Branding New Cadillac

General Motors has been awarded a formula one team. Michael Andretti had been campaigning for an American F1 team, but now he's stepped aside and the team will be more GM than Andretti. And it's going to be called the Cadillac team, as part of GM's eternal effort to associate the brand with something other than your rich uncle Wally's land yacht.

I'm wondering if anyone is taking bets on how long this team will last — or at least, how long it will have the Cadillac name. I'm thinking the over-under should be about 5 years. In recent history, there have been several examples of companies slapping their name on an F1 team, then changing their mind a few years later. Toyota lasted eight seasons, and Honda only three, and I don't see GM being more patient than them. It won't take long for the suits to ask why they're spending tens of millions to finish fourteenth.

The fact is that Formula One isn't a real great investment. It's not just expensive, but it's also hard to get to the top even if you're willing to spend with the big boys: You also need people with specific skills that aren't always available. Worse, there isn't much of a consolation prize: If you don't make it to the top, the whole world hears your name applied to the irrelevant car getting lapped by the champion.

So Formula One is a weird kind of never-ending investment bubble, where new people buy a team expecting great things, then realize there's not much reward in glory or publicity, and give up. But somehow, there's always more investors ready to take any team off the owner's hands and begin the cycle again.

Having said all this, Formula One has been more competitive this season, with four different teams winning races, so maybe this was the best time to buy into the series. But having said that, the other six teams had a combined total of two podiums in the 24 races, so there's still a big gap between haves and have-nots, even if there are more haves than there used to be. That will be the big challenge: those years in the wilderness without success before any chance at a publicity payoff.

All The Moves That Fit To Sprint

There’s an intersection I frequently drive through where the line of cars stopped at a red light often stretches past the exit to a busy gas station. That means that I sometimes find myself stopped near the gas station’s exit, and have to make the decision of whether to let someone out in front of me. Generally, I try to be nice, and let someone out, but sometimes I’m stopped across the exit, and it’s not clear if there’s enough room, so I just move ahead and let the driver behind me decide whether or not to be a Good Samaritan.

Yesterday, I was in just such a position. I had come to a stop at the light with my car pretty much blocking the exit, so I couldn’t have let anyone out. Except, the driver coming out of the gas station was on a motorbike. And he didn’t even wait for my permission, he just drove out into the space I’d left in front of me, which was enough for the bike.

At first, I was kind of annoyed. How dare you take this space, which I think sort of symbolically belongs to me. But at the same time, I had to admire the audacity. And I have to admit, it didn’t cause me any inconvenience at all: He was just taking up room that would have been left empty anyway. Okay, the reason I leave a car length between me and the car ahead is in case I have to move forward to avoid being rear-ended. But as long as he’s okay with getting pancaked between us in that unlikely event, then I guess he’s welcome to the space.

Years ago, I noted that motorbikes have the potential to be what sports cars wish they were, but usually aren’t: a way of going faster on modern roads. Usually, that just manifests itself as going way over the speed limit, but I was envisioning someone going at the speed limit, in spite of traffic, by taking advantage of your ability to fit into the smaller spaces other vehicles can’t get into. And that’s kind of what he was doing, albeit in a mundane manner. I wonder if you can take this even further, with a vehicle that gives up some of a motorbike's straight-line speed for even more maneuverability. A motor-unicycle would do it, but wouldn't be worth the dorkiness. I mean, you have to keep in mind the real possibility that this device will be mentioned in your obituary. 

Maybe a higher powered motorized skateboard. Or - I hate to suggest this - those things they call hoverboards. Okay, I see the etymologists have struck back, and are insisting on calling them self-balancing scooters. with the Oxford English Dictionary saying that "hoverboard" refers to "boards that Marty McFly would recognize." I love those guys!

Now that we have that out of the way, I feel less guilty about suggesting them as the extreme vehicle of the future. Well, less guilty linguistically; I guess the inevitable casualties are still bad. Anyway, I'm thinking: give one of them, say fifty horsepower, and you could just fly around traffic. Around, past, and — with a bit of practice — over. I look forward to cursing maniacs on self-balancing scooters.

Get The Parity Started

It’s amazing how the colour of a product makes such a difference in price. In our world where there’s often not much differentiating one product from another, the colour can make all the difference. Of course, I’m going to use examples from cars and technology, but you can find examples everywhere.

That’s the reason why cars have taken a turn for the gray in recent decades. It’s affected by what car buyers desire in their own cars, but also their concern for resale value. So they’ll prefer an inoffensive gray car that they can easily flip a few years later, not the green one that might turn off other buyers. I suspect it’s also that car companies know people are very choosy, and colour won’t win them many sales unless it’s absolutely perfect, but an offensive colour will lose them many, so they stay neutral. Personally, I think that’s a shame; I like colours, but I’m not married to any in particular. So I’d like to have a nice colour for the sake of some colour in my life, even if it’s not my favourite. But I seem to be in the minority on that, so gray it is.

I’ve also seen the colours having an effect on prices in the technology business. I’ve been looking for an external hard drive, and Samsung makes their external drives in traditional black, but also in blue and red. I’ve noticed that one colour is sometimes on sale, but not the others. They’re identical other than the colours, so I’m assuming that when one falls behind in sales, some algorithm somewhere decides it’s time for a discount. It’s hard to believe that colour can have that kind of effect on the purchase of something few others are going to see, but apparently it does.

But then I went looking for a game controller. They’re traditionally gray or black, but often available in other colours. So after my experience with the hard drives, I wasn’t surprised to find that the red XBox controller was five dollars less than the original black. I was set to order it and congratulate myself on my colourful frugality, but then I saw it: A pink controller, for fifteen dollars less than the original.

That’s ironic, because of this concept called, the “Pink Tax.” That’s the phenomenon where products aimed at women are more expensive than similar products aimed at men, even though they hardly differ. Often, the only difference is that they’re pink, hence the name. They aren’t really more expensive because they’re pink. After all, pink paint and dye is not particularly expensive. Instead, it’s factors like how much consumers want and need products. I’m assuming that because women are under more pressure to look good, their hygiene products are more expensive because of higher demand.

