I don’t have a lot of love for the traditional automotive industry any more, but I do have a soft spot for Honda. They don’t mind doing some risky things and they don’t take themselves as seriously as most other brands out there.
We’ve just seen that they decided to leave F1 at the end of 2021. They say it’s due to needing to switch to EVs faster than they thought. It was clear for a long time that their projections were incredibly off, so I’m not surprised they got a nasty shock. We don’t know how much Covid has to do with it. Whether the pandemic sped up the decision making process or gave them clarity. Maybe they even saw Tesla battery day and said “oh shit, we have to commit 100% right now”, although I very much doubt that.
The incredibly conservative motorsport media seem to think that Honda can now just buy out a team in FE and it’s problem solved for them. While they could join Formula E and I would personally like to see them do so, it wouldn’t be anything more than a marketing exercise. So here is what I would do if I was running the company right now.
1. Buy or merge with Yamaha Motor
The motorcycle industry is not going to thrive in the upcoming decade. In order to survive, they need to switch focus from powerful fossil fuelled machines designed for leisure use, to practical electric scooters and micromobility products. We know they’ve already been collaborating on battery tech, so a merger or acquisition would be a logical next step.Yamaha have the ability to be very innovative. We’ve seen that in many of their research projects. The two companies combined would complement each other very well in my opinion.
It would also give Honda an entry into the incredibly important e-bike market, which will be absolutely crucial in the next ten years. I also think one of the two companies should acquire the Stroke leaning cargo bike. Cargo is clearly going to be the most crucial of the e-bike segments, and that company is literally asking to be acquired. Someone needs to because it’s a great design that needs to be in the hands of consumers.
Yamaha’s ground breaking pedal assist bike from 1993
2. Immediately pull out of all fossil fuel motorsports
The day after Honda announced they were pulling out of F1, Indycar announced that they were going to introduce hybrid engines in 2023. We don’t need to get into the pathetic timeline for something they should have had years ago. We all know it’s a joke. I just don’t understand why Honda have committed to this. I think it must come down to either the relatively low cost of Indycar, or perhaps they signed a contract a while ago and want to honour it. That’s the Japanese way.
Any fossil fuelled race series they compete in, they should immediately stop. That means MotoGP, WTCR, GT3, Super Formula and Super GT. Although I would hope they’d find a way to make Super GT sustainable, because it’s the only fossil powered motorsport series I still enjoy.
3. Keep being weird
The Honda e is in my opinion the coolest car in the world. It’s not the best car in the world, but it’s the coolest. And that matters. Make it the centrepiece of your brand and replicate it in all your future products. Not just cars. Make them fun and make people smile. Honda does that better than anyone else. Just think of Asimo for example.
4. Immediately end all research and development relating to combustion engines.
Sell the existing models only as you develop EV products. This perhaps should be number one, but it basically goes without saying. And I guess it also should be mentioned that any model currently produced that is sold in hybrid and fossil only versions should immediately stop production of the non-hybrid version.
I think if Honda do something along these lines then they can survive the massive transition that’s gathering pace. But they haven’t got a day to waste. We’re still in the early days of the electric takeover. If they get caught with only the Honda e available when the market really goes crazy then they’ll be in big trouble. I think the key thing for them is just to be different and fun. If they try to do what Tesla are doing then they will cease trading long before anyone in the mainstream business press could possibly imagine.
I feel like I’ve waited forever to get rid of my car and get out of my finance deal a year early. I decided I wanted to go car free about a year ago and have been counting down the months ever since. And on Tuesday it finally happened.
As you might expect with the car industry, there were a few final hurdles to jump through though. The collection agent was sent to pick the car up with no information whatsoever. He didn’t know it was an EV. He didn’t know what the range was. It was even worse than what I experienced two years prior when my first EV was collected. They did drive it back to base, even if they did break the wing mirror backing it out of the driveway. This time, the guy refused to drive it back to base because it was too far at highway speed, and he had no idea how to charge an EV. Just as in 2016, he told me that his employer provided him with a fuel card, but no charge network card or any training on EVs whatsoever. I suggested he call a flatbed but he said they can’t do that at short notice. Funny how when I had the slightest problem with my Renault Zoe, they sent a flatbed immediately. When I’m handing a car back and I’ve paid it off, it’s impossible.
