Ignition with Howard Green

On this episode, Howard speaks with one of the top drawer, elite automotive designers on the planet. Henrik Fisker understands the process of taking wild designs from the sketch pad to production, and pushing the boundaries of what the auto industry thinks is possible. Fisker turns concept into reality.  Fisker is the founder, chairman and CEO of Fisker Inc, along with Bob Lutz, the former vice chairman of GM. Fisker is also co-founder of VLF Automotive, and the CEO of HF Design.  

Jack Riddell is the owner of the Lamborghini with the highest mileage in the world. The love affair goes back 45 years. When he purchased it back in 1972, it cost $6250. Since then, he has personally and lovingly rebuilt the engine three times.  

Look around the roads in your town or city, and you'll probably see a lot of Mini Coopers. These loveable little cars are now made by BMW - but are based on one that originally came out of Britain several decades ago.  On this episode of Ignition, Howard speaks with the man who saved the Mini (and also happens to be a living breathing Knight!). Sir Graham Day is a Nova Scotian who became Mr. Fix It and Mr. Privatizer for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980s. He's also the subject of the new book "The Last Canadian Knight: The Unintended Business Adventures of Sir Graham Day", by Gordon Pitts. 

It's no secret that cars are often viewed as a guy thing. But the fact of the matter is that women make up a huge percentage of car purchasers.  And if they're not actually the ones making the purchase, they have a huge influence on what gets purchased.   So ignoring women when it comes to cars has been a long-running mistake of the industry.  Car companies, dealerships, repair shops - you name it. They have done so at their peril.  On this week's episode, we introduce you to a woman who's working towards changing this.

This episode is a bit of a departure for Ignition. Usually our subjects deal with four-wheeled vehicles. Recently, we had a three-wheel contraption as the focus - a one-seater car, the Solo from Vancouver.  Today, we're slimming down to just two wheels. It's a bike show - but we're talking about electric bikes.  We're starting to see more and more bicycles with electric motors around cities. Our guest today knows a lot about that. Virginia Block is the founder and CEO of Amego electric vehicles.

Today on Ignition: YouTube star Doug DeMuro. His videos have received millions upon millions of views thanks to hilarious stunts he does with all types of vehicles. For example, that time he pulled up to a McDonald's drive-thru in armoured military vehicle, or crushed a PT cruiser with a hummer. Letterman had stupid pet tricks, and DeMuro has stupid car tricks. Doug tells Howard how he became a YouTube celebrity and the stories behind some of his funniest videos. 

Jerry Kroll is the CEO and Founder of Electra Meccanica, a Vancouver-based company producing an electric, one-seater vehicle. It has three wheels and looks like a prototype of a futuristic car. But Jerry says we'll be seeing these vehicles on the road much sooner than we think. He says 83 per cent of us drive by ourselves, so we might as well have a more efficient vehicle built for one. 

Do you really need to own a car? Over the past dozen years or so, car sharing has gained more and more traction. Companies like Zipcar and car2go allow drivers to rent by the minute, hour, or day. All you need is an app. No lineup a the rental agency. Just grab the car and go and leave it when you're done.  Now GM has its own offering.  It's called Maven, and it's now available in 17 cities in the US and Canada. Maven is part of GM's aggressive move to remake itself in the new world of mobility; connected, autonomous, shared, and electric.  To find out more about GM's strategy, Howard speaks with Peter Kosak. He's GM's executive director of Global Urban Mobility.     

By July 1, 2018, recreational marijuana use will be legal in Canada. So, what could that mean for driving and public safety? It took decades upon decades to make drinking and driving socially unacceptable. Unfortunately, it took too much death and carnage to get people thinking straight on that issue, and for law enforcement officials to take action. How well prepared are we for the possibility of weed behind the wheel? Howard tackles that and more with Lewis Koski, the former deputy senior director of the marijuana enforcement division in Colorado, where recreational use of marijuana has been legal since 2012. He's the cofounder and senior director of Freedman Koski, a consulting practice specializing in advising state and local governments on how to best implement marijuana legalization.

Iconic global brand, engineering marvel, international success, family intrigue, lives of the rich and famous, and national pride. All concurrent with a rotten corporate culture, ice cold leaders cheating the public, national humiliation, and tens of billions in legal settlements.  "Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal" is a new book by New York Times correspondent Jack Ewing. He's covered the Volkwagen story from his base in Germany. We spoke to him about the scandal several months ago, and on this episode of Ignition he talks about the story behind the story. 

