This week a self-driving car built by Delphi of England completed a 9 day trip from San Francisco to New York City. The car traveled 3,400 miles, and was fully automated for 99% of the trip.
Attention has again focused on self-driving cars. There are a handful of players entering the market today, including Apple. But the most famous company by far is Google, which has put over 700,000 autonomous miles on its vehicles since pioneering the concept after winning a DARPA challenge to build a functioning prototype in 2005. In fact, we’re so used to hearing about the Google self-driving car that many of have stopped asking “Why Google? They aren’t in the auto business.”
Of course the idea of a self-driving auto is as old as the Jetson’s (and if you don’t know who the Jetson’s are you are, that was a long time ago.) And nobody should be surprised to hear that prototypes have been on the drawing board for 5 decades. But I bet you didn’t know that DuPont was once seriously engaged in such development.
In 1986 DuPont was America’s largest and most noteworthy chemical company. The company was a pioneer in petrochemicals, and was considered the company that brought the world plastic – at a time when plastic was considered a great, new invention. A leader in films of all sorts, DuPont leadership saw the opportunity for electronics to replace film in applications such as printing (where films were used in high volume for platemaking and proofing) and healthcare (where xRays and MRIs were a large film users.) They conceived of a future time when computers and monitors – digitial products – could replace analog film, and they chose to create a new business unit called Electronic Imaging to pioneer developing these applications.
As the team started they expanded the definition of Electronic Imaging to include all sorts of applications for digital imaging – and using all kinds of technologies. The breadth of analysis, and product development, included non-destructive parts testing, infrared uses such as heads-up displays and inventory identification, and radar applications. Which led the team to using a radar for automating an automobile.
In 1987 DuPont invested in a small company out of San Diego that accomplished something never done before. Using a phased-array radar hooked up to the brakes of a van, they were able to have the car recognize objects in front of the van, calculate in real time the distance between the van and these forward objects, calculate the relative speed of both objects (whether one or both were stationary or moving) and then apply braking in order to maintain a safe distance. If the forward object stopped, then the van would come to a complete stop.
This was all done with discreet componentry, and the team realized future success required developing more specific electronics, including specialized integrated chips that could operate faster and be more error-free. So they drove the prototype from San Diego to Wilmington, DE with a person behind the wheel, but relying as much as possible on the automated system to do all braking. The team collected data on location, speed, weather, traffic conditions, and many other items during the journey and prepared to take the project forward, planning to eventually build a module which could be installed in vehicles as small as cars or as large as 18-wheelers, with enough intelligence to adjust for different vehicle designs and applications (in order to calibrate for different braking distances.)
Net/net they had a working prototype. The product was expected to reduce the number of accidents by assisting drivers with braking. Multi-car pile-ups would become a thing of the past. And this device could potentially allow for better traffic flow because automated braking would reduce – maybe eliminate! – rear-end collisions. This wasn’t a self-driving car, but it was self-braking car, which would be a first step toward the sort of Jetson’s-esque vision the young team imagined.
What happened?
It didn’t take long for the older, “wiser” leadership to shut down the project. Even though several executives participated in a controlled demonstration of the prototype in an enclosed DuPont parking lot, the conclusion was that this project demonstrated just how off-track the new Electronic Imaging Department had become, and that it was clear folks needed to be reigned in and budgets cut:
- This clearly had nothing to do with film or replacing film. DuPont was a chemical company, and to the extent it had any interest in electronics it was where they were applied to potentially cannibalize film sales. Products which were not closely aligned with historical products were simply not to be pursued.
- DuPont had no history in radar, analogue electronics or development of integrated circuits. Yes, DuPont had an Electronics Department, but they sold film for solder masking and other applications of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing. DuPont was a chemical company, not a computer company or electronics company and this division was not going to change this situation.
- This product was seen as carrying too much liability risk. What if it failed? What if the car ran over a child? The auto industry was seen as litigious, and DuPont had no interest in a product that could have the kind of liability this one would generate. Yes, there was an Auto Department, but it sold films for safety glass, plastic sheets used for molding inside panels, and surface coatings which could be painted on the inside and/or outside of the vehicle. But those did not have the kind of failure possibility of this active radar device. [“By the way” the vice-Chairman asked “could that radar fry someone’s innards at a crosswalk?”]
- The market is too limited. Who would really want an automatic braking system? Given what it might cost, only the most expensive cars could install it, and only the wealthiest customers could afford it. This product was destined for niche use, at best, and would never have widespread installation.
Poof, away went the automatic automobile braking project. Once this dagger had been thrown, within just a few months everything that wasn’t printing or medical – in fact anything that wasn’t tied to printing films, xRays and MRI – was gone. Within 2 years leadership decided that for some variant of the 4 issues above the entire Electronic Imaging division was a bad idea. DuPont would be better served if it stuck to its core business, and if it spent money defending and extending film sales rather than trying to cannibalize them.
