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For the latest news from Scotland see our ScotNews feed at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
Wishing you all a Happy Tartan Day.
I note the Commonwealth Games have started in Australia this week with Scotland leading the opening ceremony.
I spent Easter with my friend Nola and her family in Toronto. As usual the Sunday was filled with activity. Attended church service after which we headed to Cinq for our lunch and then after to Nola's home where we did the Easter egg hunt with all the family. Lot's of fun.
And as I am a bit of a golf fan I'll be watching the Masters today and over the weekend.
Here is the video introduction to this newsletter...
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in newspapers such as the Guardian, Scotsman, Courier, etc. you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish.
SNP MSP delivers entire Holyrood speech in Gaelic
Kate Forbes, the member for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, said she wanted to demonstrate Gaelic was a living language as MSPs used headsets to listen to a simultaneous translation.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...elic-1-4714779
New Scottish benefits system could bring down government
Tricky deadlines have to be met if the government’s new social security system is to be judged a success, writes Tom Peterkin.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...ment-1-4714643
University isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
In fact, it’s terrible preparation for adult life
Read more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/...e-preparation/
Edinburgh scientists working to create safer eggs
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute are carrying out work to produce safer eggs.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...-fife-43605254
Scotland’s record year for renewables
The Scottish Government has published new statistics on renewable energy generation up to the end of 2017 showing a significant increase in output during the final three months of last year
Read more at:
http://sceptical.scot/2018/03/scotla...ar-renewables/
SNP is rolling us down a hill towards a cliff edge
While the First Minister fumes about power grabs, it’s her government which poses the real risk, says Brian Monteith
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...edge-1-4716647
Meghan Markle a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce
The future bride of Prince Harry is a direct descendant of Scotland’s most famous king, it has been claimed.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/meghan...ruce-1-4717268
Dinosaur tracks on Skye globally important
Few fossil sites have been found around the world from the Middle Jurassic period.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...lands-43620237
Police Scotland at five: Tragedy, triumph and turmoil
Britain's second biggest police service was launched on 1 April, 2013. BBC Scotland looks back at its challenges, from unspeakable tragedies to misconduct allegations.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43399585
UK investment is at a record high.
So why has almost no one reported it?
Read more at:
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/0...e-reported-it/
The secret cherry taking over Canada
Able to survive temperatures as low as -40C, Saskatchewan’s prairie cherries are tarter than traditional sweet cherries and can be eaten straight from the tree.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/2018...ng-over-canada
Jacob Rees-Mogg accused of copying Walter the Softy
The Beano comic has issued a cease-and-desist letter to MP Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming he has modelled himself on its character Walter the Softy.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43642564
Brexit Britain can rejuvenate global network after years of EU dilution
THE Government needs to rejuvenate the Commonwealth as part of its Global Britain strategy once it is free of the European Union. By David Maddox.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...airs-committee
Teachers buying cash-strapped pupils food and clothes
Teachers are routinely using their own money to buy food and clothes for their poverty-stricken pupils.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43654609
Electric Canadian
Transactions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers
I discovered a lot of volumes of these transaction which are very detailed and note that they are very popular downloads so assume civil engineers are enjoying the details given in these transactions.
I've added the 1932 volume and will add others each week. You can view these at
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...rial/index.htm
Some of the topics discussed include Air-Cooled Engines, Engineering Education in Canada, Central Heating System of the City of Winnipeg, Chemical Industry, Coal Mining and Distribution, Dredging, Ducts, Early Surveys of Essex County, Evolution of Lighthouses, Field Gun Manufacture, Glass Making, Hydro-Electric Power, Industrial Engineering, Institute's War Memorial, Locomotive Design, National Broadcasting Plan for Canada, Niagara Falls, Obituaries, Oil Circuit Breakers, Our Coal Supply, Publications of Other Engineering Societies, Telephone Engineering, Transportation, Vehicle and the Road, Welded Construction, etc.
The Poetical Works of Alexander McLachlan
Selected and Edited with Introduction, Biographical Sketch, Notes and a Glossary (1900) (pdf)
A Scots-Canadian poet who you can read about at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...rMcLachlan.pdf
Canada's History
A bi-monthly publication - Aug/Sept 2016 (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...2016-08-09.pdf
Grand Priory of Canada
Got in a copy of their April 2018 newsletter which you can read at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/Reli...rApril2018.pdf
Electric Scotland
Commonwealth of Australia
Historical Records of Australia published in 1914 in 19 volumes. Intending to put up 1 volume s week until complete.
