INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY: THE FUTURE OF MOTOR VEHICLES AND MECHANICS MADE SIMPLE

By

Dr. Viban Ngo

Summary: Succinctly, the author underlines the fact that irrespective of the boom in the automobile and related industries in the last century, coupled with the fact that motor mechanics are indispensable for their smooth running, motor designers and manufacturers often ignore their vital contributions. He tresses that if there was some liaison between the manufacturers and the repairers, not only time in repair tasks would be reduced considerably, but lives of automobiles could be increased a hundredfold and that would not only be appropriate economically for the consumers but for the global environment. Further, he looks at the futuristic manufacture but he is at the same time critical of man’s excessive and somewhat obfuscated reliance on automobile for his mobility. Among his repertoire of recommendations, are calls for alternative fuels and means of transport to be sought to evade future communication and transport catastrophe.

INTRODUCTION

It is a dirty job but still attracts thousands. Like mining, many still take this profession knowing that the reward could be risky. It is arduous yet many a man does get involved. One in seven Canadians are employed directly or indirectly in this and related industries. Some entrepreneurs are known to work till two at dawn just to accomplish one task and to commence the next day peremptorily at 8 o’clock.  Owing to its dirty nature, some customers assume that those who take up this profession are inferior people or could not do better in other professions as designers, lawyers, lecturers, physicians, ministers, and etcetera. As it is assumed that they are inferior commoners in the society, those engineers who sit at their drawing tables designing machines that these men are working on do not bother asking them questions as how best engines should be designed. Year in year out, more and more machines are designed and sold to millions and millions of people worldwide and some are lethal as well as unfriendly. Presently, these machines number into their billions (quote statistics), yet the designers totally ignore those who work on these machines to kept them attractive in good working and safe conditions and prolong their usage. It is true that before they are approved by most transport ministries, they are tested for their safety and security but they tend to ignore the men and women who will ascertain that they work properly the moment they have passed the industrial and security tests. The tendency is to forget that there are fatal faults that may arise owing to inability of the so-called professionals who will work on them to ascertain that they are working smoothly as required by the manufacturers. The designers of these machines are elites and they feel that they are superior and tend to be dictatorial in their ways. They suffer from superiority complex perhaps driven by the urge to make super profit from their products willy-nilly. To me, those are people taking us to their death, euphoric dance of after-us-let-the- deluge-come. The interpretation is that we are better informed, and are the creators and the created need not ask the creator how he should be created. They play the human gods with less sympathetic minds. They are the gods and their subjects better be seen and not be heard. It should not be ignored by governments and non-governmental organizations or ombudsmen.  What the Dickens I am trying to say?

You may wonder why in this world I am talking so critically, yet skirting around the subject matter. I am talking here of the compulsive convergence of motor vehicles, motor mechanics, mechanics, designers and maker of motor vehicles and related industries. I participated as a trainee motor mechanic while gathering my data for three months in Canada. We will concentrate on motor mechanics. Let us first examine why this burgeoning industry.

The motor vehicles have given man so much liberty that he has never had at any time in the history of man. It is next to having man ply, glide or achieve near-flight yet sitting down on a mechanical creation with four wheels. How has the motor vehicle given man liberty? He goes where he wants to go, and stops where he wants to stop at will so long as his route is pliable. With the vehicle he can even go for a thousand kilometers a day. That is doing what he can only do when fit as a fiddle with his two feet in about twenty days in one day and that is one giant leap for mankind. He is able this way to gain time. It is for this reason that to attempt to take away the motor vehicle from man could lead to internecine wars.  When the General Motors of Canada reported a slash in its workforce in November 2005 it was not because its products were not competitive and of quality value. It was because it had failed to adopt and adapt to the consumers’ inarticulate specifications thus their demand plummeted in the last five years. The quality and quantity of their products had nothing to do with the sudden departure from the break-even-point. The G.M. had forgotten that it had once upon a time enjoyed a near monopoly in Northern America and with the opening up of the automobile industry by NAFTA to Eastern Asian, Japanese and European compact vehicles, that had naturally been compact and fuel efficient, they found their once-upon-a-time exclusive market overwhelmed with not only cheaper-to-maintain vehicles but what was timely to meet the latest demands of the customers who were becoming more and more sensitive not only to the fuel, climatic changes but the effect on global climatic changes. Not only these nation states have been exporting or assembling their vehicles in North America, they have been outstanding in their meeting of North American motor specifications. Honda Civic was voted as the best compact North American car but the consumers. (The National News Bulletin of Canada, Monday, January 09, 2006). North Americans had no choice, they had to adopt, adapt or sink with their automobile related jobs flying overseas and negative resonations in all economic quarters.  

