Category Archives: cars

beauty, cars, culture mapping, forecasting, generations, global, language, society, sustainability

Cultural Dimensions and Possible Futures

There is a distinction between uncertainty and ambiguity.  We live in ambiguous times, not uncertain times.  There is relevant information available for us to better understand the possible future ahead.  The key to robust foresight is the ability to effectively combine distinct analysis tools to clarify the details of social change.

Central to the toolkit I teach to students and use with clients is a method of applied semiotics called Culture Mapping.  Culture Mapping allows us to analyze language as patterns of social change.  It provides a matrix to measure the way language migrates in meaning as it is used to express our affirmation or dissent from established societal codes.  

Other tools are useful in providing additional context to establish hypotheses for analysis. For example, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions allows us to establish benchmarks of distinct contextual meaning from county to country.  This is particularly useful when determining how social language might affirm or deviate from norms in a country.

The foundation of these cultural dimensions is very useful for discourse analysis.  The key is to see how the emerging language is deviating from certain norms. The signifiers of these deviations provide taxonomies that indicate the dynamics of change within that country.  Evaluation of the distinction between probable and possible futures is determined by that taxonomy more than any other factor.

In the examples, here, I propose how EV adoption might differ in China vs. the USA.  The language in the commercials provides examples of linguistic differences that confirm the hypothesis established by the cultural dimensions.  How EV adoption evolves in each country will reflect the expressed synergy of dissonance in each cultural power system.  How well each country trusts or mistrusts the social order they are in.
USA: https://lnkd.in/dH-kc3kK
China:  https://lnkd.in/dvzdXwe7

How South Korea emerged as the center of the beauty industry is another interesting case study of cultural dimensions related to the semiotics of everyday life.  Beauty in South Korea has become an expression of the tension of cultural dimensions.  The innovation in the category has a lot to do with the dynamics of rapid socio-economic growth, rigid competitiveness, perfection, and an emerging desire to break away from all that and be relaxed and comfortable in one’s own decisions.

#designthinking#foresight#culturaldifferences#culturemapping#electriccars#beauty#southkorea#china#usa#trendforecasting#trendanalysis

architecture, cars, cities, economics, forecasting, generations, government, health, politics, society, the home, transportation, urban planning

‘The Era of Urban Supremacy Is Over’

From July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, “New census data shows a huge spike in movement out of big metro areas during the pandemic,” Frey wrote in an April 2022 paper, including “an absolute decline in the aggregate size of the nation’s 56 major metropolitan areas (those with populations exceeding 1 million).”

This is the first time, Frey continued, “that the nation’s major metro areas registered an annual negative growth rate since at least 1990.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/opinion/post-pandemic-cities-suburbs-future.html?utm_source=Blueprint&utm_campaign=3a02128ede-Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b0b9cbf437-3a02128ede-231014502
cars, climate change, forecasting, generations, global, innovation, manufacturing, society, sustainability, transportation, urban planning

VW Gets Ready to Reveal a People’s Car for the Electric Age

Volkswagen is about to do what Tesla didn’t during its recent investor day: show off an affordable electric vehicle for the masses.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/vw-gets-ready-to-reveal-a-people-s-car-for-the-electric-age
forecasting, cities, politics, architecture, cars, urban planning, government, apartment living

The 15-minute city is already here. It’s called Paris

Is the “15-minute city,” a concept in which all of life’s necessary amenities are no more than a brisk walk away, a vision of urban paradise or a thinly disguised open-air prison? Town planning experts tend toward the former, conspiracy theorists toward the latter.

The maps, by the Paris Urbanism Agency (Apur), reflect the result of the latest triennial survey of shops, cafés, and restaurants in the French capital in 2020. The survey shows that there were 1,180 boulangeries (bakeries) and/or patisseries (cake shops) in the city. After declining in the first decade of the 21st century, their number has remained stable over the decade up to 2020. In the previous three years, 94 businesses had closed, but 91 new ones had started up.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/15-minute-city-paris/
cities, politics, cars, urban planning, transportation, generations

Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

For Adah Crandall, a high-school student in Portland, Oregon, a daily annoyance is family members asking when she is going to learn to drive. Ms Crandall, who is 16, has spent a quarter of her life arguing against the car-centric planning of her city. At 12 she attended a school next to a major road down which thousands of lorries thundered every day. When a teacher invited a speaker to talk about air pollution, she and her classmates were galvanised. Within a year, she was travelling to Salem, Oregon’s capital, to demand lawmakers pass stricter laws on diesel engines.

https://www.economist.com/international/2023/02/16/throughout-the-rich-world-the-young-are-falling-out-of-love-with-cars
cars

Are Car Touch Screens Getting Out of Control?

a technology can isn’t necessarily a technology should. Ironically, a lot of drivers don’t love these totems — or at least don’t love how they work. Every few years, Consumer Reports asks tens of thousands of people how they feel about their cars’ so-called infotainment systems. Every time, the largest, flashiest packages rank near the bottom in terms of satisfaction. Luxury brands fare particularly poorly, while more pedestrian vehicles — with a more utilitarian approach to technology — are rated more highly, explains Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ senior director of auto testing. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-13/are-car-touch-screens-getting-out-of-control
cars, cities, culture mapping, dystopia, ethics, politics, society, urban planning

The weaponised SUV set to terrify America’s streets

The extreme features of the Reznavi Vengeance – including electrified door handles and blinding strobe lights – are wholly in tune with lethal trends in the US market

One thing oddly missing from the Vengeance (priced from $285,000, rising to $499,000 with all the extras) is a rear windscreen, because of course that would be unsafe. Instead, drivers are treated to a live video rear-view mirror and a front camera overlaid with “augmented reality”. Perhaps it shows an imaginary zombie army for you to mow down on your way to the mall.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/25/pepper-spray-school-run-apocalyptic-suv-reznavi-vengeange?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
art, cars, dystopia, economics, social media

How the Porsche NFT Drop Crashed and Burned

Collectors called the expensive NFT mint “clueless” but the sports car brand went ahead anyway, yielding a Web3 wreck in progress.

Porsche’s project focused on the German automaker’s iconic 911 sports car, with a planned drop of 7,500 Ethereum NFTs that would celebrate the vehicle and allow holders access to events and exclusive merchandise. It would also let crypto-savvy car junkies vaguely “help design Porsche’s future in the virtual world.”

https://decrypt.co/119912/porsche-nft-drop-crashed-burned
cars, cities, climate change, culture mapping, language, politics, semiotics

Spoof billboard ads take aim at BMW and Toyota over ‘going green’ claims

Satirising the manufacturers’ advertising messages, the billboards highlighted what activists describe as the misleading adverts and aggressive lobbying tactics used by Toyota and BMW.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/19/spoof-billboard-ads-take-aim-at-bmw-and-toyota-over-going-green-claims
cars, cities, forecasting, suburbia, transportation, urban planning

The bus, the bike, and the elevator are the future of transportation

There’s a lesson in that. Getting people around in new, different ways—as happened in Amsterdam between 1970 and 2000, between Beijing and Shanghai in the past decade, and in Dar es Salaam right now—relies mostly on technologies that we have had for a while. Why should we want to change the status quo? Most urgently, because transportation from motor vehicles is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. We spend, onaverage, nearly two full days a year in rush-hour traffic (about five days in Los Angeles). We pay dearly for the privilege, spending $740 a month per car according to AAA. Last year, 36,560 Americans died in car crashes, not including 6,283 pedestrians killed by cars. Countless more are sickened by exhaust. Nearly half of American kids walked or biked to school in 1950; today that figure is 13 percent.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/future-of-transportation-bus-bike-elevator.html