Dialing-In The "SmartVan" Platform: What Are The Pros And Cons?

As Los Angeles' Metro Transit Authorities and other outlets begin to experiment with clean vehicles, it becomes increasingly obvious, so it seems to many of us, that things are going in the right direction...but it's still not being done in the right way. Why does MTA persist in spending money on "TAP" cards and increased security, when clearly, tax dollars need to start getting spent on improving the actual mass transit grid?

This is not only applicable to LA's bus and rail, but to their dial-a-ride, a system that our city did not even have in place for the disabled community till around 1994. But this touches on an issue much greater than ourselves, who we are as a solidified community; it's not a "disabled" issue. Building a fleet or network of intuitive transit vans is really a necessity at this point, since the whole picture of transport is gravitating that way anyway.

Face it: people just can't drive anymore. It's not a question of "if," but "when" the whole thing is going to fall apart, so developing an intuitive network of paratransit vehicles only makes sense. It doesn't matter how you use the internet; if you have some sort of access to it, then you're probably going to pay for it.

The J-Series console from EMC features left-to-right steering, along with gas and brake functions.

Since we're paying out-of-pocket for a public resource that really should be tax-funded...you know, since it is public, then it goes without saying that that resource should start getting used in a way that benefits everyone, equally across the board. Capitalism simply does not work; we can fight with and scream at each other all day long, and that language is simply not going to translate. We have to look at it for what it is: Capitalism is kind of a good idea, it's well-intentioned. It's "well-intentioned" because it seeks to reward those who work hard, but then it's flawed in that every business becomes a copycat; entities are forced to keep-up with whatever behavioral norm is established by the mechanism in-place at that time.

But we do first have to sort of sympathize with the business owners, because they really are just as victimized as we are as consumers. Truth be told, professional entities just have to save money. This means that paratransit outlets like Access and MTA can't really afford to even invest in the idea of developing smart vehicles for their fleets. How could we possibly ask these outlets to invest their money, their time into a more intuitive platform, when the cold truth is that these companies can barely afford to pay their own employees? That's exactly the problem, right there!

That's why we really don't have a choice but to follow Elon Musk's model of business...his model for money-making. It's one that defies the laws of corporatization, because it's one that says, "Sharing is caring." It may not be the best mechanism in terms of outright gettin' rich, but that's not really the goal of a platform like SmartVan...or at least it shouldn't be.

The goal has to be product-development, not monopolizing over one corridor of an entire industry. And with all due respect to Detroit, that's just seemed to be their motto from the beginning, the "American" one, which is really nothing more than a platform for the very monopoly of which we speak. That grip, that tight hold is one that needs to be broken now more than ever.

But how do you do that?! Or even better, how do you do that without ruining someone else's business in the process? According to the Capitalists and whoever else works within the corporate sector, it simply can not be done...it just can't. There's absolutely no way, according to the confines of Capitalism, to "share-and-care" without the business platform folding right under.

But then we also have to look back to one of America's most profound money gurus, Grant Cardone. His strategy can be summarized in one sentence: "Change your ask!" What does Cardone mean by this?! Who the hell is this guy, a middle class, Italian-American country boy with a lot of money to tell us to "change our ask?" I mean, what the guy says is complicated, but also true. It's hard for most of us to "change our ask," because the majority of us are limited in our resources.

You just can't get around it: money is the blood that makes pretty much everything circulate. It's sad in a way, because the bureaucracy is forced to do everything in the name of money; how not nice is that?! Not very nice, because if we weren't all so hostage-held by the theoretical "gun" of bureaucracy, GM could build a better-looking car, MTA could develop smart buses for the Los Angeles transport grid, and business as a whole would be run in a far more streamlined fashion.

Is it true that we wouldn't make as much money? To at least a certain degree, it could be true that we're sacrificing a few dollars by converting to a more Socialist business platform. But look...if we keep placing money over intrinsic value, where is our nation going to go, and what will ultimately become of our economy? You'd sit there and complain to me that smarter products cost that much more money. You're damn right it does! How would you expect any business to run without at least a little capital gain?

We ask that question again, because that's important: how can a business run without money? It's fuel, and no race car can realistically run on 87-91 octane. I mean, if you want to try it, you can. But I hope that no one's planning on rebuilding engines anytime soon! It's just a waste of time. If you're going to spend all that money on dial-a-rides and buses, then you might as well spend on something that's intuitive. Even disabled community members have paid taxes at one point or another, but our sidewalks are still way too rough for our power chairs to navigate.

