SUVs Are Not Cool, Unless They’re “Hybrid Hybrids”

 
Here’s a pretty repulsive ad for Ford’s Escape Hybrid SUV. In it, a middle-aged father and his middle school-aged daughter are strolling from their leafy suburban home to the family truckster — a green one, natch — when the daughter asks to be dropped off a block from the theater where, we’re to assume, her friends are hanging out.

At first you think that, considering dad’s expanding waistline, she’s looking to get some exercise. But it turns out she’s embarrassed to be seen in an SUV, since "people in that [presumably urban] part of town are riding bikes and have hybrids and stuff."

Ah, but the family truckster is a hybrid, dad points out nonchalantly.

"Like a hybrid hybrid?" asks the daughter.

"I don’t know what a ‘hybrid hybrid’ is, but yes," dad replies.

Queue voice over proclaiming the 34 MPG Escape hybrid "the most fuel efficient SUV on Earth."

Cut to father and daughter driving away, as daughter, now inaudible, explains that an anemic 34 miles-per-gallon hardly qualifies the Escape as a "hybrid hybrid" — any more than the Chevy Tahoe is the "Green Car of the Year" — and asks dad why the family can’t move closer to the theater so he and mom might stave off heart disease and she wouldn’t have to be ferried around in "the greenwashing machine."

Video via Dailymotion

  • I love it! Excellent review Brad… Honestly, who is Ford trying to kid?

  • ddartley

    My skill with sarcasm is simply not great enough to enable me to make a comment damning enough to match the absurdity of this “hybrid ownership negates all sin” philosopy that’s proliferating dangerously and infuriatingly. This stupid ad is in heavy rotation.

    Hybrids are the opiate of the environmental movement.

  • JohnK

    Regardless of how you feel about Hybrids, I take issue with the spot itself: “How come you never talked about it?” asks the daughter. Because no one talks like this! The copy is horrible, the situation artificial, and I say that as an copywriter myself.

  • Hilary

    You’ll be happy to know that exemptions for hybrids were taken off the CP table by the Traffic Mitigation Commission today after Bruce Schaller explained that it would only induce more traffic.

  • Slopion

    Hear, hear!

    I demand that Ford begin making commercials asking people to stop buying automobiles!

  • “I demand that Ford begin making commercials asking people to stop buying automobiles!”

    Ad Nauseam needs an FAQ.

  • Slopion

    “Ad Nauseam needs an FAQ.”

    Preaching to the choir, however, is self-explanatory.

  • I’ve been hoping Streetsblog was going to send up this commercial since the first time I saw it.

    Sadly, I think the “cleaner cars is the answer” idea has gained too much traction in people’s minds. At a Greenhouse Gas forum this weekend (the one sponsored by GRIST), none of the candidates talked about alternative transportation at all. If they talked about transportation at all it was about foreign oil or raising fuel economy standards. Only Kucinich even mentioned the word “transit.”

  • Dave H.

    Hilary,

    That’s good to hear. Stockholm (idiotically in my view) exempts hybrids from CP.

    This is ad is disgusting. Combine consumption and paranoia with a large dose of self-righteous smugness and you get the hybrid SUV. This ad is the proof, if any was ever needed.

  • The A for this Q is not “preaching to the choir.” You may peruse the archives if you’re curious, Slop. Some people seem to have it in their blood to hate this feature, but they haven’t succeeded in stopping it and I doubt they will soon. I manage to avoid most TV auto commercials myself and I find it amusing when s.b. decides to point out an absurd sample every few weeks or months. There’s a history and a justification for advertising criticism, car and otherwise, but please feel free to ignore what you don’t care for on the internet.

  • Dave H.

    On the other hand, we should be glad that at least thinking you have an environmentally-friendly car has become important to a large market segment. Though disingenuous, we should consider this ad far better than your average SUV driving-out in-the-Great-American-wild ad.

  • Slopion

    Dave H.: My point exactly, but better (and less sarcastically) expressed. Also, sad fact is, 34 mpg actually is better than many smaller cars, as built today. Given that Ford, an automobile maker, is going to advertise automobiles, better this one than the 12 mpg Ford EarthRaper XG or whatever.

    I mean, I guess the point of the review was, This is a bad commercial because it enables people to buy a gas-burning vehicle without making them feel guilty about it. But, you know, I just tend to doubt that’s going to happen. I don’t see this as being up there with the John Cougar ad that used 9/11 to sell trucks.