Added volume 2 to this collection at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...mmonwealth.htm
Clan Lachlan Association of Canada
Got in their Spring 2018 newsletter which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...hlan/index.htm
Anonymous In Stoney by Jean Kemlo
A copy of a booklet published by Stanley Bruce and the late Jean Kemlo back in 2006. A link to this book is at the foot of the gazetteer page on Stonehaven at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ol6page398.htm
Clan Munro of Australia
Got in their newsletter for April 2018 which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...unro/index.htm
In Defence of Collective Security
The Skripal affair and the vital importance of collective security as the foundation of British national defence (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...e-security.pdf
John Buchan
Added a little more to his page and a couple of very old videos of him which can be viewed at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...her/buchan.htm
All I've Ever Known: Margaret Gallagher's Story
An interesting video showing this woman living in the old way. You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...lagher-s-Story
Station Life in New Zealand
By Lady Barker (1886) (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ew-Zealand.pdf
Business
Added a business page to our SIP section to explore helpful organisations.
You can view this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/inde...p/business.htm
Brimmond and its Shadow
A Record of the Excursions held by the Stoneywood Parish Church Literary Guild during 1908-1910.
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...r/Brimmond.pdf
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
Our friend and Burns scholar, Patrick Scott, has shared another chapter for our website. In his introduction, he writes the following:
Ross Roy, a long-time supporter of Robert Burns Lives!, is remembered with affection and respect by many Burnsians. He was one of the most influential Burns scholars of the second half of the twentieth century, best known for his still-standard edition of the Letters of Robert Burns (2 vols., Clarendon, 1985). Less well known is the range of writing about Burns, formal and informal, that he had published over the years. A selection of this writing has now been gathered into book form. With Ross’s approval, Ken Simpson and I drafted the first list of items to include, and in carrying the project out my collaborators were Elizabeth Sudduth, Associate Dean for Special Collections at the University of South Carolina, and my former student Jo DuRant; details are given at the end of this article. It is a selection of his most accessible essays; a full checklist of Ross’s writings on Burns and other topics was given in the festschrift Ken and I edited in 2012, and a few extra items are noted in this new book. Along with short appreciations of such well-known Burns poems as "Tam o' Shanter" and "Auld Lang Syne," the book includes essays discussing Burns's attitudes to the French Revolution, politics, and religion, his love-letters to Clarinda, The Merry Muses of Caledonia, poems written about Burns, poems wrongly attributed to him, and the earlier history of Burns editing. The final item in the book is an extended interview I did with him in 2008 about his fifty years as a Burns collector, with illustrations of many of the books and manuscripts he discusses.
We wanted a less formal introduction that gave a better sense of Ross talking about Burns. For this, we put together a section from several sources but all in Ross’s own words, called “Encounters with Robert Burns.” This draws both on some of his autobiographical writing and on interviews with him in his last year recorded by the University Libraries’ Oral Historian, Andrea L’Homme-Dieu. His early memories of visiting Scotland as a boy with his grandfather, the Canadian Burns collector W. Ormiston Roy, and later of staying with him in Montreal, appeared shortly after his death as Robert Burns Lives!, no. 174, so are not repeated here. The extract from the introduction given below comes from the transcribed interviews, recounting how he came to edit the Burns letters, some of his experiences doing it, and some of the other Burnsians he met in connection with the work. To those who knew him, these reminiscences will bring back Ross’s distinctive voice. We hope they will also introduce him in a more personal way to younger Burnsians who have only known him through his formal scholarship (3.30.2018).
Reminiscences of Editing Burns by G. Ross Roy can be read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives262.htm
Clan Frame
Added some additional information about the clan which you can get to at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...og/frame2.html
The Story
Let’s hail a ride with Jaguar and Waymo
How capitalism works
by Eben Wilson
WHEN I FIRST READ that Jaguar has an order for twenty thousand of its new i-Pace cars from Waymo, part of the Google empire, to become self-driving “ride-hailing vehicles”, I was puzzled. But then I began to laugh. Here’s why.
