|
Sunday, August 14, 2005
"Who held back the electric car? We did!"
This song is being drowned out by rampant forwarding of emails as motorists facing record oil prices demand higher-efficiency vehicles.
That's right -- demand. That concept that big companies have so often treated with contempt.
This guy spends $3,000 modifying his Prius so it gets 250 mpg instead of 50. And the Toyota spokesperson tries to shrug it off as similar to the most extreme "hotrodders of yesteryear" who were crazy enough to tinker with their cars to produce more horsepower, more bling-bling, you know, that whole thing. She then goes on to say that maybe, in the future, the hotrodders of tomorrow will be trying to get more fuel economy out of their cars. You think? And maybe it'll be half the auto-buying public, and not just a few zealots, who will want to reduce their dependence on costly, polluting gasoline power?
Well, guess what Toyota. It's the most emailed news story, according to Yahoo today. People want this. You know how to manufacture it. So do you really think you can sidestep rampant consumer demand by hiding behind misinformation and PR spin? Your premises -- that Toyota can't do it, and that people don't want it -- are demonstrably false. You'd have a better chance of reviving Steve Gutenberg's career than pulling the wool over our eyes on this one.
Related: Tyler Hamilton, a technology reporter for the Toronto Star, has devoted his entire blog to alternative energy.
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
View Posts by Category |
|
D'oh!
|
