The Least Creative Cars of the Detroit Auto Show
Beautiful, incredible, and desperate. Of these 4 companies, at least 2 won't survive.
What happens when innovation hits the end of its road? When there is no more “forward” in a system of creative values? The question is relevant to the most legendary names in automotive history: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, McLaren. So far, they're answering the question incorrectly - and I predict at least 2 of these companies won’t survive. The reason is their core value - the “motive force” of their design and existence - has hit a wall.
Values drive all creativity, because they direct our creative decisions. For supercar manufacturers the core value is obviously performance. And not just any level of performance, but performance well beyond lesser cars. To this shared value each company differentiates itself by nuances: for Ferrari, it’s passion and racing, for Lamborghini, it’s outrageousness, while McLaren expresses technical perfection. All express exclusivity. But these are side dishes to the main course of uncommon performance. Which is now a problem, because there simply is no more performance possible to extract. Or at least no more if the vehicle is going to be driven by a human being. Seriously. There’s nowhere to go. That value is played out, which creates a creative conundrum.
The problem is the performance envelope of lesser cars - the level supercars must substantially exceed - is now so high that most drivers can never explore it. Today, a V6 Honda Accord gets down the road like a 1990’s Ferrari. Lowly Nissan makes a genuine 200 mph car. Ford will sell anybody with about 60k a Mustang with nearly 700 horsepower, a figure Ferrari has only exceeded in a single production-car in its history. Sure, nobody cross-shops a Mustang and a Ferrari. But neither does anyone want a Ferrari that is no faster than a Mustang.
This is why innovation from these companies has entered into the realm of the avant-garde. At Detroit’s International Auto Show, Ferrari, Porsche, and McLaren showed cars that exemplified how desperate times are for these companies. In order to be “special” in the traditional supercar value-system, these cars are so absurdly fast that effectively none of its owners can come close to exploiting its performance, even on a race track. The Ferrari Laferrari accelerates from 0-186 mph in 17 seconds. The McLaren P1 goes from 62 to 125 in 4.0 seconds - much faster than many full-on race cars.
The Porsche, McLaren, and Ferrari are justified by their complex hybrid powertrains - a nod to eco-relevance. But note they’re also voluntarily limited to very small production numbers; the LaFerrari will only be built in 7 units; the Lamborghini only 3. This shows the manufacturers are forced to increase exclusivity in order to compensate for lowering performance as a value. Of these, probably none will be driven more than a dozen or so miles. They're collector items, million-dollar Beanie Babies..
So, then: whither Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, and even Porsche? 300 mph cars? Can a wealthy enthusiast be happy spending a fortune on a car with performance that is essentially theoretical, like some avant-garde art project? Yes - in very, very small numbers. But not in large enough numbers to sustain these billion-dollar companies. Of these, only Porsche, with its more diverse product line, is positioned to survive.
Meanwhile, new competitors less hung up on legacy will come. 3D printing will soon largely erase the huge investments in machine tools that stand between a new company and success in major manufacturing. If supercar companies are going to survive, they will have to find a new value to express. It can’t be “hybrid performance” - technology will democratize that value just as it has traditional performance. Look at what Tesla's accomplished already. Yet if the defining value of a supercar company isn’t performance, then how can they be supercars?