"Sometimes customers aren't ready for change, or they don't think they are. Our C1 was a great example. It's actually a great product that was a little unusual at the beginning. But if you get to work 10 minutes earlier every day or it costs less when you fill up with gas at the end of the week, pretty soon you're motivated to take another look. We just didn't stick with it long enough at the time. Even after you come up with the Gee Whiz thing, you still need customers to buy it.
"What if you could have a vehicle that leans 50 degrees in both directions, and you feel safe while you're on it? It's got all your iPod data and Bluetooth connectivity-everything you're used to having at home or in your luxury car. It would have all the automotive technology they're talking about now: distance control, electronic navigation and all that. So if I'm going through L.A. on the freeway and I want to talk to my partner on the phone, the vehicle just takes over-like something from Minority Report-until I get to Malibu Canyon. Then I take control again. But the 90-minute ride from Pasadena isn't that much fun anyway, so let the electronics deal with it. The suspension is set to soak up all the bumps. It warns you a half-mile before the exit, tightens the suspension and turns the gravity control systems off so I can have some fun in the canyons. Maybe it has articulated fairings. You don't want SUV exhaust in your face on the freeway, but once you get to Topanga Canyon the flaps open up, there's air flowing through like a cabriolet or a convertible. Do you want to move air away from you, or do you want to grab it? That would be just a matter of moving some panels around. Those things are certainly thinkable, and the technology will be there. So why not?"
Stuart ReedChair, Transportation DesignArt Center College Of DesignOpinions are all over the place, but nobody has an ongoing, agreed-upon kind of catholic interpretation of what sustainable transportation means at this point. I spent a lot of years with Toyota and with Chrysler really understanding big, mature industrial companies and their responsibilities. You really can't turn a ship like that around in two years. You need to do things slowly and carefully.
Some say nobody should be allowed to run around unless their carbon footprint is half what it is right now. I absolutely think that however you define them, minimalist vehicles like motorcycles are going to play a very big part in the future. More students than ever want to tackle projects in that realm. Maybe I'm biased. I have a BMW R75/5 at home and an R1100RS, designed by a good friend of mine named Dave Robb.
When it's all about recreation, there's criticism in some camps about burning precious fossil fuels just for fun. But when you look at the global picture, motorcycles are one of the most benign forms in terms of their impact. Get on any busy transportation corridor and you see one person in an Escalade and another on a bike. What looks smarter?
Look at the corridors available to move vehicles through-narrow-lane vehicles are being talked about more and more. Even with some of the narrow-lane three- and four-wheel concepts, the total width that's been established is the same as a large road bike. And in dense urban environments, the footprint a vehicle takes up when it's not being used is essential to the whole equation. I was in Paris a few months ago. You see a corner where there's parallel parking along the curb. A little Smart car turns 90 degrees into a space where there isn't enough room to park anything...except a motorcycle.