What do you think of when you hear the word “car”? Maybe you think of a sports car flying down a track, a larger-than-life pickup truck in the mud, or a minivan at a soccer game. Perhaps you think of a memory; your first Hot Wheels car, or pretending to be asleep in the back seat so a parent would carry you to the comfort of your bed after a long day. For a long time, I didn’t think much about cars. I enjoyed the Disney movie Cars as a child, and there were cars I saw that I thought looked cool, but I never latched onto them as a lifelong interest like many other children do, have done, and will continue to do for years to come. When I thought of “car”, I thought of the family minivan, a 2001 Honda Odyssey (I had to text my mom and ask what kind of car it was) that we lovingly dubbed “the B.U.V.”, or the “Butt-Ugly Vehicle”. I remember how easy it was to pick out in a parking lot, with its almost perfectly circular dent in the front bumper shining on its radiant, boring gray paint. We loved that sliding door monstrosity (I’m sorry I called it ugly, Honda. Please don’t un-partner from my capstone project.), and it saw to it that we made it to every adventure we had. We lived in rural Virginia, so that adventure was most often to the “local” Walmart at least a half hour drive away.
Even to someone like me who has never been very interested in cars, I still made a connection with that car through the memories I associate with it. Wear and tear just adds to its personality. Cars are special to people, not just as tools to get place to place, but also meaningful symbols.
Cars as Symbols
In finding articles for this newspaper, I found numerous examples of ways that people interact with cars, and a lot of them fall into the categories of using cars as a means of freedom, self-expression, and/or spectacle. Van life is a recent example of cars as a symbol of and tool for freedom, as those disillusioned with or unable to afford the traditional homeowner’s life take to the road, seeking to make the world their new home and connect to nature through this adventure. I also came across PaykanArtCar, an organization that turns a beloved car model of Iran into statements on the state of human rights in the country. Revisiting the film Thelma & Louise, it’s easy to see how it is the perfect example of the car as a symbol of freedom as two women become outlaws and escape their patriarchal problems, finding freedom in the open road and their friendship. The freedom of self-expression also inspires people to deck out their cars by getting intricate paint jobs or putting hydraulics in it. Even something as simple as a hanging rear view mirror decoration is a common way to put one’s personality into their vehicle, if they don’t want to have something too flashy.
The car world has no shortage of spectacle, from the iconic Cadillac Ranch installation to repeating depictions of car crashes in Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster Series. We are constantly bombarded with new concept cars of the future that look straight out of science fiction. But as I’ve learned from both Cadillac Ranch and Car Crash in White, people become quickly desensitized to spectacle, whether it be beautiful or terrible. Tourists paint over the cars in Cadillac Ranch and pose for social media photos, quickly moving on to the next means of entertainment. Warhol’s piece shows that upon prolonged exposure to tragedy, people become numb to it. Companies keep upping the ante to keep the public’s interest and prevent this disconnection, creating bigger and bigger spectacles through technological advancements.
Emerging Technology
When people think of the future, cars are often at the forefront of their mind. While the long dreamt of flying car is looking less realistic, the self-driving car may be more likely the car of our future. Waymo’s self-driving taxis are promising, although the technology is still developing. It could also problems, as it would deprive rideshare drivers of work if it replaced companies like Uber and Lyft. Seeing how Waymo’s cars are driving well, this opens up a whole new world of design possibilities. I explored one of these possibilities by sketching and rendering a design conjecture for two types of self driving cars, one where everyone watches their own movie on a screen during the drive (similar to an in-flight movie), and the other with swivel chairs that can face one another and a table in the middle to promote conversation.
What I learned from exploring this is that we have two paths as designers when it comes to technology: either it can replace experiences or enhance them, and it wall comes down to human connection. The idea of the left discourages connection to one another in favor of immersion in and connection to technology, while the other is using technology to invite human interaction. It all depends on the future we want to build.
When it comes to cars, there’s a large concern when it comes to the future of the environment. Environmental impact is on everyone’s mind, and there’s a push to electrify as many vehicles as possible to lessen carbon emissions. Automotive companies are pushing new electric and hybrid models to appeal to this concern.