This contract offers a wonderful lesson in economics, highlights the farce of leftist thinking and emphasises what Brexit is actually about.
Think about it. Here’s a premium vehicle costing £63,000 destined to become – er – a taxi. It’s a rich person’s status toy, but it’s all-electric and, wait for it, it is built in Austria by a British company owned by an Indian conglomerate.
Who would have thought it?
Leftist prejudices about the rich versus the poor, public versus private, fossil fuels versus electric power, home and overseas ownership and global profits are all forced into reassessment in the face of such enterprising genius. (Although my bet is that Waymo engineers just thought it would be cool to have a Jag as a taxi. )
Let’s do a bit of that re-assessment.
To use a rich person’s car as a taxi reminds us that rich people are important to innovation and that the notion that the poor are only poor because the rich are rich is dead wrong. It’s the opposite. By using an i-Pace, Waymo are being commercial. They are sinking huge sums into development; they want it back and a premium ride-hailing vehicle, a better name than taxi, will command higher prices; meaning more money redistributed from the rich to blue collar workers.
Through these efforts, we will also get to a world where elderly, infirm, poorer and more vulnerable people will have new freedoms to move around more quickly because richer people have found out how to do it. In the process, the younger, cash-hungry, family overhead-building next generation will be working in industries that self-sustain, provide higher and growing wages, and advance human knowledge for tomorrow’s innovations. That’s capitalism, folks!
Imagine if the state tried to innovate like Waymo, using a set of publicly funded engineers designing within the eco-system of the self-interests of the public sector. We’d end up with a wee wobbly bubble car, just like Waymo did with its prototype self-driving Google car, but the bus companies and taxi companies would do everything in their power to trash it and take over operationally. Innovation would then stall.
My expectation is that we would repeat the farce of those post-war vehicles for the disabled that used to encircle football grounds; creating a specialist market for social reasons; the infirm and vulnerable would be discriminated against through controlled use of self-drive vehicles for them only. They would be costly, rationed, badly maintained and get in the way on the roads because their electric power trains were un-improvable due to the rationing of state cash. That’s socialism.
Let’s dip further into this innovation and its combination of technical and international commerce. The new venture taps into a particular industrial history in that Jaguar is a lucky company. What do I mean by that, and why is it important?
The Jaguar brand gained its personality early, securing it with Le Mans victories through the 1950’s, where daring drivers had the luck to survive. The lucky combination of the fast cat name and the fast driving vehicles sustained through the development of the XJ6 engine. The company survived the socialist agglomeration of BMC into BL – just – and was taken over by Ford when it only had one vehicle in its catalogue. Ford was unlucky with Jaguar, but Jaguar had the luck to be completely re-invested using Ford money with a new alloy engine plant and flexible robot equipped manufacturing line that could generate volume output. Ford also drove quality into the brand.
Then bought by Tata, Jaguar had the luck to have Dumfries born designer Ian Callum on board. He managed to evolve Jaguar design from a slightly fusty image to a totally new look. Through time, in a carefully managed merging of bodyshape aesthetics, the Jaguar’s road presence adopted some of Land Rover’s design cues, especially in its SUVs but with the Jaguar “look” still retaining its cool.
Throughout this process, a loyal export customer base grew. The XJ series, unexpectedly, became the cool car of choice of wealthy California wives (yes, wives) and the newly named Jaguar Land Rover got more luck through good cross-market marketing echo between Range Rover sales and Jaguar sales. Tata opened plants and component suppliers worldwide.
Now, you can put this all down to luck, but I tease. It’s not luck in the sense of random happenstance, it’s luck in the sense of engineered chance; hundreds of small decisions by professional industrialists, marketers and financiers juggling together like amoeba coalescing into an emerging successful whole. This is modern international industrial capitalism. The “luck” to be chosen as a cool SUV, driven electrically, to pioneer self-driving ride-hailing vehicles – is the reward for years of developing small insights and improvements. The right place, right time, right brand, right potential needed to come together.
And the key insight here? It was not centrally planned but instead driven by market incentives. Waymo could have chosen a Ford, an Audi, a Dodge or a Cadillac; all could have been suitable but JLR ducked and weaved and offered the coolest choice.
And that's it for this week and hope you have a great weekend.
