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Michigan has a rich history in innovation. Many of which have made major changes all over the world, not to mention, the foundations of how we live our modern lives today. In this part, I start with the innovator, Henry Ford, who manufactured the Ford Model T automobile one hundred years ago in 1908!

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Filed under: Automotive | Henry Ford | Industries | Innovation | Manufacturing | People

The other day I was flipping through my AAA Living magazine, and came across a snippet about a discount for AAA members to the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village and Ford Rouge Factory Tour.

This discount is to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the Ford Model T rolling “off the assembly line”. So as we drive to work in our modern cars, it is astonishing to think that it was only 100 years ago that the Model T was created. And it goes without saying that this invention made significant changes all over the world. This is one reason why Detroit, Michigan is called Motor City and Motown. 

I have been lucky enough to visit all these places, and people here in Michigan don’t seem to realize how fortunate we are to have these most unique and best museums in the world! And it all started in Michigan’s rich history of innovation.

In the next part of this series, I will bring up more innovators in Michigan’s history.

 

Professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll conducted tests to see whether the unit of MPG was giving people the wrong ideas. As it turns out, they were right.

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Filed under: Automotive | Fuel Efficiency

We've always used Miles Per Gallon as the unit for measuring the gas mileage and fuel efficiency of automobiles. Why? Sure, the numbers are fairly easy to work with, but just because it's easy doesn't mean we've found the best way to do it. With all the innovation going on with hybrids and making more fuel-efficient cars, now is the time to change the way we measure the fuel efficiency itself.

Duke University professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll conducted tests to see whether the unit of MPG was giving people the wrong ideas. As it turns out, they were right; most people were thrown off by MPG : "for example, most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50 mpg as saving more gas over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28 mpg, even though the latter saves twice as much gas.

"These mistaken impressions were corrected, however, when participants were presented with fuel efficiency expressed in gallons used per 100 miles rather than mpg."

The New York Times wrote that "[Larrick and Soll] ran a series of experiments to show that the current standard of miles per gallon leads consumers to believe that fuel consumption is reduced at an even rate as efficiency improves. But that’s not the case.

The following graph plots Gallons Used Per 100 Miles vs. Miles Per Gallon between 10 and 60 Miles Per Gallon. Note that the relationship between fuel savings and MPG is not linear. Also note that changing from a 10mpg vehicle to a 20mpg vehicle (5 gallons saved per 100 miles) is five times more efficient than changing from a 34mpg vehicle to a 50mpg vehicle (1 gallon saved).

 

As professors Larrick and Soll found in their examination, many people have trouble understanding this. We should switch our system of units to GPM to avoid any confusion. Fuel efficiency would be rated with a single-digit number, the lower the better. When comparing two cars' GPM, all you would need to do is subtract one from the other. Wouldn't that be so much easier than a hyperbolic equation?

Fresh ideas will always shake up a market.

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Filed under: Automotive | ERT Systems, LLC | Innovation | Renewable Energy | Solar Power

There's also the auto industry. If we look at purely Hybrid-Electric Vehicles (HEV), we can see that the struggling Ford and GM have found hope in the Ford Escape Hybrid and the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid. Ford wanted to have the first Hybrid SUV; it has done just that, and has seen financial improvement. The Tahoe Hybrid increases gas efficiency from its non-hybrid counterpart by nearly 29%, and will probably sell extremely well to those who need a powerful SUV. HEV have shaken up the market among the big automakers themselves, and whichever automaker (be it Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, or other) makes the best-selling HEV will have a lot of power in the market.

Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEV) are even more interesting to examine. The new techology has allowed new companies to try to grab a piece of the multi-billion-dollar pie. Some of the most important companies that you have never heard of are Tesla Motors, Phoenix Motorcars, and the Lightning Car Company, all of whom are fighting with the likes of Chevrolet's Volt to bring their PHEV vehicles to the market first. It's been a long time since we've seen so many new car companies, and all it took was some innovation.

All these industries share the commonality that innovation in materials has brought change. Although the industies that they belong to had already been created, companies like ERT Systems and Phoenix Motorcars have a great chance to make a name for themselves. Fresh ideas will always shake up a market.