So in other contexts, pink might cost more, but the roles have been reversed here. You might be surprised to see them even trying to sell something pink in the world of video games, but let me remind you: 

1. Surveys show female gamers are now close to 50% of the market.
2. We are just coming out of The Year Of Barbie. 

Having said that, it appears things weren’t working out the way Microsoft marketing wanted, and the pink controllers were deeply discounted. I don’t know, maybe the Barbie-gaming crossover wasn’t as much as they’d hoped. But I suspect the real reason is that female gamers may choose the black or the pink, while the males will only buy the black.

(And if you’re wondering, I only saw one colour that was more expensive than the original black controller: a dark purple. Purple seems to be having a moment right now.)

For me, even when I put aside traditional symbols of masculinity, pink is not one of my favourite colours. I don’t mind it, as long as it’s taken in reasonable quantities. You know, less than the Barbie-aisle-at-Toys-R-Us levels. And whatever need I have to reaffirm my masculinity is tiny compared to my desire not to over-spend on electronics, so: I ordered the pink controller.

It’s not much of a consolation for high-priced women’s products, but there are times when the Pink Tax turns into, let’s say, the Pink Subsidy. And I’m pleased to be gaming with both confidence in my masculinity, and an extra fifteen dollars in my pocket.

Wax To The Future

A few weeks ago, I was driving along when a car pulled out of a gas station in front of me. Normally, I wouldn't give such a thing a second thought, unless it pulled out right in front and was dangerous. This wasn't dangerous, but it was just annoying enough that I gave the car a second thought. In that second thought, I realized it was a Chevy Bolt, which is an electric car. Why would it have been in a gas station?

As I got closer, I could see the reason: it was covered in beads of water, despite this being a clear winter's day, and it was very clean, despite this being a Canadian winter. Evidently, it had been in the gas station's car wash.

I hadn't really thought of that before, but electric cars need washes too. Well, I'm sure Tesla is working on a system to remotely clean cars - maybe with a team of drones - but until then, it's car washes for everyone.

That must be really awkward:  To you, gas stations are fading monuments to carbon dominance, which you’re free to ignore. But now and then, you pull up at this archaic institution. No, you don't want to use this business's main purpose, you've moved beyond that. And while most customers silently use the pay-at-the-pump feature, you have to go inside and confront the employees. Tell them, no, I don't need gas; I'm one of the ones who will be the death of your industry. But before that, can you make my car shiny for me?

It's made odder by the way gas station car washes have a kind of retro-futuristic feel to them. With their many moving parts, these pseudo-robotic servants pamper your car while you wait. It's the Jetsons future Boomers imagined. Just like jetpacks and flying cars, but with way less casualties.

Drop one of your lithium-ion transit appliances in the middle of that fifties future, and it's a real anachronism. Like a Buck Rogers Subreddit, it's the future we imagined confronting the future we ended up with. And — don't tell the Boomers — but our future seems pretty dull in comparison. The inevitable jetpack accidents almost seem worth it.

Truck To The Future

Several years ago, when Tesla first publicly introduced their Cybertruck  to the world, I wrote a post about it, but never got around to, you know, posting it. At the time (2019) the Cybertruck was slated for production starting in 2021. But here we are in 2024, and they're only now, slowly, making it to the road. 

I'm writing this, not because they're on the road, but because I'm seeing people's pictures and videos of the one recently on display at the Auto Show in Toronto. Although I see lots of Tesla's other models here in KW, I'm yet to see a Cybertruck. Even my phone's autocomplete is unfamiliar with Cybertruck. It just suggested "Cybertronian" instead, which I assume is the name of someone from the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron. 

Anyway, since the post is still relevant five years later, I thought I'd show it to you:

Tesla introduced its new truck this week, and it’s controversial. I mean, Elon Musk bragged that the windows are indestructible, then shattered them demonstrating their indestructibility. And yet, no one is talking about that. Perhaps more amazingly, I haven’t even heard anyone point out what a dumb name “Cybertruck” is.

Instead, they are talking about the impossibly angular style of the truck. People are struggling for ways to describe it.

When I first saw a picture on line, I thought, “Cybertruck?” Wasn’t that what Tesla was threatening to call their new truck?” (Sees truck) “Nah, this must be some poorly-thought out GM publicity stunt to make the truck of the future.

It looks a bit like that Robosaurus that they took to monster truck rallies in the nineties. (Fun fact, I thought it was called “Truckasaurus,” but a little research shows that was the name of The Simpsons’ parody of Robosaurus.)

Oh wait, that really is the Tesla Truck?

My next reaction was the same as a lot of people: it looks like a futuristic vehicle from a second-rate science fiction movie. It’s like, we don’t have an art department, and there isn’t much money, so we’ll just bend some shiny metal then put it over the chassis from a used Taurus wagon, and that will be bad guy’s car in RoboCop 6.

Or another possibility is that this a car from a 90’s video game. “We need to make a car, but we can only spare six polygons.”

There's plenty of other jokey speculation about how it came about. But I think the explanation that is closest to reality is something like:

Designer: Here are some concept sketches for the new truck project.

Elon Musk, pointing: That one! I love it!

Designer: Good, well, I’d like to do some refinement of the...

Musk: No! Put it into production now!

To me it really does look like the first draft of a great design. Every time I look at it, it seems a little more normal. Though it started so far from normal that it still has a long way to go. The big stumbling point is the — I can’t believe I’m saying this about a vehicle — peak of the roof. You just can’t look away from it; not only is it so out of the ordinary, but the main lines of the shape point right at it.

I can think of a few ways to fix it, which we may see before it reaches production:

• Move it a little forward, so that it’s where the top of the windshield would be on a normal vehicle. That way it will look a little more normal. It may compromise rear-seat headroom, but you could cheat by making the roof slightly rounded.
• Move it backward so that it’s over the B-pillar (the rear edge of the front doors)
• Round it off. I know, that would mean compromising the design concept, but I figure that’s better than having something so distracting in the middle of the design.

I think you could save the design, because I see the logic behind it. Tesla’s previous offerings have all been sleek and distinctive without being too revolutionary. That attracts people who want a futuristic car, but without scaring off people who might be uneasy about moving to electric cars.

But with trucks, they have the problem that they’ll never really be accepted in conservative truck culture, so the solution is to avoid even trying to fit in. The Cybertruck looks like something else entirely, and as a bonus, it is even more hyper masculine than existing trucks.

Another comparison I saw online was to that car that Homer Simpson designed for his brother’s car company. That car didn’t look anything like the Cybertruck, but the way the introduction fell with a thud was so similar. However, a car that did have a lot in common with Homer’s car was the other big automotive debut of the week, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E.