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
Wishing you all a Happy Tartan Day.
I note the Commonwealth Games have started in Australia this week with Scotland leading the opening ceremony.
I spent Easter with my friend Nola and her family in Toronto. As usual the Sunday was filled with activity. Attended church service after which we headed to Cinq for our lunch and then after to Nola's home where we did the Easter egg hunt with all the family. Lot's of fun.
And as I am a bit of a golf fan I'll be watching the Masters today and over the weekend.
Here is the video introduction to this newsletter...
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in newspapers such as the Guardian, Scotsman, Courier, etc. you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish.
SNP MSP delivers entire Holyrood speech in Gaelic
Kate Forbes, the member for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, said she wanted to demonstrate Gaelic was a living language as MSPs used headsets to listen to a simultaneous translation.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politi...elic-1-4714779
New Scottish benefits system could bring down government
Tricky deadlines have to be met if the government’s new social security system is to be judged a success, writes Tom Peterkin.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...ment-1-4714643
University isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
In fact, it’s terrible preparation for adult life
Read more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/...e-preparation/
Edinburgh scientists working to create safer eggs
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute are carrying out work to produce safer eggs.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...-fife-43605254
Scotland’s record year for renewables
The Scottish Government has published new statistics on renewable energy generation up to the end of 2017 showing a significant increase in output during the final three months of last year
Read more at:
http://sceptical.scot/2018/03/scotla...ar-renewables/
SNP is rolling us down a hill towards a cliff edge
While the First Minister fumes about power grabs, it’s her government which poses the real risk, says Brian Monteith
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...edge-1-4716647
Meghan Markle a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce
The future bride of Prince Harry is a direct descendant of Scotland’s most famous king, it has been claimed.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/meghan...ruce-1-4717268
Dinosaur tracks on Skye globally important
Few fossil sites have been found around the world from the Middle Jurassic period.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...lands-43620237
Police Scotland at five: Tragedy, triumph and turmoil
Britain's second biggest police service was launched on 1 April, 2013. BBC Scotland looks back at its challenges, from unspeakable tragedies to misconduct allegations.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43399585
UK investment is at a record high.
So why has almost no one reported it?
Read more at:
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/0...e-reported-it/
The secret cherry taking over Canada
Able to survive temperatures as low as -40C, Saskatchewan’s prairie cherries are tarter than traditional sweet cherries and can be eaten straight from the tree.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/2018...ng-over-canada
Jacob Rees-Mogg accused of copying Walter the Softy
The Beano comic has issued a cease-and-desist letter to MP Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming he has modelled himself on its character Walter the Softy.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43642564
Brexit Britain can rejuvenate global network after years of EU dilution
THE Government needs to rejuvenate the Commonwealth as part of its Global Britain strategy once it is free of the European Union. By David Maddox.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...airs-committee
Teachers buying cash-strapped pupils food and clothes
Teachers are routinely using their own money to buy food and clothes for their poverty-stricken pupils.
Read more at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43654609
Electric Canadian
Transactions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers
I discovered a lot of volumes of these transaction which are very detailed and note that they are very popular downloads so assume civil engineers are enjoying the details given in these transactions.
I've added the 1932 volume and will add others each week. You can view these at
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...rial/index.htm
Some of the topics discussed include Air-Cooled Engines, Engineering Education in Canada, Central Heating System of the City of Winnipeg, Chemical Industry, Coal Mining and Distribution, Dredging, Ducts, Early Surveys of Essex County, Evolution of Lighthouses, Field Gun Manufacture, Glass Making, Hydro-Electric Power, Industrial Engineering, Institute's War Memorial, Locomotive Design, National Broadcasting Plan for Canada, Niagara Falls, Obituaries, Oil Circuit Breakers, Our Coal Supply, Publications of Other Engineering Societies, Telephone Engineering, Transportation, Vehicle and the Road, Welded Construction, etc.
The Poetical Works of Alexander McLachlan
Selected and Edited with Introduction, Biographical Sketch, Notes and a Glossary (1900) (pdf)
A Scots-Canadian poet who you can read about at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...rMcLachlan.pdf
Canada's History
A bi-monthly publication - Aug/Sept 2016 (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...2016-08-09.pdf
Grand Priory of Canada
Got in a copy of their April 2018 newsletter which you can read at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/Reli...rApril2018.pdf
Electric Scotland
Commonwealth of Australia
Historical Records of Australia published in 1914 in 19 volumes. Intending to put up 1 volume s week until complete.
