I remember thumbing my way through car magazines back when automotive
technology first pricked my interest in the late 60’s and early 70’s (yes Lucy,
I really am that old!). Then the truth was often more, uhmm, subjective. Once
upon a time, product liability lawsuits were only a gleam in mercenary lawyer’s
eyes, and there was often more poetry, opinion and yes, even outright
fabrication in the stories that went into print. Cars were an emotional
purchase for your average American. Many people, then as now, bought vehicles
based on the vague promise of gratified need, not cold hard facts and research.
Some marketing used comedy. Volkswagen comes to mind when they
introduced automatics in the revered type-1 Beetle; “They used to call us ugly.
Now they call us shiftless” the copy read.
Others touted superior roadholding by virtue of preposterous dimensions,
such as the infamous “Wide-track Pontiac”. Today we find the promise of good handling
being connected to a 2½ ton automobile with its own zip code laughable.
But probably one of the more counter-intuitive campaigns devised was
whatever it was the Madison Avenue elite dreamed up for Volvo. No fluff, no humor,
no flowery language, just the facts.
You see Volvo had established itself in the North Americas in
progressive fashion starting in 1955 with import of the adorable little PV444
(look it up, sort of a tiny 1947 Ford looking thing). Volvos then, and over the
next 2-3 decades, were seldom “exciting”, but they were as dependable as dirt
and developed a reputation as a superior foul-weather friend. By the late
1960’s Volvo had introduced their shoebox looking 140 series, perhaps the car most
associated with the marque (along with the very similar 240 series, an updated
version of the same).
With this shoebox Volvo, engineers realized, and admen concurred, that
its brutish simplicity combined with solid build quality and dogged
dependability had another benefit; safety. And so from the early 1970’s up through
the mid 1990’s, the car that the magazine writers dubbed the “Swedish
Chevrolet” became the car of choice for the conservative family-man. Volvos had
a track record and ad campaigns extoling safety, not style,
as a virtue. So a whole generation was brought up with boxy Volvos (loaded down
with kids, groceries and harried parents) being as ubiquitous as crossover SUV’s
are now.
Flash forward to now. I was looking through a fleet trade-rag the other
day and came upon an article about Volvo’s brave entry into connected motoring.
Like peer systems in so many product lines it offers auto synchronization with
your phone, Bluetooth connectivity and a screen based navigation system, but it
one-ups the competition from there because Volvo has added “Skype for Business”.
In addition to the typically stupid amount of connectivity cars already have, Volvos
can now be ordered with a webcam so that the person (people) on the other end
of the call can see you as well as hear you. Not only can you telecommute while
you are commuting, but you can attend your board meeting via videoconference while
driving to another meeting across town. Volvo says this is in anticipation of
autonomous cars. Fair enough, but cars aren’t autonomous yet.
I don’t know your opinion, but the thought of someone swerving around
in traffic while they piddle around with adjustments on the center console so they
can Skype with their best angle on the big-screen makes me uncomfortable. Or maybe
it’s someone else using the built in camera to locate food stuck in their teeth
while going down the road. Do we really need more possibilities for distraction
in this day of technology? And no Lucy, there are no interlocks that prevent
the usage of this feature while you are rolling.
So what are we saying here? This manufacturer that has built its safety
reputation on decades of conscientious engineering and practical performance is
now trash-canning all that momentum? Certainly this technology “could” be
feasible with autonomous cars, but shouldn’t it have waited for those cars to
be autonomous? Up next on YouTube: Automotive death-videos?
I really, really don’t want the last footage of me showing the fear in
my eyes as I mouth “Oh $h&*” and drive up under a semi, followed by a black
screen.
© 2017 D.W. Williams
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