Financial crisis, Al Gore’s green revolution: the automotive industry has seen better days. Andreas Schwarzinger tells you why he isn’t as pessimistic about the future of the automotive industry as the rest of the world is.

GM went bust. Porsche was indebted with nine billion Euros and now belongs to VW. Chrysler and Opel were sold. Honda left, BMW will leave at the end of the year and BrawnGP, a no-name team, dominates the Formula 1. Supercar-manufacturer Koenigsegg purchases Saab. The Indians run Jaguar. Lamborghini announced that they will make supercars with hybrid powertrain systems. And a Diesel powered Peugeot wins LeMans. Strange times.

And in these strange times, it seems that absolutely everybody has an opinion on what the automotive industry will look like in the future. Al Gore has, obviously. And basically, what he says is that the car will destroy the miserable rest of the polar caps and the tropical rain forest. And therefore, we all will die. Very soon, and very badly. Hollywood is similarly pessimistic. Roland Emmerich thinks that in 2012 the whole world will collapse, because some drugged Mayas said so about 1000 years ago. And obviously, a car won’t prevent you from drowning under a huge wave. All the big consultancies around the world are not exactly enthusiastic, neither. Of course they won’t tell you that, because the automotive industry tends to include some of their key customers right now. But if you read between the lines of their industry reports and forecasts, then it becomes clear that they are not willing to bet a penny on the industry’s future.

Barack Obama seems to be the only optimistic person here. After investing billions of dollars, he actually thinks that GM will recover and finally build reliable, green, beautiful and desirable cars for the people of America and the rest of the world. Yeah right.

As you have guessed, I have an opinion on this topic, too. And if you want some hard facts, here they are: I think the heroic Martini Racing colours will experience an epic revival in the world of car racing, because George Clooney is starting to get really old and Martini will need some new brand shaping activities to keep up with Bacardi or Campari. I also think that bright blue and some very expressive shades of green will become more and more trendy when it comes to picking a colour for your next car. Additionally, I think so-called «club racers» will become very successful. Because if our normal and even our sports cars have to become smaller, lighter, more efficient and greener – and therefore more boring – all the petrol heads in the world need some toys to accommodate their need for speed. Because they are very light, exceptionally quick and relatively cheap, cars like the KTM X-Bow, Ariel Atom or Lotus 2-11 as second or third cars in the household will start to make a hell lot of sense.

So how on earth should the automotive industry have seen the crisis coming, if not even the bankers did?

I also think that Audi will sooner or later get into deep problems. One of the issues Audi will be facing in a few years is its lack of focus. You see Mercedes always built cars which had the reputation of being superior in technology, safety equipment, comfort and luxury. And after a few bloopers like the last-gen C-Class, Mercedes now builds this sort of cars again. Just have a look at the current E-Class to see what I mean. It therefore suits the image when Mercedes is saying that in the future, all of their cars will feature hybrid or electric engine solutions. BMW on the other hand was always known as the manufacturer which builds sporty cars. So with their Efficient Dynamics program they promised the customer and the public to build cars which are as economical as necessary, while being as sporty as possible. This makes perfect sense.

Concept rendering of BMW’s EfficientDynamics program (© BMW AG)

One of the reasons for Audi’s huge success in the past couple of years was the striking design of its cars. And indeed, thanks to their single frame, their angry looking headlights, their widened wheel arches and the dynamic side view Audis nowadays look as aggressive as it gets. But at the same time, the company is focusing on the safety of their cars. As a result, Audis today may look like a Pitbull, but behave like a sausage dog on sedatives. Take the Audi RS4 for example: Whereas you can drive its opponents like the BMW M3 or the Mercedes C63 AMG like an absolute lunatic and drift them when the time is right, an RS4 just understeers, and understeers, and understeers. Always. This is fine, because it is safe. But it is also boring. And this doesn’t match the looks. And this therefore is disappointing.

The cars of the future will be small, nice to look at, fun to drive and rich of personality.

