Green message aids Prius sales

Nice article, with actual real facts. What a nice change. Sounds like people are finally waking up and smelling the electrons.

I'm not sure how many people really bought the Prius to make a statement ... I had other more important reasons. It is a very distinctive design, though, which really appealed to me (exterior, that is - the interior was not exactly love at first sight).

 

Hi All,

Welp, I just get mad at this "statement" theory being put out. I think its just another way for MBA's to deny that they have to let engineers do their thing. They are saying in another way that the Prius is selling on non-concrete advantage, but by the desire to make a statement. That there is nothing to benefit a company to come of it. MBA's commonly call new technologies that come into a marketplace "disruptive", as if technological progress is a great evil to be avoided for sake of the bottom line. This is the most probable reason that US car companies pissed away their their government funded technological lead in hybrid cars, let alone GM's own great advantage in electric cars.

After I made my decision to buy a Prius, since I wanted a hybrid car since 1979, there was the goverment tax rebate, gas had peaked over $3.00 a gallon that fall, and the SL2 was going in the garage for another $400 unplanned repair, I thought to myself what statement is this going to make in Prius starved winter 2006 Chicagoland? And the statement I hoped others would read into my purchase of the Prius was "He is fed up with MBA's,Accountants and Salespeople running the car industry!". But this really did not effect my buying the car, except possibly negatively - that people thought I might be trying to make a statement. That some yahoo would cause trouble. You got people out there that will pick a fight with anything different. It was more a matter, of now I got the car, what do I have to be ready for driving it around in a social enviorment?

 

My statement: I want a reliable car that holds its value, gets 50mpg, and doesn't look like a jelly bean. Too bad Detroit didn't listen or can't hear.

 

Autoblog posted a rather inflammatory headline and story about what is almost certainly the same detnews.com article.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/07/05/green-i...-make-a-statem/
"Green is for poseurs: 50% of Prius buyers want to "make a statement""

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Jul 7 2007, 06:10 PM) [snapback]474850[/snapback]</div>

After decades of advertising to shape opinions and create new desires in consumers, it is difficult for corporations to grasp that people might make decisions based on pragmatic criteria.

 

Consumers are getting smarter; until now they've been buying cars based mainly on how many cup holders they have.

Too bad they didn't check their sources more thoroughly. CNW Marketing Research has discredited itself with an earlier study involving the Prius:
http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of...rsus_prius.html
.

 

And from today's Detroit News: Prius owners prefer style over substance

 

For me, if I didn't buy the Prius, I wouldn't buy a car, period.

 

Hi All,

Thinking about this some more, the issue with me is I wanted a car designed to be a car for where I drive and what I carry. Which when I learned the Hybrid concept in 1979 why I wanted a Hybrid car since.

I specifically did not want a car designed to be a statement. You know someting like a Dodge Nitro. And the Prius is a car that is engineered for function in every detail, NOT a car that is styled to be a statement.

So, when some Liberal Arts bachaleureate out there tells me I bought the car to make a statement, it makes me mad. I get that feeling that I am being accused of the very thing I did not do.

Are they so ignorant to the methods of design, laws of physics that govern design, and wastefulness of the traditional car drive train (which was designed in the 1950's to cruise uncluttered freeways - remember the "Highway of Tomorrow" ) that they cannot see the obvious technical success of the Prius? To any design or engineering person the Prius is just plain logical.

The Prius is different because they got the goals right (for once), and let the engineers at it , unfettered. Where the rest of the car world has had such screwed up goals to design their cars too. Which tends back to the earlier post on this issue. Look at the Volt body styling for example? Where is the Cd performance in that far-back A pillar?

Now, I am not saying somebody should not make a goal of a sporty car, and design that. A Lotus Exige is damn fine design exercise and car. This is probably the only other realm of car designing where the engineers are let free to do their job as configured by Mother Nature, and not the 20 th floor offices. All these other mishmash car designs that are out there should NOT deny the world of a car designed to be a practical, versatile suburuban transportation.

The Prius is the car designed to Mother Nature's Laws, not man's phsycology. Liberal Arts, Buisness and Marketing majors, get over it already.