Jan 8, 2008 4:56 pm US/Pacific
Ford Motor Company: Eco-driving Educator?
Ford Motor Company this week
announced the launch of a driver-education website
where we can "learn the importance of consuming less fuel to help protect the
environment." Skeptics will consider Ford an unlikely source of this campaign,
given that the company's Expedition and the Navigator helped turn over sized
S.U.V.'s into a planet-threatening fashion trend.
The "eco-driving" component of the site isn't entirely
intuitive. Visitors who find the sole link to it from the home page (it's under
"Students") are rewarded with a pop-up window that offers page after page of
introductory material and corporate back-patting before getting to actual
information. Eventually, the patient user will discover useful advice about
driving behavior — excessive idling and acceleration, for instance — that they
might not realize is harmful. (All this information can be had in much more
succinct form on any number of green-driving sites, such as
this page of tips from
the EPA.)
The mini-course is geared toward drivers hoping to make the most efficient
use of whatever gas-guzzler they already own, which begs the question of the
world's need for vast improvements in the efficiency of cars on the market right
now. When Ford gets around to the topic of the gas mileage of its own lineup
(down at the bottom of
this
auxiliary page, all three of the models for which it cites actual numbers
perform well below the highway gas mileage (mpg) of Consumer Reports's top dozen
fuel
sippers. (The company lobs a general boast that its Escape Hybrid is "the
most fuel-efficient SUV available," which apparently would come as a surprise to
the testers behind this
ranking
from November, though
another list backs it
up.)
Moreover, there isn't a single Ford on Consumer Reports'
lineup
of the most efficient cars (both hybrid and traditional) in each size category.
Time will tell how much fruit is borne by Ford's newfound green streak — but
it's going to take more than some Flash animation and Ford-branded lesson plans
to undo the damage the automobile (sped into mass production by Henry Ford) has
done to the atmosphere.
(Copyright © 2007 | Distributed by Noofangle Media)
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