The ugly mess that a half century of capital growth and technological "progress" produced:
Porsche 917LH (1969-71) Top speed - 239 mph (Le Mans, France, 1971).
Porsche 919 Hybrid (2014-2018) Top speed - 223 mph (Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium, 2018).

With few exceptions, the 21st Century has been marked by failures of large, established manufacturing firms that are forced to meet Wall Street earnings expectations. Companies struggle to maintain market and technological dominance on diminishing returns on investment, particularly those that produce complex big-ticket products, such as automobiles and commercial aircraft. A half century of progress and capital expansion have produced racing cars that go slower and passenger airplanes that can't stay in the air.

An existential crisis of two companies in the transportation sector captures this, Porsche and Boeing.

Diminishing Returns: The Future Has Become Prohibitively Cost-Ineffective.

Porsche A.G.: From fast to fat.

Porsche was a 20th Century icon, and its fast cars achieved cult status. The success in racing made its manufacturer, Porsche A.G., a mid-sized German engineering company into a worldwide commercial legend. The Porsche racing car, along with the Boeing Company and its half-century old passenger plane, the 737, represent an era that is now definitely over.

The fact that the Porsche 917 was then the fastest circuit racing automobile, topping out at 240 mph, winning the 1970 and 1971 Le Mans 24 hour races, is beside the point. The 917, along with contemporary machines -- the Boeing 747 and the Apollo moon rocket -- represent a peak of industrial and commercial prowess that is the embodiment of a machine age that is now past. The 917 was actually the culmination of decades of technological development, and is the apotheosis of the automobile as an object of passion. Everything that has followed since has been an anticlimax. To pretend otherwise endangers the world that is left

Designed largely without computers, the Porsche 917 is the embodiment of how much could be done with a little money, pen and pencil engineering and simple materials, steel, aluminum and fiberglass pieced together on a shop floor by a group of talented artisans working with slide rules and machine tools. Aesthetically, as in its staggering performance, it is still futuristic. In commercial terms of cost and returns on investment, it was a bargain in stark contrast to the failures of the half billion dollar factory racing programs of recent times.

Consider its direct descendant, the Porsche 919 Hybrid sports prototype of a half century later. It, too, dominated the Le Mans 24 hour race several years running, 2015-2017. The 919 is distinguished by having covered approximately 5000 miles consuming only 500 gallons of gasoline. By comparison, the non-turbocharged 1970 Porsche 917 endurance racer got about 4 miles to a gallon. That's a significant improvement in fuel consumption and in CO emissions. But, in its essence, the 919 is a far lesser racing car and it is not nearly as much a technological and cultural milestone. In fact, it's a dead-end, by contemporary social standards and priorities that go beyond speed and power. What's required is a cure for the last century of carbon technology, and the 919 Hybrid isn't it.

It is inconceivable that the 24 hour Le Mans race can be won by a zero emissions vehicle, not now or anytime in the foreseeable future. Consider that today's Tesla S, a top of the line all-electric passenger car, is limited in range to about 300 miles running at 70 miles an hour - peddle to the metal, the Tesla's range declines to less than half that - and even with the most powerful 480 volt charger available, it takes a full hour to recharge. The Tesla would spend twelve of the twenty-four hour race sitting in the pits. That would not be a very exciting race.

Like its predecessor, the 919 Hybrid was a prototype, a development platform for significant technologies that were adapted to improve production automobiles. But, it fails as a technological statement. Worse, it also failed to capture the contemporary public imagination, and the magnitude of improvement in fuel mileage -- about double -- is not really a lot in 50 years time. Another major part of that failure is that the 919 is ugly by comparison. With an inflation adjusted program cost less than one-twentieth of 919 Hybrid, the 50 year old Porsche, which was also faster in recorded top speed, was immeasurably better in its essential purpose as a racing car.

So it is with regular passenger cars. Fuel consumption efficiencies for similar size conventional vehicles are barely 30 percent better than they were in 1970. Even hybrid technology vehicles generally get only 50-70 mpg in real world conditions. Battery powered cars still lack the range to replace conventional automobiles and trucks. The maximum range of the "extended range" Tesla S is about 330 miles, and even with the most powerful roadside charger, it takes an hour to fully recharge.