Worse than that is that Audi tries to be both, better than Mercedes in the technology and comfort department, and better than BMW when it comes to driving dynamics and driving feel. So what you always end up with an Audi is a half-hearted, everybody’s darling sort of car. This is the reason I don’t like Audi. And in the long run, I think people won’t like this, neither. Customers are not that stupid, after all.

I could go ahead with these assumptions on the future of the automotive industry, but to sum it up, I am not that pessimistic at all. This is mostly down to the industry’s past, because the automotive industry once rose to the most important industry all over the world. But not for the reason everyone is thinking of, and that really is the core problem.

First, though, it is hugely important to me to point out that from my point of view, saying the present crisis is the automotive industry’s own fault, is immensely stupid. You can say that the sheer extent of the crisis is its own fault, because while pretty much all the markets in the world were saturated a long time ago, it produced cars at an over capacity for years. And of course cars like the BMW X6 or Audi R8 nowadays seem as outdated as having scurvy, but that is not the industry’s fault. It is ours. Because year after year after year we wanted and bought this sort of cars.

So how on earth should the automotive industry have seen the crisis coming, if not even the bankers did? And even if it did: It takes an automotive manufacturer about five years to develop a car from scratch, so of course big, thirsty, expensive, powerful and ugly SUVs are out of date in times where nobody can even afford the petrol to propel them. Why blame automakers for products which all of a sudden nobody wants, when they were sold in units of hundreds of thousands just a few months ago? It is stupid, hence stop it.

The big challenge for every automotive manufacturer will be to make green cars fun to drive.

The bigger problem, though, is that the automotive industry is, always was and seems to be considered as a deeply and utterly technical sector. Indeed, if you visit a production plant and take a look at how a modern car is tinkered together, it is easy to understand why everyone is fascinated about the technical ongoings: There are huge laboratories where scientists study the smell of plastics and the leather. Every single premium brand drives a huge department with people which are exclusively tied up with how the car should sound. It is known that BMW occupies people from the submarine industry to work on the sound of the doors when they are shut.

This of course is all very fascinating. But let me tell you – and I am deeply convinced with this one: It is not the engineering, the electronics or the innovations that made the car such a big hit and it is not the engineering that will safe the industry. Because let’s not forget: It is not an automotive crisis we are facing at the moment, it is a financial crisis.

This is exactly the reason why small is the new big. This is the reason, why relatively cheap, cute little city cars are such a big hit at the moment. But, and this is the important part, it is not the VW Fox, the Dacia Logan or the Fiat Panda which is sold like warm bread rolls. Cars like the Toyota iQ, the new MINI, the Fiat 500 or the Alfa Romeo MiTo are in the center of attention right now, and there is a good reason for that: They are small, relatively cheap and economical, but they are not boring in any way. In fact, they are the best examples of how our cars will look like in the future: Relatively small, nice to look at, fun to drive, quite economical, rich of personality and tons of options for individualization. The price of a car never was and will never be as important as everyone thinks, because the only function of the price is to signalize a cars membership to a certain class. The price level only constrains the choice of cars a customer is willing to buy, but it will never be the determining decision criteria.

The automotive industry has not forgotten how to make our hearts jump. My God, a car is still a pretty thing!

Oh, and I almost forgot about the more and more important «green-ness» of a car. You see, even a petrol head like me is totally aware of the climate change and the role of the car for that matter. But here is the point: From my point of view, to make a car as green as possible is not as hard to do as you may think. We have the hybrid technology, and we invented the fully-electrical system as well. And I am pretty sure that in about 10 to 20 years we will see an even better drivetrain system, which puts them all into shame. But it is a hell of a job to make a car fun to drive. Even very capable manufacturers get this wrong sometimes. So obviously the strategy to go for is making a car which is fun to drive at the first place, and then giving it the greenest possible technology. Like Mini did with the Mini E, for example.

So the big, big challenge for every single automotive manufacturer will be to make green cars fun to drive. The Tesla Roadster, perceptibly, showed us that it can be done. Of course there are some issues with the Tesla Roadster, like its unacceptably low range for example. But there were some issues with the steam engine, as well, and therefore the Tesla will make it into the books of history as the first green car which was fun to drive.