DuPont liked competing in the oceans where it had long competed. Venturing beyond those oceans was simply too risky. Today, 25 years later, DuPont is about 1/3 the size it was when its leaders launched the ill-fated Electronic Imaging division.
Google obviously has a different way of looking at the opportunity for automating automobile operation. Since winning the DARPA competition Google has spent a goodly sum building and testing ways to automate driving. And it has even gone so far as lobbying to make self-driving cars legal, which they now are in 4 states. Pessimists remain, but every quarter more people are thinking that self-driving cars will be here sooner than we might have imagined. This week’s cross-country achievement fuels speculation that the reality could be just around the corner.
Google seems happy to compete in new oceans. It dominates search, where its share is attacked every day by the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft. But simultaneously Google has invested far outside its core market, including software for PCs (Chrome) and mobile devices (Android), hardware (Nexus phones), media (Blogger, YouTube), payments (Wallet) and even self-driving cars. To what extent these, and dozens of other non-core products/services, will pay off for investors is yet to be determined. But at least Google’s leadership is able to overcome the desire to restrict the company’s options and look for future markets.
Which kind of organization is yours? Do you find reasons to kill new projects, or are you willing to experiment at creating new markets which might create dramatic growth?
Interesting analysis. What are your thoughts on a company which has never ventured beyond certain boundaries and the only way it knows to reinvent itself is to restructure, buy and sell businesses within the sane boundries?
How can I branch out? Google is going into everything that says IT. Do you think chemical companies of today can branch out so further from the known seas as Dupont had in the past? I would like to think its more difficult now than in the past. Your thoughts?
Hi Shah, the relentless pursuit of “focus” and maintaining “lean”operations has made companies less capable of modifying than at any time in history. This is almost solely due to short-term management which cherishes cost reductions over everything else. Thanks
Adam I enjoyed your article. I am not very business minded and you will probably be able to see this as you read on. I started work at a Dupont Fibers Plant in the 1970’s. My job title and pay never went higher than Blue Collar Mill hand level. As a underpaid non union worker in the Carolina’s I made myself sacrifice the luxuries everyone else was buying as a very young man so I could retire in thirty nine years. I put as much money as I could in Dupont’s Thrift Plan at the time. Dupont was big then and I could not imagine the company would ever do anything but grow. I put money in Dupont Stock as I had faith and a belief in the company I grew up around and all my Dads neighbors worked there. Four Thousand People at the Camden, SC Plant in 1976 and it was humming. New Dacron Fibers Plants starting up and Nylon charging on. I just could not see the Board of Directors putting people in charge of ruining this company and ruining the saving of the hard working employees working for their families. How do you continue running a company into the ground making it smaller and keep getting your paycheck as a President , CEO or Board of Director. All we had to do was mislabel some tubes or bales of fiber, a one or two thousand dollar mistake and we would be fired. I could not understand why they were selling off Conoco, Photo Products, Remmington, Rain Dance, Nylon, Orlon, Dacron, Electronic Imaging and sending all our plant equipment to China while telling us it was not going to affect our jobs. I owned Dupont stock and they were selling my investment and I was getting nothing out of the deals. My stock never got higher than $86 a share while they pulled the rug out from under our safety shoes. I did gain extra shares from dividends over the years but almost thirty years later we are still holding shares less than $86. I bet behind the scene the Wilimington leaders, company lawyers and Wall
Street bankers were getting getting rich with promotions for making deals that destroyed this company. How could directors close Wilmington Shops, Research and Developement offices and the Engineering groups that wrote the training manuals for employees and expect the company get better and stronger. Getting Electrical or Mechanical training through your job at Dupont was better than any Technical Degree from a State College. These guys were the best in their fields and if they left Dupont could get a similar job anywhere. Now 40 years later I still am holding out that one decision that Dupont makes will pay off . All I need is one Apple Idea out of this company. I just hate to sell after all these years of being a Dummy to go out and start investing in other companies. If I do not know anything about the company I worked all my life for how can I expect to invest in companies I never had knowledge of. How can I trust investment companies want to make money off my trades. I trust no one at Wall Street. I do not think from reading your article you see any future for my stock. I did start expanding my portfolio years ago so have other stock and mutual funds but held onto my blind faith in Dupont. I know I heard for years do not load up on your own company stock.
I do like reading about how much vision DuPont scientists and engineers had 30 years ago. Remember that there was no GPS system then, no LIDAR, no (fill in your favorite). The most automated cars back then would “ding” if you didn’t have your seat belt fastened. The global infrastructure wasn’t there. Radar braking was a single component of an entire system.
I would also remind your readers that DuPont had a 3D printing system by 1990 (Somos(R)).
It is this vision that we are proud of. However, it takes decades for visions to be realized. Regardless of where or when they start, an idea can only be realized when all of the ingredients are ready to be baked together.