Added volume 2 to this collection at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...mmonwealth.htm
Clan Lachlan Association of Canada
Got in their Spring 2018 newsletter which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...hlan/index.htm
Anonymous In Stoney by Jean Kemlo
A copy of a booklet published by Stanley Bruce and the late Jean Kemlo back in 2006. A link to this book is at the foot of the gazetteer page on Stonehaven at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ol6page398.htm
Clan Munro of Australia
Got in their newsletter for April 2018 which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...unro/index.htm
In Defence of Collective Security
The Skripal affair and the vital importance of collective security as the foundation of British national defence (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...e-security.pdf
John Buchan
Added a little more to his page and a couple of very old videos of him which can be viewed at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...her/buchan.htm
All I've Ever Known: Margaret Gallagher's Story
An interesting video showing this woman living in the old way. You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...lagher-s-Story
Station Life in New Zealand
By Lady Barker (1886) (pdf)
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ew-Zealand.pdf
Business
Added a business page to our SIP section to explore helpful organisations.
You can view this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/inde...p/business.htm
Brimmond and its Shadow
A Record of the Excursions held by the Stoneywood Parish Church Literary Guild during 1908-1910.
You can read this at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...r/Brimmond.pdf
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
Our friend and Burns scholar, Patrick Scott, has shared another chapter for our website. In his introduction, he writes the following:
Ross Roy, a long-time supporter of Robert Burns Lives!, is remembered with affection and respect by many Burnsians. He was one of the most influential Burns scholars of the second half of the twentieth century, best known for his still-standard edition of the Letters of Robert Burns (2 vols., Clarendon, 1985). Less well known is the range of writing about Burns, formal and informal, that he had published over the years. A selection of this writing has now been gathered into book form. With Ross’s approval, Ken Simpson and I drafted the first list of items to include, and in carrying the project out my collaborators were Elizabeth Sudduth, Associate Dean for Special Collections at the University of South Carolina, and my former student Jo DuRant; details are given at the end of this article. It is a selection of his most accessible essays; a full checklist of Ross’s writings on Burns and other topics was given in the festschrift Ken and I edited in 2012, and a few extra items are noted in this new book. Along with short appreciations of such well-known Burns poems as "Tam o' Shanter" and "Auld Lang Syne," the book includes essays discussing Burns's attitudes to the French Revolution, politics, and religion, his love-letters to Clarinda, The Merry Muses of Caledonia, poems written about Burns, poems wrongly attributed to him, and the earlier history of Burns editing. The final item in the book is an extended interview I did with him in 2008 about his fifty years as a Burns collector, with illustrations of many of the books and manuscripts he discusses.
We wanted a less formal introduction that gave a better sense of Ross talking about Burns. For this, we put together a section from several sources but all in Ross’s own words, called “Encounters with Robert Burns.” This draws both on some of his autobiographical writing and on interviews with him in his last year recorded by the University Libraries’ Oral Historian, Andrea L’Homme-Dieu. His early memories of visiting Scotland as a boy with his grandfather, the Canadian Burns collector W. Ormiston Roy, and later of staying with him in Montreal, appeared shortly after his death as Robert Burns Lives!, no. 174, so are not repeated here. The extract from the introduction given below comes from the transcribed interviews, recounting how he came to edit the Burns letters, some of his experiences doing it, and some of the other Burnsians he met in connection with the work. To those who knew him, these reminiscences will bring back Ross’s distinctive voice. We hope they will also introduce him in a more personal way to younger Burnsians who have only known him through his formal scholarship (3.30.2018).
Reminiscences of Editing Burns by G. Ross Roy can be read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives262.htm
Clan Frame
Added some additional information about the clan which you can get to at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...og/frame2.html
The Story
Let’s hail a ride with Jaguar and Waymo
How capitalism works
by Eben Wilson
WHEN I FIRST READ that Jaguar has an order for twenty thousand of its new i-Pace cars from Waymo, part of the Google empire, to become self-driving “ride-hailing vehicles”, I was puzzled. But then I began to laugh. Here’s why.
