COMMON SENSE NOT REQUIRED: Idiots Designing Cars + Hybrid Vehicles: My Career with Chrysler

Author Evan Boberg dispels the myths surrounding the automobile industry and the employees who work there. "With very few exceptions, books about the automobile industry are written by members of the press and by high level executives. The car companies hide the problems and embarrassments from the press … and the executives are self-aggrandizing. Though these stories are most often very interesting, they do not tell the whole truth. As a low-level engineer, I was a true insider," says Boberg.

In Common Sense Not Required, Boberg uses humor to expose some of the less intelligent moves made behind the walls of Chrysler. He sets up several "Common Sense Principles" and illustrates with anecdotes from his 12 years at the corporation how these principles were ignored, resulting in increased costs to the corporation.

Common Sense Not Required blends autobiography with a light-hearted exposé and includes tips on commonly asked questions about the industry and cars in general. Readers will learn how to find a good mechanic, why certain things aren’t covered under a new car warranty, what happened to the 100 mpg carburetor and whether or not to buy a hybrid vehicle.

With wit and wisdom, Boberg offers a humorous collection of true stories that will appeal to anyone interested in cars and hybrid vehicles or anyone curious to know what it takes to work in the industry. According to Boberg, "It doesn’t take a genius to design cars, it doesn’t even require common sense!"

Several news stories have popped up recently where hybrid owners have been complaining about the fuel economy of their cars. Combined with the information in CSNR, I found myself thinking "sucker" when I observed a hybrid car. I read the book again and realized that it is only Mr. Boberg's intent to educate people about what hybrids are really all about.

It is not a popular notion for someone to criticize new technology. The author predicts that hybrids will never become mainstream. Thinking back in automotive history, the wankel was the future, but it never caught on, though it did survive in the Mazda RX. I hope he his wrong, but I have to give him credit for making a credible argument to the contrary.

I was expecting more inside "secrets" to be revealed. But the biggest secret he reveals is that there just aren't that many secrets. The book is more focused on the bumbling of some of the management and the success Chrysler experienced despite this.

I highly recommend reading Common Sense Not Required. Despite my initial irritation with the author and his unpopular views, I couldn't put it down. The humor is sarcastic, but effective. I really enjoyed reading it twice.

Technical expertise is not required to understand the terminology used in this book, as Mr. Boberg is very adept at explaining concepts in lay terms. Overall, any true enthusiast of this industry, including those employed therein, should place this book on the top of their "Franklin Planner" to-do list.

Unusual in this book is a large section on hybrid-electric cars, telling where they are practical, and where they are hype; being written by an engineer, these chapters use actual facts and figures.

I don't agree with most of the author's political opinions, but fortunately these are largely confined to the last chapter.

You really have to buy this book.

Instead, the real value lies in getting inside the head of Mr. Boberg, who is convinced that his world-class intelligence was of such colossal value that Chrysler ignored him at its peril. The first page after the intro sets the tone:

"I grew up in a home where we posessed an arrogance that we were smarter than everyone else....I have heard people talk about how it doesn't take a high IQ to be successful. It takes hard work and perserverance. With my superior intelligence, I have observed this to be true. I am personally an example. I'm very intelligent, yet considered a failure in most people's eyes."

We are put on notice that we're dealing with a genius while bemoaning the fact that hard work can bring success to those with less-than-Bobergian intelligence. He is "a failure in most people's eyes," but that doesn't matter. To Boberg, "most people" are the title's "idiots" anyway. Their opinions about everything, including what cars they want to buy, are insignificant and obviously in error.

The last paragraph of the book includes this assessment of the oh-so-challenging Boberg condition:

"This is where I wish I wasn't so smart."

Well, maybe Mr. Boberg isn't so smart. His book is riddled with typos, factual inaccuracies and bad grammar. (Boberg, aided by a decent proofreader, might have wished he "weren't" so smart.)

Boberg does a good job of providing background and premises for his stories that back up his point of view. If you don't know the situations he's discussing, he provides enough facts for his arguments to be consistent within the universe of the facts provided. However, even a passing knowledge of engineering, Chrysler, or the vehicles he's discussing reveals inconsistencies between The World According to Boberg and reality. The real crux of his tales is not mentioned...or perhaps is not even known to Boberg.

You'd think a guy with such a reverent view of himself might start to temper his arrogance when basically everyone he encounters disagrees with him. Apparently, he never did, right down to unemployment and moving back in with his father after 12 years at Chrysler. This book tells this tale without any sense of perspective, irony, or any self-knowledge whatsoever.

That's the real entertainment in this book: watching an arrogant individual with an inflated sense of his own competence and intelligence slide into complete failure...and not even understand his own collapse after the fact. This is made all the more fascinating by the fact that he is accurately telling us this tale himself, with apparently no idea how poorly this story reflects on him. Just amazing.