Hey Toyota/Lexus, pay attention, we don’t want stinking gasoline, we don’t want to fund wars and terrorism to get gasoline, and we don’t want to participate in the poisonous patterns of fossil fuels. We want clean cars powered by sunlight! We do not appreciate your attempts to keep us stuck with fossil fuels.
A few months ago I wrote that Toyota is pushing hybrid vehicles, and downplaying any kind of plug-in vehicle. At the time it was a matter of reading between the lines of Toyota’s press releases, which talked glowingly of the advantages of hybrid vehicles and nothing about plug-in vehicles. Yes, Toyota makes the Gen2 Toyota RAV4 EV, and the Toyota Prius Plug-in. But, then, why doesn’t Toyota say much about them? Why does Toyota put out a video/commercial slamming EV’s because they have to be plugged in?
The video starts with these two images, the second which clearly shows a Nissan Leaf being plugged into a charging station. This is focusing on the recharging time for electric cars, typically requiring four hours for a full recharge.
This is Toyota showing its true colors – stuck in the paradigm of gasoline, unwilling to give up on the gasoline addiction.
Yes, it’s wonderful that Hybrid cars use less gasoline per mile than non-Hybrid cars. Toyota can rightfully boast about the environmental goodness derived from that fact.
But, every driver of a hybrid car is still 100% addicted to gasoline. It’s only when the car can be plugged in to the electrical grid that you begin to break the cycle of addiction to gasoline.
When we heard that Toyota brought in Peak Oil experts in the early 1990’s, and this played a huge role in developing the Prius, that Toyota “got” (a.k.a. grokked) the need to abandon fossil fuels.
But, with this advertisement Toyota is selling us on gasoline as the fuel of choice. Did they forget about Peak Oil?
One wonders why, with this spite towards vehicles that plug in, did Toyota invest in Tesla Motors?
(Since publishing this piece – the video has been made private)
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