Tag Archives: safety

The One Movie All Electric Car Designers Should Watch

Ford Mustang Electric Cobra

In 2011 a Ron Howard comedy was released starring Kevin James, Vince Vaughn, Winona Ryder, Channing Tatum, Jennifer Connelly, and Queen Latifah. The film was called ‘The Dilemma’ and it was a very funny buddy comedy focused on commitment and marital infidelity. But today, we’re focused on one of the subplots that makes ‘The Dilemma’ a movie that every electric car designer should watch. The subplot highlighted a solution to the silent problem with electric vehicles and one of the barriers to widespread adoption.

Vince Vaughn and Kevin James’ characters are best friends and partners in a small auto design firm. The two have recently been given an opportunity to pitch an eco-friendly car to Dodge. One of the main features of this car is that it looks like a muscle car and it sounds like a muscle car, but it’s actually an electric car. Here is a video clip in German that I found on YouTube that shows their sound triumph:

Besides being like large golf carts, electric cars are also INCREDIBLY dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists at low speeds because they’re nearly silent. In addition to being dangerous, electric cars also sound boring.

Electric cars are so dangerous because of their silence, some governments are mandating that they make sounds at least while backing up – you know, those annoying beeping sounds.

Even the cool 1,500 horsepower equivalent electric Ford Mustang Cobra pictured above sounds really boring when it shoots off the line in its promo video going down the drag strip.

Designers, why can’t you implement more interesting, more exhilarating sounds like those in the video before we’re all forced to buy electric vehicles?

They could easily be designed to fade away as the vehicle reaches speeds of around 30 miles per hour and wind and road noise starts to become sufficient to give pedestrians and cyclists a fighting change.

What say you?

Image credit: Slashgear.com


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Keeping Your Best Friend Safe

Every so often something comes along that is super funny, super cute, and super functional, all at the same time.

Check out the video below and then we’ll dive in to the innovation potential of The Rocketeer Pack by ZuGoPet.

I’m sorry, but I laugh every time I see this video, but at the same time I recognize that their solution is actually quite logical and practical.

I also have to laugh at the sizing guide, which suggests that you measure your dog in the “begging” position.

ZuGoPet Rocketeer Pack Dog on MotorcycleFor an extra bonus the harness for the car can also be used as a front pack, meaning you can now take little ChiChi out for a ride on your motorcycle when he gets tired of riding in the car.

My early reactions? A Great idea with okay execution. I think they may be able to improve the design to make it easier to use, and as a result increase adoption but then I’ve never actually used one so I’m just judging by the video.

I do have to say that the video did highlight that seatbelts for people are badly in need of a re-design. I have a design for a built-in four point seatbelt that automobile manufacturers or insurance companies are welcome to talk to me about if they’re interested in increasing passenger safety and decreasing injury claims.

So, what do you think? Innovation or not?

Image credit: zugopet.com


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Making People Dance Instead of Jaywalk

Making People Dance Instead of JaywalkI love anything that is fun and investigates human psychology, especially crowd psychology, and the investigation of how you can use fun to potentially influence human behavior for social good (i.e. the piano stairs example I’ve shared before).

Nobody likes to wait at pedestrian crossings. Traffic lights can be dangerous for impatient pedestrians trying to save a few seconds to cross the street (and willing to risk their lives in the process).

The folks at Smart created The Dancing Traffic Light, an experiential marketing concept providing a fun and safe way to keep people from venturing too early into the street. They started by placing a dance room on a square in Lisbon, Portugal and invited random pedestrians to go into the box and dance. Their movements were then displayed on a few traffic lights in real time. This resulted in 81% more people stopping and waiting at those red lights.

It’s a genius marketing gimmick because it reinforces the brand value of fun by making people dance in a box that looks, imagine that, a bit like a smart car.

The question brought up by this example of a marketing campaign that claims that fun can be used to achieve social good, is that it claims a benefit, that without an extended test could be attributed to novelty…

Does the benefit hold up over time?

Or does it stop being fun and impactful after people have seen it once or twice or the live video component goes away and it becomes a recording? Do people then start jaywalking again at the normal rate?

What do you think?


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