When it comes to new technology, I’ve always thought of myself as an early adopter. I bought my first mobile phone back in 1995 when it was a bit of a fashion accessory. Looking back, the Ericsson EH237 was a very basic device. Its candy bar design with chunky fixed aerial worked on the analogue network (meaning people could listen in on your calls). If memory serves me right, it had just three ring tones and storage for ten names and numbers.
From the Ericsson, I moved to a Nokia 2110. This was a bigger phone with a revolutionary LCD user interface and a pull-out aerial for better reception. It had the ‘new’ SMS text messaging service (but only for sending to the same network). As time progressed, I had more mobile phones with the best being a Nokia 6310i complete with Bluetooth, infra-red, WAP (Internet) and 17-day battery life!
Nokia built great phones. They were robust; had excellent call quality; a snake game and nice features. That was, until I had a Sony Ericsson P800 ‘Smartphone’ with a full colour touchscreen, camera and a stylus! This was new technology with different features. It was quite simply a revolution and paved the way for today’s smart phones. It offered email, web browsing, GPS, fast digital communication and lots of other new features.
I went on to own the Sony Ericsson P900, P910 and eventually a P990i. They all ran on the Symbian operating system (OS), which could be a little troublesome. Shortly after, other players entered the smart phone market, and I discovered HTC. First on Windows and then Android. Looking back, smartphones took time to become mainstream. They were complicated, their battery didn’t last long and (dumb) mobile phones still had excellent call quality.
Right now, the car industry is in a similar place. Although ICE (or internal combustion engines) still make up 75% of new car sales in the UK, they are losing their share. Electric Vehicles (EVs) are becoming more prevalent. With new Chinese brands on the way to the UK and battery technology improving rapidly, the situation is only going one way. In the process, the incumbent German automakers who have been around for years, are suffering.
Last week, we took delivery of a brand-new electric car. I’m slightly disappointed it’s not a Mercedes, but they have not kept pace with new technology. Ok, their EVs are good, but they’re not that good and certainly do not justify their price tag. It is disappointing but, the big car companies had plenty of time to invest in new technology. They just chose not to. Maybe they should have read the Nokia case study.