotive 'dream-catching'. The imperative was of consumer lifestyle satiation so as to to 'milk the market', and so the need to overcome any high idealism of either unfamiliar innovative high-artistry (as per Chris Bangle's 'flame-surfacing') or even in the opposite direction, the hi-Modernism of hyper-rational auto-design. R50 befitted its era perfectly, after New Beetle and before New Nouvo Cinquecento.
[NB the case study of FIAT's 1998 Multipla illustrated that fact. The high functionality of space provided by vertical sides, 3 abreast seating and good all-round vision - drawn literally from the 'coffee-pot' inspiration - was loved by designers but was too odd for most real-world customers outside of homeland Italy. (The irony being that it came into its own in China when manufactured by Zotye to fill the City-Taxi segment there, much as the original 1960s Multipla had done in Rome). Likewise, Patrick Le Quement's grande vision of Renault's new generation of Grande Tourer commercially flopped when Avantime was regarded as too unorthodox being a monospace coupe, loved by designers, unloved by the public].
These past case studies illustrate why the demonstrably brave BMW i3 was envisaged as far more than a singular car, but as part of a new dimensional sub-brand that departed enormously from the formulaic BMW recipe of stance, proportion and surfaces, kidney grille and hockey-stick. i3 was born of 'new vision' and appreciation as to how the world would change - and be led toward that change by BMW - over the coming decades.
Far from the sardine-can like social density of Tokyo, or the heavy smog of Beijing, here in the relatively small Mega-City of London, that change has become very evident since 2007.
More then ever today the British public and its politicians need to spend less time engrossed in Brexit - since it all seems political theatre and less so true nation-building - and more time looking around at the actual dynamics of the urban landscape.
In the last week alone - through personal observation - the signs of socio-economic change have shown themselves clearly and for the better.
whilst politicians' words that placate the masses regards 'the war' against inner-city gang crime are all good and well, they often ring hollow; mere lip-service to a problem that they themselves are highly unlikely to encounter.
(After all, the Hollywood depictions of future mega-cities typically illustrate a wide chasm between dystopian under-class and utopian elite; simply exaggeration of today's perceived norm. Though what is not illustrated are the invisible connections between notional high and low societies that runs through glamorous activities).
Nonetheless, the fact is that it is at the very coal-face, upon the average street, societal problems are being better recognised and met, with a new strain of reduced tolerance of anti-social crime. The 'had enough' attitudes of everyday people, and the forces of law and order, who have had their own hands tied by the strictures of political correctness.
Here in London, it is by 'The Met' Police; operating reactively and proactively; and with hopefully greater freedoms than has been so to date. Just a few examples of a better aligned police service:
- A Commissioner who readily admits the rise of knife crime in Parliament, to ensure greater resources are provided, whilst possibly endangering her own position for not 'playing things down' as they may have been in the past.
- A white female PC seen driving a multi-task vehicle very skillfully at speed, concentration on her face , well trained eagle-eyed awareness and afore-thought akin to the hard-core facial expressions of Sabine Schmitz when driving an unfamiliar track or vehicle.
- A muscular black male PC nigh on filling the interior of a local beat BMW i3; illustrating strength (via his innate physicality) yet also simultaneously exuding external social concern (via his role, the electric vehicle) and so the subliminal idea of a friendly futuristic 'Robocop' character. Its all too easy to overlay cinematic tropes but that essence of authority / power coupled with overt conscientiousness was a strong - very likely self-recognised role-model - signal to both young 'on the edge' males and the public at large.
(NB Tho' it must be said that the very backbone of the nation's forces appears - as ever - inevitably to be the unsung hero of the lower middle class white male, who have become increasingly overlooked).
Thus, away from the Westminster Village and Brexit, back in the real world that concerns 99.99% of people, it is those "who do the right thing", whether (more obviously and frequently) in uniform or not, that set the template for the cities and world we all live in.
As the very business model of intra and inter city mobility evolves - as seen by the enormous value of the Lyft IPO - The BMW Megacity concept that became the i3 shone a light as to how our products, values and environment can be better envisioned.
Whether that be from the high ideals of the Quandt family (and their longtime BMW shareholder connections) that espouse German social sensitivity and conservatism by the rich and influential, to the major institutional shareholders seeking greater CSR, to the product designers and engineers, manufacturing engineers of new materials and propulsion systems to the marketeers and sales staff trained to enthuse the public , to the end users from overly 'PC' (politically correct) yummy mummies to the PCs (police constables) that must operate on high alert when called.
If the very vision of a better society - simply as better, moral, creative, happy and productive people - could be far better communicated,....without the identity politics that ultimately labels and divides, and the hyper-libertarianism that increasingly echoes forms of mind-control an social engineering,....we would not need knife amnesties.
Knives would be solely used in the kitchen for cutting foodstuffs and not used on the street for ultimately cutting to shreds the all too fragile ties of the urban social construct.
By way of a poor metaphor between vehicles and weaponry, the BMW i3 by virtue of its avante-garde shape, advanced materials and processing, and ease of handling, could be seen as akin to a Japanese Samurai sword.
Though crafted from intense belief and passion, and often viewed as simply for battle, most of the time the role of the sword and actions of the Samurai was to actually deter social misconduct, to be displayed and not drawn-out. Itself and wearer appearing the embodiment of nobility, distant from and so much more than pettiness and squabble. Its everyday intent was actually to illustrate and remind of responsibility and so the prompt good conduct by all.
A signifier of crafted beauty that can - in extremis - end a life.
So illuminating the very importance of life.
Without such low-brow behaviours, greater attention paid by the many as to what is truly important and thereafter what can be achieved by a harmonious society. That is why even today the Japanese hold such items as even the latterday Tanaka sword as most venerable.
The i3 intentionally was designed to illustrate an engineering and cosmetic structural break from the past and so a better way forward. And as such its vision (together with that of original Toyota Prius) could act as modern-day social totems; by which to better form ourselves, as the products of ourselves as more rational, better considered, higher thinkers.
Not reliant upon the edicts of today's all too obvious social engineering, by which "people do not hold ideas...but ideas hold people", and so the cause of inevitable social tensions.
Think anew and from rational basis and for all the right reasons...that was the lesson of BMW's 2007 Megacity project and its subsequent car(s).
Even all these years on, with even other more affordable and very well dialled-in aluminium and steel bodied EVs, it has shown itself to be inspirational. Unlike the others, it was engineered 'right first time'... CF structure upon AL under-pinnings with story led tactile Eco materials to directly satiate head and heart....and that no compromise formula will ensure its leadership status for decades to come.
That's why it encompasses tomorrow, today.