At $120,000, the top of the line Tesla is as expensive in real terms as a 1970 Ferrari GT 2 Plus 2, but before speed limits were imposed during the 1973 oil crisis, you could drive the Ferrari across Northern Italy at 150 mph with a single five minute stop for gas in Milan, and it looked and sounded lovely doing it. As rolling entertainment, the Ferrari was automotive Italian opera. The Tesla will let you sleep until it locates and parks itself next to an electric charging station.

This points to something essential about the late 20th century versus the early 21st century. In 1970, we achieved more with less. Less data, far less capital. Our goals were simpler, and we were further along toward achieving them, and had yet to realize the unintended consequences and the costs to fix them - if, indeed, that is still even possible.

Auto racing presents such a case. Always primarily a form of prestige advertising for auto manufacturers, it's hard to see how motorsports can justify its enormous costs today. The real inflation-adjusted cost to Porsche's racing program a half a century ago was perhaps one-twentieth of the $200 million annual budget of the 919 Hybrid program. The returns on investment in terms of positive publicity of the 1970s program were at least a hundred or a thousand-fold greater. That is similarly true of the Apollo space program. Who will remember the 919 Hybrid in 2070? Would America spend 4 percent of its federal budget to put a man on the moon today?

Altogether, Porsche's racing programs were by far the most successful in terms of outright wins and global marketing value to any auto manufacturer. Racing in the 1970s was a real bargain compared to the cost a half century later of the 919 Hybrid and competing quarter billion dollar programs run by Audi, Toyota and others until major car producers abandoned the series for competition sports racers in 2018. The fact that these manufacturers quit prototype racing says a great deal about both automobiles and society today.

It shows that 21st Century capitalism and technology are at an impasse. Companies that require enormously expensive physical plants, complex equipment, skilled workers, and technology don't pay off like software start-ups, so they are relatively unattractive investments. They don't take risks, so they repeat themselves. This is reflected in the products these companies produce. At age 50, for instance, the Porsche 911 has become a bloated nostalgic version of its youthful form, a fat middle-age toy for rich businessmen with large bottoms and deep pockets. While the luxury nostalgia formula made a lot of money for the company, it is not likely to survive a prolonged global downturn.

The Boeing (BA) 737: the end of the MAXed-out 50 year old jet

Even more than automobiles, and long before the Coronavirus, commercial aircraft manufacturing in the 21st Century in America was on a steep, downward trajectory. Having failed to realize competitive returns on newer product introductions, the company tried to squeeze out the last penny from its oldest, outdated line of commercial jets, with disastrous consequences.

So far in 2020, Boeing Aircraft stock has been the largest loser on the Dow, down -58.5% Year-to-Date. Closing yesterday at 155 from its high a year ago of close to 400. Almost all of this catastrophic loss has been since January, when Wall Street investment firms started to dump the company when it became clear that regulators in the U.S. and abroad were not going to soon clear large inventories of 737 MAX aircraft to return to service.

After a pair of 737 crashes killing all on board in 2018 and 2019, due to flight instability problems and related design flaws and errors, the MAX was grounded. The general slowdown in air travel around the world due to Coronavirus may have only sealed the fate of this model, and likely the company established in 1916, in a tailspin to oblivion.

As of December 2019, 15,156 Boeing 737s have been ordered and only 10,571 delivered. The current backlog stands at 4,398. The company projected late last year that it will need to deliver thousands of additional aircraft to break even. On December 16, 2019, Boeing announced that it will suspend production of the 737 MAX from January 2020. It had been the highest-selling commercial jetliner until being surpassed in total orders by the competing Airbus A320 family in October 2019. The Airbus 320 was first flown in 1987, and has enjoyed a purchase cost advantage and a superior safety record.

The startling thing about the 737 is that it is a design that was first flown in April, 1967, and was until late last year the most successful commercial airliner in history in terms of numbers sold. In basic design, it is little changed from the stretched version 200 that was introduced in 1972.

The 737 MAX is the fourth generation of this model, which had outlived its primary U.S.-produced competitor, the McDonnell Douglas MD-90, in the short to medium range market. Another U.S. competitor, Lockheed, no longer produces commercial aircraft. Boeing has a domestic monopoly, and produces essentially the same 50 year old product for which it charges customers multiples of the original price (in real dollars). But, nonetheless, the company appears to be on the brink of extinction, without an enormous federal bail out. The current Model MAX 8 is staggeringly more expensive, at four times the comparable early models, even adjusted for inflation. Some of the earliest models, including upgraded 200 series, are still in operation by smaller regional airlines.