Furthermore, the Chinese are lurking in the North American market door with an unlimited manufacturing ability they have started knocking at the door of North American automobile market with Geely and many others. A brand new one will cost some 12,000 dollars and that is very competitive provided it meets North American specifications. They have incorporated in this car both the European, Japanese and North American technologies. Whereas in Detroit automobile assembly plant it may cause Ford to pays worker 29 dollars per hour, in China it costs three US dollars per day. In that case, if the Chinese compact cars come as the Japanese and Europeans, with high prices of gasoline, the American automobile industry that was and is still almost in big trouble may be cerebrated.  They may be shunned initially as we did with the Japanese products in the 1960s but soon turned round to buying them. The Chinese will be cheaper than ours for their labor market is far cheaper than ours. That touches the nerve of why our motor industries are no longer competitive as they used to be in the past.

Irrespective of this something comes in with the compactness of the imported Japanese and European cars, their durability. A consumer (who will remain anonymous) remarked that North American cars were parked with computer gadgets, the chief defect of which was that they were programmed to perform efficiently as well as disintegrated beyond repairs by the manufacturers, as they wanted the users to go to the market always. In that case, does it not gainsay our desire to be environmentally friendly? Whatever we do, it is crucial that we think of the generation to come after us.

It was true when there was a boom and the buyers did not think when going to the market to do part exchange or to bury their cars in the scrap yards in the past. With depression and oil prices increasing the cost of car production and running, buyers preferred owning cars that lasted longer and did not put dents in their wallets when purchasing or running them. Compact European or Japanese cars provided the solution. How is North American adapting to the changing economic climates?

In the 1990s’ Canada, one in twenty cars was a foreign car but today three in ten in our roads are foreign cars, particularly of Japanese or S.E. Asian make. In the former French colonies in Africa in the 1970s, all cars were French but today, nearly all are Japanese. Although car consumers in this part of the world attributed the decline in the demand for French cars to poor qualities, they called “cardboard” cars; the main reason was the economy of fuel consumption. This drive to “go Japanese” was accelerated by the sudden increase in the price of petrol. This was lately accelerated by the Gulf Wars, insurgency in Nigeria, the ranting of people like Hugo Chaves with the threat on Western operators of oil wells in the delta region or oil producing regions of those economies. Further the increase in total world population and improvement in the standard of living in developing countries, and their demand for motor vehicles as never before. That threatened the supply of fossils fuel that is gradually declining but is at the heart of the automotive industry.

Not only will the automobile industries suffer. Our entire economy works because of oil and gas. We do not have alternatives for oil and gas our raw material for lots of things, plastics, tar, grease, fertilizers, medicine, etc. When the supply of this will be threatened, our independence will equally be threatened as well as the jobs that go along with them. Then there are less farsighted people who think that we will be going backward if we encourage the use of electric or hydrogen or hybridized cars, railways for our transport that may prolong the existence of oil but that will not be indefinite. Alternative fuels had to be sought if one day we will not revert to the 18^th Century when it was a dream.

ADOPT, ADAPT OR DIE

The sudden skyrocketing of the fossil fuel prices all over North America in October/November of 2005 and later on, coupled with natural disasters made diehard lovers and buyers of automotive products ponder upon the factors that they had generally ignored in the past in the purchase of vehicles. With these dramatic changes, most manufacturing companies had to adapt or literally die. Adapting was not easy as it meant a complete revolution in the old equipment so as to be conversant with the new expectation of the consumers. They were trying to do what Europeans by virtue of the nature of their tortuous and narrow roads were acquainted with.  These could not be done overnight without considerable cuts and that was precisely what we saw happening to the GM and many more to follow unless they were doing it quietly.  For a person to go out to look for a Cadillac or a Crown Victoria what used to be normal in the Seventies would be looked upon as one who is not only environmentally unfriendly but one who was démodé in his ways, madly un-derigeur and was perhaps committing economic suicide if he or she did not stumble by some windfall money, win the Lottery 419.