Keeping up with Demand and Climate
Many businesses today are struggling to keep up with demand, and these struggles are often either a result of or contributor to climate change. As companies bring new convenience to the masses, they may be biting off more than they can chew. Amazon, Walmart, and other companies offering two-day shipping face extreme weather, the Spotify Car Thing is soon to become e-waste , and the Tesla Cybertruck is a hastily-released hunk of junk that paints a pretty grim picture for the future. But with such a complicated issue as climate change, even measures to counteract it and turn to greener options come with new problems. With this new shift to EVs and the desire to electrify everything, the copper needed to help power devices is dwindling. With the demand for copper skyrocketing as technology booms, copper mines have had to dig deeper and copper theft is at an all time high. It’s simply not sustainable in the long run for us to depend of copper.
The simple answer is to invest in public transit, and move more people with less vehicles. To explore the idea of engaging people in the concept of public transit, I sketched out and rendered a concept for a vehicle in a Hot Wheels Public Transit Collection line.
But this becomes a tricky problem when we consider the sheer scale of the United States and the rural areas within it. Cars are necessary in order for people in rural areas to get to work or go to the store, which are much more spread out than in a city. Is it feasible to implement public transit in a place as vast as the United States?
What about Women?
You might be looking at the title of this article and wondering what all this has to do with women. After reading about cars and learning about the surrounding issues, the culture of cars, and the direction in which the automotive industry is going, I’ve also come to understand that women are underrepresented when it comes to car culture and the way cars are designed and tested. There’s been a wave of hyper-masculinity in car designs as concept cars push for a robotic and futuristic feel, and car advertising is often geared toward men as they highlight cars’ performance and durability (features that men tend to favor) over emphasizing safety features (that women tend to look for in a car).
Women seem to be pushed to the sidelines even when it comes to the culture around cars, car-centric events being attended mostly by men, films about cars featuring mostly men as drivers with women in the passenger seat, and children’s toy cars being marketed toward boys, excluding girls from the club early on. Women-only car meets are one way women have sought to connect with one another over their love of cars by carving out an exclusive space for themselves. As previously mentioned, Thelma & Louise is the perfect example of centering women and feminist issues in an otherwise masculine genre of an outlaws-on-a-road-trip movie. Hot Wheels are never going out of style, but unfortunately they market toward young boys and not just children in general. The toy aisle seems to have a blue side and a pink side, cluing children in to the idea that they have to choose a side. Hot Wheels line the blue side, and gendered marketing may influence a young girl not to choose the car she wants, instead opting for something on the pink side.
It’s time to knock the cars off the shelf into the middle of the aisle. A group of women designers at general motors known as the Damsels of Design began this through their care-focused designs, many of which are standard in cars today such as child safety locks on doors. Because they had a different perspective, they could think of things that male designers may have overlooked. Creative storage solutions for children’s toys in the back seat, luggage that matched the trunk lining, and a hidden umbrella compartment are just some of the genius ideas they came up with that focused on acknowledging the every day activities of car owners. Their designs were elegant, stylish, and useful for the average car owner, man or woman. To bring this style of design back, I came up with a concept for a pickup truck geared toward women and in the style of a classic car.
So What’s Next?
There’s a lot I’ve learned about the state of not just the automotive industry, but the world, through this research. I better understand what cars can mean to people as ways to be free, get crazy, and be yourself. People get bored easily and need the next new and wild thing, rarely stopping to appreciate what they have. The cars of the future may very well drive themselves, and we have some choices to make about whether we want technology to replace or enhance our experiences. As the cars are changing, so is the climate, and electric vehicles are only one small untangling of a massive, complicated web of problems humanity has woven for itself.
Given that there is a gap in the automotive market to appeal to women, cars have lost their classic style and personality, people are no longer stopping to smell the roses, and we are beginning to see the consequences of climate change, how can design rekindle the Damsels of Design’s spark of genius and bring a woman’s touch to cars, while keeping sustainability and human connection in mind?
For the next phase of my research, I plan to attend car shows and connect with people about cars. I’ll focus in on the front trunk of electric cars, conducting market research of existing car features. I’d like to catalog car designs and analyze what makes a car “feminine” and “masculine”.
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