It doesn’t look like “The Homer” either. But it is a similar mishmash of concepts and whims that has people saying, “Huh?” Specifically, it’s a high-performance SUV...but electric...that’s called a Mustang...that’s not based on the Mustang. Okay, there is a market for high-performance SUV’s since they sell BMW M and Mercedes AMG SUVs. But still, is there anyone out there who values the Mustang name, wants an SUV, and wants an electric vehicle?

It looks like Ford, in a desperate bid to make its new direction seem cool, combined everything in its future into one car. We only make trucks, SUV’s, and the Mustang now, so we’ll try to make a Mustang-branded SUV. And we’re behind on electric technology, so we’ll make it electric too.

Looking back, it was probably a bad sign that I had to invoke The Simpsons twice in describing it.

Of course, the funny part is that the Mustang Mach E has now been on the road for a few years, which underlines just how late the Cybertruck is. You might be inclined to cut Tesla some slack because of the pandemic, but the fact is that other manufacturers got products out the door much faster. The idea of an electric truck sounded shocking at the time of the Cybertruck’s introduction, but now you can buy them from Ford, GM, and Rivian. It's that lack of speed, rather than their wild designs, that worries me most about their future

As for my feelings on its design, I have a much higher opinion of it than most people, not that that's saying much. I at least think it’s redeemable with some refinement. And as I said in this post, it still looks more normal over time. Though I find that now that I’m seeing pictures of it from a wider variety of angles, I keep seeing weird aspects that didn’t show up before. Like, from some angles, the hood looks kind of stubby. So I’ll give it a bit more time to grow on me. After all, what’s a few more years?

Small Town Slow Down

Apparently, small villages are really concerned about people speeding through town. I'm seeing more and more of those speed readouts that tell you your speed, using colours and flashing appropriate to how much you've exceeded the limit. Those things are an interesting piece of psychology: they don't tell you anything you don't already know from your own speedometer, but telling it to you in public, you'll react differently, even though there's probably no one around to see how fast you're going; after all, this is a village with fifty people and no sidewalks.

I also find it amusing when a village has that sign as you enter, asking you to keep to the speed limit. Around here, that sign is usually in quotes. I’m not sure why they do that, but it makes it sound like it's the village motto or something. So it's like:

Paris: "The City of Lights" 
Las Vegas: “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas”
Wheatville: "Please Drive at 50 km/h Speed Limit."

It's better if they go another step, and post a sign saying, "The Children of Wheatville Ask You To Drive at the 50km/h Speed Limit." Nice guilt trip, but I have to say:

1. There's like ten houses here and I've never seen anyone but seniors in this village.
2. Am I really supposed to believe that kids living by a highway want the cars to slow down?

If anything, it should be, "The Children of Wheatville ask you to really floor it past their place." or, "The Children of Wheatville Ask Semis to Blow the Horn on the Way By."

And now a few towns are even putting up signs with life-size cut-outs of kids asking you to slow down. Again, interesting psychology, since it's not telling you anything you didn't already know; it’s just making you confront the reality of your actions. But it makes me wonder how far this is going. An electronic signboard showing kids about to dart into traffic maybe? Holographic kids popping up in the street? Maybe on your way out of town a sign tells you how many virtual kids you hit?

It’s one thing when it's a village on a long, straight, smooth road. But I don't understand Haysville, near KW, which has one of those our-children-ask-you-to-slow-down signs, but the road through it is not only hilly and twisty, but it doesn't appear to have been repaved in my lifetime. Why do you need the sign? I'd need a Group B Rally Car just to get to the speed limit.

I have to point out that I don't blame anyone for their speeding concerns; lots of people barely slow down passing through a little hamlet, particularly if there's no stop sign or traffic light. It’s just unfortunate that you go through these little communities so fast that they only have time to show you one thing that distinguishes them from other villages. It’s a shame if that one thing they communicate to you is, “we hate you for speeding.” And since so many of them just give you that same message, it makes you feel like that’s the only thing rural people care about. That one village where one guy carved a statue of Iron Man out of the dead tree on his lawn seems full of personality by comparison, even if they do have weird priorities.

Electric Cars Infinity War

I recently asked what the future of SUV's is. Will be. Whatever. And it turned out to be intertwined with the future of electric cars. That's a bit of a complication, since our electric future isn't clear either.

It's been generally assumed that electric vehicles are the future. And car companies are preparing for it, investing huge sums in the technology and infrastructure. But at the same time, turning our back on internal combustion is the sort of huge revolution that doesn't happen without some turbulence. I figure there's still a few roadblocks to a complete electric takeover.

Range

Electric car costs have come down, and performance has been great, But range is still a problem. It’s improved, but not really enough to change anyone’s attitude. This problem isn’t new: for a long time now, we've been able to build electric cars that will easily have enough range for what the average person drives in a day. But, part of the reason for buying a car/truck/SUV is the freedom it gives you, so even if you rarely drive great distances (say, on vacation) you'll likely be reluctant to buy a vehicle that doesn't give you the option to driver greater distances when you want to.

So electric vehicles are fine, if you only ever drive within an hour of your home. But if you want to use your vehicle for anything more than a day trip, you’re out of luck. And don’t even ask about towing something while driving a long distance. Range has increased over the years, but the problem is that the vacation requirement is another order of magnitude farther than the daily-driving requirement. Even a big increase in range only takes a dent out of the vacation range problem. So we need either a huge range increase, or a huge charging-speed increase, to let people believe they can travel greater distances. Until that changes, there's a whole lot of people who won't consider an electric car.

Charging Infrastructure

The speed of charging has long been a stumbling block for electric vehicles. That's improved a lot too, but there's still the problem of where are we going to charge all these cars? If you live in a house, you can charge at home, but an increasing number of people live in apartments or condos, where charging isn't as easy. Yes, we can set up chargers in parking lots and garages of apartment and condo buildings, but that's a lot of infrastructure that still needs to be built, and it will be built by the landlords who won't (directly) make money off it.

And there has to be a solution for charging away from home. There are a fair number of public charging places, but they're mostly set up by either the car companies or public businesses like malls and stores . Those are both loss-leaders: the car company is swallowing the cost to make electric cars more appealing, or the business is swallowing the cost to attract customers. Either way, it's hard to imagine that scaling-up to being a solution for all of us charging our vehicles. I mean, I can't imagine GM — or Tesla, or whoever ends up on top — building a network of chargers big enough for all the cars in society.

