Motor Trend Green, Rush Limbaugh, and a Nielsen reality
This last week during Press Days at the LA Auto Show, General Motors was doing its best to place its best foot forward and some in the automotive press were more than willing to play along. On the very same day that Motor Trend Magazine announced that it was awarding the Motor Trend Car of the Year 2010 to the Chevrolet Volt ... General Motors placed stock on the open market for people to buy (Initial Purchase Offer - IPO).
This honor by Motor Trend has been cherished by almost every manufacturer throughout the years but this year seemed unusual ... even by Rush Limbaugh.
Motor Trend magazine has fired back, slamming Rush Limbaugh for his ill-informed critique of the Motor Trend Car of the year for 2010 the Chevy Volt by General Motors (GM).
Talk show host, Rush Limbaugh has been on a few rants against GM's Chevy Volt, saying,
Of all the cars in the world, the Chevrolet Volt is the Car of the Year? Motor Trend magazine, that’s the end of them. How in the world do they have any credibility? Not one has been sold [and] the Volt is the Car of the Year.
That prompted this charged, and somewhat petty response from Motor Trend Magazine, editor Todd Lassa:
So, Mr. Limbaugh; you didn’t enjoy your drive of our 2011 Car of the Year, the Chevrolet Volt? Assuming you’ve been anywhere near the biggest automotive technological breakthrough since … I don’t know, maybe the self-starter, could you even find your way to the front seat? Or are you happy attacking a car that you’ve never even seen in person?
The Motor Trend blog continued its trenchant, and unprofessional take down of Rush Limbaugh's disagreements against the Chevy Volt, ending with this nasty left hook:
I’m sure GM would be happy to lend you one for the weekend. Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don’t mix.
I (as both the LA Motor Culture Examiner and the LA Conservative Examiner) have some of the same troubles with the Volt being named car of the year by Motor Trend Magazine when the General Motors plan is to produce ONLY 10,000 of these citizen owned/Government owned white elephants that require an even bigger giveaway of our tax dollars ($7,500 incentive discount from the $41,000 list price) just to try to shove them, dare I say, down our throats?!
They should be selling this car as a car that has a 300 mile range on current infrastructure fuel with a pure electric power extension of maybe 40 miles.
The Volt was also named Green Car of the year all on the same day that GM issued its IPO stock offer. We call this monetizing our tax dollar debt. I already have money in GM, why would I wish to invest more money in this joke of a Government and Union owned enterprise when there are choices that I CAN make to invest in companies, green companies that are owned by people who actually have a connection to what they make?
Ford was named as the first ever Automotive Green Marketer of the Year by Nielsen ... now there IS a company that has a legacy to its product that one could invest in without having to look over one's shoulder!
This is what the press release had to say about Ford:
Ford has built significant awareness over the past year around their hybrid vehicles and fuel-efficient cars with key campaigns for Fiesta and Fusion Hybrid, as well as their Drive One 2.0 brand ads featuring hybrids and miles-per-gallon (MPG) related ads. In addition, Ford’s official sponsorship of Fox’s reality show American Idol, which put specific emphasis on the hybrid offerings, has helped drive increased awareness of their green message among millions of people every week. Last season, American Idol’s popular Ford Music Video Challenge, in which exclusive Ford music videos aired each week, featured the Fusion Hybrid and Escape Hybrid, successfully grabbing the attention of consumers. Meanwhile, the company continued to break ground in social media with the launch of new apps aimed at expanding its reach to a new class of prospective car-buyers.
“The Automotive Green Marketer of the Year award is not just about great creative, although we all know that’s a crucial element of any effective ad campaign,” said Lois Miller, President, Nielsen Automotive. “However, this is bigger than one creative. This award is for the auto marketer who was most effective at leveraging its brand to further the ‘green’ movement and create positive awareness for all the auto industry is doing to drive fuel-efficiency and eco-friendly practices. This was best exemplified by Ford.”
Basically, this is where the rubber meets the ol' green road ... Ford's contribution takes into account REALITY! ... something Todd Lassa and Motor Trend may have lost touch with a few egos (and possible political campaign contributions) ago.
