A Selection of my Favourite Car Commercials – Golf GTi

Following on from the previous post, the next commercial from my favourites list stars the Volkswagen Golf GTi. This commercial combines the iconic scene from Singing in the Rain where Gene Kelly wanders happy down a street with the introduction of the Golf. The Golf GTi, which is iconic in its own right, was first introduced in the late 1970s and, on the surface, hasn’t changed a great deal. Indeed, there wasn’t too much that needed changing in the original car with the alterations simply bringing mild improvements on an already successful theme.  The commercial illustrates this vividly by demonstrating that small changes are all that is required to bring a time honoured car into the present day. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the commercial.   

A Selection of my Favourite Car Commercials – Gas Powered Everything

Passenger vehicles are a huge industry across the globe account for near enough a trillion dollars of revenue per year which is set to increase in the future. Not surprisingly this level of economic activity brings with it a hefty level of competition to attract new customers by either bringing them into the market or acquiring them from competitors. Not only must automotive manufacturers make desirable products but they must also market them effectively to potential customers. 

With this level of money at stake, even increasing your market share by 1% can bring in 100s of millions of dollars of additional revenue. With this in mind the automotive industry invests heavily in advertising their products bringing in top marketing talent to come up with attention grabbing commercials. Some of these commercials that have come out over the years have been truly amazing and I’ve started to collect a few of the best on my Youtube account. Over the coming few weeks I’ll be posting my favourites for you to enjoy. Today’s instalment, keeping with the theme of this blog, is a thought provoking piece from Nissan that also pokes some fun at one of their nearest rivals, I hope you enjoy.   

What Will Consumers Think of Vehicle to Grid Technology?

The introduction of plug-in vehicles to the mass automotive market will undoubtedly make a consumer’s purchasing decision more complex. They will have to consider the virtues and vices of these new powertrain technologies and how they will fit in with their lifestyles. As if this was not complicated enough, the future introduction of an additional option related to plug-in vehicles has the possibility of leaving the general driver scratching their heads.

Vehicle-to-Grid technology allows a plug-in vehicle to communicate with the electricity grid and offer responsive services such as storing unused electricity during times of low demand with the option of releasing this stored energy back to the grid should any demand peaks occur. This service would be paid for by the utility companies offering plug-in vehicle drivers with an additional source of revenue to offset their vehicle’s high upfront costs. As more renewable energy is put onto the grid new mechanisms will need to be installed to smooth out supply of energy. Having the capability to drawn down on stored supplies generated from renewable energy would be much more effective than firing up a coal electricity plant every time there is a drop in generation.

 

Upgrade-Ready Vehicles could solve the Problem of Lock-in

Whenever I consider buying a new piece of consumer technology I am always concerned about how futureproof the item is. We’ve all envisaged worst case scenarios where we just set foot outside the store after buying our brand new phone or laptop only for a new version to be released the next day that surpasses our purchase. We don’t want to be locked into out of date technology and so the savvy among us usually research the market before buying to ensure what we buy will have some lasting power.

This paints a very black and white picture and it discounts a fundamental aspect of the consumer technology being released today. In an attempt to encourage consumer uptake of their products, manufacturers are now regularly building in upgrade potential into their latest devises. This upgrade potential may be hardware based such as where an additional stick of RAM is added to a personal computer or software based where a smart-phone is upgraded to the latest operating system. The same principle holds true for the latest personal vehicles in both the software and the hardware dimension.

 

Baby Steps or Great Leap Forward?

It seems more and more likely that Electric Vehicles are to be the future of personal automotive transport. They offer distinct advantages over Hydrogen, biofuel, CNG and LPG vehicles. The question now on everyone’s lips is how quick will the transition be? Our previous article discussed the inherent limitations in attempting to predict future markets but I want to expand on a point that wasn’t well laid out and that is the issue of consumer acceptance.

People in general are quite adverse to sudden and dramatic change in their consumption patterns. Introducing a concept, idea or product that is radically different from the conventional norm runs the risk of being greeted with hesitation and perhaps resistance. Moving from conventional internal combustion engine vehicles straight to electric vehicles will be a substantial change and require drivers to reconsider in many ways how they drive a car. This scenario is loaded with pitfalls and therefore it is unlikely there will be a mass shift from ICE to EV in consumer preferences. Indeed, it most likely would be undesirable all-round for this to be the case as EVs will undoubtedly have some teething problems that will need to be addressed.

Batteries Not Included?

If there is one universal truth that holds constant throughout the universe it is that the future will not be the same as the past. Change will happen and, as the previous post discusses, the ability to predict change is a highly desirable commodity. The market for personal vehicles currently stands at a crossroads with multiple pathways leading forward. The current overriding market model is one of personal ownership of a passenger vehicle that is bought from an automotive manufacturer and refuelled by petroleum firms. There is potential that this model will continue into the future but a number of rivals have emerged and are vying for position.

Electric Vehicle Market Predictions: Hocus Pocus or Sound Logic?

It doesn’t take long from the first mass production EVs to start hitting the streets before people start to predict where they will be in 10 years time. Professionals, academics, industry speculators and politicians have started to begin quoting likely EV market penetration rates over the next five, ten and fifteen years. Barack Obama recently stated his (and by extension, America’s) desire to have over one million plug in vehicles on US roads by 2015. Some predictions have been somewhat conservation predicting EV sales to amount to 5% of the market by 2015 whilst others predict a large expansion between 2015 and 2020 with sales rising towards 20% of the market. The range of these predictions shows the uncertainty that currently prevails in the market.  Why are these predictions so wide of each other, is it related to a variation or flaw in the methodologies used or the assumptions made? I will not pretend to have critically appraised all of the market predictions made but will talk here about how I would go about making a prediction based on reasoned and rational thinking rather than guesstimation.

To jump straight in, we know from previous research that vehicle costs are a big factor with consumers. Currently, EVs attract a price premium linked to their advanced technology making them relatively more expensive compared to their conventional counterparts. Now if we assume that conventional vehicle prices will remain constant at best or perhaps decline in the future, one way to boost the demand for EVs would be to decrease their price relatively faster. Recently, industry experts have stated that scale is not an issue with reducing the costs of producing EVs with more gain expected from technological breakthroughs. So, if we assume battery technology will advance at an increased rate in the future then this will assist EV market penetration. Similarly, if there is an increase to the purchase cost of conventional vehicles (a sales tax for instance), this will also assist EV demand. EVs currently require rare earth materials in their manufacturing with the extraction of these raw materials almost completely conducted in China. The Chinese Government has recently imposed a 90% restriction of the export of rare earth materials thus restricting the supply of a key factor of EV production to automotive firms. R&D has been switched on in an attempt to find substitutes for these materials but, if nothing economical can be found, this may prove a real barrier to mainstream market deployment of EVs.