The Automotive Industry and the Environment

P Nieuwenhuis, P Wells

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9781855737136
• eBook ISBN: 9781855738607
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The automotive industry currently faces huge challenges. The fundamental technological paradigm it relies on, volume production, has become progressively more unprofitable in the face of increasingly segmented niche markets. At the same time it faces increasing regulatory and social pressures to improve both the sustainability of its products and methods of production. Building on a wealth of research, The automotive industry and the environment addresses those challenges and how they can be met in producing a sustainable and profitable industry for the future.The authors first discuss the development of the automotive industry and the problems it currently faces. They then consider the solutions the industry can adopt. The book reviews trends in more environmentally-friendly technologies such as the use of more sustainable fuel sources and new types of modular design with built-in recyclability. However, these technologies can only be fully exploited if methods of manufacture change. The book also describes models of decentralised production, particularly the micro factory retailing (MFR) model, which provide an alternative to volume production and promise to be both more sustainable and more profitable.The automotive industry and the environment provides both a cogent diagnosis of the environmental and other problems facing the industry and a blueprint for a better future. It will be widely welcomed by the industry, policy makers and all those concerned with sustainable transport.- Addresses the challenges facing the automotive industry, from the increasing unprofitability of volume production to regulatory and social pressures to improve environmental and product sustainability- Examines how the automotive industry can meet the current challenges in producing a sustainable and profitable industry for the future- Reviews trends in more environmentally-friendly technologies such as the use of more sustainable fuel sources and new types of modular design with built-in recyclability

1

Introduction

The years pass and the buyers become no longer interested in technical advance and turn their attention to the externals and details of comfort. The last stage, that of indifference, has been attained.

(Grégoire, 1954:106)

1.1 Background

It is early 2002 and reports are coming in that several of the first few owners of BMW’s new 7-Series have found themselves stranded (Kuijpers, 2002). The problem: the car’s battery cannot power the monumentally complex – but landmark – electric and electronic systems. Only with the engine running can owners access the mind-boggling array of functions the car provides. The auxiliary fuel cell under development for this task is not yet ready for production. A survey by the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport (König, 2002) indicates that out of 50 buyers of BMW’s 7-series and Mercedes’ SL, 28 % of the Mercedes buyers and 17 % of the BMW owners had been delivered faulty cars.

We find ourselves with an automobility culture where cars are further and further removed from their basic function as an enjoyable and/or practical driving machine. Cars have become over-complex and heavy. They have become baroque technology – rather than people – carriers and many buyers have been convinced by the industry that this is what they want. To make these decadent devices we have created an industry consisting of large centralised assembly plants which source supplies from global supplier networks and distribute their products through widely dispersed dealer networks (see Chapter 2). Just as we have become further and further removed from our roots as natural creatures, thus the car – one of our most spectacular technological and cultural creations – has become far removed from its roots as a plaything as well as a simple robust mode of motorized personal transport.

Ironically those cars which still retain those basic qualities – the ‘plaything’ Lotus Elise, Fiat Barchetta, or Caterham 7, for example – are also considered particularly desirable. On the practical side, the Fiat Panda refuses to die and in 2002 was the cheapest car sold in Italy. Also on the practical side, the Russians are refusing to let the old Lada die, buying it in record numbers as a classic design. The argument is that they would rather break down by the side of the road miles from anywhere at − 40 °C in a car they know they can fix, than in a modern car they know they probably cannot; the difference could be one of life and death (Nowill, 2000: 44). Perhaps there is still hope, and a chance to turn things around.

The authors have been looking into issues of sustainability and automobility for some time, and refer the reader to The Green Car Guide (Nieuwenhuis et al., 1992) and Motor Vehicles in the Environment (Nieuwenhuis and Wells, 1994). The Death of Motoring? (Nieuwenhuis and Wells, 1997) took a broader perspective, taking environmental pressures as one – albeit important – pressure facing the car industry. The Automotive Industry and the Environment continues this broader perspective but updates it and focuses more on the sustainability issue, including some proposals for possible solutions. One of these is the micro factory retailing concept (Chapter 17); a more sustainable way of making and looking after cars within a product stewardship approach. Some of these ideas have already been touched on in the authors’ conference papers over recent years, as well as regular articles in Automotive Environment Analyst and other publications.

The authors are informed by their work in the Centre for Automotive Industry Research (CAIR) at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. This is one of the few academic centres in the EU that focuses on economic and strategic aspects of the world automotive sector, from a broad overview perspective. This self-funding centre carries out work for the car industry in the widest sense, as well as other stakeholders such as governments and nongovernment organisations (NGOs). More recently the authors have also incorporated an increasing proportion of this work in the newly formed Economic and Social Research Council-funded centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), also based at Cardiff University.

1.2 Change and complexity – can business really afford to keep things simple?

On the whole, people have difficulty coping with complexity. This is reflected in the way that – despite over a century of development – a complex product such as the car can still suffer fundamental flaws. This will get worse as cars become more complex. Often this new technological complexity is introduced because it is believed to be possible, believed to be profitable in an industry where basic cars do not make money, or believed to be desired by customers. New technologies are normally introduced because they are possible and driven by their creators, or because new optional technologies can still be sold at a profit, thus compensating for the lack of profits made on the basic car.

An area where business and industry often cannot deal with complexity is social and political trends. History is full of examples where corporate executives have mis-read the social and political mood. They have usually achieved their status in the organisation because they fit the current, established way of doing things. If this way of doing things changes because the world changes, these individuals are often ill-prepared and in many cases incapable of formulating the right response. In some cases they are removed as in the Nasser case at Ford discussed in Chapter 2. In a world of increasingly rapid change, the ability to identify and adapt to emerging trends that may affect the business is becoming a vital skill. It is important for industry decision-makers to acquire these skills themselves, rather than rely totally on the often simplistic solutions of outside consultants or populist management ‘gurus’ (see Chapter 5). There are, then, essentially three key levels of complexity: technical, company and society. On the technical level the industry has tended to increasingly baroque solutions, at the level of the company the industry has moved to globalisation and multi-brand constellations. Society, on the other hand, opposes many of these forces in that it generally favours fragmentation and diversity.

In this book the authors have identified a number of technological, economic and especially social, environmental and political trends. In considering the latter, the focus will range from the deep green, anti-roads and anti-capitalist movements to ...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright page
• Abbreviations and glossary
• 1: Introduction
• 2: The structure of the automotive industry
• 3: Markets and the demand for cars
• 4: From manufacturers to responsible mobility providers
• 5: Sector shift, inter-sector dynamics and futures studies
• 6: Powertrain and fuel
• 7: Fuel cells and the hydrogen economy
• 8: High volume car production: Budd and Ford
• 9: Alternatives to high volume car production
• 10: Sustainability
• 11: Sustainable mobility
• 12: Practical steps towards sustainability
• 13: Automobility 2050 – the vision
• 14: The distributed economy
• 15: The shape of the future
• 16: The roadmap
• 17: Micro factory retailing
• 18: Conclusions and implications
• Index