Editor says: time to redefine people mover business.

ONE OF the most thought-provoking (for this editor) responses to the question "what would you do if you were inventing the automobile now, instead of 100 years ago?" posed in the last print edition of Automotive Industries was from Gary Romanowich:

"Clearly state goal: To get from point

"Simplify parameters: Make sure all parts are common and interchangeable between models to cut down on manufacturing, maintenance and repair costs.

"Address emotional aspect: Differentiate models with a removable shell that could be easily updated and changed to accommodate one's changing desires/ needs as life goes on...."

Lou Garner had similar views: "I would take the minimalist approach and design a vehicle which accomplishes the design goal of personal transportation. This is a lightweight tubular space frame, internal hydrogen combustion and solar/battery electric hybrid, high pressure tires with coil spring suspension, seating for four, drive-by-wire electronic system control and diagnostics and a model change interval no more frequently than every five (or 10) years".

Both of these responses lead to the type of question for which business consultants are paid large piles of money. The best of these is "what business are you in?" which is a deceptively simple query, but one which usually leads to several hundred more hours of consulting fees.

Weil, here for free is the consensus of Gary, Lou and this editor--the business of the automotive industry is to get people and goods from A to B efficiently, reliably and cost-effectively.

Now for the heretical rider, and one for which this writer takes sole responsibility. (We journalists are accustomed to being pilloried for being the mere message carriers anyway). The question is--"are motor cars, buses and commercial vehicles the best way to transport goods and people?"

Edward P. Swynar puts the sugar in the petrol, so to speak: "I'm afraid that, were the automobile not invented some 100 years ago, there would be absolutely no need for it today ...

"Population would still be centered in large cities, with no need of "suburbs" in the classic form whatsoever. How would one commute back and forth, anyway? The populace would stray from city cores only as far as public transit would allow them to.

"The automobile spurred development and progress in a self-sustaining way ... without it, who would have missed it ...?"

That is, perhaps, the question that today's automobile companies, governments and city planners should be addressing--what happens after the era of fossil fuel-powered transport? Electricity, by the way, is generated by the burning of fossil fuels in most places of the world.

It is possible to transform a company, as Nokia has shown. Started in 1865 as a forestry enterprise in South-Western Finland by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam, it has become one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.