In a country like Switzerland, the Government and insurance companies are stepping in by taxing big vehicles owners more than those with compact vehicles. When bigger vehicles, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are being driven some denizens frown at the owners and that in a way is accelerating psychological pressure on big automobiles owners. The owners feel threatened and there is a subtle silent war against bigger non-commercial automobiles and infringement of personal liberty.  The manufacturers went around this war, they switched to manufacturing compact SUVs to the extent that returning to North America in 2013 after being in Africa for four years, I could see very few driving older cars. They had been discarded or exported as used cars overseas.  The Jeeps, Chrysler,  Nissan, except Toyota that had suffered a setback from Tsunami, owing to inclement weather many associated to causing climatic warming, and earthquakes. Etc. were changed or modernized to conform. It is not long before many electric or hybridized vehicles will be replacing the fossil fuel driven vehicles provided we have sympathetic governments in power. You will see that crying out loud is one think but taking action is another. We have seen that irrespective of many wanting the guns with multiple firing rounds to be banned in the USA, the revenues generated by the gun industries overrides and deaths and remorse main very little to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and their cronies. So, crying wolf, weather and cost of running vehicles in some cases fall on deft ears that are generally more powerful than the ordinary people on the street.   Further, one reason is clear; the cost of gas with the gradual fall in the global leadership position of North America is made some augural people to think of alternatives as a matter of urgency.

WHAT DRIVES THESE VEHICLES?

What drives these vehicles?  Man had toyed with many alternative fuels or devices in the past that would render the running of the vehicles economical. You will be surprise to hear that some of these were not welcomed even though there are ardent searches for alternative ways of running them today. You will bring forth a plethora of alternatives fuels, including electricity, hybrids, electric motor / gasoline motor, hydrogen, and yours truly is thinking of using gunpowder to run his invention or a hybridized vehicle using petrol and high pressure steam or air compressors or the present internal combustion. The first question is how this could be handled without fatal accidents. The second question is if the environmentalists would allow these to take up? The third question if there are enough funds for experiments and further researches.

FUELS AND THE COMPUTERIZED WORLD

The vehicle does not only run on air, water and other chemicals but it relies on biological energy, fossil fuel that had been created millions of years ago from vegetative materials. Some were even created before the euphoric unsubstantiated Big Bang theories. The use of this goes a long time ago in the history of man on earth and the earth itself.  Some had come out naturally and man had used it and he had even used it at the time of Christ on Earth some two thousand years ago. Although it was being used, it took a long time to discover how to harness it for man’s benefit. The discovery of this had revolutionized man and instead of relying upon wood, coal and gazes for the provision of his energy, he had turned to the liquefied or liquid fuel that he could transport from one locality to anther. He had learned to use it for the heating of his home, cooking, and several industrial purposes. One of these was to use it to set a serious of controlled expulsions in special chambers. This led him to invent a motor engine, which is a mechanism that uses vaporized/liquefied fossil fuel, intermingled with hydrogen oxide to produce energy. This energy is used in several industries including transportation.

One of the first to make use of this energy for locomotion was George Stephenson in 1825 in England when he built his steam engine called the “Locomotive” capable of pulling trains and running at 12 and a half miles per hour (MPH). Although he had benefited from early invention by a Cornish mine captain called Richard Trevithick who built his first locomotive in 1801. As any other innovation, Stephenson’s invention threatened the livelihood of the equestrian industries in Britain as that of the computer threatened many other modern industries. There was an uproar and disapproval by people who had relied on human muscles, animals, wind and water for the production of their energies and transport. It was similar to the revolution from the mechanical to the digital, which had made man to do sundry things particularly calculations using the computers. We call this the age of the computer that came into effect in the 1940s but gained ground in the 1980s and it is now an indispensable tool in our daily lives. We use it in our bed rooms to run our clocks, chronometers, to monitor our homes when we are away, to control the heating of our home, our computers, our wireless sets, we use it for major satellite communications, global positioning system (GPS) that had shrunken our world to a global village and in our vehicles.  The hand held devices as the smart phones are just beginning and its future uses are infinitive.

The clothes you wear are woven using designs made possible by computers; when dirty, they are washed by a computer chip that is digital, similarly they are ironed by a micro chip controlled iron. We wear them and enter a car that is electronic and the computer chips are presently manning parts that once upon a time were mechanical  call it analogical. These chips interfere with our thinking and if we are not careful in our urge to simplify our world, we could one day become slaves of the computerized world as we are fast becoming to that of the motor vehicles. Tell some high school students to recite seven times table and they will ask you to give them time to take up their Texas Engineering Instrument.  Others turn to their smart phone, computers, etc, as their brains have seized to work. When question are given, they copy and paste and submit to the lecturers for marks. That is a modicum of the defect of our fast development in the electronic world. Do we have a choice? At the rate at which we progress, one is tempted to question if we are working because of the computer-governed world or if it is working for us.