The thing that makes me skeptical is that no one is making any significant money off of charging, and that’s usually what’s needed to get a big change like that happening in our society. Note that it doesn’t have to be switching our gas stations to charging stations. It’s entirely possible that the charging business of the future operates with small charging outlets here and there around a city. But they’ve got to make money off it or no one is going to go to all that trouble and expense to build the infrastructure.

Culture War

It's still relatively low-key, but a few people have targeted electric vehicles as a symbol of everything they hate. I don’t really see that going away. Some of the biggest hot-button issues for conservatives in recent years has been asking people to change behaviour. When you see the fury at being told to put on a mask or learn about slavery, it’s hard to imagine people just accepting that their cars are going to totally change whether they like it or not. 

Right now, that’s not an immediate issue: although buyers have ever-increasing choices for electric cars, there still aren’t any segments of the market where the internal-combustion options are disappearing. When we get to that point, there’ll be a lot more anger, and people taking “never electric” stances.

Big Oil

We're about at that point in the movie where it looks like the heroes will succeed, but you're watching, thinking it can’t be over yet, there's still a half hour left before the credits roll. And then the bad guy that you thought was dead reappears, and says, "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Well, I’m still waiting for that from the oil industry.

Eventually, they've got to make a move against it. I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen much of a campaign against electric vehicles yet. Yes, they're only a small segment of the market so far, but car companies keep positioning themselves to be ready to move to mostly electric production. Surely Big Oil isn't just going to fold up and go home.

When I went looking for stories about the Oil Industry fighting electric vehicles, pretty much all I found was a lot of waffling about how they still make lots of money elsewhere, they'll invest in renewables to make money of the change, they'll sell more stuff at gas station convenience stores to compensate, etc.

Okay, fine, there are ways they can still stay in business and make tidy profits even after electric vehicles take over. But come on people, there's no way large corporations are just going to quietly give up a huge part of their customer base, or retool their entire business, when there's a chance that they can fight to keep things as they are.

They do fund the American Petroleum Institute, which publishes propaganda on their behalf, but most of its actions are just generic government lobbying; not the dirty tricks you'd expect from an industry fighting for trillions.

I've seen the odd story sowing suspicions about electric cars, like the recent one that the extra weight of electric cars will cause aging parking garages to collapse, but that just sounds like desperate casting about for anything that might gain traction. I probably did more damage earlier when I mentioned the problems using electric vehicles for towing.

But then, if they're trying to put together a major campaign to derail electric vehicles, it could be that they are going to get it stuck in the aforementioned culture war. If they can get a significant portion of the population committing to being personally against electric vehicles, adopting that as a part of their identity and world view, it will ensure that fossil fuels can have a foot in the door, preventing the electric domination tipping point for years to come. In that case, their campaigns would target the media of those most likely to buy into the anti-electric position. So it may just be something I haven't personally seen yet.

SUV Endgame

A question people sometimes ask in the car world is, what is the SUV endgame?  That is, are we stuck with them forever? Will future generations just have SUV’s, with cars consigned to the history books? Or is the pendulum going to swing back, and we'll look back on the SUV era like the car industry's answer to bell bottoms.

See, the CEO of Citroen said that the days of the SUV are numbered. His reasoning was that in the coming age of electric vehicles, aerodynamics will be important in order to extend range, and that isn't exactly the forte for SUVs. 

I asked the SUV question a few years ago, and the answer I gave was that SUV's would get smaller and sleeker while cars would get taller, and we'd end up with this sort of in-between vehicle. At the time, I used examples like the Toyota C-HR. But since then, Toyota has introduced the Corolla Cross, and announced the C-HR will be discontinued in North America. 

The Corolla Cross is — as the name implies — just a Corolla stretched into an SUV. That's quite common; I hope you’re sitting down for this, but most SUV's these days are just adapted car designs. But usually they don't tell anyone, because they want SUV buyers to have the illusion that they have a rugged and wild off-road vehicle, not just a tall station wagon.

But by putting the name of that car in the name of the SUV, Toyota has shown us a rare moment of honesty from SUV marketing. So you'd think that if the car industry was going to start evolving a middle ground between cars and SUV's, this vehicle would be where it starts. 

And yet, the Corolla Cross is a boxy, stereotypical SUV, just smaller. It looks like the designers went out of their way to convince everyone that it's a big-boy SUV, even if that makes it look a little silly. So it seems that catering to the masculinity reinforcement needs of America overrules any other car priorities, and that doesn't look good for anyone expecting a non-SUV future. 

But there is one reason that Citroen CEO could be right, and electric cars could change the shape of SUV's. It starts with the little-known fact that there are a few reasons why manufacturers like SUV's, besides the obvious fact that consumers like them. One is that they are legally considered off-road vehicles in the United States, which means they are not subject to the same mileage requirements as cars. But to officially qualify for that off-road designation, they have to meet certain regulations, such as ground clearance, and the shape of body work around the wheels. 

But electric cars don't have to worry about mileage regulations. So there's no need to meet those design requirements, and the designers of electric SUV's have greater freedom in shaping the vehicles.  So far, electric SUV's and crossovers have been going away (a little) from the traditional SUV shape. Looking at models like the Jaguar I-Pace and Hyundai Ioniq 5, they're still taller than average cars, but also lower and less boxy than SUV's. So there does appear to be some effort to squeeze more aerodynamics out of them.

Of course, electric SUV's also give designers more freedom because unlike their gas-powered brethren, no one is buying one as an affirmation of masculinity — I assume that's part of the reason that they are a lot less angular and big-looking. They don’t look much like off-road vehicles. And is it just me, or do the Tesla model X and Y even look a bit like <gasp> Minivans.

If we get to the point that electric cars are completely taking over, this may change. In that case, electric cars will have to start appealing to everyone, not just people on the rich and green side of things.  We might even see electric vehicles get more masculine than conventional cars if electric vehicles have to work harder to convince mainstream buyers that they're not emasculating beta-mobiles. Arguably, the Tesla Cybertruck is already an example of this.  But for now, they're showing us a possible way forward into a future of more practical, only-sort-of SUV future.

The Future Is Bunk

Ford has a new ad featuring Bryan Cranston in a variety of guises talking about innovation. The premise being that some unknown "other guys" are talking about doing futuristic things while Ford is and always has been actually building it.