From a projector's standpoint, we're guessing each SmartVan would cost around $200-250k per vehicle. If you read Elon Musk's abstract on the Hyperloop, each vehicle within that system would cost around $250k, the cost of a base-optioned Lamborghini. That means that for the price of an Aventador or less, we could buy SmartVans. Sure, the $250k is the price per unit; we're all well-aware of this. Just do the math, and not the complicated mathematics, but the simple ones; you find that everything boils-down pretty nicely.

The truth is that we don't need to be spending nearly as much money as we think we do; brainwash is a powerful thing, a tool. Who said, necessarily, that a smart vehicle network, a web-based service would have to be expensive to establish? There's not as much truth behind this as we think. Every business had to start somewhere; why not start from the bottom?

Personally, I like being an American, but then I'm boggled by the system of work & transport that the Western world sets in place. It's confusing! Why are we spending more money, at the end of every year, on raw fuel and the vehicles that they animate? Instead of blaming politicians, let's work with them...get them to see things our way. No one is going to get anywhere through brute competition, or at least not at this point in the game.

That's why the purpose behind SmartVan would be to open-source everything that it does, because it doesn't make a lot of money, but it does allow for multiple businesses to successfully share parts, accessories and resources. Not only would a platform like SmartVan be sociable in that way, but it would still generate revenue by allowing everyone to benefit from the invention of one entity, and by making the product or service better, we make our profits better.

There's no way anyone can ever tell me that we're going to lose money by making our products better. It's just stupid to think that we're doing the right thing my making profit into our main priority. It's just not happening! And guess what? As soon as you start building a smart vehicle network, the money-saving component will become inevitable, since fuel and oil are no longer cost-related variables.

That's not the way the system has been treated, but they're going to call us "radicals!" If you can't see that transportation is just like everything else in terms of politics, then I just don't know what to tell you! It sucks! But then bureaucracy often does, so you have to kind of work within it. What a terrible thing to say, though...that we would actually "save" money by using raw fuel and cheaper vehicles/materials!

You see that vision, and if you do, then you see the idea behind SmartVan. It's not really good to envision it as a business or logo; it's a platform, simply put. That means that even if we had to mess with more affordable vehicles, we'll do that. The only place where it becomes problematic is in the production process, because it costs a lot of money to literally build a fleet of Tesla crossovers. Whether in the form of a large storage yard or several small stations, a fleet of vans or crossovers, especially intuitive ones, is not going to cost small money. But at the same time, we can't afford to skimp on costs.

Part of the SmartVan service would be a web app with an easy-to-use interface

So let's get the funding together; let's go straight to the source. If someone like Elon Musk could fund us for a smart vehicle program, then why the heck not?! We have nothing to lose. And that does become the question: would Musk be willing and/or able to throw-down that extra dollar? The one needed to lift an intuitive dial-a-ride off of the ground? I would be scared to even ask! Except that the development of a system like this really has become necessary at this point.

We can't play around! With the way commuters drive nowadays, and just the whole aura of it. Let's face it: you have to go for a market when it's ripe, and either for better or worse, the smart vehicle business is ripe. We need to go with it. How does anyone expect the automotive/transit business to be able to operate without funds? But again, this is what I think would be beautiful about a system like SmartVan. Because it would be a company that would leave all of its inventions as an open source, there would be no room for a monopoly, and so capital gain doesn't even have to come up in conversation, should one ever come up about SmartVan and exactly how it is that the company operates.

So what exactly is the plan? We start by integrating our own services with those of Tesla Motors and EMC, Tesla being the intuitive market's leading automaker, while EMC is one of adapted driving's most ambitious pioneers. The "J-Series," multi-directional joystick console from EMC has within it left-to-right steering functions, along with forward and reverse. For me, and I'm sure a lot of other challenged motoring fans, finding equipment that would actually work was the most difficult part of the journey.

This is where we have to give maximum credit to MobilityWorks of Van Nuys, California. Because of their resourcefulness, I was able to dial-in exactly which console would be the most appropriate for my particular, driving needs. As it would turn-out, the J-Series from EMC was the equipment that fit the best. This is mostly because of its multi-directional nature, and when one really looks at the device from a distance, the J-Series really does bear a remarkable resemblance to those third-party consoles used by such power chair companies as Quickie and Permobil.

What was hard was finding a unit that served the purposes of gas and brake in one, convenient box. That's because most of the systems sold by EMC are manufactured and distributed in individual components, but we're lucky, and it serves for productive equipment testing, that the J-Series exists as  evidence that EMC really is looking out for the interests of the entire community.

But can a piece of equipment as versatile and progressive as EMC's J-Series be integrated into America's first intuitive, SUV platform? There's only one way to find out, and that's by creating SmartVan, developing the platform into Tesla Motors and the world's first ever, fully-automated paratransit service!