SYMMETRY IN TIME

THE CONVERSATIONS THAT fill this piece are all about cutting edge development and the potential of tomorrow, but as I assembled all the elements together that made the whole, it got me thinking about a recent visit to a European museum that was all about yesterday.

To travel through Europe is to be immersed in a world of juxtaposition, where ancient and modern clash at every corner. Fashion-forward teens smoke hand-rolled cigarettes and sip cappuccino in front of cafes nestled into the nooks and crannies of ancient architecture. Thousand-year-old churches share town squares with thirty-foot tall LED billboards hawking fashion wares on the arm of the model-of-the-month. Hand-laid cobblestone streets that predate the Founding Fathers remain active thoroughfares for wheeled creations, ranging from horse-drawn buggies, bicycles, and scooters to buses, lories, and even the occasional supercar.

It all adds up to a sensory experience we simply can’t replicate here in the States, but it’s also one that could help inform our future.

Back in time

I took a trip to the Mercedes-Benz museum with my brother-in-law, who just so happens to be a Mercedes engineer. Located in Stuttgart, adjacent to the Mercedes headquarters, the museum’s exterior is exactly what one might expect from Mercedes: Bold, sophisticated and perhaps a bit unnecessarily complicated. On the inside, a century and a half’s worth of innovation is beautifully arranged and documented.

Though the exhibits included recent-era race cars and even the Mercedes-AMG One hyper-car, the pieces I found myself lingering on the longest were the steam, electric and gasoline engines from the late 1800s.

There’s symmetry between those creations and the ones discussed here.

The museum relics told the story of a tumultuous era, full of opportunity and invention, revolution and refinement. Then, as now, engineers and designers hustled to be the first to market and best in field, but great ideas alone aren’t always enough for innovation to take hold.

Evidenced in those pieces are questions about infrastructure, resource availability and everyday practicality that shaped — and continue to shape — the evolution of the automobile.

Ultimately, the consumer has dictated which innovations make it to market and which remain on the shelves. And now that we’re wholly dependent on the automobile, we’re pausing a bit to acknowledge that we’re wholly dependent on the planet’s health as well.

Vision zero

So how do we have our cake and eat it, too? The simple answer, it seems, is zero-emission vehicles. But does such a thing exist? Where does the electricity come from to charge our batteries? Where are the precious metals dug up that comprise the crucial components of those batteries? What about the rubber that’s worn off our tires? Or the plastic cupholders that secure our Big Gulps?

We humans (and we Americans in particular) seem fascinated with the idea of one solution to solve all our problems, but, when it comes to the future of the automobile, I don’t think one simple answer exists.

A hundred years ago, steam power required too much pre-trip preparation to be practical on a wide scale. Battery-powered fizzled out because the technology required to manufacture compact and long-lasting batteries simply didn’t exist. Hydrogen did take off, from the ground at least, but that idea, er, blew up. So, we settled on gasoline and diesel.

Are we now in an age sophisticated enough to accept that the simple solution we’re looking for is actually quite complex? Is there room in our infrastructure and our social conscience for gas, diesel, electric, hydrogen, human and whatever-comes-next power?

If so, would broadening the source of our energy requirements reduce the availability burden and ecological expense of going all in on one?

I like to think so. But as I worked my way through the Mercedes exhibits from past to present, simple to complex, I couldn’t help but ponder this one question: As we ask more of our machines, are we in turn asking less of ourselves?