  • I think the counterpoint is, it’s high time for American automakers to get over the “SUV”. The big toy truck class they made so much easy money from in the 90s should have been bridged away from in 2000, but their foresight was lacking and now they’re all halfway to bankruptcy. Where SUVs used to be sold on the deception that they would turn everyone into the Brawny man (something even women responded to, somehow), this one is sold on the deception that it is good for the environment. Compared to what exactly? They could have hybridized the Focus and sold something that would really compete on efficiency. Instead they’ve gone down this absurd path of hybrid SUVs, so Americans can have their cake and eat it to right until we have a collective heart attack.

    Not that the point of the piece is to offer useful advice to Ford; quite the contrary it’s to deconstruct and undermine, in the hope that those who aren’t in the livable streets choir might get a clue. Vain, probably, but at least it’s out there, fluttering in the wind next to the billions automakers are spending on advertising (and aren’t making back, presently).

  • amy

    ad translation: you can still have your big car and be a big fat American without feeling guilty. and most American viewers are so stupid, they will drink it up.

  • hmph

    stupid car manufactuers think they can get a way with it thinking that (per bob dylan):

    Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
    Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
    But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time.

    but we say they are ALWAYS wrong, and the millions of people buying into this sh*t are equally wrong. a gas guzzler is a gas guzzler ……..

  • Larry Littlefield

    (My skill with sarcasm is simply not great enough)

    Which is understandable for you or me, but can’t our nation produce satirists good enough to send up the SUV driving, McMansion-dwelling, cable on flat-screen watching, overweight, celebrity worshiping, in debt up the eyeballs, scrmabling with four jobs for two people to keep spending, two hour commuting, why did we bother to have those kids we never see, modern American?

    Where is the All in the Family for this generation? The new Alice Bunker-Keating will surely be as flummoxed by the economic changes about to hit the fan as Archie Bunker was by the social changes of the 1960s. And why not put a penny saving, bicycle and transit riding couple in the older, smaller house down the road just for a counterpoint?

    I can just see the jokes. “What do you mean I have no savings for emergencies? I’m thousands under the limit on two of my credit cards, and if value of house goes up, I can do another HELOC to buy a Hummer!”

  • da

    I’ll bet several such series are already in the works.

    But I’ll bet further that the audience will “relate” to the hard-pressed, clueless, just-trying-to-make-it-through-the-day family in the SUV and the McMansion.

    The eccentric bicycle-riding family down the block will be strictly for comic relief.

  • hmph

    oh and for #15, i should clarify that i consider anything that goes less than say, oh, 150-200 miles per gallon is a gas guzzler.

    japanese autos reached ca. 60-70 mpg in the early 80s (yes, when i was a kid i read road and track, motor trend. it actually served as a decent education for my anti-car views today). there is no reason for cars to not approach much, much higher fuel efficiency today, quantity and source wise.

  • I like how you can see Pop’s smugness deflate a notch when he spies his receding hairline in the rear-view mirror. “I am so awesome and responsible and masculine… oh wait, that’s right, I’m an emasculated suburban chauffeur. I forgot for a second there.”

    Brilliant speculation on the rest of the conversation, by the way.

  • ddartley

    hmph is right about gas mileage. Car manufacturers were able to hit 30mpg probably some time around 60 years ago, if not farther back than that.

    I’ll repeat it: BOASTING about 30mpg in car ads is the result of collusion among the manufacturers to keep the public’s expectations inaccurately low. I’d bet money.

  • Mark Fleischmann

    However much ridicule car ads have earned, they’ll never get ridiculed in the mainstream media because they *support* the mainstream media with ad dollars. This is congestion pricing’s biggest PR problem — car ads are buying skewed “news” coverage. Keep that in mind next time you see a reporter stick a microphone through someone’s car window to get a “man on the street” view of CP.

