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| Disney exec: Automakers need to stir emotions |
DETROIT — As vehicles become more automated, how can automakers make sure they’re still making something that stirs emotions in their customers?
It’s a question some in the industry have been looking to address during a period of unprecedented change. A potential answer to it was given by perhaps an unlikely source at SAE International‘s World Congress Experience this week.
Jon Snoddy, the head of show, ride and tech engineering at Walt Disney Imagineering, said the answer lies in telling stories, much in the same way that the ride experiences his team works on for Disney’s theme parks are built around stories.
As an example, he pointed to the muscle cars he grew up admiring as a kid in South Carolina. Those cars, as different as they appeared, all said the same thing: They’re “fast cars for cool people,” he said.
“The reason that Detroit was able to build so many amazing things in that era is because everybody understood what they were building,” Snoddy said during a keynote address at the conference. “Everybody was on the same page, and to me, that’s what story does. It gives everybody a role and a way for people to connect.”
Snoddy said he sees the industry at risk of vehicles turning into “modules that people don’t feel anything about,” likening them to appliances. He urged the auto industry to design the vehicle of the future so that it stirs emotions, getting people to want to go out and do things.
“The car can be one of these things that holds your life together,” he said. “If you get in your car, shouldn’t it know where you’re going and know what you’re trying to do and who’s in the car and know what their preferences are? It seems like there’s no reason why it can’t be this seamless experience, where the car knows you and understands what you’re doing.”
— John Irwin
What you need to know
Aurora bolsters self-driving truck operations: The company said Wednesday it is expanding operations in Texas beyond its Dallas hub, adding terminals in El Paso, Fort Worth and Houston. Aurora anticipates the interstates that connect those cities will be “high-volume routes” for commercial service expected to start in 2023.
How NASA technology found its way to auto assembly lines: Work done by General Motors and NASA has led to the creation of robotic, grip-strengthening gloves that the space agency says could help both astronauts and assembly-line workers on the job. That’s one of several technologies that have trickled from the space agency into auto tech.
Qualcomm completes acquisition of Veoneer’s Arriver software unit: The acquisition gives the semiconductor giant a larger foothold in advanced driver-assist technology. “We are moving up the value chain,” says Nakul Duggal, head of Qualcomm’s automotive business.
Roundup
Swedish electric automaker Polestar has inked a deal with rental giant Hertz to supply up to 65,000 battery-powered vehicles.
Toyota Motor Corp. unit Woven Planet has joined Tesla Inc. in trying to advance self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as lidar.
VinFast has filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the U.S. as the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker starts building a factory in North Carolina.
Biden administration fuel-economy regulations are intended to spur faster development of electric cars, but they leave room for coexistence with ongoing production of internal combustion engines, critics say.
Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles division plans a full-electric vehicle based on the ID Buzz that will use self-driving technology.
Brain food
Electric vehicle drivers of the future might not need to plug in to charge their batteries — and they may not even need to stop.
Last mile
Porsche has joined a group of investors making a $260 million equity bet on a startup that aims to harness wind power to make a gasoline substitute.