Jody Freeman is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Founding Director of the law school's  Environmental Law Program. She served in the Obama White House as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change, and was the architect of the administration's agreement with the auto industry to double fuel efficiency standards. On this episode of Ignition, she speaks with Howard Green about how Donald Trump's actions can affect the amount of pollution our vehicles emit and how much damage he can do to US climate change policies. 

There's car-jacking, and then there's car hacking. Recently, a software glitch allowed Hyundai cars to be started remotely. The bug has since been fixed, but for a while would-be thieves could locate vulnerable vehicles, start them up, and make off with them. Two years ago, Fiat Chrysler recalled more than a million vehicles at risk of being hacked. Is hacking on the rise, given the increased amount of software under the hood? Howard tackles that and more with Craig Smith, the author of The Car Hacker's Handbook. 

On this episode of Ignition with Howard Green, we head to one of the largest and most sophisticated climatic wind tunnels on the planet. From jungle downpours to an arctic storm, any weather condition can be created. Tunnels like this one are crucial in testing vehicles to make sure they're safe for all sorts of weather. But as the general manager for the UOIT Automotive Centre of Excellence tells us, they test a lot more than just cars and trucks. 

On this episode of Ignition, how much do you need to spend to get a good used car?  For almost a hundred years, drivers have gravitated to Kelley Blue Book to answer that question. KBB's executive editorial director and executive market analyst fills us in. And, we head back to a time when it was possible to get a second hand car for a hundred dollars (yes, a car you could actually drive!). 

Ever feel like pushing a vehicle to the max? Learning how far you can take it, or how good you are behind the wheel?  There are courses for that. In today's episode, we take you to one supported by the manufacturer, Ford Motor Company.  Dan McKeever is the owner/operator of the Ford Performance Racing School in Grantsville, Utah.  

If we're going to have self-driving cars or autonomous vehicles, among the many things required to be in place is the ability for vehicles to communicate with each other. Or at least sense each other.  In the trade, it's known as V2V (vehicle to vehicle communication). Say you're bombing down a foggy road, it would be nice to know if another car is coming around the bend. It would be great if there were some warning system so you'd have a few seconds to react and take corrective action. Or, rather your self-driving vehicle would be able to know what's barrelling toward you and be able to take corrective action. The future is here -- at least in a 2017 Cadillac. But how long before this technology is in every car?  Mike Tzamaloukas is the VP of Navigation Technologies and the Autonomous Drive Business Unit at Harman International, a company with 30-thousand employees and more than seven billion U.S. in annual revenues. Harman bills itself as a global leader in car technology. 

Who doesn't like to gaze into the future? We all wish we could see and know exactly what's coming. Ford Motor Company actually has someone on staff whose job it is to identify trends to help keep the automaker in synch with the times and what's coming. It's not exactly looking for guidance from a crystal ball - it's more like social science research to figure out what people are thinking, doing, and going to do. On this episode of Ignition, we introduce you to Sheryl Connelly - the manager of global trends and futuring at Ford Motor Company. 

The subject of this episode isn't going away. It keeps evolving day by day, week by week, mile by mile and kilometre by kilometre. It's the autonomous vehicle, also known as the self-driving car. If fully autonomous vehicles actually come to pass, it may be a technological shift on par with the development of the smart phone, which has revolutionized communications. At their theoretical best, autonomous vehicles will kill and injure fewer people. About 32,000 people a year die on roads in the United States alone, and almost another 2,000 in Canada. But with a self-driving car, human failings will be taken out of the equation.  Today, we check in with the only Canadian academic institution that's developing an autonomous vehicle. Ross McKenzie is Managing Director of The Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research.

On this episode of Ignition, host Howard Green has a unique guest sitting across the table from him - his wife, Lynne Heller. She's not a gear head, and frankly knows very little about cars... but she joins us today because she is one of those people who learned to driver later in life. It's not an easy thing to do because older drivers are aware of consequences, understand what can go wrong, and are usually more nervous. Lynne signed up for classes at Young Drivers of Canada at the age of 51, and has some interesting insights on the differences of learning the rules of the road at a later age.

It's tough to talk about autos and ignore what's going on in Washington in the age of President Trump. There's a determination to re-open NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has set the rules of engagement for the auto and auto parts business for a generation.  President Trump had promised to tear up NAFTA. Then he said he just wanted to "tweak" it, but his man on the file, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, has said something different. This agreement is hugely important to both countries.  Ignition host Howard Green spoke with two people who know cross-border issues intimately. Former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson who was part of Canada's NAFTA implementation team. He is now VP and Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. Mark Sills is a trade lawyer and partner at Sills Egsgard LLP. He was a member of the Canadian legal team that negotiated NAFTA.