The most dramatic part is the android Cranston, which is quite well done. It's like the ad grabs you and holds you out over the Uncanny Valley, and teases, "gonna drop you, gonna drop you!" Of course the fake TED talk is good too. But the president in the plane just looks so old-fashioned now. I mean, a president swamped with work? Weird. But I appreciated the concept the best, since I've always hated it when companies make vague claims about future technology. "Use Smith Brand soap. One day soon we'll bring you cyber soap."

The ultimate in future promises was a series of ads AT&T did in the early nineties. They made a lot of promises about future products like video phones and smart homes. That really ticked me off, because they were trying to sell us on things that they clearly were nowhere near delivering. Why not just promise us warp drive while you're at it?

At the risk of getting even further off track, someone uploaded the entire series to YouTube, and it's fascinating to see the view of today from a quarter-century ago. I'm pleasantly surprised at how much they got right. Well, they "got it right" in the sense that it would happen. In most of the cases, it wasn't AT&T that brought it to us. I wonder if there's grounds for a class-action suit here?

But back to Ford. Much as I like the idea of the ad, it all comes off pretty flat. For one thing, is "Paint it Black" really the best song to accompany the monologue? Let's talk about building the future with a song about depression. Okay, now that I think about it, I guess it was a reference to the Model T coming in black only, which was for the sake of standardization and efficiency, which was one of the innovations they're talking about. Just think, they've been sitting on that one since the song came out in the sixties.

The biggest problem, however, is that it's so out-of-step with reality. Ford is a company that just decided to dedicate itself primarily to Trucks and SUV's. Sure, those are popular, but in the public's imagination, they represent the Walmart parking lot more than the future. And they don't have a Prius or a Bolt in their line-up to point to as something they're pushing the limits with right now. So the climax of the ad is Cranston dissing other companies for not being futuristic enough while driving a bulky pickup that looks like it could have come from any time in the last couple of decades.

What's especially perplexing is that the ad and the campaign it's a part of is apparently supposed to be putting down tech companies. I had assumed that the vague "other guys" mentioned in the commercial were other car companies. But no, they're thinking of the tech companies that have been encroaching on the car biz. What? I know, I've been critical of such companies, but let's face it, it's quite an indictment of the American car business that Tesla has gotten as far as it has. Meanwhile, when I just went Googling for the latest on Ford electric vehicles, I just got promises that they have electric trucks coming soon. So this is the biggest self-own in advertising since Diet Coke's "Just For the Taste of it."

Are Trends Electric?

I remember seeing a headline on a magazine cover once that said, “Electric Cars are (Still) Around the Corner.” Of course, that sarcastically got across the idea that electric cars are constantly promised without becoming mainstream. It’s especially meaningful, since I saw that headline in the eighties.

But today that headline is more meaningful because it looks like electric cars finally really are around the corner. So it’s a lesson that just because it seems like some promised revolution is never going to happen, it might still happen one day. So maybe jet packs and space travel are going to happen eventually too.

This walk down Electric Memory Avenue is because I recently saw someone speculate that self-driving cars will become one of those things that will be five-years away for the next forty years. I could certainly believe that: I’ve been skeptical about them, and the over-optimistic predictions in the mainstream media certainly do sound like the predictions of the future that I’ve heard my whole life.

But even skeptics like me have to remember that just like electric cars, it will happen eventually. The irony is that another of those things that have been constantly promised without ever happening is Artificial Intelligence. It was once thought that it was inevitable that computers would be doing all the things humans are capable of in just a few years. But as we learned just how difficult things like language and vision are, the technology wasn’t able to deliver, and the most we ever saw in the real world was the occasional impressive chess computer. I simply got used to hearing an annual prediction that this time next year, we’d be talking to our computers like on Star Trek. Of course, we are now talking to our computers, even if it isn’t quite as smooth as we’d hoped.

What I find interesting is that there is a very different attitude towards self-driving cars. With electric cars, there wasn’t a lot of effort put in by the big companies, and the key innovations ended up coming from outside. Whereas with self-driving technology, there seems to be a rush to avoid being left behind. And that’s the one thing that makes me a little optimistic about the concept: it seems like all these companies are pouring so much time and money into research that they’re going to make it happen out of sheer willpower.

So I wonder why this is different: why didn’t fear of being left behind push car companies to make electric cars work? One reason is because this is less of a car problem and more of a tech problem. The big car companies know that the key innovation could come from some startup no one sees coming, instead of just being a competition of a few corporate behemoths. Also, it used to be that if a car company where caught behind a startup, they could always buy-out the smaller company. But now, between the financial problems of the car industry and the eager investment in technology, it might not be that easy to just buy tech from the innovators.

Also, it’s not just the car companies that want self-driving cars, there’s also the ride-sharing companies. Uber is still losing money, and it’s starting to look like self-driving cars are their only hope. And that’s another thing that isn’t following the previous pattern: Tech companies usually follow one of two trajectories: They lose buckets of money until they get to a scale or structure that makes money (like Amazon) or they discover that their plan was never going to work, however much size and technology they had (like Pets.com).

But Uber’s business plan is clearly in that futile second group, yet investors keep throwing money at it. I’m not sure how this is going to end: Uber has lasted long enough to become an indispensable part of the culture, yet it just can’t survive long-term. It’s like investors love the idea so much that they won’t let anything — not even the rules of economics themselves — prevent it from happening. They’d rather admit that capitalism doesn’t work than have to go back to taxis.

So it’s fitting that Uber’s fate is probably intertwined with self-driving cars: they’re both bad investments that we’re going to make happen, somehow. Part of me admires that tenacity. But mostly, I wish they had gone to the wall for jet packs instead.

Car And Browser

It's long been a feature of our Internet age that advertisers try to figure out what we are interested in and then advertise more of it to us. And it's a feature of our Internet age that it often fails, sometimes hilariously.

It seems like a simple enough programing concept: if customer X has shown an interest in product Y, show X some more Y's. Show all the Y's. Try Y₁, Y₂, Y₃. Maybe Z, that's close. Give Ω a shot, that's the same idea, really.

But there are times where this doesn't work. I remember one person complaining that after buying a toilet at Home Depot, it started suggesting other bargains on toilets. Their program apparently didn't consider that for some products, once you've bought one, it actually becomes less likely that you'll buy another.

And I realized this right from the first time I tried ordering things on line. Some of the first things I ever bought were gifts. That lead to months of misguided suggestions for products I, personally, had no interest in.

