Automakers have always been a turbulent mix of opinions and messages – that’s (among other things) what makes them such fascinating organizations. But I have seldom seen them in the state of utter confusion in which they now seem to find their way. Most automakers are now two automakers, with one side openly conflicting with the other. They are schizophrenic. And you have no idea what personality you will be dealing with that day.
Fortunately, you can easily identify the two personalities. One is the old car brand. It works with oil-soaked stuff, the balance is logical and clear, and it celebrates fun and is proud of its history. The other is the new car brand. It works with electricity, the balance is completely illogical, because billions in losses are suffered. There’s no point in promoting ‘fun’ as a concept. It deals in ‘mobility’ and is ashamed of its past.
They don’t have it easy
You can only feel sorry for the poor management that has to control these two companies, which really do live as one company. Take BMW, for example, which goes to great lengths to convince us that electric cars must not only be repulsively ugly, but also that they are the only way to survive the apocalypse.
At the same time, they bombard their social media with photos of the very latest M5 CS vaping a set of expensive Michelins with some pride and visible pleasure. And then there’s the Classic division, which continues to display glorious pictures from its gas-fuelled past with admirable persistence.
Is BMW an electric brand or a performance brand?
Which of these manifestations is the true BMW? Do the Electricity Department’s “mobility” lemmings sit opposite the people who install the M5 CS, constantly casting icy, disapproving looks at them? Does the BMW Classic figure who always posts those great “maximum cross” things on Instagram, then look for someone else who still smells vaguely of booze and cigarettes? I can hope so.
Like clothing companies and the media world in the broadest sense of the word, car manufacturers are the ultimate social mirror. The story of the automobile has been the story of society for the past 130 years, and as countries and powers embark on the arduous process of reexamining their historic actions a little more critically, it only makes sense that automakers would do the same. The problem is that when they rummage through the archives, they come across huge amounts of things that people actually want to see.
It can’t be otherwise
The struggles of the electric car are so difficult and – for me at least – insurmountable, that I really don’t see how that electric division of every car company will survive in the future. They are all desperately trying to find a voice, to create a new image that somehow includes the past, but without being accused of ruining the planet for a century.
Perhaps this is also why Tesla seems like such a “clean” offering. No past to get in the way, just a technological advantage and the ability to write your own history as time goes on. Volvo also seems to have taken a smart approach by packaging its future as a Polestar. It seems that the large existing companies are wasting so much time balancing past and future that they are allowing smaller, faster organizations to slip in and steal market share. That’s not a nice problem to have.
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