Random thoughts on electric (and other) cars.

Autonomous cars, electric cars, and Apple (not necessarily in any logical order)

Mankind, have started dreaming of self-driving cars, maybe even before the invention of the car itself, maybe because back then, people who could afford a private vehicle (where you have horses at the front, driver in the middle, and the VIP cabin in the back); they never thought of driving as an aristocratic activity.

The early ideas were something very technologically-advanced back then (very primitive now), like implementing some sort of metal conductors that will follow signals from wires along the road, so the car will drive in that lane like a robot (see General Motors concept car here).

Technology, marketing and history (I think)

Ranting and raving about “some subject”…

(image source: here Porsche 959 -left- and Ferrari F40 -right- in a drag race)

You can talk for a million years about how apple twisted their situation, from a miserable computer manufacturer into an innovative company that inspires millions around the world with its brilliant ideas and elegant designs, but no, I am not talking about that already-known example, because you already know it.

What happened to Circuit City?

why was circuit city so successful as to be featured in good to great? 
 

Circuit city was in the right market in the right time, the stores spread from 8 to 53 between 1983 and 1987, let alone the 37 smaller electronics only stores, in the early 1990s it was about 400 stores nationwide, and at that period of time, the personal computer sales were sky rocketing, consumer demand for electronics –video, TVs, vacuum cleaners, microwaves- by the end of the nineties and the year 2000 sales went to 12.6 billion from 1 billion as in 1986, earnings went up to 327 million compared to 22 million in 1986 and the slogan then was “welcome to circuit city, where service is a state of art” the staff were heavily invested in with

Market incentives

That's was how I answered a question about "the effects of market incentives", it was a course about social and ethical responsibilities in my MBA program.

I do completely agree with the statement: “profit is the reason for businesses to exist” and the only way to explain why is with examples.

The most powerful stakeholders who influence the business decision making are those who finance it; shareholders, and their ultimate goal from investing money in business is to generate return on their investment, if there’s no satisfactory return, the decision makers in the company will face the possible threat of shareholders withdrawing their investments.

Personal -yet professional- opinion of Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz is one of the most innovative organizations in modern history, if not the most! Personal opinion!

 (image from: https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/innovation)

Apart from creating the first car ever (1886), Mercedes-Benz introduced the first electric car in 1906 and a lot more…

First super-charged car, first 4 wheel independent suspension (1931, and only introduced in American muscle cars in the 2000s models) first company to implement crash test programs, first manufacturer to introduce ABS (anti-lock brakes) systems (1978), airbags (1981), three-points seat belts, engine electronics to manage the power and prevent uncontrollable wheel spin (traction control systems), I believe that appeared first in the ESP (Electronic Stability Control) system that was first introduced in 1995, and part of these systems is the traction control function that we find now in most cars with V6 engines and above, apparently all manufacturers followed the trend, the revolutionary Active Body Control that can detect cross wind and compensate for it when the car is running at high speed.

Also, it was Mercedes that first introduced the airbags, and a lot of safety systems like drowsiness sensors that monitors the driver’ state through cameras and sensors and reminds him to take a break if he was falling asleep or about to fall asleep, there’s also the infra-red front camera to scan the road and provide a clear vision on a screen even in heavy fog, in the latest models, the S-Class is capable of bringing the car to a complete stop or keeping a safe distance automatically or following a certain car ahead, without interference from the driver, using very clever technologies of