Now I'm having the same thing happen to me with car ads. I've looked through on-line used-car ads many times, but, well, I often use the car ads to dream, rather than find practical transportation. But the Autotrader ad program can't understand that if I'm looking at a Maseratti in Winnipeg, that doesn't mean that I am likely to buy a Maseratti, or that I'm in Winnipeg. I don't know, but I had kind of assumed that if you actually were in the market for expensive cars, you wouldn't be looking for them in Autotrader. But maybe they do things differently in Winnipeg.  Anyway, the point is that I look at car ads the same way I look at Wikipedia; I start with a nice, pragmatic search, then  I follow a few links out of interest, and next thing I know, I’m looking at a vintage Land Rover in Trois-Rivières.

The problem is, the misunderstanding doesn't end there. When I'm on Facebook, I'll often see ads placed by Autotrader. It will be something like, "Great deals on coupes in Winnipeg," followed by some of the cars on offer, hoping I'll go to the page. I'll snicker at it at first, but then I'll see that one is a third-generation RX-7 for $20 grand, I'll think, that's a great deal, and click on the link. And then I'll be off in automotive fantasy land again, looking at cars I couldn't afford.

And so the cycle repeats itself. The next day I'll see an ad for convertables in Kamloops, and I'll remember, okay, sure I guess I did look at one such car, and they extrapolated from... ooh, a low-milage Boxster in Kelowna.

Anyway, Autotrader's idea of what I'm looking for has long ago departed from any vehicle I'm ever likely to buy. And that's how I was today shown an ad for trucks in Edmonton, by Autotrader's french service, AutoHebdo.net.

Have You Invested In Ford Lately?

Ford is getting out of the car business. Okay, not completely: they're keeping the Mustang around. But for the most part, they're just gong to sell trucks and SUV's. Chrysler has essentially done the same thing; their only cars are some stagnant Dodge sedans and the Fiat 500.

Even if SUV's are big sellers, I'm still skeptical. As many have been pointing out, the SUV craze may only live as far as low oil prices, and that won't be forever.

This could lead to a bigger version of what happened with the recession in the 2000's, where Americans suddenly wanted fuel efficiency, but American manufacturers had let their small cars fall behind the competition. This time it could be worse, because they wouldn't even have those cars available.

And word is that the biggest reason for this is not Americans' preference for trucks and SUV's, but profitability. SUV's are more expensive, and fewer people base their purchases on price, so there isn't as much pressure to keep the prices down. Thus, manufacturers make a lot on each sale, and the corporate books look good, even if market share suffers.

That's unusual, because market share has traditionally been the big indicator of success in the American car biz. So this move is showing us how much influence Wall Street has on even the biggest companies. But investors don't always have concern for a company's long-term health.

That brings up my main concern when American manufacturers start ignoring the low end of the market: that strategy sets it up so that most people buy their first car from one of the imported brands. In an industry where brand loyalty is a big deal, that sounds like a disastrous strategy, at least in the long-term.

And it gets worse when you combine it with another big trend in the car business: really long loans. It used to be that car loans were in the four year range, but now car makers are happily pushing 84 month financing. If they're going to be relying on more expensive products now, you can expect the long loan trend to accelerate.

But the flip side to this SUV trend is that although they may be replacing cars, SUVs are also becoming more car-like. The Toyota C-HR (SUV) is 1,565 mm tall while the Mazda 3 (car) is 1,455mm tall. So the difference between a car and an SUV is a mere 11 cm (about 4"). Seeing them parked beside each other, they don't look that different. I guess this isn't really that surprising: Although people want SUV's, they still want things cars are better at providing, like efficiency and maneuverability, which is forcing SUV's to get more car-like. So I’m suspecting that a decade or so from now, We’ll be right back to where we’ve always been, driving cars, but we’ll be calling our vehicles "SUVs" instead of "cars."

A Fast Car From China

In a previous post, I discussed my inability to find a car company that could be a lifestyle statement. Though one of the leading candidates was Volvo. Their combination of unapologetic dorkiness, and design appealed to me. But that discussion was limited to practical cars.

In the impractical car category, I've always appreciated Lotus. I know, their cars are cheaper and less powerful than most dream cars, since they go for small and light, rather than big and brawny. But small and clever overcoming strong and dumb is my fantasy, so Lotus embodies it better than some expensive behemoth that they crammed a huge engine into. And I figure that I might as well take advantage of being able to fit in tiny, lightweight cars.

Now here's the interesting part: Volvo and Lotus have one more thing in common besides quirkiness and my fandom. They're also owned by the same company: China's Geely, who have owned Volvo for a few years now, and recently bought Lotus.

Like many western car fans, to me, Chinese manufacturers are this unknown amorphous blob. We've heard various things about them ripping off foreign designs, building small but unexciting cars, and occasionally funding oddball companies. And there's a general assumption that they'll eventually burst forth, start exporting to Europe and the Americas, and destroy everything in their path. Or maybe they'll discover that the West's preference for cheapness over quality doesn't extend to automobiles.

Anyway, the point is that we don't really have any reason to have an opinion on the Chinese manufacturers. That may seem obvious, but car fandom is all about rivalries. You're expected to have opinions on Ford vs Chevy, Porsche vs Ferrari, Bentley vs Rolls Royce, VW Beetle vs Citroen 2CV, Delorean vs Bricklin, Subaru WRX vs Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution etc. It honestly feels weird to see cars and not have an opinion on them.

But now that's changing. I'd already noticed that Geely seemed to have done a good job with Volvo, a company that had been struggling to compete with the world's big luxury brands. Normally, when one car company buys another, it goes wrong in one of three ways: They integrate the small company into the big one lose what was special about it, they force cost-cutting on it and it makes crappy cars, or they just buy it and ignore it, and the smaller company is no better off.

But Geely had been clever with Volvo, giving it the money it needed to turn around, while not forcing it to be something it isn't. They're gradually integrating it into the rest of the company, with plans to build Volvos in China, but being patient. It's reminiscent of how India's Tata has turned around Jaguar Land Rover, so perhaps rising Asia will be good for western brands after all.

Lotus certainly needs that sort of treatment. They were owned and mismanaged by GM, who had them build a - I can barely say it - a front-drive sports car. Then they were owned by Malaysia's Proton, who didn't seem to know what to do with it. Then they had a CEO who announced an ambitious slate of new cars they couldn't afford to put into production. Since then they're been treading water, offering an endless stream of "new" special editions of their existing cars.