Although these computers chips have abundant merits, they have come to dominate us and override in some cases the way that we do think and act. The crucial question is if our thoughts are independent or computer generated or influenced by the working of the computers. We need not digress to give examples. Ask a school child in what is considered our top grade college the area of a circle and he or she will turn to an electronic calculator. Mention a thingamabob like a sliding rule and he or she would ask you what on earth that was used for. After the baby-boomers how many will care for such archaic things? Archivists?  Ask some motor mechanics to diagnose the fault of a car by listening to the sound of the engine and they would bring out electronic diagnostic gadgets. They are not awry.  If that is the nature of things what will happen in fifty years to come?  Or, do we simply do not ponder upon mundane tasks? We simply push a button and sit by and watch tasks that in the past had taken up thousands of man-hours being performed at a fraction of the time we used to do them. It had reduced the time we used to retire. A clerk who in the good old days retired at the age of 60 can retire now at the age of 70 and will still feel that he or she has not missed a thing.  We can liken this analogy with the automobile.

Among the vital tools where these computers are used are the motorized vehicles. Some of us recalled, not long ago in the 1960s when cars or motor vehicles had to be cranked to start them.  Drivers did not even require a battery and he could drive perfectly the moment that initial momentum was given to his jalopy so long as the alternator provided the required electrical power. However, there was a draw back in that each time they stopped and turned off their engines, they had to be cranked again to get them going. I recalled a man who set our looking for cranking shafts and traveled the whole length of the country (Canada) and could not get any. There was a cross on the tip and it was in an ‘L’ shape. Some of these are lying rusty in the motor vehicles museums. School children look at them as some curiosities or some ‘L’ that stood for the Longitude in cosmography. They do not know that the motor starter that relied on charged batteries killed the cranks.  The cranks' industry was buried and its sepulcher sealed with concrete cement. So are many yet to come.  They do not know that there are other modern parts that have killed other older parts of the vehicles that are now part and parcel of our daily lives.

ENGINE OF THE FUTURE

With our relentless search for alternative fuel to run our automobiles, the engine of the future is likely to be something not conceivable to day and the users will look at vintage cars in our museums and wondered if we were all dumpy.  It will be smaller, environmentally friendly and instead of dumping it with the car, only the engine will be changed. It will be like the computer batteries that run my Toshiba PC. Grandmas will be able to do it and all will be happy. How will this be done?  The inventors may take the present amorphous-shaped motors as models for conservatism sake just to satisfy the marginal conventional buyers but the shapes will change as they are gradually changing

Some of us can still recall the erstwhile computers. What is contained and run by a laptop could only be handled in a big “sophisticated” edifice. Is the smart phone not a replica of that and do we not carry it along with us in our pickets?  Like the modern laptop, our offspring will wonder if we were not intelligent enough to come out with a motor vehicle engine that could consume less of the fuel than the present vehicles. They might conclude that we were selfish and did not bother who was coming after us. There will be the need for them to be compact enough to avoid the waste of resources and manpower resources that we were dispensing as if after us there were not to be other earthians.  As stated, if you try to take it away, you will cause war in your family, war within yourself, war in your neighborhood, war in the entire country and war in the world. The liberty that man has had since the invention of the motor vehicle cannot and may never be taken away from him without the bayonet. Are you puzzled that where the motor vehicle industry totters entire economies are shaken right to their roots? Do you know the root cause of the Middle East debacle in which we in the West are getting bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere?

The vehicle will threaten the way man walks, does his things from what is called the traditional to the modern. Albeit, there are apprehensions that he might rely so much on it that his “wings” that God had given him will swivel to stomps. Man’s genes can be modified by what he had schooled himself to think and do. This is a geographical cum biological factor that has made man of North America to behave deferentially from other men elsewhere in the world. If he does not use his legs as before, because of the motor vehicles, that he sits on and goes to places at will, there are fears that his genes might fashion him to have his children without legs, but wheels as legs are no longer used by the parents for what they were intended to be used for. Is this science fiction? There is no science fiction as what is conceivable is practical.