So once I had waited another whole week with the car just sitting on the driveway, it was finally done. Luckily, I was able to do the whole thing contact free. Leaving everything in the car and communicating from the landing window. I was expecting one guy to come in a truck and take the car after inspecting it, but of course not. That would be too logical. I had a guy inspect it, then had to wait 3 or 4 hours for the flatbed driver to arrive. And then he inspected it again. To check if anything had happened in the last 3 hours of it sitting still presumably.
My second car. Smart EQ ForTwo
He drove it across the road where he parked the truck, loaded it up and secured it in place. And that was it. My 4 years of car ownership done. Well, not quite. Just after he left I got an email telling me I was going to be charged over £50 because the car was dirty. It’s a pandemic! Normally I would have taken it to the car wash at the local garden centre the day before, but obviously I can’t right now. I’ve been staying away from people since March. Mercedes themselves are exempting people if they miss their scheduled services until the end of the year I think because of Covid. Why are the collection company not doing the same thing with stuff like this?
But at least that’s the final hurdle to jump over as a car owner, and now I can relax. Sort of. I don’t feel that huge weight lifting off my shoulders like I was expecting, but perhaps I will do soon. I think I’m more struck by the reality of an empty driveway in a suburban area with neither good public transport nor quality bike infrastructure than I am with relief to be rid of the car. This is how I lived until I was 27, but back then, after my college years I was riddled with crippling anxiety that left me mostly housebound for years. I did very occasionally use the odd train or bus to get around the local area, but in general I cycled anywhere I needed to go in the town.
It was only in 2014 when I got a full-time job that I came to the conclusion that I had to get some other kind of vehicle, in order to make the daily 5 mile commute at 6:30 every morning. In hindsight part of me wishes I had just kept cycling back then, and believed in myself that I could do that distance. It was only years later that I realised I could.
I decided that a scooter would be the cheapest and easiest way to commute, and so I went to my local Yamaha dealer and saw a bike I liked. I actually ordered it before I took my CBT. I can’t remember why. It seems weird considering my lack of confidence at the time. I rode the scooter for two years in all conditions. I’m quite proud of that especially because I never crashed, even though it was close a couple of times when it was particularly icy.
Yamaha Majesty S
I really loved riding my Yamaha Majesty S, but over those couple of years I grew more and more frustrated about the climate and the lack of electric innovation in the motorcycle industry at the time (and still am in 2020), so I decided that I wanted to challenge myself and learn to drive in order to buy an electric car. It also gave me the ability to go on longer trips. Doing an EV road trip to Scotland really appealed to me. So it felt like the right choice at the time to get my licence.
With hindsight, the best thing about driving by far was doing those long road trips. The daily trips for commuting and running errands, while fun with the nimble Smart especially, weren’t really memorable. Often times, they were not remotely enjoyable. In general, the scooter was more fun for daily riding and the car was only really good for longer trips. I think the fact that both cars were sub 100 mile range EVs with slower than average charging speeds made it even more fun to me. Especially back in 2016 when the charging infrastructure was far more sparse than it is now. Now it’s so easy that it’s not challenging any more. Which I guess is another reason to stop owning a car.
Having said that, I definitely want to rent an EV at some point when the pandemic eventually ends (hopefully) and go back to Scotland. And this time go all the way to John O’Groats rather than Inverness, which is where I stopped on both my prior trips. It will be really interesting to see the difference in trip time and charging. It will be a monumental difference compared to what I’m used to. Going from 60-80 miles of range and 45 min stops to 300 miles of range and 30 min stops. It’s a whole different world.
Unfortunately, it’s still way too difficult to rent an EV. All of the large rental companies like Enterprise don’t offer much choice, if anything at all. Places like Turo are better but even there, it’s hard to find EVs if you live outside of a major city. I hope this changes soon. Perhaps it will improve in a big way next year in response to the pandemic.