So stable and wise ownership is just what they need if they are going to stay in business long enough for me to earn enough money to buy one. I'm even okay with the fact that they'll probably end up building an SUV. But now, I'm just getting used to the fact that I apparently have an opinion on Chinese cars. Geely rules, Chery, BYD, um... Dongfeng drools.

Still Working On Automating My Blog

There was a news item recently about Dominos experimenting with driverless pizza delivery. That's interesting, as it's yet another of the common things in our society that will be revolutionized with automation. There are so many things like that, where it's obvious once you think about it that self-driving cars will totally change it, but we just haven't thought it through. I mean, automated ice cream trucks.

Science Fiction author John Scalzi pointed out how this ruins Snow Crash, the Sci-Fi classic who's main character is a pizza deliverer. It's yet another case where we didn't think through how technology would work, imagining this futuristic world with a guy driving his own car. No, he'd be unemployed. That is, unless you believe the Dominos president, who said that the company's 100,000 drivers would take on "different roles" within the company. To put that in perspective, GM employs a little over 200,000 people in total. There's no way they need that many people tossing pizza dough. That is, in the unlikely event that it doesn't also get automated. You have to wonder just how many people a company like Dominos will employ in a few years.

But the thing that stuck out to me was how the whole story was presented as some sort of cutting edge research. The TV version I saw made it sound like Dominos was trying to build their own driverless car so that they could deliver pizza with it. Of course, developing their own self-driving technology would make about as much sense as designing your own car specially for pizza delivery. I'm sure you could make a pizza-optimized car, but no one did that, since the cost would be astronomical compared to just buying a general perpose car. Really, Dominos and all other delivery-based businesses will just use mass-produced self-driving cars.

Sure, there's a bit of work before they perfect automated pizza delivery, since you'll have to have the customer access the pizza themselves. But that's not really on the same level of research. Nor is it particularly newsworthy. Really, this is just Ford doing the self-driving research and development they would be doing anyway, but letting Dominos piggy-back by providing a cute task for their prototype to do. And Dominos gets the publicity when it becomes a news story.

Passing Quickly

Recently, there were reports of a man who bought a new Ferrari, then destroyed it in an accident just one hour later. I know I once wrote an article about how hard it is to write-off expensive, limited-edition sports cars, but I think this guy may have done it. I'm also amused by the description of the accident, "The vehicle left the road." To my knowledge, Ferraris do not have any sort of self-driving technology, so the car didn't leave the road without some guidance. "It suddenly burst into flames." I'm sure it happened "suddenly" in the sense that it wasn't on fire one moment, then the next moment it was. But "suddenly" implies a lack of obvious cause. In this case, it likely had something to do with a low-sitting car being driven through a farmer's field at high speed. So that would be like saying, I drove head-on into a brick wall, and suddenly the car was shorter than it used to be.

Fortunately, his injuries were limited to cuts and bruises. Well, that might not be so fortunate; his injuries are in the laugh-without-guilt range. It might have been worth it to him to break a wrist or something if it deterred people like me from writing about it.

But he didn't, so here we are, wondering what causes a person to destroy a car in the first hour of ownership. I figure there are two types of people in the world: given something expensive and powerful, there are the people who want to see its limits right away, and those who ease their way into it. I'm definitely in that second group. I'm not saying we would never drive the car fast, but we would want to work our way up to it over the course of a month or twenty.

That may seem like a waste: driving a fast, powerful car so conservatively. But I think there are other ways to get joy out of a high-end sports car. See, the other day, I was passed on the highway by a minivan going about 140, in the far right lane. Of course, I was hoping that he'd think about the oddness that the guy with the slowest car was going the fastest. But I'm sure that was too subtle. It occurred to me that this would be a good time to be driving an obviously fast car: someone speeds by you in an SUV. Then you honk, and flash him an incredulous look while gesturing at you car, with the unspoken message, "Really? You, a schmuck in a Hyundai Santa Fe feel the need to go faster than a showoff in a Ferrari? "

I Saw The Sign

One result of the LRT construction here in Kitchener-Waterloo is that it's forced people to take new routes, and see parts of the city they might not know about.  For instance, I've had to drive miles out of the way to avoid closed roads every time I return to the city. And that's introduced me to a new pet peeve in the city's notoriously confusing roads.  Take a look at the sign showing you how to leave the expressway to take Highway 7 to Guelph:

That looks nice and simple.  The right two lanes just branch off and head to Guelph.  Now here's what the roads actually look like:

You have to take one exit into the collector lanes (they have collector lanes for two exits, isn't that adorable?) Then take another exit from there.  That doesn't turn into Highway 7, or even go to Highway 7.  It just dumps you on a side street beside a nail salon, and you have to take a left and a right to get onto Highway 7.

Baby You Can Be My Car

I recently saw someone online mention the 80's Saturday morning cartoon Turbo Teen. It was about a kid who could turn into a sports car. I only vaguely remember the show; I can really only recall the weird way his hands warped into tires in the transformation scenes. That and the admirable job the animators did of designing a car that looked a lot like a Firebird but without getting sued.

Anyway, the reminiscer in question brought up a point I hadn't considered: what good is transforming into a car? It doesn't really give you any powers beyond that of a person who merely owns a car. I guess that's true. And it certainly takes me back to my high school days to think that owning a car is the equivalent of a super power.

Then later, I was watching a cheesy technology program from one of the kinda-science cable channels, and they were exploring the implications of a future where you can upload your consciousness to a computer. You could of course, create any sort of robotic body you wanted to occupy. But rather than assume you'd choose a Scarlett Johansson super-cyborg, they mentioned the possibility that you could use any kind of machine - such as a car, like KITT from Knight Rider. The talking head experts didn't think there was much merit in that idea, but the narrator (Lawrence Fishburne, appropriately) thought that would be pretty cool.

So that got me thinking, if I could be a car, what kind would I want to be? Supposedly when Paul Newman did a voice for the original Cars movie, his one demand was that he got to choose what kind of car he played. So I guess he'd already thought about it. But for me, I'm not really sure.

Many people would choose a supercar, but their many limitations would be a problem, like not going over speed bumps. Really, they aren’t that super. I figure that if Superman can do all the things that normal people can do in addition to flying etc, then supercars should be able to do all the things normal cars can do. But no, they’re like, “Wanna see me fly? Okay, carry me over to the window.”