  • hmph

    i kow this may be preaching to the choir, but, yup, the US gov’t and auto industry has intentionally kept mileage/fuel economy standards down despite the advances of japanese autos and even some early 80s american models. see the following quotes:

    Many buyers in the Seventies concluded that Japanese autos were of higher quality than American-made cars, and were less expensive besides. They also got very good gas mileage, as a rule. With the oil crisis triggered by OPEC’s decision to curtail production and raise prices on crude oil, fuel economy was top priority among many American car buyers. The aptly named Dodge Omni Miser got an estimated 50 miles-per-gallon on the highway. So did the Dodge Colt hatchback.
    http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id291.htm

    LEAD: Acceding to requests by the two largest American auto makers, the Department of Transportation announced today that it would lower the fuel economy requirement for 1989 cars from 27.5 miles a gallon to 26.5 miles a gallon.
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4DB163FF937A35753C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

    At a news conference at Honda’s headquarters here today the company’s president, Nobuhiko Kawamoto, said that tests by Japan’s Ministry of Transport showed that the new Civic, with a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder engine, traveled more than 48 miles on a gallon of gas in the city, and more than 86 miles a gallon at a constant speed of about 37 miles an hour.
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DB123BF932A05754C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

  • glennQ

    First, batteries are FAR from environmentally friendly; so gas-electric or just plain ‘ol electric vehicle still has some serious environmental issues.
    Second, although I’d personally never buy an SUV unless I had to… Large vehicles are pretty much required by large families… So having fuel efficient options is only a good thing IMO.
    But I’m truly surprised at irrational hatred for personal vehicles on this site! I’d think a street based blog would have to at least acknowledge the benefits (historical and present day) of the personal automobile?

  • Dave H.

    Glenn,

    I’m glad there is some dissent on this website; since I’m sure Angus or someone else can rehearse the litany of complaints that many have against the personal automobile (in my view, the worst is the effect on development patterns when it is relied upon, which starts a vicious circle), but I will take issue with one thing: SUVs only showed up as a main-stream vehicle in the 1990’s. Families didn’t get any bigger in the 1990’s. So I don’t see how big families require SUVs.

  • ddartley

    Also, GlennQ, SUVs started as mere fashion. When they arrived in the 90’s, they seated fewer than the station wagons whose market share they were replacing. Family car shmamily car.

  • Larry Littlefield

    (Families didn’t get any bigger in the 1990’s. So I don’t see how big families require SUVs.)

    Perhaps, but looking forward I think people need to drop the total emphasis on fuel efficiency, which assumes one passenger, and think about vehicle occupancy — ie. carpooling.

    Unfortunately, so few people take transit in this country that the average bus is barely more fuel efficient than the average car. In either case, the quickest way to turn things around (the one that doesn’t require the money and energy to replace our entire vehicle stock) is to fill more seats, in either case.

  • glennQ

    Comment by Dave H.: “SUVs only showed up as a main-stream vehicle in the 1990’s. Families didn’t get any bigger in the 1990’s. So I don’t see how big families require SUVs.”

    First, I only said large families need large vehicles… So I am including full-size vans, minivans and station wagons with SUVs. Remember conversion vans? They were pretty popular in the 80s and 90s…
    I fully acknowledge the major influence of style influencing vehicle choices, but technological advancements in SUVs in the areas of 4wd/all-wheel drive, braking and suspension systems… Not to mention NVH (noise/vibration/harshness), and amenities… Helped SUVs and pickup trucks gain market share too.
    Lastly, many people choose to protect their loved ones by putting them in the biggest, heaviest vehicle possible; since when two vehicles collide, the one with more mass and stature usually ‘wins.’ The problem with this plan is that agility and stability is often compromised.

  • glennQ

    Comment by Larry Littlefield: “…so few people take transit in this country that the average bus is barely more fuel efficient than the average car.”

    Not to mention, the bus rarely takes as direct of a route as a driver would take in their car…

  • Angus Grieve-Smith

    One thing I hate is unfounded generalizations, and I once gave a guy a hard time for saying “families need cars, and use them frequently.” My family doesn’t need or use a car, and I can point to a ton of other families that don’t.

    When GlennQ wrote, “Large vehicles are pretty much required by large families…,” he qualified it with “pretty much” and the relative “large.” Without knowing what he meant by “large,” it’s pretty hard to say one way or the other, but I’ve seen some pretty large families on the subway. There are other factors, such as how convenient their neighborhood is, how available childcare is, and even the spacing of the children. Without anything like that, GlennQ’s statement essentially reduces to, “some families can find large vehicles indispensable under some circumstances.” Like living twenty miles from the nearest supermarket.

    Having fuel efficient options is a good thing; having them subsidized with money that could be spent on rebuilding our transit and pedestrian infrastructure is a bad thing.

