Live Green, Go Yellow, Be Lazy
GM’s trying to jump on the environmentalist bandwagon with their Live Green, Go Yellow campaign. The way I see it, they’re doing some minor engineering and hoping to get as much props as Toyota or Honda for releasing hybrid vehicles.
But, really, how much work does it take to get a car that runs off of something that explodes when vaporized to run off of something else that explodes when it’s vaporized? I can’t imagine it’s as much work as hooking up an specialized gasoline engine to an electric motor and using the motor as a generator and using braking to recover energy and managing power and charging on the fly.
And when people buy these huge SUVs and have nowhere to get ethanol, or the ethanol is made using coal and hence completely greenwashed, they’ll throw up their hands and say “How should we know that there weren’t going to be stations, or that the ethanol would be made with coal? We did the best we could!”
But GM isn’t doing the best they can. They’re banking on the huge profit margins of their body-on-frame SUVs and big-block V8s with minor engine tweaks to run E85. And they’re going to lose. I wouldn’t mind this, except I know that the executives will ride the company into the ground, hurting people who worked their whole lives, who lived right and followed the rules, while the execs go away unharmed. And not only that, but they will also pawn the pensions and health care for these workers off on society, shirking their contractual responsibilities.
But that goes to the heart of the corporate culture of GM: Let others do the work.
I think you’ve got a point! I am really tired of the marketing scams of America. It would be nice if these geniuses could come up with something other than a catch phrase and create something truly beneficial.
Plus FlexFuel has been around forever. The ’01 to ’03 Dodge Caravan had an option for it even. It’s not like ethanol is a new revolutionary idea that GM is trying to champion to be our saviours. I looked into getting a “Live Green, Go Yellow” vehicle with my last purchase. The dealer said very few of the vehicles are FlexFuel. They made just enough to be able to do the campaign. Otherwise it’s pretty much a special order thing you then wait 2 months for before you can pick up your car.