But really rental and sharing are just a first taste of what’s going to happen with MaaS and RoboTaxis. We know that cycling is amazing for travelling locally and touring, especially when quality infrastructure is provided. But in order to travel around in any other way, you need transport solutions that are convenient and connected together seamlessly. The solutions exist to make it work, so we need to get on with it as a top priority.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be done all in one app, but it does have to be convenient. For example, there shouldn’t be a single train station without docked bike or scooter rentals (preferably both). And then when you combine that with autonomous cars it becomes undeniably more convenient than car ownership itself. Even in awkward, rural locations. But we can’t just assume autonomous cars will come along and fix everything in a year or two. We have to offer other compelling options in the meantime. Both because we can’t afford to wait, and because people will still want choice even when RoboTaxis take over.
When I got my drivers licence as an automatic only version to save myself time and hassle, my colleagues didn’t get it. They probably still don’t but I haven’t talked to them in 6 months to check. There was a young girl doing her driving lessons in order to drive a manual car, and I was baffled that the driving test industry had progressed so little. They are totally unprepared for the changes that are about to happen. That aspect in itself will be fascinating to follow.
As for my own experience; despite all the wasted money, unnecessary stress and the eventual realisation that I never needed a car or scooter, I wouldn’t change anything if I could do it all again. I gained a lot of valuable knowledge and skills that I never thought I could. I became a better cyclist for having the experience of operating those different vehicles. It also gives me more points of reference to compare transport options to in the future. 4 years of car ownership and 6 years of total motor vehicle ownership is an interesting experiment in the grand scheme of things, and it feels like the right time to move on. I’ve talked to people my age who have been driving continuously since they were 17. That’s 16 years already at 33. I can only barely comprehend that. Lifetime car owner was definitely never going to be me.
The next couple of years will be a pain in the ass for sure. Having to go out of my way to avoid diesel buses, coaches, taxis, Ubers, trains etc. But soon enough it should start to be more like plain sailing. It really has to.
As we’ve seen from the tragic accident in Scotland last week, the U.K. rail network is facing an existential risk from the climate disaster. That might sound hyperbolic. But when you consider the likely future of self driving cars, a dramatic reduction in vehicles on the road as a result; the rise of electric bikes and the inevitable mass rollout of associated infrastructure, it doesn’t look promising for the rail industry.
As I’ve recently written, the rail network is already going to be threatened by the other forms of transport I’ve mentioned due to the fact that the network hasn’t been invested in for so long. It’s not like in Japan where they wouldn’t walk away from such a great system. Loyal daily passengers will only remain loyal for so long if they’re dissatisfied with the service they’re receiving.
But it’s when you couple that with the threat of climate change that things really unravel. I’ve been following the weekly update videos Network Rail put out on their YouTube channel for a while now. There’s an obvious trend in that they’re constantly having to fix damage caused by extreme weather. It’s mainly landslips but also work on reinforcing sea walls to protect against sea spray. Landslips in particular must be costing NR huge amounts of money, and it’s money that is not being spent on upgrading the ageing infrastructure. Watching TV shows about railways just shows how much disruption is already being caused from rain, storms, heat etc. It’s only going to get worse, and as we’ve seen this week, it can be deadly.
Road transport I believe to be at less risk from the climate disaster, but I would say the main benefits will be as we switch to autonomous driving. Because we have so many privately owned cars, the cars are parked all over the country, so whenever extreme weather hits, the cars can’t be moved and they get written off and float down the road.
However, once we stop owning cars and we replace them with self driving fleets, the number of cars in the country will drop potentially 90%. This will not only eliminate traffic, but it will also allow vehicles to avoid flooded roads or be moved to a safe location before the weather hits if it’s scheduled to hit a wide area. Because our road network is completely connected, if one road is flooded, they can go another direction. Trains can’t do that, and that’s a giant problem that the rail industry will struggle to get around.