ILLUSTRATED THEORY

(We will illustrate with an example of a “successful” businessman called Mr. D. K. Jade. He uses a lift from his penthouse to the basement garage where he drives his automatic luxury car to another basement garage in his office. He steps out to enter another lift to his office. On weekends when his is “exercising” he uses an electric golf course automobile when playing his golf. If he is going on long distances from within the country, he flies in an executive aircraft and when he arrives at his destination he is chauffeured to his conference room. If we are to include his exercises in his local gymnasium, in a calendar year he only walks using his feet for one week or less. Similarly, his wife who is a headmistress of a local school is on a similar schedule or routine. What have become of their God-given feet? We cannot compare this with an African or Indian peasant who had never entered a motor vehicle in his or her life and is likely to die without riding on one not to talk of driving it).

Indeed, we hear many uttering that it is an outlandish unscientific or immaterial statement, mumbo-jumbo to come out. Evolutionists have the answer we hear some of you saying. A man governed by wheels may be born looking like a wheel because what he sees, and does, and where he lives inadvertently dominates his genes. It is not an overnight thing. Ask a genetic engineer for the answer. That could be scary. There should be no fear, as these emendations will not take a short time but thousands of years. Is there a panacea? We need to punctuate our idyllic motor vehicle-dominated-urbanized lifestyle with a bit of bucolic lifestyle or trekking with our own feet.

TREATISE MEANT NOT TO BRING HEARTS TO MOUTHS

My treatise was not meant to bring your hearts to your mouths but to bring joy and to tell you something that I have seen that needs to be narrated as precisely without fear or favor and clearly with the precision of a Swiss mechanical watch.  What I am about to state is not mine boggling but challenging to the initiated and the acolytes alike. I am not claiming to have a more seeing eye than you but it may be food for thought. My cardinal theme is on the design of the machines that have revolutionized man, those that take man from point A to B at his command with the ease of their repairs. It is the motor vehicle; you call in the south automobile, which assumes that name so long as it moves.  It was above-emphasized that although the joy was that of the designers at the drawing table and now at the computer CTR with the use of the Autocat computer program, it was clear that those designers and manufacturers were neglecting one group of people who were responsible for the day to day working of these machines. Ideally, some of these machines were made to last life times, but our world was not ad infinitum. As still as we perceive the world to be, there are diurnal changes or even second by second changes of the chemical and physical nature of the world that we are unable to perceive with our most sophisticated instruments. The world builds itself as it crumbles and nothing new is added to and can never be destroyed. Nonetheless, the effect of destruction can be devastating to the inhabitants of this planet and can rankle. Environmentalists have been pounding on these points.  Some of the manifestations could not be seen with our naked eyes. However, we do take some measures at our disposal to keep them steady such as ascertaining constant renovations. We save the wanton use of the raw materials as we think of the future of the world and that is a dutiful thing to do. We think too of who would come after us. That is why we often go at great length to preserve all that we had built or the natural or to defend them from those who did not share our values of justice and preservation. We may call this our innate urge for posterity.

Similarly, there are people called mechanics who ensure that the lives of vehicles are prolonged. Many I have sounded stated that they joined that profession because they were disturbed beyond words seeing beautiful vehicles being misused and abandoned. To some of them they were sores to the eyes.  They are sympathetic and do all they can to keep the vehicle go back to the time when they left the factories. It is important for them and for the people who are environmentally friendly. They become our silent ombudsmen who never win no matter how hard they try. It is true that for some manufacturers, they see to it that the buyers keep on buying and buying even if they were to stockpile their products that are hoarded by them as one often see on badly planned European streets where man has become a slave to vehicles and some see them as having outlived their usefulness. They pollute and kill; they invade and take over their lands and lives. Should levelheaded thinking people not complain about these?  So long as they make super profits, the manufacturers did not bother or paused to consider if it was actually necessary to mass-produce as they did or still do. That was/is their way of fostering consumerism!

NEGATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY

From my perspective, this is a negative marketing strategy as eventually when the buyers see deceit they turn their back on the products and there is a tragic slump. Ask me why people are no longer smoking as they did in the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s? Man suddenly saw the danger, cancer and related diseases he was put into when smoking and he quit. Shall we quit the automobile or look for alternative means of transport that is environmentally friendly?  If the company had not had balanced portfolios, it goes into bankruptcy. Nevertheless, some of the manufacturers do not take into consideration the fact that they benefit a lot more from the sales of spare parts as the jargon goes in the motor mechanics, than from the sale of complete automobiles. It is therefore vital for the manufacturers to halt and ponder upon this aspect. Should we encourage constant purchase of new vehicles or encourage the resuscitation of the ones in circulation? They should also bear in mind that whereas an average North American family may own two cars, there are millions who will die in this world and will never own a bicycle that many in North America and Europe take for granted.  Having made this statement, we are not insinuating that Americans and Canadians take the vow of poverty so as to let others ride on motorized vehicles. It is being emphasized that consumers shop wisely while at the same time casting their eyes behind yet staying augural like good leaders and devoted citizens of the global village.

SYMPATHIZE WITH MECHANICS

Further, manufacturers of vehicles should bear in mind that it is easier to assemble than to replace a faulty part already inserted that is deeply embedded in what a layman sees as a bric-a-brac electronically or manually assemble in assembly lines. There is a call for sympathy on the part of the repairers who are never consulted on any stage in the design and manufacture of automobiles.

Owing to the fact that parts are assembled mechanically, often not by human hands, not serious thoughts are put into the removal of faulty parts deeply embedded in other parts of the motor. Often they are too tight or hidden and inaccessible unless a large chunk of the engine was dismantled. A good number of modern North American cars fall under this category. In this case they are not mechanic-friendly; let us call it user friendly. Most vans fall under this category. When it comes to a good number of European and Japanese cars, most mechanics I have sounded admit that they are happy working on their engines than with the indigenous North American engines. Similarly, the motorists who were my subjects admitted that they were happier seeing and knowing various components of their vehicles and that they did not have problems with the modern Japanese cars or the older types of north American vehicles (cars) This calls for an examination of the rule of the repairers of these indispensable machines, the motor mechanics.

There are consequences in the negligence of the motor mechanics. They may be the owners of the vehicles or trained persons whose livelihood is nothing but making repairs of these machines. You appreciate them just when you have washed in the morning and are about to head for the factory or office and the car will not start. It could be attributed to several factors, viz, the batteries, the motor starter, alternator, electrical faults, and so forth. The modern car may detect some of the shortcomings or what is wrong with your moving machines but it cannot repair it. Once, I heard a student who was so enthused with his computer technology studies that he told me that he would design a computer program that would repair itself when it went wrong. Then why not design one that will never need repairs and you only discard when absolutely necessary or owing to some superior ones invading the market.  Then I was wondering how such a program could correct an accidental program. Perhaps it could do this by previewing that the user was to have an accident and literally driving him or her to the safe location and short him or her out of the vehicle. How was this possible? It scanned the owner when he or she was in perfect health and having his good frame of mind. Should he or she ever got ill or was muzzy from abusing substances, alcohol, smoking of marijuana, it literally pushed and locked him or her out. The owner could have access to it by destroying it or by getting cured from his or her intoxication. That would be what we call the “smart” car of the future which some have been toying with but not coming outright.  Just as I was going to the press, it jogged my memory that many such devices were already extant and some drunkards were unable to drive once their cars sensed that they had been imbibing intoxicants.

Accidents do not happen in a perfect world.  Of course, there can never be a perfect world. Man by nature is not a perfect creature. If you doubt it, bring darkness over an apparently holy man in the wilderness and he or she will show you his or her colors of imperfection. Some of you were there when there was blackout in New York on November 9, 1965, 13-14 July 1977, March 27, 1982, and August 14 2003. Your eyes could not believe what they were seeing. Shop managers were doing the looting as well as shoppers. There were malicious acts, arson, misconducts and throwing of Molotov cocktails or accelerants on properties and vehicles. Lucifer won several souls to his side that day. However, not all were tempted. Look at the Internet now and what many doing behind it. They phish, they scam, they do all to extort money or do unimaginable things. You readers have heard or read stories of school bullying and distribution of pornographic materials that had led to deaths of many vulnerable users.

Let me not digress. The most we can strive to attend is a near-perfect world. Then if we do not produce a perfect automobile, which is impossible, even if we have a perfect driver, incompatibility of the machine and man are bound to occur. Could that happen if we have a computer driven vehicle that takes us from point A to B at our command and does better than man when it comes to Highway Code and many more?  Depreciation as we saw of the world requires that we the earthians do a lot to live in that near-perfect world else what we purport to be doing could naïvely be suicidal. It is not apocalyptic but we could some day be seen as fossilized objects by other creatures God had created after us or those who will come from other livable planets we keep on discovering every now and then. We are not telling people to be pessimistic but to be optimistic by doing what is right for us and for the future of the world.

