What Happened To Having a Vision?

"TheJacobJones" (fartyjr)
05/15/2014 at 08:36 • Filed to: BMW

For starters: this article is related to cars in case the title/picture steered you to think otherwise.

I just finished watching Jobs , that movie about the late founder of Apple, Steve Jobs. While articulating his vision for the future of Apple, Steve's character dropped a few lines that I thought were pure gold:

"We're not Dell or Microsoft, so lets stop trying to be them."

"This company will not make shit anymore."

Pretty great stuff.

This made me think: How awesome would it be if car companies stopped trying to be like each other and focused on what they're best at?

I'm going to use BMW because they're a perfect example. BMW's reputation was built from legendary cars like the M1, M3, and M5. Those vehicles were the benchmark for driver's cars. They set the standard for all future BMWs. A standard, that maybe hasn't been met in recent years.

E30 M3

E34 M5

Today BMW makes three and a half SUVs (X1 only counts as half.) Additionally, they will soon be making the front-drive 1 Series and the sorta kinda minivanish 2 Series Active Tourer. Now, I'm sure these cars wont suck, but they're far from what made BMW great.

BMW's 3 and 5 series seemed to have received less attention in their most recent generations. The cars are larger, softer, and distance the driver from the experience more than ever (Although the new M3&4 may be exceptions.)

So think about how awesome it would be if BMW ditched its SUVs and future front drivers, and focused on what they're best at: Sports Sedans like the 1, 3, and 5 series.

Yeah, pretty freakin' awesome.

Of course, this will probably never happen, but it goes to prove a point:

BMW is a good car company. But in order for it to be truly great, it needs to have a strong vision.

A vision that can be seen in their automobiles.

Thanks for reading.

Images courtesy of Google Images

DISCUSSION (7)

BaconSandwich is tasty. > TheJacobJones
05/15/2014 at 10:39

Although I might not agree with a few specific examples, I do agree with you in general - companies need to stop producing crap.

The biggest area I see this is laptop manufacturers - especially companies like HP. Rather than putting in a ton of effort and thought into a few models, they spam the market with a bazillion different models, all of which aren't great. That's where Apple does it right - they have taken a decent design and iterated on it until it's nearly perfect.

You'd honestly think that someone else would have picked up on this by now...

TheJacobJones > BaconSandwich is tasty.
05/15/2014 at 11:20

Exactly! More companies need to step it up. I actually think Mazda is heading in the right direction though. Let's hope other companies can start making more great stuff.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > TheJacobJones
05/15/2014 at 12:20

I agree with the sentiment that car companies should stop try to 'make something as good as a BMW'. That simply puts a limit on how good you can be before you say 'that's good enough'. Surely something's only good enough when it is better than everything else for the price.

I think Cadillac has benefited most from this thinking recently. They've stopped trying to make a car that's as good as a BMW/Mercedes/Audi etc. and have just decided to make the best Cadillac they can. So far, I'd say they've been doing a damn good job.

TheJacobJones > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
05/15/2014 at 13:07

Cadillac is definitely on a roll. The cars they're putting out keep getting better and better.

Denver Is Stuck In The 90s > TheJacobJones
05/15/2014 at 13:38

The movie was highly inaccurate, they skipped over many important details. Read the book by Walter issacson, that has al the details in it

TheJacobJones > Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
05/15/2014 at 17:09

Regardless of the movie's accuracy, it sends a good message about setting goals and sticking to them. I'll have to check out the book.

Ugh so this is my life > TheJacobJones
05/15/2014 at 18:02

What happened to vision was bean counters and investors. In most cases, cars, even top line vehicles, are built to a price point. Basically engineers and designers (who are usually at odds with each other, because the designers like to imagine the impossible to mass produce, and engineers reign that in to what is produceable) try to build the best car possible, then you get the same relationship between the engineers and the bean counters, this part costs too much, replace with lower quality cheaper parts, we cannot afford to test that new fangled dohicky so yank it from the car. Oh and uh marketing tells us that the car should be more luxurious than sporty, so rejigger the suspension, add weight (sound deadening material, cushier seats, etc), oh and it needs to be more economical so rip it's soul out and add electronic power steering and legal wants all the nannies possible.

Oh crap the price of the car is too high, so we need to get more lower quality cheaper parts... etc. I believe the phrase is "Design/Production by Comity". Which brings around the phrase "None of us is as dumb as all of us."

On the investor side of the stack, most publicly traded companies have a hard time looking more than 3 months into the future, worried about posting a profit, or at least near their projections to keep the investors happy. Todays investor, typically, is very impatient, they don't typically care about a five or ten year plan, they want ROI now!

Add all those things together, and you get a multitude of cars that are "different just like everyone else" The worry is not just profits, but maximizing profits. Very few companies are happy with just being profitable now days, they want to be hyper profitable, squeezing every dime they can our of everyone and everything.

On a side note, I am not against people or companies making a profit, I am against companies making a profit in the wrong ways, ways that aren't sustainable for the market or the company. Lack of forethought is a large reason why most American brands have such a negative connotation to them. Especially true in the Automotive space.