As a response to Ken Segall‘s recent blog entry about how “arrogant” Apple is I fell inspired to become arrogant myself. Ken Segall, former Creative Director at Apples describes how arrogant Apple is by thinking that they can re-imagine products, like the iPhone and iPad that others, like Nokia and Microsoft have tried to develop for years – and failed.

I too want to question the decisions and designs made by companies now setting the standards instead of just fitting in and using badly designed products.  I want to follow my own vision and realize my ideas.

Ken Segall describes Apples arrogance:

This company was practically founded on arrogance. Imagine, two guys in a garage thinking they could out-compute companies like IBM and HP. In later years, they’d tell us to abandon the standard PC interface and use some silly mouse to control our computers. With smug superiority, they’d cut out the floppy disk we’d come to love. Errgh.

If only we thought to stop them then.

Because it wasn’t long after that Apple — a company without any real consumer electronics experience — had the gall to build the music player that Sony or some better-qualified company should have built. This self-appointed savior of the music business somehow seduced the record companies with an online music store that forces us all to go along with “their vision” of how music should be sold.

The list goes on. Read more on Segall’s blog

Upon arrival at the Roskilde Festival the electric vehicles was exhibited at the Odeon stage.

CO2 E – Race crew, Mr. Green and yours truly on the right representing Grøn Vision.

The pictures are used with permission from CO2 E-Race and where taken by Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen cofounder of CO2 E-Race.

As the grand finale of my bachelor project about the user experience of electric cars, my bachelor partner Emil Skals and I have been invited to explain the technology behind the electric car during Roskilde Festival. On sunday the 4. of Juli at Stændertorvet in Roskilde, CO2E-Race we will show electric cars and race through Roskilde while producing a large CO2 sign.

The CO2 E-Race is a series of cultural events. The intent is to raise awareness in relation to the climate crisis and ways to solve it through technology.

We will both be talking about the cars and hopefully join the race through the streets. We will also be participating in Grøn Visions Roskilde Festival stand at Climate Community, where talented members of Grøn Vision will show sustainable Do-It-Yourself projects. You do not want to miss it!

From Wikipedia:

The term disruptive technology and disruptive innovation was coined by Clayton M. Christensen and  are terms used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers.

The electric car is not nearly as good a product for car buyers as a normal car. It takes forever to charge, it doesn’t go very far its expensive and it even lacks the features of cars in the same price range. Why should people by the electric car and why should car manufacturers enter a market without profit.

What Makes A Company Disruptive?

As Greg from Digital Tonto writes: Professor Christensen discovered that in certain situations, firms revolutionize a market by pursing unusual business practices:

They make products that aren’t good enough for existing customers:  One of the most shocking things that he found was that established companies miss out on Disruptive Innovations because they listen to their customers and give them more of what they are asking for.  Remember the weird people who bought digital cameras when they were expensive and didn’t take good pictures?  How could Kodak make money in what was a niche market when their customers were asking for better film?

A Disruptive Innovation represents a fundamental shift in value that requires a change in the way business is done.

My conclusion: The electric car has to be thought of as a completely new product and the companies selling the car has to rethink and narrow their marked strategy.

The car is part of a test project created by the municipality of Copenhagen.

The Citroën C1 electric car charging.

Display – “fuel indicator”.

As the new managing director of the danish organization Grøn Vision my goal is to expand the organization by strengthening the network between the students at the university and high school with the danish industry of green tech.
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Green Vision is an organization affiliated with DTU Risoe National Laboratory, driven by students at the Danish Technical University and Copenhagen Business School. After communicating with high school teachers across the country and the Danish Ministry of Education, it is clear that there is a desire for new, exciting and case orientated teaching materials. Green Vision seeks to fulfill this wish. This is by our beliefs best resolved, by allowing committed, innovative university students to develop learning material that inspires high school students in a way only other students can do. We will thus increase interest, and ultimately the applications, to the educations of science, so Denmark can continue to promote the advancement of renewable energy and rethinks environmentally friendly solutions such as wind power, heat pumps and use of electric vehicles.

I’m current writing my bachelor project at DTU together with the Danish Electric car distributor ChoosEV. The project is about defining the role and opportunities of the electric car by minimizing the drawbacks and enhancing the powerful features of the electric car.

This is what ChoosEV say about themselves, translated from their Danish web page:

ChoosEV supplies electric vehicles, charging stations, financing, management, consulting and environmental optimization in relation to electric vehicles and infrastructure. Our goal is to be a leader in the market for electric vehicles and infrastructure. In this way we contribute to making a positive difference for the environment and the community – both locally and nationally.

Here are some pictures from our preliminary research.

Tesla – Electric car in Monte Carlo, Monaco

Electric cars in Monte Carlo, Monaco

Citroën Saxo electric

German industrial designer, Dieter Rams is perhabs one of the most influential designers of the 20th century.  His name has been strongly associated with the consumer products company Braun for which he had been working for over 40 years, and the Functionalist school of industrial design. Read more on Yatzer

Dieter Rams’ ten principles to “good design”

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps us to understand a product
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is consequent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is as little design as possible

Gestalten Books has compiled “Less and More” a book which features images of  of Rams’s products, his sketches and models while it elucidates his design philosophy. Buy the book – I did…

At the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change COP15, MIT researchers and the municipality of Copenhagen debuted the Copenhagen Wheel, which transforms ordinary bicycles quickly into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units. The Copenhagen Wheel allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when you need a bit of a boost. It also maps pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.

Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you. As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide, NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes, to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go. senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/