Detroit • I’ve adopted an almost foolproof method for determining which movies are worth seeing. It’s really simple — the harsher the condemnation from the critics, the more I am likely to find my $10.50 well spent. Whether it is The New York Times or the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, movie reviews all have one thing in common: They provide more insight into the intellectual aspirations of the critic than an appreciation of the movie itself. It’s not a foolproof system, however. I did have to sit through the first 45 minutes of the original Rambo before I realized it really was a clunker. But I did manage to avoid Avatar and I have never subjected myself to anything by Ingmar Bergman.
I suggest the same inverse proportionality law for automotive news and the generalist media. Indeed, as a general rule of thumb, whenever the mass media is hyping something automotive or there’s a consensus of Facebook motoring tweets, the best policy is to ignore it, run away from it or, at the very least, treat it with the greatest of skepticism.
You’re probably about to read a whole bunch about a new Tata electric car, a concept the Indian industrial giant revealed at this week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The details of the eMO’s performance are unimportant. What will be trumpeted is the amazingly low (for an electric vehicle) estimated price tag of $20,000. “See, it can be done,” will be the crux of the news stories, a collective “I told you so” from the true believers proving the accepted wisdom that all EVs are expensive is wrong.
Or is it?
You might remember a similar hullabaloo about two years ago when Tata revealed the original Nano. Changing the face of the automobile industry was the refrain then as the media hyped its sub-$2,000 price tag.
The big question of the day was how traditional automakers could possibly survive when some little upstart of a company could sell people a car so cheaply. Surely, we — save perhaps the truly moneyed — would also soon be running around in cheap little Indian runabouts. After all, who could resist the lure of a car that costs less than a pair of Florsheim brogues and a light lunch at Le Cirque?
Well, Indians, as it turns out. Had those proselytizers followed up their initial enthusiasm, they would have found out the Nano is a failure in its own country, current sales running at about one-third the projected 250,000 annual production. (Last September, Tata sold but 1,200 Nanos, hardly what one expects from an econocar in a country with a population of about one billion.) Why? Some critics point to the lack of a diesel powertrain; others report spontaneous fires. But what’s killing the Nano is that it’s too cheap even for Indian consumption.
Hide-bound North American newspaper reporters may have been amazed by the Nano. Unfortunately for Tata, its intended audience is not. I suspect the company’s concept EV will be more of the same — much ado about the possibilities but precious little focus spent on the realities.
This pretty much sums up the entire alternative powerplant movement these days. Walk the halls of the auto show and you’d swear there’s some huge pent-up demand for electrified vehicles of any nature. Auto manufacturers are typically the most market-driven of capitalists and this level of dedication would normally indicate a huge consumer demand as yet unfilled.
Unfortunately, the reality of the green market says otherwise. As this column has detailed previously, there is still precious little indication that mainstream consumers are buying into the green revolution. Hybrids, for instance, have been the darling of the airwaves for more than a decade, yet they only have a toehold in North America. Sales are barely at 2% of all light vehicles sold. (According to auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers, of the 18 million light vehicles Canadians bought between 2000 and 2010, only 58,000 — 0.3% — were hybrids.) Other than Toyota’s success with its extensive lineup of Priuses, there’s been little financial success in the hybrid segment.
It’s not for lack of effort or sophisticated product, either. Even upstarts such as Kia can brag a truly excellent combination of electric and gasoline motors, but the truth is that the company will sell about 20 times more conventionally powered Optimas than hybrids. BMW introduced a new ActiveHybrid 5 version of its luxurious 5 Series sedan in Detroit. It will assuredly be a marvel of technical innovation and seamless comportment. But, if the success of the company’s ActiveHybrid X6 is any indication, precious few will pony up the extra dollars to save a few litres of premium unleaded every 100 kilometres.
And what of electric vehicles themselves? Well, both Chevrolet’s Volt and the Nissan Leaf have been on the market for a year. Both are amazingly sophisticated cars. Both offer substantial emissions reduction. Yet, for all their hype and the enormous subsidies governments have thrown at them, they combined for less than 18,000 sales in the U.S. last year and barely 25,000 worldwide, their emissions-reducing frugality barely offsetting the 21,500 extra Porsches — mostly Cayennes — the German sports car maker sold in 2011 compared with 2010.
Despite all the alternatives revealed here in Detroit, despite all the hype surrounding the electrification of the automobile and despite the incentives governments the world over are tossing around like so much penny candy, there is no green revolution. What consumers really want is conventional automobiles with no quirky habits or driveability compromises that get a bit better fuel economy so they can save a few bucks.
Consumers are buying fuel economy — emissions reduction, not so much.