    With respect to GlennQ’s comment about “irrational hatred for personal vehicles,” I’m not going to go there. There’s not much more futile than arguing with someone about how irrational you are. I will point out that Streetsblog is not blindly against all personal vehicles.

  • “The problem with this plan is that agility and stability is often compromised.”

    is often => are necessarily

    And that it’s an arms race leading to larger vehicles that use more fuel. That pedestrians, cyclists, and infants in strollers are less visible to hoards of large vehicles and get plowed through like so much disposable humanity. There are many problems with this “plan.”

  • glennQ

    Comment by Angus Grieve-Smith: “…families can find large vehicles indispensable under some circumstances.”

    I’d agree with the above.

    Comment by Angus Grieve-Smith: “I will point out that Streetsblog is not blindly against all personal vehicles.”

    Would it be fair to say motorized personal vehicles?

  • glennQ

    Comment by Doc Barnett: “The problem with this plan is that agility and stability [are necessarily] compromised.”

    Not necessarily. Advancements like electronic stability control have helped tremendously…

    Comment by Doc Barnett: “And that it’s an arms race leading to larger vehicles… There are many problems with this “plan.”

    I agree, the ‘plan’ is not perfect… But the fact is, when involved in an accident with another vehicle, your chance of avoiding injury are MUCH better when you are in the bigger, heavier vehicle. Increased seating, cargo capacity, not to mention the ability to tow, and we have a legitimate reason to praise Detroit for bringing fuel efficient SUVs to market.

  • Glenn,

    Streetsblog and the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign is not opposed to motorized personal vehicles.

    Motor vehicles can be a useful part of the urban transportation mix but we believe that, over the last 60 years or so, NYC transportation and land use policy (or lack of policy) has allowed motor vehicles to dominate New York City’s public right-of-way in a manner that has become increasingly destructive to the city’s economy and environment and to citizens’ personal mobility, health and quality of life.

    We would like to see a re-balancing of the city’s street space with greater priority given to higher-efficiency and more environmentally-responsible modes of transport: pedestrians, bus riders and cyclists in particular (NYCSR is mostly focused on street-level transportation modes. The subway is obviously important too). We see lots of examples around the world where cities are doing this sort of re-balancing with great results.

    When people tell me that I’m just a big old car-hater I like to ask them about other personal technologies that cause us all problems at times. Are you a cell phone hater, Glenn? I’m not. But I sure do hate it when people use their cell phones in the movie theater while the movie is playing. Does that make me a cell phone hater? I don’t think so. I think cell phones have their time and place.

    Personal motor vehicles have their time and place in the city too. But we’ve spent the last 60 or 70 years in NYC building highways, nibbling away at sidewalks, paving front yards for driveways in Queens, you name it. NYCSR simply believes that the city and its citizens would benefit by taking some of that space back for other uses.

    Personally, I never try to tell New Yorkers that they have to go and get rid of their cars. Rather, my goal is to put forward policies that make it easier and more appealing for New Yorkers to get around without a car.

  • Hilary

    Does NYCSR also have a position on the “nibbling” of parks by motorized vehicles — not just in Central and Prospect Parks, but the parkways? Like TA, do you advocate letting them be turned over to trucks? Or are you neutral on this issue — or perhaps even enlightened? Waterfront and park advocates want to know. 🙂

  • Angus Grieve-Smith

    Comment by Angus Grieve-Smith: “…families can find large vehicles indispensable under some circumstances.”

    I’d agree with the above.

    I think anybody would, but it’s not a justification for SUV use. For that, you need to demonstrate that:

    1. The families are justified in their findings.
    2. The circumstances are enough to justify buying a large vehicle, as opposed to renting or borrowing one.
    3. SUVs are the appropriate type of large vehicle.
    4. Families that own multiple vehicles are justified in driving them under circumstances where a smaller vehicle is available.

    I don’t think any of these are adequately demonstrated, certainly not in all the cases where a family bought an SUV.

  • glennQ

    Comment by Aaron Naparstek : “Streetsblog and the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign is not opposed to motorized personal vehicles.

    Motor vehicles can be a useful part of the urban transportation mix but we believe that, over the last 60 years or so, NYC transportation and land use policy (or lack of policy) has allowed motor vehicles to dominate New York City’s public right-of-way in a manner that has become increasingly destructive to the city’s economy and environment and to citizens’ personal mobility, health and quality of life.

