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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
And photo ops aside, the Bush administration's commitment to hybrids seems questionable. At his press event, Bush said that the American dependence on foreign oil "is a challenge to our economic security, because dependence can lead to price shocks and fuel shortages ... [and] a matter of national security. To put it bluntly, sometimes we rely upon energy sources from countries that don't particularly like us."
But there are clearly limits to how much this president -- and this Congress -- will encourage Americans to ask not what their country can do for them, but what they can do for their country.
Asked last May if the president believes Americans need to fix our lifestyles to address the energy problem, White House spokesman Fleischer said. "That's a big no."
Auto industry experts also counter that little in the behavior of the American consumer will change any time soon because of the cheap price of gas, which doesn't create much financial incentive for conservation. Even though hybrids are being sold at something of a cost to the manufacturer -- as of now, estimates range up to $10,000 in losses for each Insight or Prius sold. Sure, it might cost more up front, but won't hybrid owners make that money back at the pump? Not necessarily.
"It's very difficult to say that they're going to make it back when the cost of gas has come down as much as it has," allows Toyota's Henning. Thus the slightly high price causes problems. American consumers "don't want to make that sacrifice," another industry executive admits. "In Japan it makes more sense since the price of gas is much higher. That's why we need incentives." The environmental justification for a hybrid so far is the main one, Henning says.
So how can the auto industry and the government encourage more hybrid purchases? Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., who bought his Prius a year and a half ago in part to "help establish the market," says that hybrid advertisers need to start making strong political arguments. "We could ask ourselves: Do we really want to be supporting the Saudi princes, do we really want to drill in pristine wilderness areas? I think most Americans don't," he says.
Morella agrees, saying that the government could start painting starker pictures of the harsher environmental regulations to come. "We could even get environmental agencies to say that if more people drove cars that are hybrid gas-and-electric we would not have to do whatever it is we have to do as a penalty for our environmental disregard," she says.
Baird is convinced -- regardless of what advertising executives might think -- that "most Americans would like to have our foreign policy more connected to our values and less connected to our gasoline pumps. And I think most Americans would like to see us conserve as a way reducing energy demand rather than drill in wilderness areas."
Really? That's not what auto manufacturers say, and they can back it up with numbers. "If people could try it," Baird says earnestly, "if they could drive one of these vehicles around they'd realize they wouldn't be sacrificing anything."
Seconds Bartlett, "I don't think of my Prius as a sacrifice." He adores it. "If it was a song on American Bandstand, I'd give it a 100," he says. It was the first foreign car he'd purchased in quite a while. "I wish I could have bought one from one of our people," he says, "but theirs are still on the drawing board."
The Insight, it should be said, is hardly the best argument for hybrid cars. While it gets 61 miles per gallon in city driving, 68 mpg on the highway, and emits 84 percent less hydrocarbon emissions than the average American car, it has an immense battery that takes up all the space of the back seat and trunk. (Honda's pending Civic hybrid will attempt to rectify this problem; its battery will be half the size and the car should have a backseat.)
The Prius unquestionably feels more like a regular car than the Insight. While the Insight gets better mileage, the Prius is better for the environment since it's a super ultra low emission vehicle (SULEV) -- approximately 75 percent cleaner than the Insight, a ULEV that is still far better for the environment than the average American car.
It all adds up to a persuasive argument. But, perhaps, only to consumers already inclined to buy it.
