carpe annum

No doubt, hybrid gasoline-electric cars are a great medium-term solution to our transportation needs. Hybrid engine systems consume between 20-50% less fossil fuels than even the best combustion engine. Their popularity is unquestioned as there is over a year wait for the Toyota Prius. Both Honda and Toyota have been at the vanguard of this technology and are putting hybrid engines into more and more models. Meanwhile, the Big Three have totally missed the boat clinging to cheap oil prices and churning out SUVs and pickup trucks, which even still, barely sell well enough to keep the companies profitable, indeed, they have been loss making the past few years. The Big Three have been playing catchup with the Japanese automakers’ hybrid technologies. To date, only Ford has a hybrid car in production, the Ford Escort Hybrid, but it hasn’t exactly sold well, why is this?

Right now, who is the hybrid car consumer? They are typically environmentally minded people and/or people who want to save money at the pump. While heavier hybrids can average between 35-40 mpg, the Prius and Civic both push 50 mpg; the average gasoline engine car averages 21 mpg. People do not buy cars simply because they can save at the pump (after paying the premium for the car in the first place), but hybrid consumers like to know that their car is more environmentally friendly than a conventional car. The point I’d like to make is that the Japanese car is inherently a more environmentally friendly product. Japanese cars, like most anything produced in Japan these days, has been manufactured with green technology.

Every step of a Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc assembly line has been scrutinized and reengineered to be ecologically friendly; inline with the high standards of Japanese industry. Thus aside from the fact that a Japanese hybrid has a cleaner engine under the hood, the manufacturing processes of the entire car leaves a smaller environmental footprint employing more thorough recycling, waste reduction, energy reduction, and cleaner processes. This goes for the Toyota and Honda factories abroad as well; Japanese firms have an eye on the environmental impact they have, as well as the bottom line. A Ford hybrid still has a conventionally produced body, using multiple toxic chemicals and processes long abandoned by Japanese automakers. A GM hybrid has a green engine in an otherwise unexceptionally produced body, a Honda hybrid is a green car through and through. American automakers have totally missed the mark on this one and the only way they can regain any sort of long-term viability is to ween themselves off gas-guzzling technology and start investing in the next generation, leapfrogging hybrid technology altogether.

Besides, who wants to buy a Ford Escort Hybrid? It just sounds like a piece of crap.

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