Since the benefits for road traffic mainly take effect once we go autonomous, and that technology doesn’t exist yet; at the moment the only way to minimise the risk of flood or storm damage is to get rid of your car and buy a bike. Even a big, heavy cargo bike can be taken upstairs with your couch and the rest of your belongings. You’re not going to leave it to be flood damaged if you can avoid it. With a car, there’s very little you can do, especially if the weather is unexpected or worse than forecast.
It’s true for the infrastructure as well. It would be far cheaper to build elevated bike routes and bridges in high risk areas than it would be for other modes. We need to do everything we can to improve infrastructure and reduce risk. Invest in the rail network, move away from car ownership, and make us a bike society.
I’m 33 years old now. Throughout my life, there has never been a UK Government that cares even the slightest bit about me or anyone else my age or younger. Why would they? They haven’t needed us to win and they still don’t.
Baby Boomers are an interesting bunch. Like all generations, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Unfortunately though, there are a hell of a lot more bad. They are entitled, they are selfish, they are destructive, consumptive and they love machines that pollute (the smokier the better).
The bad ones are also extremely adept at lying and changing the subject when faced with inconvenient facts that threaten their world view. Especially when said facts pertain to the climate disaster, capitalism vs socialism, electric vs fossil, bike vs e-bike (both obviously) and so on.
It would be bad enough if these nature destroying, garden paving, decking loving, petrol lawn mowing, 2m fence building nut jobs would leave it there. But sadly that’s not the case. They also find it necessary to tread on the futures of their children and grandchildren by continuing to vote in huge numbers for their own interests. And without a second thought about how the following generations are going to live on a rapidly deteriorating planet.
To be fair. there are some good Boomers. But in my experience they tend to be the quiet hippy type, who generally don’t like to speak up to authority very strongly and so they don’t make much progress when dealing with less than useless local politicians. They’re easy to ignore and get away with it (just like millennials).
The other major problem is political apathy and lack of political education among people under 40. And of course our entirely corrupt media which exists purely to get anyone centre right to far right wing elected while screwing over anyone who dares to question the corporate status quo (see Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders). But I’ll do another post soon on the problem with the quiet majority.
Another thing that Boomers are really good at is finding far right conspiratorial nonsense on Facebook. They’re incredibly efficient at finding and spreading it far and wide in fact that a significant percentage of the British population hate Jeremy Corbyn for no legitimate reason whatsoever. A percentage that certainly couldn’t be due to newspaper and TV news alone.
They’re also ruining the train network by holding it back. Fetishising smokey diesels and arguing against progress towards a fully electric network. The same thing applies to roads, cars and car ownership as well as the fuel that powers them. Slowing down EV uptake, the building of bike infrastructure and the transition to a car free society full of cargo bikes and e-scooters, and I’m just scratching the surface.
I think the saddest thing for me now is just how these despicable people who don’t give a fuck about anyone younger than them, will never have to face justice. By the time the mainstream figure out that they’ve been betrayed and left to suffer in a hellish future, many of them will be dead. They’ll never feel bad about what they’ve done. They’ll just lie, deflect, and die happy. That’s a sickening thought. Especially when it comes to the right wing politicians and fossil fuel CEOs of that age group who have presided over the last 3 or 4 decades.
Yes, they’ll be remembered as villains for the rest of human civilisation. But maybe that won’t even be very long. These excuses for human beings need to pay for their crimes of ecocide before it’s too late. We have Baby Boomers in power with outdated / wrong ideas listening to other loud Boomers with the same mindset. We’re never going to get the change we need in the timescale necessary unless we stop this.
Perhaps the real saddest thing of all will be the realisation of those boomers who aren’t climate deniers or hippies, but those who just did nothing. When they realise that their kids and grandkids will not forgive them for not acting when they had so many chances to do so.
I don’t really know what to say at this point other than I’m so sick of waiting for them to decide when their time ends and ours begins. I feel both the most optimistic and most pessimistic I’ve ever been. Totally conflicted about where we’re going. All I know for sure is that our time is now or never.
