Volvo & Microsoft - Guys, Not Creative

The Volvo car still looks like a car. Oh boy, you can work or relax at a conventional, sleek, updated 1950s dashboard, sitting in a luxurious, 1990s Mercedes-like seat. Wow. Really? A first grader could have come up with something better. Did you consult any potential buyers? Did you think carsharing? Long-distance options for travelers? This was the outer boundary of Volvo innovation? You're kidding, right?

Oh, and Volvo states it has "reimagin[ed] the entire car experience." Not.

Like Downton Abbey for cars

Volvo's new car, to be tested on Swedish roads in 2017 - yes, that far from now - offers a rose-colored version of what we currently have, while adding safety features to make sure that drivers do not do a Tesla by turning on a self-driving feature when traveling on a road the car is unable to navigate on its own. This is PARTIALLY driverless - a necessary adjective that car manufacturers routinely exclude as these partial babies roll off the assembly line.

But the vision offered reminds me of Downton Abbey, The Remains of the Day, Upstairs, Downstairs, Gone With the Wind (an entirely different period and country, though still an apt comparison, I think) and the like - portraits of people clinging to a vanishing world. In those literary examples, some happily adopted electricity and cars, though they yearned for the trappings, customs, look, and culture of their wealthy, privileged lives to remain in place. 

Like such characters in literature, film, and TV, Volvo will soon find itself in a very different world than the 20th century one in which it prospered.

Another 20th century company on board

Microsoft, which has lost its image as a company in the forefront of innovation, is Volvo's partner. Gee. The only cool part is the retro-looking virtual goggles, reminiscent of the View-Master, that lets you pick out seating colors and upholstery fabrics. The View-Master, created in 1939, was popular in the Mad Men era, which is how this whole Volvo futurama car experience appears to me. Look at the guy in the moving image above, a modern-day Don Draper.

Someone else is busy

Elon Musk is out to hire software engineers in his quest for Tesla to be fully driverless in three years.