What Can Detroit Learn from Google? - Jeff Jarvis

[StevenTacle]

Google will once again take over the economy then who knows.. maybe the government.

[Swansen03]

Maybe if detroit listened period.. even from their workers, OR if their workers just made most decisions. I see all the time throughout auto forums where some worker has a great idea and tries to convey it to a higher up but is always ignored...

[Barin954]

He brings up 2 ideas: open source development (aftermarket) and the equivalent of a rental club membership where you lease from a variety of cars depending on the need. Both good points and both already existing in some form. I like it.

[funkalunatic]

Poor examples.  Good point.

[fatmanprime]

Hard to imagine that it would be profitable. Designing cars is far too complex to just have the buyer fill out some form describing what they want.

[AtSwimTwoBricks]

I don't know. His suggestions were little more than the trimmings--interchangeable surface details. The seats and dash are a major part of a driver's interface with the car but a minor part of the design.

In fact, one might be able to get away with less overall design. Detroit has already backed off from complete mass production. Every model of every year is a brand new design. Getting the right replacement parts is a pain. Why not just standardize and then customize on top of it?

[McArrowni]

Reminds me of The Simpsons, when Homer's brother asked him to design the next car for his family.

[WhyNotTruth]

Homer's car was awesome.

[quinn2469]

An open source car? Nice.

[uch]

?? so a car company based on ... something tat people want!!! damn the japnese are good at that. Obviously the trouble with the industry as a whole (america excluded) is just the downturn in the ecnomy.

[Hopeful71]

We need to move into a post-consumer society & one of those steps is to get over our love affair with cars; it's a mode of transportation, not your identity.

[arequipa1]

consumption drives the economy.