Friday, 17 October 2014

Snippets of a Study on the Future of Mobility

According to a recent Auto Study on the future of mobility conducted by New York based company MRY, via Whitman Insight Strategies, owning a car is still an important part of our day-to-day life.

This study surveyed 1,000 smartphone owners – 500 Millennials, 500 35+) and cover everything from consumers’ thoughts on the “connected car,” to which automakers are perceived to be the most innovative (and how that translates to sales).

The findings reveals that unsurprisingly that mobile phones matter a lot more to people, slightly less than cars. Among adults 35+: 94% say their cars are important vs 82% phones. But for Millennials, it’s 87% cars, 86% phones. Overall, SMS comes in at 72%, high def TV 55%, Facebook 47%, newspaper subscription 32%, and Twitter and Instagram around 20%.

Across ages, access to a car (90%) trumps helping others (77%), raising a family (73%), voting (68%), and being wealthy (43%). However, the youth just want to get rich as being wealthy is a FAR bigger deal for Millennials (53%) vs adults 35+ (33%) - one of the biggest value gaps MRY found in the study.

As for car ownership, 96% of surveyed individuals own or lease a vehicle, and 91% think that owning a car is still an important part of their day-to-day. Even 87% of the Millennial population, which is more aware of car-sharing services and other transportation options, agrees that owning a car is essential. This means that auto manufacturers need to keep people happy, because at least 40% of surveyed individuals are likely to use car-sharing services if offered in their communities.

To put things into perspective: new vehicle sales are around the 16 million mark, with the average sticker price north of $30,000 (See link). That’s $480 billion. A shift in attitude leads to changes in purchase behavior and even a 1% change could mean a $5 billion impact on sales.

However, car-sharing still has a long way to go. Even though Uber ranks above all of the major auto brands when measured against the intersection of innovation and personal connection, it is still a relatively unknown entity. Only 22% of surveyed individuals were familiar with Uber, falling behind Zip Car (33% familiar) and just ahead of Lyft (18% familiar).

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

The Proton Iriz - pictures

Had the chance to try out the new Proton Iriz a few days after it was launched. There were three variants at the showroom at  Taman Megah, PJ, near my house in Malaysia.

Quite impressed - Proton has indeed come a long way.

The green one is the manual variant.












There was an automatic white car outside (for test drive). Loved the sound of the exhaust. They have tuned it to sound like a much more powerful sports car.







The grey one is the premium variant with six air bags, rear cameras, touch screen GPS, turbo engine and loads of other extras.





Wednesday, 8 October 2014

The Strati -World's first 3 D printed car

Welcome to the age of printed cars. Arizona based car manufacturer Local Motors has come out with the World's first 3 D printed car - the Strati. It won the 2014 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in New York yesterday.


The car chassis/frame, exterior body, and interior features are made from ABS plastic reinforced with carbon fibres. The electric engine, wheels and other parts were sourced from Renault’s Twizy. It takes the company around 44 hours to print out.

It only has a top speed of about 40mph (60km/h) but I am sure the speeds will improve as time goes by. I am just thinking at the possibilities. In the future, you can probably print out spare parts at home.

Thursday, 2 October 2014

The second generation Proton Perdana

The second generation Proton Perdana was unveiled last year and is only available exclusively to Malaysian Government officials. The car is available in 2.0 and 2.4 litre models and according to reports, is based on the 8th generation Honda Accord.

Saw one a few days back in PJ and it really looks nice.
Stuck at traffic lights when I took this picture.


2014 Proton Perdana Front Three Quarter CC BY-SA 3.0
Paul Tan paultan.org's contribution to Wikimedia

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Sunday, 28 September 2014

Subaru launch Japan only car based on the WRX STI


Subaru recently launched the Japan only WRX S4 in Japan. The model is based on the WRX STI model which was launched in Europe earlier.

It is powered by a direct injection 2.0 litre turbo engine which is tuned to produce 300hp. The engine is combined with Subaru's Lineartronic 7-speed gearbox.

Subaru Global vehicle production was up 17% on last year while total number of exports also increased by 15%.