Clever Cars

Clever Cars

A gigantic difference between places like the U.S. and Africa — between developed and developing counties — is the speed at which things are changing. Progress doesn’t always come with change, but the truth is that progress can’t occur without change.

America, in particular, is falling way behind the rest of the world in “change.” The developing world – Africa in particular – leads the world in change. And perhaps the single most contentious aspect to modern life changing in the developing world is… traffic.

Kenya almost fell as a country today because of the traffic in Nairobi. The mayor of Nairobi banned all “matatus” (taxis) from the city center to reduce traffic congestion. The result was a totally chaotic Monday where the city virtually shut down as workers walking arrived late for work and in some places hordes of pedestrians moved more slowly than congested taxis!

The elected Senator from the Nairobi area then raced into court to challenge the mayor. The mayor then apologized, went on TV to beg forgiveness but refused to back down. Now everyone wonders if Tuesday will be as apocalyptic.

I love Nairobi, especially its city center. It’s filled with elegant old colonial buildings, racy art galleries, hipster cafes and one of the world’s greatest museums about early man. My safaris always used to include the city center, but not for the last few years. The traffic is just too mind-blowing.

The Nairobi airport is on the city outskirts, but even getting from the airport to any place in the bush or suburbs is a challenge on any day but Sunday. This despite a whole bunch of new super highways laid over the landscape in record time to reduce congestion.

There’s a new railway system, a subway system in the planning and the Nairobi mayor is proud of his new bus system that was scheduled to begin working today…. until too many walkers in the streets stopped the buses from moving!

According to Traffic Index, Nairobi is the 8th worst city in the world for traffic, the worst in Africa. (The worst seven are in the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and the Philippines. Los Angeles is rated 14th, Atlanta 22nd.)

The explanation is simple. Business development is seeded in city centers, and so the first explosion of business happens there. Buildings skyrocket upwards. Parking garages bore into the core of the earth. Increased wealth is used by workers to get to work, and few cities plan far enough ahead to have the right highways or transport systems to assist them.

So everyone gets a car.

It’s really so fascinating! The far-thinking Japanese anticipated all this. Years ago – literally 30-35 years ago – Toyota decided to suffer decades of huge losses in the yet-to-be-created SUV market by forcing Landrover out of the African car business.

What Toyota did back then was illegal were it done in developed countries. But back then really the only cars in much of developing Africa were Landrovers of some sort or another. My personal favorite was the TDI100 Defender.

Yes, they were initially marketed as rugged safari vehicles, but as the cities showed the first signs of development, various versions of the safari vehicle were modified in Africa as “city cars.”

Toyota offered the “Landcrusier.” It wasn’t half as good for the rugged safari market as a Landrover, but it was just fine in the cities. And… it was so much cheaper! Year after year Toyota suffered huge losses in Africa and within a decade Toyota pushed Landrover out of the entire market.

Today on the safari circuit I rarely see a Landrover. Everything is Toyota. And, of course, even the roads on the “rugged safari circuit” have greatly improved so even I now use Landcruisers.

When the development boom really exploded in the last decade, suddenly other styles of cars than the Landcruiser were outselling it by a mile. Camry’s, Civics, Accords – even Subarus! Today I bet that 8 out of 10 African city cars are Japanese.

They made a 3-decade bet and it paid off quite handsomely.

Except, of course, for the consumer who now is spending much more time in his Japanese car than he ever expected to!

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