One step at a time

 Last night I had a conversation with a lifelong family friend named Ron.  Ron and my Dad became friends in the mid to late 70s and worked together on quite a few projects at the church.  I didn't know Ron's professional employment was involved in the production of automotive computer systems and test systems for production output and high level diagnostic testing devices for the global automotive industry.  How did I not know this information?

Ron and I had a two hour conversation about the automotive and transportation space spanning current state, where the industry is headed, the adoption obstacles and the longevity and viable of an auto repair shop for the next 20-80 years.  I came away feeling like I participated in a masterclass in automotive technology landscape of the 21st century.

We discussed electrification, autonomous vehicles, the evolution of transportation and how the automobile fits, global production, energy sources, legislation, inflection points and a myriad of other points relating to the long term viability of owning an auto repair business.

This morning I spoke to Charlie who owns the shop we currently use.  Inquired about the long-term viability of someone in the trenches vs Ron's perspective being on the forefront of transportation technology.   The average vehicle is 12.6 years old.  Cars on average are 14.5 years old and light trucks are nearly 12 years old.  American's are keeping their cars longer.  In Charlie's estimates average length of ownership to expand to 18 years with the tiding turning in 50-80 years to mass adoption of autonomous electrified vehicles.  

Ron seems to think the inflection point is sooner that 50 years and he's thinking 15-25 years.

The reality is technology will continue advancing while the adoption rate will lag behind the technology.  Combine the evolution with the role the automobile has played in American culture.  The heartbeat of America.  The best way to discover and explore America is in a brand new chevy SUV.  The Dukes of Hazzard.  The highway.  Look at the reality of transportation density in metropolitan areas leading to unbearable congestion.  Tunnels.  Self driving cars.  Sit in an autonomous car while staring into a phone watching AI generate slop.  

Realize as the technology advances, auto repair shops need to evolve to meet demand and be able to solve vehicle/transportation problems, maintenance and breakdowns.  There is a tension between manufacturers, independent repair shops and consumer desires.  A tension between manufacturer information and technology remaining proprietary or being made available to third parties.  Consideration to how the future looks to service the fleet of vehicles going forward in this complex environment, capacity of manufactures, dealers and independents with servicing and maintaining fleets of vehicles by manufacturer, the manufacturer mix in geographic location and ultimate what is the future of transportation.  

Transportation is becoming slowly becoming cost prohibitive.   Average cost of a new car exceeds fifty thousand dollars.  Luxury vehicles and trucks nearing 100,000 dollars.  Automakers are steering the market towards leasing and subscription based features.  As the car becoming too expensive for average citizens, perhaps there will be an evolution to subscription based services.  You own nothing but you pay a fee to summon an autonomous vehicle to provide transport from point A to point B.  While the car would traditionally be parked in a space or a garage, it is out and about providing transportation to other people.  

Who repairs, maintains and cleans the fleet?  Do you purchase a transportation service contract from a manufacturer (Tesla, Ford, GM) or a service provider like waymo or robo-taxi?  

How to determine the long term viability of an independent auto repair shop in my lifetime as well as the next generation and beyond.  While there is opportunity for the next 50 years, how does that affect my exit strategy?  So much to consider.  

All being said, the conversation about the future of transportation is fascinating.  I continue moving forward in my pursuit of auto repair shop ownership. 

Stock Market - Essentials of life

 It seems the stock market rewards a narcissistic leader with a pipe dream over a normal person with sound business fundamentals. 

Also noteworthy - seed, dirt, water, light and air are life giving.  

D Jackal T

 The only thing he is doing with his Iranian war is enriching himself and his cronies. It’s a yo-yo between progress towards piece and an escalation.  The markets respond in kind to his words.  There is no relief for American consumers. Only the elites profiting off his controlled chaos. 

Every politician fails the electorate once they’re elected. Every time. Burn it to the ground. 

Favorite Job

One of my favorite jobs was working in a video store.  For those unfamiliar, movies were released on video cassette for home viewing.  A video store was like a library but you paid to rent the title because at the time the retail prices were high.  So, the video store was born.  If I remember right, new releases were 3 dollars for one night.  As the title aged,they would go down to 3 dollars for 5 nights and once they were mainstream titles, the went down to 1.50 for 5 nights.  

The job entailed being a cashier to charge people for their selected rentals, any snacks they bought and any late fees they accrued due to keeping the video past the due date.  Or you could work the membership desk  to sign people up for memberships, answer questions about movies and check-in returned movies, making sure they were re-wound and ready to play before putting them on the shelf to be rented again.  Please be kind -Rewind stickers were on every video tape.  

People were usually in a good mood renting from the video store.  One of the perks was getting to rent movies for free.  We got coupons with our pay checks to rent for free.  You could rent anything in the store for free.  The coupons were for first run new releases.  

The store I worked for was Video Central.  It was owned by HEB and was competition to Blockbuster.  I held that job for 4 or 5 years.  It was fun.

Video stores started to struggle shortly after DVDs were introduced and again when netflix was launched.  Unsure what the ultimate nail in the coffin was as I don't remember when streaming videos went mainstream.

However, there was something fun about going to the video store and browsing the covers on the shelf looking for a movie to watch.  Kinda like a library.  I don't know.  It was an enjoyable past time.  It was relatively cheap entertainment.  Playing the movie on the VCR provided good enough quality.  The audio signal was Dolby encoded and could do reproduce primitive surround sound effects with a modern receiver.  

In a way it was the pinnacle of simplicity before the technology advanced and streaming became a viable option.  Going to a friends house and renting "the fly" or all the "aliens" movies was fun.  Or having fun renting Cape Fear combined with Basic Instinct was fun, too.

Too bad technology has advanced with streaming.  For the age of the video store was the golden age of entertainment for Gen X.  I miss those days. 

Autism

 Autism affects more people now than ever before.  Perhaps autism affects the same percentage of people it always has.  Prior to the anything goes culture, autism was seen as a behavioral problem instead of a medical problem. I am certain parents used to beat autistic tendencies and behaviors out of their kids up until the mid 1990s.  

Which generation has the lack of understanding?

Humans

 With the AI, data center development and inflation, I now believe the governments around the world combined with the titans of technology and industry and the world economic forum and the World Health Organization are literally trying to bankrupt and kill all human life on planet earth for their own entertainment.  We are a nuisance.  We aren’t wanted. And we aren’t needed.  

The googler

 Ask it to analyze your behavioral tendencies based on historical conversations and queries. Here’s one thing it said about me; 

emotionally restrained publicly but internally intense 

What does it say about you?