The unit cost for the 100 Series when originally introduced started at $3.7 million ($27.2 million in 2020 dollars) and the 200 Series was priced at $5.2M (1972), some $31.8M today. The 200 Series of 1972, with its significantly stretched fuselage, carried up to 215 passengers, which is comparable to today's MAX 8, which started flying in 2016. The biggest difference between the 200 series and later Boeings is a steadily escalating sales price.

The 737 MAX (138-204 passengers), is many times more expensive than the previous generation designs without a substantial improvement in range or passenger capacity. The sole performance advantage over previous models is in about a 10 percent improvement in fuel economy and reduced emissions due to a change in engine in the mid-1990s, and revised wing design, along with modernized cockpit avionics and a slightly quieter cabin. But, like the Porsche racing car, performance is not enormously better than it was a half century ago.

Basically, Boeing is behaving as any oligopoly, producing overpriced, outdated goods, because it is allowed to by federal regulators and it has only one surviving major competitor in the world.

The 737-8 is the most popular current model of the MAX family and has a list price of $121.6 million, with a maximum seating capacity of 210 (standard 2-class capacity of 162 to 178) and a flight range of 3,550 nautical miles. It's essentially the same plane the company was selling half a century ago, but despite 50 years of development, it is now producing a less safe aircraft because of engineering compromises it wouldn't have dared attempt before the band-aid of computer-aided flight controls. [https://247wallst.com/aerospace-defense/2019/03/11/how-much-does-a-boein...

Basically a scaled down 707, that entered service in 1958, the 737 series has a long history of fatal design flaws, according to Wiki:

As of February 2020, there has been a total of 481 aviation accidents and incidents involving all 737 aircraft,[146] including 214 hull losses resulting in a total of 5,565 fatalities.[147][148]
A Boeing analysis of commercial jet airplane accidents between 1959 and 2013 found that the hull loss rate for the Original series was 1.75 per million departures, for the Classic series 0.54, and the Next Generation series 0.27.

During the 1990s, a series of rudder issues on series -200 and -300 aircraft resulted in multiple incidents. In two total loss accidents, United Airlines Flight 585 (a -200 series) and USAir Flight 427, (a -300), the pilots lost control of the aircraft following a sudden and unexpected deflection of the rudder, killing everyone aboard, a total of 157 people.[150] Similar rudder issues led to a temporary loss of control on at least five other 737 flights before the problem was ultimately identified. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the accidents and incidents were the result of a design flaw that could result in an uncommanded movement of the aircraft's rudder.[151]:13[152]:ix As a result of the NTSB's findings, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered that the rudder servo valves be replaced on all 737s and mandated new training protocols for pilots to handle an unexpected movement of control surfaces.[153]

Following the crashes of two 737 MAX 8 aircraft, Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019, which caused 346 deaths, national aviation authorities around the world grounded the 737 MAX series.[75] On December 16, 2019, Boeing announced that it would suspend production of the 737 MAX from January 2020.[76]

By comparison, the Airbus, which was introduced 20 years after the 737, has a far lower number total crashes and fatalities:

For the entire A320 family, 157 major aviation accidents and incidents have occurred (the latest one being Ural Airlines Flight 178 on 15 August 2019), including 45 hull loss accidents (the last one also being Ural Airlines Flight 178) and a total of 1393 fatalities (the last one aboard EgyptAir Flight 804 on 19 May 2016).[101] Through 2015, the Airbus A320 family has experienced 0.12 fatal hull-loss accidents for every million takeoffs and 0.26 total hull-loss accidents for every million takeoffs.

Boeing is also plagued by production and cost problems of another newer aircraft type, the 787 "Dreamliner". The long-delayed introduction in 2007 of Boeing's replacement for the 737 and the newer 757/767 series, has been plagued by production delays and is many years behind schedule, in large part due to the type's huge price tag. Production costs for the 787 exceed $30 billion. The per unit delivered cost is $145 million, but Boeing was reportedly selling this aircraft at a large loss of actual production costs to avoid sales losses to Airbus, which produces comparable models for tens of millions of dollars less.