So if you’ve been paying attention at all to the auto industry, you’ll know that no American automaker has done anything all that innovative since perhaps the Chrysler Minivan. Meanwhile, foreign models (read: Smart car, Fiat Siena, Toyota Prius) are eating our lunch while we dither with the Chevy Volt (due out in 2010!). Now when it comes to economics I’m not all that nationalistic—I don’t really care where my car comes from, so long as it’s cheap and has better fuel economy than my last one. I really have no attachment to Detroit at all, but I understand why a lot of people do.
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman is similarly frustrated with the state of the American auto industry and has been for quite some time now.
So what’s the solution? Get someone in there who has a reputation for building smart, iconic, game-changing products—like El Jobserino himself.
Friedman writes: “Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar. “
Any car conceived of by Steve Jobs is a car I’d buy in a heartbeat.
OK, I can get the feeling of Jobs running GM (or any failed company) but the problem is Jobs is a electronics geek (I mean this in a good way). He's passionate about what makes a good product. This is why Mac users are passionate about their computers. They are the best that a company can make. The last real "car guy" was probably Lee Iaccoca. He was passionate about his cars (he is the father of the Mustang and the minivan.) This is the same problem with the airline business (which I spent most of my life in.) The airlines are being run by business men and not airline men, like Juan Trippe of Pan Am. The people running the big three are business men and not car salesman. These people only care about the bottom line and the short term future, which explains the heavy emphasis on SUVs. They don't seem to care about the future of their companies or the industry itself. The Japanese have a different business outlook, but Toyota's success with the Prius is almost accidental. (Long story short the Japanese invested in hybrids because they thought the Americans were going to do it first.)
Sorry so long but the short of it is the American auto industry needs a Steve Jobs, not the Steve Jobs. Besides, everyone would bitch they're too expensive. ;)
This might be a better solution:
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2008/11/saving-us-auto.html?cid=138924486#comment-138924486
Details need to be worked out, but the essential concept is doable.
As a "car guy" I hafta chime in on this one. American automakers DO need SOMETHING. GM's the absolute worst.
Although it's unlikely Mr. Jobs would end up at GM, one of the things it seems he's done so much at Apple is to let the innovators drive the PRODUCT, not the manufacturing techniques. (Except the new MB.MBP, where the innovative mfr techniques actually make the end product even cooler.)
Even if there are still some talented designers at GM, FoMoCo, & Chrysler, the engineering staff will be sure to extinguish any molecule of innovation, excitement, beauty, etc. I think I remember Jobs even made a comment about this in an interview a while back.
Stop giving into the whiny hand-wringers, and your business will grow.
Hey i wish Steve Jobs would run my college... but that ain't gonna happen either.
Nice! Carved from a single brick of aluminum... OLED headlights.... I would buy it too, but it would suck when the battery stops holding a charge after 6 months or so and I can only drive a few miles before having to plug it in.
When's the last time SJ waged war with the unions?
I think he'd lose that one.
At least on autmaker calendars 2010 starts in June of 2009, not too far away.
Yeah...Steve Jobs's car....
Steering wheel is missing... you can steer it with single joy stick.
NO AM/FM radio.... Steve says listen to your iPod....
No rear blinking lights... Steve says use your arm signal...
No Engine.... Steve says use your feet like Flintstones do.
Yes, it has to be noted that at no time in SJ's day does he EVER deal with union foremen enforcing break times and overtime rules. Also, how would it go over when he moved all production to China?
These are important differences between doing business in Silicon Valley and Detroit.
guys, I don't think they meant literally steve jobs. I think they just meant someone that can foresee trends and is passionate about what they are doing. And not to mention sweeping innovation.
All of which is missing from detroit.
Unions are quickly becoming arcane, power-hungry entities in and of themselves. The point to them now seems to be to keep those in power in the union in power, not so much to help the "little guy." Though I can understand the need for them in many cases, they become anti-competitive when they mandate certain things at the expense of productivity. Granted, there must be protections against unfair practices, but when they force companies out of business or force them to move, are they REALLY doing the workers any good anymore?
The auto industry's problem is not with lack of good product, it's obnoxiously high expenses due to Unions. The first thing Steve would do is let the business fail to get out from under the contracts & pension plans, higher all new management, and reform the company built around a small white car that you don't take in for service, you trade it in, but the technicians would transfer all your personal belongings to the new one for you in-store. The body would be a block of solid machined "unibody" aluminum and the seats would all be "glass." The engine would perform half as fast a new engine, but because there's two of them, it uses less gas overall for driving at higher speeds, but you wouldn't go faster, because there'd be a little plastic sticky note on the windshield when you buy it that says "Don't speed." When you put your key in the ignition and start it up, the car would jump up and down to let you know how excited it is., and when you first unwrap the car from its box, it would be more like a scene from "Back to the Future" when the DeLorean comes out of the trailer, at which point the car would then say 'hello' to you in eighteen languages.
Yes, Steve should make this car.
GM needs new leadership that is not committed to old Lock-ins if it is going to ever be a viable competitor. Only someone from outside the industry will be able to implement necessary Disruptions and create White Space that will allow GM (or Ford or Chrysler) to address long-term shortcomings. I don't know why Jobs would take the job, but someone who is Jobs-like is necessary. Read more at http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com