    We would like to see a re-balancing of the city’s street space with greater priority given to higher-efficiency and more environmentally-responsible modes of transport: pedestrians, bus riders and cyclists in particular (NYCSR is mostly focused on street-level transportation modes. The subway is obviously important too). We see lots of examples around the world where cities are doing this sort of re-balancing with great results.

    NYCSR simply believes that the city and its citizens would benefit by taking some of that space back for other uses.

    Personally, I never try to tell New Yorkers that they have to go and get rid of their cars. Rather, my goal is to put forward policies that make it easier and more appealing for New Yorkers to get around without a car.”

    Thanks Aaron. I’m all for the above stated goals. 🙂

  • “The problem with this plan is that agility and stability [are necessarily] compromised.”

    Not necessarily. Advancements like electronic stability control have helped tremendously…

    Listen. If you compensate for something, there is still a compromise in effect. The same fancy stability control applied to a car will result in a vehicle that is much more stable than the SUV. You know this.

    when involved in an accident with another vehicle, your chance of avoiding injury are MUCH better when you are in the bigger, heavier vehicle.

    And all the children are above average. Or at least the ones whose parents can afford the biggest truck are, ha ha. Socially, there is no redeeming angle of the pack-on-the-pounds arms race. It’s a total loser.

    Increased seating, cargo capacity, not to mention the ability to tow,we have a legitimate reason to praise Detroit for bringing fuel efficient SUVs to market

    Who is this “we”? I see no gain in the SUV plague going on hybrid life support. Plus you’ve listed off dubious personal benefits of big SUV ownership that don’t even apply to the Quasimodo-edition Escape. Recreational motorboat use is about the last thing in the world I’d promote, but you should know that its towing capacity is all of 1,000 lbs. It seats a whopping five people. This vehicle is a truck-man costume, its SUV trappings contributing little more than an inefficient body structure. It’s an insulting joke played on America.

  • Uh, who took my quote tags?

    “”””
    “The problem with this plan is that agility and stability [are necessarily] compromised.”

    Not necessarily. Advancements like electronic stability control have helped tremendously…
    “”””

    Listen. If you compensate for something, there is still a compromise in effect. The same fancy stability control applied to a car will result in a vehicle that is much more stable than the SUV. You know this.

    “”””
    when involved in an accident with another vehicle, your chance of avoiding injury are MUCH better when you are in the bigger, heavier vehicle.
    “”””

    And all the children are above average. Or at least the ones whose parents can afford the biggest truck are, ha ha. Socially, there is no redeeming angle of the pack-on-the-pounds arms race. It’s a total loser.

    “”””
    Increased seating, cargo capacity, not to mention the ability to tow,we have a legitimate reason to praise Detroit for bringing fuel efficient SUVs to market
    “”””

    Who is this “we”? I see no gain in the SUV plague going on hybrid life support. Plus you’ve listed off dubious personal benefits of big SUV ownership that don’t even apply to the Quasimodo-edition Escape. Recreational motorboat use is about the last thing in the world I’d promote, but you should know that its towing capacity is all of 1,000 lbs. It seats a whopping five people. This vehicle is a truck-man costume, its SUV trappings contributing little more than an inefficient body structure. It’s an insulting joke played on America.

  • glennQ

    Comment by Aaron Naparstek: “…we believe that, over the last 60 years or so, NYC transportation and land use policy has allowed motor vehicles to dominate New York City’s public right-of-way in a manner that has become increasingly destructive to the city’s economy…”

    How could an alternative plan have produced a stronger local economy?
    This is of particular interest to me since the auto-phobic crowd seems to ignore a city as a place to do business.
    Also, wouldn’t a reduction in trucks equate to a reduction in local economic activity?

  • Jonathan

    Just two quick responses, glennQ:
    Fewer cars = less emissions = less asthma = fewer kids with asthma attacks = fewer parents needing to leave work to visit kid in ER = more productive workforce.

    Fewer cars = less congestion = faster buses = fewer people late to work = more productive workforce.

  • glennQ

    Comment by Doc Barnett: “Socially, there is no redeeming angle of the pack-on-the-pounds arms race. It’s a total loser.

    Maybe “socially” SUVs are “a total loser,” but not when colliding with a smaller, lighter vehicle.