We will look at this from the mechanics’ narrow world and how they sympathetically try to mend the world with lots of huddles that many of us take for granted.  How do they operate? These mechanics try to refurbish all that had gone out of use through depreciation  accidents, factory faults, and sundry. The problem is that the designers have never or do not send our questionnaires to find out the predicaments of the mechanics be they personal owners or professional motor repairers. They do not even suggest the tools that may be used for A and B parts. Where they are suggested, they are not comprehensive enough for the uninitiated who need them most. Others are trying to override my view by saying that they always provide handbooks for their vehicles. They are not enough and not panaceas.

THE MOTOR ENGINE and TRIBULATIONS OF MOTOR MECHANICS

The crucial part is the motor engine. When it comes to working of their transmissions, changing the oil seals, removing the oil pans, the timing belt, checking the camshaft, assorted transmissions depending on the age and make of the vehicles and many other parts, in some circumstance, it may entail the physical removal of the entire engine. Where most mechanics operate, they do not have the right tools for these tasks. Is that the manufacturers’ fault? Those who have them take an average of five hours on one engine. It also depends on how often the owners have been having their vehicles serviced, the age, make, and the geographical location of the vehicle, and the level of sympathy of the owner of the car. A car that had been left un-serviced may render the bolts rusty right to the core of the engine particularly in North America and coastal regions of the world were waters that touch vehicles are salty. Often times some bolts get broken in the process of removal and instead of taking a couple of minutes to remove them, it may take hours. Where this happens, the mechanics wished those bolts were made bigger to withstand pressure and rust. Manufacturers of these vehicles assume that mechanics would use the recommended tools. Are they supplied with the vehicles? No. Why not? It is no guarantee that they are user-friendly.  Owners then wonder why a spare part from the Canadian Tire or Zellers (imported from China, India, Mexico, or Brazil as is now the norm or locally fabricated), and other mechanic shops cost so less yet they are being charged high prices for workmanship. They will forget that the cause of the long labor stem from the negligence of their vehicles. We may tarry here to ask how many vehicle owners have ever read cover-to-cover the owners’ manuals of their vehicles. I do. Have you. And have you read this article up to this point? You have a reason you consider tangible but your vehicle is a weapon and a lifesaver. Why not? Not many! How sympathetic are users with their vehicles? Some owners, particularly women presume falsely that checking the level of oil in their automobiles is the concern of a man. Awry! What a man can do a woman can do and sometimes better. Negligence of the automobile can lead to all sorts of unnecessary expenses, wears and tears thus shortening the life span of the vehicles particularly in our salty highways during winters and preventable accidents. You will look after our environment by simply taking good care of your car and getting those that are environmentally friendly. We will not go to the catalogue of consequences from negligence that the Ministry of Transport or Transport Canada, automobile clubs, and other enthusiasts trumpet out in Medias. 

It is true that some modern engines are not made to last longer than ten years particularly where there are bad roads, poor driving manner, and extremes of temperatures. Then, the crucial question is if manufacturers are simply being egocentric for the more we produce to replenish the depreciated, the more raw materials we require. We should seize thinking that once erosion put down our beloved mountain another will be created over there.  We are tempted to plunder raw materials at all cost, often ignoring the hands and appalling conditions of their producers. Such observations have nothing to do with societal tendencies we believe. It should be stressed that the coal burnt in China and the rain forest indiscriminately cut in Africa and South America affect our health in North America thousands of miles away. That is what I echoed in my previous article on the pollution of a town called Bamenda, UNO-Cameroon in Western Africa. Do not ask how cars written off in the EU and motor bicycles dumped from China and Taiwan to Africa without catalytic converters affect us here in Canada and USA.  We therefore over consume and that in a way is not considering the generations after us. My statement does not contradict the promotion of free marketing.  It instead ask us to look at new friendlier ways of doing what we had been doing but maintaining the status quo.

SOLUTION: DESIGNS THAT COULD GET MECHANICS OUT OF BUSINESS. [How automobile manufacturers were dictators!]

