The Automobile Innovation Delusion or The Art of Building the No-Go Car

Now we finally got it - the Parking Assistant!

Longing for some years now to find it in a car, not to have to steer it, to drive it backwards, to leave control with a machine. Just great!

But why did we long for a Parking Assistant? Because those bloody cars grew so big that we cannot cope with its sizes and dimensions any more. Cars crash our horizons, our parking lots, our garages - and them car makers couldn't care less. Just great!

Now they innovated again, gave birth to this marvelous gadget of Parking Assistant - instead of doing their homework in the first place. And we have to pay for that lazyness and ignorance. Just great!

True innovation in the car industry would imply building:

- Smaller cars - instead of bigger ones.

- Lighter cars - instead of heavier ones.

- Simpler cars - instead of more complex ones.

- Easier to handle cars - instead of more unhandy ones.

- Less expensive cars - instead of more expensive ones.

- Healthier cars - instead of unhealthier ones.

- More beautiful cars - instead of bulkier ones.

- More courageous cars - instead of mainstream ones.

- More differentiated cars - instead of less distinguished ones.

By building such cars the industry could prove their true innovative spirit, their true intellect, intuition, and imagination.

By believing their own innovation delusion they fool us, the consumer, but also themselves. They feel save, on the right track, and invincible.

But - incremental iteration by incremental iteration - they build the No-Go car, become the No-Go industry.

See also: Daimler: Celebrating 1000 Years of Incremental Innovation, and Dear Automobile Managers: Drop the Auto, Innovate Mobility!.

Addendum

And because BMW wastes time with 'inventing' Parking Assistants, their i8 concept will launch as late as 2014 - and travel up to 20(!!!) miles on just the battery. Congrats!