Tim, While I agree with much of what you say, there are different ways to practice capitalism, just as there are different ways to practice environmentalism. Xerox, Intercept, Ecover are just a few examples of companies that have taken different and profitable directions from those of their competitors.
While educating consumers to change their preferences is important, don't overlook the fact that much of the demand for SUVs was generated by the auto industry itself, the better to exploit a loophole in the CAFE standards. Businesses operate in an environment whose parameters are set, at least partially, by government - taxes, regulations, incentives, and so on. The auto industry does everything it can, and that is a lot, to modify that environment to be more favorable to them, but they generally do so in an extremely shortsighted and faithless manner. All the US carmakers took huge quantities of federal research money in the 90s, in partnership with the Clinton administration, to develop diesel-electric hybrids. They all brought forth promising prototypes and then...*poof* on to the next best thing - fuel cells. Where are these hybrids? Nowhere. It was just a strategy to temporize making real changes. FACT: the industry does not satisfy the demand that exists for fuel efficient vehicles. I had just three choices when I bought my Golf in 2001, and none of them were US cars. The fact that the Prius sells out far in advance is proof of unmet demand. But US automakers want $ NOW, and are unwilling to invest for returns just a few years down the road. Dave Williams wrote: "New car purchases hinge almost exclusively on two factors - down payment and payments per month. Even if you were successful beyond your wildest dreams in creating "skepticism", it wouldn't affect Ford's sales enough to notice." Perhaps, but what would make a difference is educating consumers, and companies, to think in terms of flows of services rather than ownership. Xerox, mentioned earlier, designs its copiers to be reused. They don't sell copiers but "lease" them, providing copying services to customers. They take back old copiers and break them down and remanufacture them. What if car companies did that with autos, rather than sending them to the junkyard. All kinds of valuable raw materials - gold, copper, platinum, aluminum, chromium to name a few - are sold to the consumer (who doesn't want them when they are done with the car) and then thrown away with the vehicle. To the car company those materials are highly valuable, but the production life cycle is not designed to make (re)use of those materials. No, the problem is not that US auto companies are capitalists. It's that they are capitalists working in an outdated industrial paradigm and have too short a time horizon to think seriously about making substantial changes to their business structure. They don't know how to evolve. And if they don't learn soon, they will perish. thor skov Message: 8 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 17:23:25 -0000 From: "Tim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [evworld] Ford attacked on fuel policy Ford, like any business, exists because there is a MARKET for their product. Attacking the businessman for simply practicing capitalism is a huge waste of time and resources, and will accomplish little. A better approach would focus on reducing demand for oversized gas guzzlers. This opens the conversation to many more solutions and options, but requires that individuals be held fully accountable for their decisions, and forced to bear the true cost of them. Sadly, I have sat in California State hearings and meetings and witnessed groups like Blue Water Network, Sierra Club, NRDC and others climb on-board with the very corporate interests they claim to be attacking. What an interesting marketing angle they have taken! When the rubber meets the road, it is easier to raise funds to keep an organization going if said organization is not actually doing the corporate interest any real harm. In fact, if the so-called environmentalist organization will assist in the greenwashing, the corporate entity will help out with funding. Hard to resist for the average college graduate trying to make a living. I would like to see League of Conservation Voters, or CodePINK, or Ben & Jerry's thing "True Majority", or the long distance marketing thing, "Working Assets" (This one is including jet air travel incentives now) or any of those mentioned before, plus many I have missed - I would like to see them actually work toward changing CONSUMERS preferences, and educating CONSUMERS with the truth, instead of playing the typical addicts game of "Blame & Shame". Heh, not the most popular guy on the block, Tim Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
