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April 12 - Look out, my fellow liberals, but we're about to get run over by an SUV! Ford has just introduced one that gets 40 miles a gallon and puts out less pollution than an electric car.
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This new SUV is a big deal. Remember last summer? SUVs were the biggest bogey on the liberal radar screen, a single target that energized environmentalists, anti-war activists, celebrities and even Republicans who objected to our dependence on foreign oil. For a brief, shining moment, these gas-guzzling, rollover-prone behemoths became national symbols of America's wastefulness, greed and ignorance. You'd hear a news report of some enviro-terrorists smashing the windshields of a few dozen Hummers in California and part of you would want to cheer on these freedom fighters. (Full disclosure: This column does not sanction vigilantism or violence in any form—except against Hummers.)
But now, with a 40-mpg SUV, Ford has armor-plated its political Achilles heel. How do I feel about that? Let's put it this way: crow tastes a bit like chicken.
Not to sound like I work for Car & Driver (which never met a gas-guzzler, pollution-spewer or speed-limit-buster it couldn't explain away), but Ford deserves praise for the new Escape SUV (albeit limited praise; after all, the Escape uses the same gas-electric hybrid technology made famous by Toyota's 50-mpg Prius seven years ago.)
Given my revulsion of these sport-utility vultures, I was, of course, appalled that someone might see me driving one. Fortunately, Escape has three large "Hybrid" badges that can be spotted a block away. That badge tells the world that this truck not only gets great mileage, but emits 97 percent less toxic emissions and half as much greenhouse-causing carbon dioxide as an average car.
Such numbers actually allow Ford to call its hybrid Escape a PZEV—which stands for "partial zero emissions vehicle." (Partial zero?! Now there's a term only a government bureaucrat could love. But "partial zero" actually makes some sense: Escape's tailpipe emissions are so low that the truck ends up polluting even less than a pure electric car because electricity for electric cars is generated in power plants that emit pollution.)
I don't want to sound like an ad wizard, but the Escape's motto should be "The Guilt-Free SUV!" (Full disclosure: That slogan is being offered for sale to Ford for a small, six-figure fee.)
On the road, the Escape handles like a normal SUV (in other words, like a monster truck with marshmallows stuck into the suspension system). But even with its four-cylinder gas engine, it accelerated just as briskly as a normal, six-cylinder truck, thanks to the additional battery-powered engine. When I hit the gas pedal, the zero-emission electric engine did all the work. And when I needed a little more power, the gas engine kicked in like a mustang (actually, like a Mustang). It's a perfect car for city driving because at low speeds (like stop-and-go traffic), the gas engine never fires up, leaving you with better gas mileage and a silent, golf-cart-like ride.
And don't forget the mileage! I was driving the Ford Escape as part of a company public relations stunt called "Manhattan on a tank of gas." The goal was to drive all 500 miles of Manhattan pavement on one tank of gas. The larger goal was to get celebrities to participate, but most begged off because Ford wasn't paying. (I ended up turning the car over to Kevin Bacon, which means I'm now only one degree of separation from every actor in Hollywood.)
In the end, thanks to Escape's great fuel economy, me, Bacon and a team of drivers did 576 miles on 15 gallons, or 38 mpg in the city.
But this is not a car column (although a car columnist just won a Pulitzer Prize, so, come to think of it, maybe this should be a car column). I came to the test drive not to praise the Escape, but to bury it. I remain afraid that no matter how much I liked the great Escape, when the rubber actually hits the road, American auto buyers will stick with their gas-guzzlers.
Ford's own marketing people told me that gas mileage remains unimportant to American car buyers. And sales of large SUVs and large pickups are way ahead of all other vehicles, continuing a trend that began a decade ago. Americans are also dubious about hybrid cars, even though Toyota's been selling the Prius since 1997. (Full disclosure: My friend owns one and I am jealous.) "There remains confusion about hybrids," says Corey Holter, the marketing manager for the Escape. "In focus groups, that's what we always hear: 'Will I have to plug it in?'"
So why didn't Ford push hybrids earlier? For one thing, no one—not consumers, not Detroit rivals, not the federal regulators who could have demanded more-fuel-efficient cars—forced them. That's why we liberals were screaming our heads off last summer. (My head has since grown back and it's screaming about Iraq now).
In this context, Ford's long-overdue production of the hybrid Escape is hardly corporate altruism. This company knows what it's doing. "Our research shows that Americans want the car they want and won't buy something just because it's a hybrid," Holter said. "The sweetest spot of the market is the SUV."
Clearly, I was very conflicted about the Ford hybrid, so I decided that the only way to quiet the voices in my head was to call my source at the Sierra Club (I call him Deep Throttle). The Sierra Club has waged a lengthy war against the Detroit automakers—especially Ford, which has sold some of the biggest, nastiest, most-gas-hungry SUVs (at least, until the Hummer showed up).
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"You know something? I'm not going to knock Ford. They're doing the right thing," says Dan Becker, the director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. "This Ford is a rolling advertisement for better auto technology and less pollution. I applaud them. My only complaint is that Ford is only making 30,000 of them. So it's up to us to buy them or else they'll be able to say, 'See? No one wants a fuel-efficient SUV'."
The concern, of course, is that the hybrid Escape becomes the automotive equivalent of Lord Chamberlain after his famous meeting with Hitler. The Escape walks out of a conference with our current evil dictator—gasoline—and declares peace in our time (i.e. the end of our dependence on foreign oil). But only we have the power to make it so.
Nothing would make me happier, of course. If Americans start buying these things, the world will be a better place and we liberals can go out and win other battles. But considering that Ford admits the Escape hybrid will cost $2,000 to $4,000 more than the regular Escape, my guess is that most Americans will decide that cleaner air, freedom from foreign oil, and a guilt-free ride are luxuries they can't afford.
Gersh Kuntzman is also Brooklyn bureau chief for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv
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