And this really is the most important message I want to tell you about in this article. I am absolutely sure the car industry will not go down as fast as everyone is thinking at the moment. It won’t happen because of cars like the BMW 123d Coupé, the Ford Mustang, the MINI, the Fiat 500, the Nissan 350Z, the Audi R8, the Bugatti Veyron, the Mercedes SL, the VW Golf GTI or the Scirocco, the Nissan GT-R, the Pagani Zonda or the Hummer H2. They all are or were icons. And people will always look up to icons.

What I want to say is that it is not the engineering that makes a car a success or not. It is not the amount of green technologies packed into the car. It was not its chassis, or the brakes, or the suspension, or the gearbox that made the Ford Mustang an icon, because all of this basically was useless. It was its charismatic engine, its looks, its name, its character and what it stood for that made it such a hit.

This is what the automotive industry always was best at: Giving us goose bumps with the sound of an engine, making us feel like racing car drivers behind the steering wheel and creating art by creating outstanding and timeless designs. This is what made the automotive industry once the most important business in the world. They are absolute experts in manipulating us and creating the most beautiful, most exciting and most successful industrial product up to date. And I like to be manipulated in this way.

Don’t get me wrong. The technology behind a car is important. It is hugely important for every single manufacturer in terms of safety equipment and reliability. And it is vital for premium brands, because an S-Class without the latest word in innovations wouldn’t be an S-Class. But technology is adaptable. You can copy the Prius’ hybrid batteries, Audi’s four wheel drive, Mercedes’ radar guided cruise control or VW’s double clutch transmission simply by buying the car of your competitor, destruct and rebuild it. But you will never be able to copy the appealing noise of a Ferrari, the precise and pointy steering feel of a Porsche, the looks of an Alfa Romeo, the insane attention to detail of a Pagani Zonda or the captivating charm of a MINI. Technology and innovations therefore are absolutely necessary, but not sufficient for success.

If the industry gets its act together again by making emotional cars that absolutely everybody wants, then I see no reason at all why it should go down. As long as we feel the need for speed, as long as public transport doesn’t get a 1000% better, as long as we are fascinated about the looks and the sound of a car and, most importantly, as long as the industry can keep all of this alive when all the oil of the world and therefore the internal combustion engine is gone, everything will be fine. Just fine.

And you know what? It will. It was the IAA car show in Frankfurt in September of this year that showed me that the automotive industry has not forgotten how to make our hearts jump. I mean have a look at the MINI Coupé Concept. Or the Ferrari F458 Italia. Or the Audi R8 Spyder. Or the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Or the Bentley Mulsanne. Or the Maserati GranCabrio. Or the Mercedes SLS AMG. Especially, have a look at the so-called «BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics» you see on the pictures on these pages. It combines a fuel efficiency of just 3.76l per 100km and CO2 emissions of just 99g per km with a zero to 100 kph time of just 4.8 seconds and a top speed in excess of 250 kph. The BMW concept car achieves this by a very low weight (1395kg), an impressive drag coefficient of just 0.22 and the combination of a tiny 1.5l three cylinder diesel engine with two hybrid batteries, one at the front and one at the back, which gives the car a veritable all wheel drive as well as 356 horsepower and 800 Nm of torque.

That’s all very impressive. But forget about the imposing figures for a moment and have a look at the car. My God it is pretty. In fact, it is more than that. It is utterly, mind-blowingly and outright beautiful. It is an eye-catcher in the very sense of the word. It is a car that shows you that the combination of remarkable driving dynamics, striking looks and calming sustainability actually is possible. It is a car that saved my life, because if I think of the future where all our cars look and feel like the Toyota Prius, I would rather shoot myself than waiting for it to happen. If I think of the future with cars like the BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics, I am looking forward to it. And it is a car that shows me that I am right. I am right about the future of the automotive industry. Thank God I am right. Puh.