... notes from The EDJE
Comments
First, the Chevy Volt is the first of iits kind, with many technolgies never used in a car before. Second, the Nissan Leaf, and the Toyota Prius Plug will also be eligible for a tax credit, provided by President George W. Bush. Thirdly, your description of the Volt as a White elephant, just shows your extreme prejudice and lack of knowlwege on the car. GM will be a totally privately held comapny within two years, so take you aging "government motors" crap somwhere else, moron.
The company should have been allowed to go bankrupt so that other, better business operations to pick up the pieces. The Government has no business in business other than to provide a competitive and law abiding environment.
See additional comments below ...
Edmund - I love your take down of GM and the Volt. After all, we really don't need an American Auto industry. Your a true 'patriot.' It's all about 'Freedom', you know. Oh, and 'Liberty.' Your the best!
Additional insights on GM from George Will from the Washington Post:
General Motors, an appendage of the government, which owns 61 percent of it, is spending some of your money, dear reader, on full-page newspaper ads praising a government brainstorm - the Volt, Chevrolet's highly anticipated and prematurely celebrated (sort of) electric car. Although the situation is murky - GM and its government masters probably prefer it that way - it is unclear in what sense GM has any money that is truly its own. And the Volt is not quite an electric car, or not the sort GM deliberately misled Americans into expecting.
It is another hybrid. GM said the Volt would be an "all electrically driven vehicle" whose gas engine would be a mere range-extender, powering the Volt's generator, not its wheels: The engine would just maintain the charge as the battery ran down. Now GM says that at some point when the battery's charge declines, or when the car is moving near 70 mph, the gas engine will power the wheels.
The newspaper ads proclaim, "Chevrolet Runs Deep." Whatever that means, if anything, it does not mean the Volt runs deep into a commute or the countryside just on electricity. At the bottom of the ads, there is this, in microscopic print: "Volt available in CA, TX, MI, NY, NJ, CT and Washington, DC, at the end of 2010. Quantities limited." Well.
Quantities of everything - except perhaps God's mercy, which is said to be infinite - are limited. But quantities of the Volt are going to be so limited that 44 states can only pine for Volts from afar (only 10,000 units planned for 2010 with your/our tax money committed to purchase 2,500 units for the Fed. Govt. fleet). Good, because the federal government, which evidently is feeling flush, will give tax credits of up to $7,500 to every Volt purchaser. The Volt was conceived to appease the automotive engineers in Congress, which knows that people will have to be bribed, with other people's money, to buy this $41,000 car that seats only four people (the 435-pound battery eats up space).
ad_icon
Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said in a letter to the Wall Street Journal: "The early enthusiastic consumer response - more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car, and orders have flowed since the summer - give us confidence that the Volt will succeed on its merits." Disregard the slipperiness ("signaled interest" how?) and telltale reticence (how many orders have "flowed"?). But "on its merits"? Why, then, the tax credits and other subsidies?
----
GM says that, battery-powered, the Volt has a 40-mile range. Popular Mechanics says 33. Thomas R. Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of the electric utility industry, is, understandably, a Volt enthusiast: This supposedly "green" vehicle will store electric energy - 10 to 12 hours of charging on household current - produced by coal- and gas-fired power plants.
The federal government, although waist-deep in red ink, offers another bribe: Any purchaser can get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost (up to $2,000) of an extra-powerful (240-volt) charger. California, although so strapped it recently issued IOUs to vendors, offers a $5,000 cash rebate for which Volt buyers are not eligible but purchasers of Nissan's electric Leaf are. Go figure.
In April, in a television commercial and a Wall Street Journal column headlined "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," GM's then-CEO Ed Whitacre said "we have repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." Rubbish.
GM, which has received almost $50 billion in government subventions, repaid a $6.7 billion loan using other federal funds, a TARP-funded escrow account. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) called this a "TARP money shuffle." A commentator compared it to "paying off your Visa credit card with your MasterCard."
Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed "private sector" accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.
SWEET!, huh?
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!