This contract offers a wonderful lesson in economics, highlights the farce of leftist thinking and emphasises what Brexit is actually about.
Think about it. Here’s a premium vehicle costing £63,000 destined to become – er – a taxi. It’s a rich person’s status toy, but it’s all-electric and, wait for it, it is built in Austria by a British company owned by an Indian conglomerate.
Who would have thought it?
Leftist prejudices about the rich versus the poor, public versus private, fossil fuels versus electric power, home and overseas ownership and global profits are all forced into reassessment in the face of such enterprising genius. (Although my bet is that Waymo engineers just thought it would be cool to have a Jag as a taxi. )
Let’s do a bit of that re-assessment.
To use a rich person’s car as a taxi reminds us that rich people are important to innovation and that the notion that the poor are only poor because the rich are rich is dead wrong. It’s the opposite. By using an i-Pace, Waymo are being commercial. They are sinking huge sums into development; they want it back and a premium ride-hailing vehicle, a better name than taxi, will command higher prices; meaning more money redistributed from the rich to blue collar workers.
Through these efforts, we will also get to a world where elderly, infirm, poorer and more vulnerable people will have new freedoms to move around more quickly because richer people have found out how to do it. In the process, the younger, cash-hungry, family overhead-building next generation will be working in industries that self-sustain, provide higher and growing wages, and advance human knowledge for tomorrow’s innovations. That’s capitalism, folks!
Imagine if the state tried to innovate like Waymo, using a set of publicly funded engineers designing within the eco-system of the self-interests of the public sector. We’d end up with a wee wobbly bubble car, just like Waymo did with its prototype self-driving Google car, but the bus companies and taxi companies would do everything in their power to trash it and take over operationally. Innovation would then stall.
My expectation is that we would repeat the farce of those post-war vehicles for the disabled that used to encircle football grounds; creating a specialist market for social reasons; the infirm and vulnerable would be discriminated against through controlled use of self-drive vehicles for them only. They would be costly, rationed, badly maintained and get in the way on the roads because their electric power trains were un-improvable due to the rationing of state cash. That’s socialism.
Let’s dip further into this innovation and its combination of technical and international commerce. The new venture taps into a particular industrial history in that Jaguar is a lucky company. What do I mean by that, and why is it important?
The Jaguar brand gained its personality early, securing it with Le Mans victories through the 1950’s, where daring drivers had the luck to survive. The lucky combination of the fast cat name and the fast driving vehicles sustained through the development of the XJ6 engine. The company survived the socialist agglomeration of BMC into BL – just – and was taken over by Ford when it only had one vehicle in its catalogue. Ford was unlucky with Jaguar, but Jaguar had the luck to be completely re-invested using Ford money with a new alloy engine plant and flexible robot equipped manufacturing line that could generate volume output. Ford also drove quality into the brand.
Then bought by Tata, Jaguar had the luck to have Dumfries born designer Ian Callum on board. He managed to evolve Jaguar design from a slightly fusty image to a totally new look. Through time, in a carefully managed merging of bodyshape aesthetics, the Jaguar’s road presence adopted some of Land Rover’s design cues, especially in its SUVs but with the Jaguar “look” still retaining its cool.
Throughout this process, a loyal export customer base grew. The XJ series, unexpectedly, became the cool car of choice of wealthy California wives (yes, wives) and the newly named Jaguar Land Rover got more luck through good cross-market marketing echo between Range Rover sales and Jaguar sales. Tata opened plants and component suppliers worldwide.
Now, you can put this all down to luck, but I tease. It’s not luck in the sense of random happenstance, it’s luck in the sense of engineered chance; hundreds of small decisions by professional industrialists, marketers and financiers juggling together like amoeba coalescing into an emerging successful whole. This is modern international industrial capitalism. The “luck” to be chosen as a cool SUV, driven electrically, to pioneer self-driving ride-hailing vehicles – is the reward for years of developing small insights and improvements. The right place, right time, right brand, right potential needed to come together.
And the key insight here? It was not centrally planned but instead driven by market incentives. Waymo could have chosen a Ford, an Audi, a Dodge or a Cadillac; all could have been suitable but JLR ducked and weaved and offered the coolest choice.
And that's it for this week and hope you have a great weekend.
Alastair