“The car is a mediocre object”

An exhibition on cars that we leave wondering if we could live without, because the automobile is so much in our imaginations and our projections for the future. Do you think we could live without a car?

In an urban environment, it is feasible. In large cities, infrastructure can be developed to use other modes of travel. But urban sprawl is a real problem and it is massive at European level. So we are far from getting rid of the car. Today, it is a mediocre object but which fulfills enough functions for us to tolerate it.

The car, a mediocre object? Throw it all away!

She’s not at her best. Look, most of the time you have four unused seats. It is too big for the city, and at the same time, very often, it does not fulfill its loading function, because it is not a van either.

In certain eras, has the car been more adapted to the needs of its users?

It never really fitted. It is an object that has been socially imposed. Initially, it was the ruling classes who had the means to afford this toy. Manufacturers make cars for themselves, like today, Elon Musk makes his Tesla, first for himself, then markets it for rich people like him. It is then this community which demands to have electricity everywhere. From the start, the car has been a class struggle.

But initially, people are against the automobile. On the roads, it’s pedestrians and animals and all of a sudden, an object arrives, which goes fast and crushes. From the outset, the criticism of the automobile was as follows: noisy, dangerous and polluting, nothing new today. Automobile lobbies impose it and make pedestrians responsible. From the resounding trial of Ralph Nader against General Motors the industry which manufactured dangerous cars must change its position (the American lawyer published an essay in 1965 “Unsafe at Any Speed”, Editor’s note). Manufacturers are forced to carry out crash tests. Little by little, the law begins to design cars and today we have a very clear image of the law which imagines cars, notably through the shape of an SUV.

Do you have the impression that with the resource crisis, there could be a transformation of this automobile world towards something less energy-intensive?

We see, in the urban environment, the number of mobility objects that have appeared: scooters, rollerblades, cargo bikes, self-service bicycles. All this coexists with an economic model that expresses the class car. We had a peak in the 2000s, the “overconsumption of the sign” and brands everywhere. Now we are seeing new strategies. Look at the young people, the first to be impacted because they are less wealthy than their elders: they are pragmatic regarding the car issue. Young designers don’t say to themselves: “I’m going to have a nice ride“.

There are two billion cars on Earth. Is this a figure likely to increase?

With cars, you need infrastructure and oil wealth. And for many states, it is difficult to buy oil, so these countries cannot be developed. But note that there are territories where, without a car, it is impossible. I’m thinking of the United States, South America, or the large conurbations on the African coasts.

In fact, fewer cars is not a given. We must not look at this question through the lens of residents of European urban centers. It’s damaging, moreover, because the press often lives in urban centers and has a biased vision of mobility. But look when you walk around Belgium, there is road infrastructure everywhere.

Another interesting figure from the exhibition: a car, a priori, in its existence, will be stationary 96% of its time.

Have you noticed? In cities, you can’t take a photo without a car in the landscape. It is an omnipresent object. And most of the time at a standstill. With a low effective speed! In the city, you cycle as fast as you drive a car. But be careful, cycling is not a panacea. A certain number of people can’t do it. There are many injunctions to cycle, but what about people with children, people with disabilities, the elderly?

Things have not yet been resolved in our imaginations, and everyone must review their copy. The Yellow Vests were an automobile revolt that crystallized the problem of urban sprawl, long facilitated by public policies. Today, we want to go backwards, but in some places we continue to develop in an absurd manner. We continue to sell cars so that people can go further while saying that we must return to the centers. Our logic no longer works.

The car is a very political subject, in fact.

In any case, we have to get into politics to discuss it again. Politicians have tended to monopolize these technical questions with engineers. Engineers created infrastructures approved by public policies, it developed employment, and it was validated by politicians. This model is simplistic, because there are other partners to take into account. Technical democracy, what does that mean? Precisely, if you publish an article, it is important to bring people to this idea that, behind all our questions, we must question “technical democracy”.