Observing one mechanic trying to get out an engine of a Crown Victoria, a North American police favorite, made me to think of a solution that could be applied to all other vehicles. It took him four hours to remove and replace the oil pan and a new gasket.  I looked at the hard drives of the computer and observed that the moment the interior was opened, there was access to nearly all parts and that the connections were well coded. I saw that being done in one of the German BMW motor vehicles and other that were being emulated since the motor industries run on the fuel of emulation and adaptation for the local customers. On the whole, all the technology was the “same”. Then as a neophyte, I asked the mechanics who had been working for thirty years if ever he had ever receive a questionnaire from the Japanese Motor vehicles like Nissan, Honda, Mazda, or American Ford, Chrysler, Buick, Lexus,  Renault, Toyota, Peugeot, Kia, etc companies. I was surprised. “Neant” he bellowed in French. From his response and other mechanics working in the this complex in an industrial ward in W. Quebec, I was inclined to conclude a postori that most automobile manufacturers were dictators and that it was necessary for the cooperation of the dealers, mechanics in particular and manufacturers. When the buyers are passing their message, it hurt manufacturers as they gradually boycott. I once visited a mechanic who told me that one could buy any car but Ford. I was sad as it was the first vehicle that I saw and admired with I was a toddler. I do not want to dwell into his reasons.

END-WORDS

From my diurnal observation for a period of one month of mechanics struggling with engines for an average of five hours before their task were accomplished and examining the task critically, I came to the following conclusions:  the engine could be designed in such a way as to simply pop up with the push of a button so that all the necessary repairs could be done on the surface without necessary going underneath the vehicle using heavy lifting gears to lift it up as was the practice. The operation after the transmissions had been separated and the exhaust system could be mechanical, hydraulic or electronics. The vehicle could supply where possible the power required lifting the motor. The idea was discussed with some of the mechanics that listened to me attentively and told me that it was a valid point worthy of being considered. Some of the bolts were designed without taking into consideration wears, tears, fatigue, and depreciation owing to chemicals in mind. The safety boards of respective government often ignore this and it does contribute to plenty of accidents.  Bigger bolts in areas likely to be affected by salts and other corrosive chemicals were needed if the work of mechanics could be ameliorated. That prompted me to write this draft. I then recalled that it could only be a novice who was lazy and perhaps thinking hard that could come up with such an idea and that it could be sold or given out for the benefit of the suffering mechanics. I went on that such a design could even get mechanics out of business. If the engine were to pop out, it was possible for the pulleys to be removed by lay owners and many more done in the customers’ garages’ and expenses saved for other contingencies.

The question was how it was possible for such to take place. It necessitated the extension of all cables taking information from the motor engine to the dashboard and other parts of the vehicles. These cables could be made in accordion-plated forms or elasticized so that they were lengthened when necessary with the exception of fixed components like the exhaust, etc. and they contracted once the motor was restored to it original position. Now we can see how our common clothes’ dryer outlet can affect our design. The question was if such was feasible where some innovations were deliberately kept away so as to get the maximum from the economy?  Could parts be standardized?  What of tools? Would that take away that liberty of man? Can man not forgo certain things just for the sake of his environment and harmony in the world?

When the computer-assisted tasks were performed there were outcries from the conservatives but they soon learned the trades and the dwindling ones were competed out of the business. That had been the nature of industrial innovations and they were there to stay. As we are sleeping now, there are other peoples sleeping by their drafting drawing boards and our ideas are already antiquated. Whatever the case, those who are already on the road to this innovation will see this as a necessary emphasis or stimulus.

How was this possible?  In the case of a cast engine there are four or two keys that when applied and turned simultaneously after being inserted, and when the key components to detach the engine from the chassis had been removed, it was possible to remove the engine right to the surface for easy maneuvering or fixing after the bonnet had been opened.  Some companies could decide to descend the engine to the ground level. This will be possible when the modern engine will be smaller yet stronger than the cumbersome one we have nowadays.  (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery). This goes well in the motor vehicle industries where there is a laxity in the abuse of intellectual property. It is germane in the motor industries for components to be copied, modified and placed at odd locations by the imitators just to make them look authentic. That keeps customization out of the scenario,  a clever market stratagem. The Japanese are not coming out with unique innovations in the motor industries, but they are mostly American, and Europeans models that are smartly copied and modified. This is subtle customization).  Whatever the practical procedure arrived at, gravity could be used. The same principle applies for the upward and downward removal of the heavy motor engine for easy access by the engineers or motor mechanics or electricians or you the lay owners. This development could make motor mechanics easier as Microsoft had made computing easier and cheaper to be afforded for the layperson and other users.

Dr. Viban Viban Ngo.