To explain the entire technological history of
the car would be quite difficult; therefore, a focus on car repair will give a
limited scope in which the causes of technological evolution can be explored.
Technological change has created the car as we know it today, but the question
is why? Through what circumstances has the car gone from a simple steam powered
cart to the computerized, GPS located vehicles that we know today?
One aspect central to the study of
technological change is control. The industry concerned with repairing vehicles
has always had some level of control over the repair of cars. At the same time,
there has always been the tinkerer and do-it-yourselfer. Car engines have been
an object of fascination since their inception, and they were originally much
less technically complex, giving the everyday person the potential to learn the
craft of automotive repair.
Different movements in the technological
evolution of the automobile have involved a movement toward complexity and the
locking out of the everyday car owner from the process of maintenance and
repair. Vehicle repair is becoming more about specialized knowledge and access
to software than the tinkerer, who has become relegated to the status of
"consumer". Why has this trend affected different aspects of vehicle
design? The answer is complicated; it involves everything from simplifying
controls to meet consumer demand to the emergence of digital technology.
One trend in the evolution of the car is the
simplification of controls, even at the expense of making the internal
mechanisms more complex. Cars that were previously started via a crank
mechanism were followed by cars that could be started from the inside.
Currently, cars are made to start at the push of a button. The starting
mechanism itself, from the transition from crank to button, has itself become
more mechanically complex. This has an effect on car repair, necessitating ever
more specialized technical knowledge of car repair workers.
Another trend affecting the body of
knowledge of car repair workers is the increasing encroachment of computers
into cars. Cars are increasingly software powered. This is part of the larger
technological trend of digitization. Mechanical and analog processes are
substituted by digital solutions whenever possible. Get to
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