But in reality, we are not yet quite ready, psychologically, to leave our car. or to validate shared vehicle models for example…

For someone who belongs to the bourgeois class, property is fundamental and sharing is always canceled. It is those who are dominant who will create, or not, support.

Even more so if you decide to put a symbolic or emotional value in your car…

And we put affects into it… Have you ever noticed these big, expensive cars parked in low-cost hypermarket car parks? When you see the car moving, you don’t see the people inside. It’s a way of hiding misery inside a box. And again, we are not talking about all leasing cars, or those purchased on credit. 90% of Audis are leased, a very “statutory” car, of which the drivers do not own.

Private leasing, a new trend on the Belgian market.

The car is also becoming more and more “technological”. With this promise to make our lives easier. But suddenly, we no longer know how to read a map without GPS; we no longer know how to make a gap without a reversing camera.

There’s a sort of “supernarrative” about it. I know an engineer who works on self-driving cars. He is thinking about how the autonomous vehicle could communicate with other users of public space; he imagines that we could integrate information into car headlights… But he starts from the presupposition that we all want to live like this…

For the car of the future, everything will be a matter of skill.

In the 1970s, the philosopher Ivan Illich worked on automobiles. He said that we cross technical thresholds: a car initially goes at 30-40 km/h, then 60 km/h. Since there is wind there, we have to add doors. Above 60 km/h, we have more dangerous accidents, so we put guardrails and create “safe zones”. A highway is between 250 and 500 meters wide, a ribbon that disfigures the landscape. And each time we add security, we raise the technical thresholds. And engineers are in the business of helping you “cross” the technical threshold. They add technology, which recreates constraints, which other engineers work on….

What if the solution was to drive slower?

Illich had made these calculations: when you buy a car, you buy insurance, parking, you spend time. You work to finance your car. He calculated the cost of the car and therefore the speed it actually gives us. Bottom line: the car goes at the speed of a horse-drawn carriage! We just added technological amplification. And he wrote this in 1975.

What do we want on a daily basis? If we want to see friends, can’t we go there on foot? If it’s to live with your children, can you have local activities? We also think of these young people who have supercharged cars and who accelerate between two lights: we are in total absurdity. Aggressive and violent. We also see all this frustration.

Whereas precisely, the car is sold to us as an emancipatory object. The car that gives us freedom, a myth that fizzled out…

Notice that we continue to make ads where a car drives, alone, in public spaces. Not very credible… But above all I would say that the car is a disciplinary object. In the 1970s, the philosopher André Gorz wrote The ideology of the car, in which he analyzes the ideological system in place behind the automobile. He then anticipates the questions of degrowth.

Is our society capable of accepting that the fantasy it placed in the car is just a fantasy?

I will tell you that there is real concern among manufacturers: they are losing young customers. The average age of car buyers is over 50. In fact, today, certain men are in need of recognition, so we address them with high-performance vehicles and supercharged engines. But young people in urban areas no longer buy cars. And even in the countryside, they are starting to use digital services like Uber to get around.

⇒”Autofiction, a biography of the automobile object”, at the CID (Center for Innovation and Design), Grand Hornu site, in Hornu, until February 16, 2025. Info: www.cid-grand-hornu.be

Microvisit in the mouth

If the R5 Diamant by Pierre Gonalons for Renault shines in the middle of the exhibition, we will nonetheless highlight the great multiplicity of design proposals that Autofiction offers. Video with Olivier Bosson and Nicolas Gourault who question the setbacks of autonomous vehicles. Who is responsible when the virtual driver runs over a human? We review the alternatives to the cars of our time, the electric Microlino or this versatile vehicle from Toyota which adapts to continents. We are caught up by the striking work of the photographer Camille Ayme about recycling in car scrapyards (few things are recycled in a car, the drama!) Finally, a favorite for the BX by Mathilde Pellé who worked with students from Hornu-Colfontaine high school. Going against the grain of our era of “option” and capitalism which explains everything you’re missing, she questioned the car from the angle of reduction. What can you remove from a car? Quite a few things actually… AV