Nissan: A real green Leaf turned?
1 Leaf equals 1 polar bear?
No such thing as a green automaker
Because Nissan might sell 20,000 electric Leafs this year, somehow that’s going to save numerous polar bears, at least that’s the image Nissan is trying to project with a Nissan Leaf ad.
I’m not sure who started this greenwashing PR madness: Ford’s Kermit the Frog campaign? Numerous Toyota Prius commercials? Years of Chevy Volt marketing without one sale?, or what, but the idea that any major automaker is fighting the good fight is simply, factually, beyond ludicrous.
Perhaps, compared to the rest of the auto industry, I favor Toyota’s business model followed by Hyundai, then Ford, at least for now. Still, neither Toyota nor Ford is anywhere close to green. Green and automaker simply don’t belong in the same sentence. Besides, I hate the whole lessor of evil approach to logic. Wrong is just plain wrong, and automakers – the lot of them – are laggards, not leaders, when it comes to being green and efficient.
Maybe, if Nissan had been the CAFE leader in the US for the last decade, I might believe Nissan has turned a new Leaf, but they haven’t, not by a long shot. A few thousand Leaf sales aren’t enough to change that reality.
Certainly, Nissan Leaf buyers can claim some green cred for purchasing an electric vehicle, but the green leaves of change only fall on those few Leaf driveways. Nissan, on the other hand, still has a long way to go before it can rightfully proclaim any sort of greenness.
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A car exchange offer can make the way easier for Nissan, because saving environment “polar bears” depends more on them who are driving the cars now.
Why not? This is America. It’s perception not substance that counts. Perhaps a noble peace price is in order?
I guess I’m just tired of baby steps. To me it seems much more could be done much sooner. Instead, we’ve become placated as long as a few tax-payer funded baby steps are taken.
Still, if GM and Nissan are the first to plug-ins, yet still offer worse CAFE than other automakers, what is really being accomplished? When did mediocrity become so noble? When did the possibility of change become more important than actual change?
Okay, so it’s PR. Big surprise, that’s what marketing a new product is all about.
But let’s face it, kiddies, Nissan IS out there. There are the first on the block with their EV’s, so if they want to toot that horn, I say let ‘em.
It’s about baby-steps, kiddos, baby-steps…
[...] I’m still not going to put that word in the same sentence as Nissan (see earlier post). Nevertheless, if Nissan dominates EV sales by 2020, I might be tempted to rethink their [...]
“Green and automaker simply don’t belong in the same sentence.”
This is right on!