    Comment by Doc Barnett: “…you’ve listed off dubious personal benefits of big SUV ownership that don’t even apply to the [Hybrid] Escape. Recreational motorboat use is about the last thing in the world I’d promote, but you should know that its towing capacity is all of 1,000 lbs. It seats a whopping five people. This vehicle is a truck-man costume, its SUV trappings contributing little more than an inefficient body structure. It’s an insulting joke played on America.”

    Well thats looking at the glass half full! Even for the customer who simply wants an SUV, isn’t it better that there are some more fuel efficient options? Of course it is.
    BTW, the Chevy Suburban Hybrid seats nine and has a 6000 lbs tow rating.

  • Glenn,

    There are tons of examples of cities, towns and streets that have taken space away from cars and thrived. Freiburg, Germany is a favorite of mine. You can find more than you’d ever want right here:

    http://www.pps.org/

    Likewise, you might check out the two photos in this post:

    http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/10/25/mta-response-to-pokey-traffic-congestion-vibrancy/

    Copenhagen’s Broadway versus NYC’s Broadway. Which one looks like it has the healthier, happier local merchants? On which street would you rather hang out, have lunch, do your holiday shopping?

    Then there’s Soho. Prince St. could be a great street to do some Xmas shopping this year. Unfortunately, on weekends this holiday season, the public right-of-way will be jam packed with angry, immobilized, honking motorists and a bunch of parked cars that we pretty well know for certain add nothing to the local economy and quality of life:

    http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/12/14/rethinking-soho/

    Fordham Rd in the Bronx and Main St. in Flushing; same thing.

    As for delivery trucks, they should certainly be prioritized over private autos. But we also used to have this thing called freight rail here in NYC and America. We replaced it with trucks.

  • Chris H

    As many of us have stated before, truck traffic is not the problem, its mainly private vehicle (particularly through traffic). Besides, good pedestrian traffic is better for urban retail.

  • “Maybe ‘socially’ SUVs are ‘a total loser,’ but not when colliding with a smaller, lighter vehicle.”

    The only argument worth having is about the social consequences of what I guess you’d call auto-philia. If you want to trade SUV shopping tips you can do it with someone else.

    “Well thats looking at the glass half full! Even for the customer who simply wants an SUV, isn’t it better that there are some more fuel efficient options? Of course it is.”

    In a world where Ford has the resources to also make hybrid passenger cars (those things everybody drove until 1992), that would be cool. Or maybe it’s not resources, maybe it’s that they don’t want to have hybrid cars with better mileage on the lot next to hybrid SUVs. In any case they’re going to find that people paying over $3 a gallon for gas are less interested in the most fuel efficient SUV than they are in the most fuel efficient vehicle, one that suits their everyday needs. After ten years of not driving around a Montana wilderness (please DON’T, by the way), not towing heavy farming equipment, and not carting around eight people, they are finally getting over their collective brawny man fantasy. That’s my half full glass.

    “BTW, the Chevy Suburban Hybrid seats nine and has a 6000 lbs tow rating.”

    Oh really? It must be so great it doesn’t need a web site.

  • My bicycle’s a hybrid; a hybrid hybrid in fact. I use both my left and my right leg to power it.

  • Slopion

    “In a world where Ford has the resources to also make hybrid passenger cars (those things everybody drove until 1992), that would be cool. Or maybe it’s not resources, maybe it’s that they don’t want to have hybrid cars with better mileage on the lot next to hybrid SUVs….”

    Do you believe that if Ford did not make a hybrid SUV, the people who bought a hybrid Escape would have gone to the next lot and bought a Prius or a Civic Hybrid instead?

  • Some of them will do just that _because_ Ford chose to make a hybrid SUV instead of or in addition to a car. Since when was the choice Hybrid Escape, or no Ford hybrid ever? Since when do I even care? This commercial is annoying. It ridicules the decision to buy an efficient car or ride a bike. It symbolizes the SUV-or-die thinking that American manufacturers have fallen into that is the present cause of their decline. That’s all I have to say, unless someone can raise a point that is remotely new, interesting, or sensical.

  • The whole industry prices for SUVs and trucks has declined nearly 25 percent, which is approximately four times the normal depreciation expected over this period and well in excess of the depreciation expected over a full year.”

    Last week was a busy week for the dealership because of the deals the stores have going on – 0 percent interest for 72 months vs. the typical 6.9 percent interest. These deals are just to get rid of SUVs.

    BUT hybrids are in high demand and that is good for the new direction we need to take in respect to fuel efficiency

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