I think you'd want to be a car that has the widest range of abilities, rather than incredible abilities in just one area.

So here are some ideas:

• Subaru WRX STI - a souped-up compact that's the prototypical multiple-ability car. And it's always seemed like the automotive equivalent of the 98 pound weakling who took the Charles Atlas course and is now back for revenge. But at the same time, its many wings and vents look like someone trying too hard to be cool. I suspect it would be like someone walking around in a cloud of Axe body spray.
• BMW 7 Series - great all-around cars, but being a BMW would be like being trapped in Tommy Hilfiger clothes that you can never take off.
• Mercedes Benz S-Class - as above, but with Ralph Lauren.
• Any truck - again, useful, but people would make assumptions about you. And let's face it, I'd go off road about as much as your average truck driver.
• Camaro- the closest thing today to the Firebird that was the basis for KITT. But I'd want to be a vehicle that gets good mileage, otherwise it would be like being hungry all the time.
• Tesla - certainly capable cars, and they’re likely to be the first cars with enough computing power for you to download your consciousness. The problem is the recharging. If you’re driving a car, you don’t mind plugging it in for hours when you aren’t using it. But that’s really inconvenient for the car - it’s stuck in the garage, and you know you’re going to get a party invite just after you plug in.
• Mazda MX-5 Miata - It’s famously the answer for everything, but I don’t think it works here. It would be fun to be a sporty, good-looking little car, but you’d have to keep explaining to everyone else that it’s okay that you only have a little four cylinder, no I don’t mind not being able to go as fast as you, yes I’m confident in my masculinity. You’d probably just end up as a loner, hanging out with Honda CRX’s and Lotus Elises because they’re the only ones that get you.
• Volvo - as the best at surviving crashes, they'd be the Wolverines of the automotive world. That would be worth being the dorky one.

This Post Is Keyboard Approved

There's a car dealership in the area, Barry Cullen Chevrolet in Guelph, that used to advertise heavily on local TV. All their ads were built around the idea that he was "The Regional Dealer." That might take the form of a simple slogan ("Come down to Barry Cullen Chevrolet, The Regional Dealer!") or claims of superior service ("When you're The Regional Dealer, you can offer the biggest rebates.") I found all this curious because he never actually explained what the hell a regional dealer was or what was so great about it.

I was thinking about this because Nissan has been running ads bragging about things being "factory approved." Their rebates, technology, option packages: they gleefully exclaim that it's all factory approved.

I have no idea why this is such a selling point. You sometimes hear the term "factory approved" when referring to replacement parts, just to assure you that they aren't some warranty-voiding knockoff. When you think about it, it's an anachronistic term; really, you need approval from the designers and engineers, and presumably their lawyers. The factory in a struggling right-to-work state where robots weld together parts freshly trucked-in from Mexico probably doesn't have the clout to approve anything in the company.

But is there really a problem with non-factory-approved sales prices? Have you ever received a thousand-off a car price, only to later find out that the factory didn't approve it? Even if the factory didn't approve, would you really have a problem with it? If anything, I think I'd be a little more inclined to buy a car if they could assure me that my deal is just between the dealer and me, because the factory would be real pissed-off if they found out.

But I'm being naive, what surely happened is that a focus group stumbled across the fact that "factory approved" really resonated with the demographics that buy cars, and they overreacted, and tried to call everything "factory approved.” Really, we should just be glad they weren’t claiming everything is “chocolate covered.”

Oh Lord, Won't You Iron Me A Mercedes Benz?

Mercedes Benz' head of design Gorden Wagener has announced that the time of creases is over. No, this wasn't some executive acid trip, it actually meant something. You see ceases in all kinds of cars these days: they're the sudden, superfluous angles in otherwise smooth metal. Creases can have all sorts of aesthetic purposes: making flat surfaces more interesting, making things seem shorter or narrower (which is great on humongous SUV's.)

But it's really gotten excessive. Combined with other unnecessary styling additions like fake vents and chrome accents, we're in an era of ornamentation. It may not be as noticeable because they aren't as ostentatious as tailfins, but it's similar levels excess.

I mentioned before about how much of the radiator grille on a modern cars is often fake. But it's really reached a new level in which cars have fake vents that don't even really look like vents any more. They may have a square of patterned black plastic, but there's obviously no opening, and it's in a place where you wouldn't expect a vent to be, like in front of the wheel. Essentially, they just wanted to break up some plain area of the body, so they just stuck some random shape there.

I'm not some modernist hardliner demanding that everything on a car have a reason. I'm just saying that we've pushed the pendulum too far. With all the chrome and angles on today's cars, we might as well drop the pretense of maturity and go back to putting firebird decals on the hood. So I'll applaud anyone who will push the trends the other way.

But as some have pointed out, the concept car being revealed by Mercedes does still have creases. But it doesn't rely on them nearly as much as other cars. It has a nice rounded, relatively-minimal look. And that brings up something I've worried about in recent years. I used to find Mercedes car designs pretty boring, like they were aiming for the Platonic ideal for sedans. But lately I find like their designs a lot more. What worries me is: I have no idea whether they've improved their designs, or this is just part of the natural aging process for me.

Some Women Just Want To Watch The Fuel Burn

This Esso commercial has been running a lot, where the guy wonders what the cleaning ingredients are, and the scientists pop out of nowhere to tell him. Apparently it's a Mobil ad in the U.S. (all part of the ExxonMobil empire.)

I'm worried about the detergent #2 scientist.  She seems to have an enthusiasm for her work that no one -  not even her oddball colleagues - can match.  It seems that she's destined to be disappointed that others don't share her love of internal combustion cleanliness.  I see her shaking her fist in the air late one night at the Esso lab, saying "I'll show them the importance of removing deposits from fuel injectors!"

And I'm dreading what she'll do next.  We know that she's a master of disguise, since she was she was also detergent #1 developer.  And that leads to the next problem: she's obviously a chemistry genius, since she developed two fuel additives in the time everyone else needed to develop just one.  What I'm getting at is, she just has to steal the flying chair from the Marker Molecules guy and she'll have everything she needs to be a supervillan.

I'm not sure what sort of name she'd choose.  The Solvent? Dr. Fluid? Ms. Clean?  I think she'll have to depend on some sort of lab accident to create a persona for her.