Monday, September 10, 2007

Commercial Commentary

The Indians game was on ESPN last night, instead of its normal station Sports Time Ohio. I was repulsed by a series of commercials by Chevy for its new line of electric vehicles, that I hadn't seen before. First of all, every commercial featured the same man talking to the standard multi-ethnic group of children. Does this mean Chevy sees us as children, that must be schooled in the wonders of the new vehicles?

Secondly, one commercial touted the car in question as "vegetarian." I don't really remember the logic for that one, but what I do remember is the man asking the children how many of them were vegetarian. About four out of eight children raised their hands. Puh-leeze! Drop the preachiness! And isn't vegetarianism generally not recommended for growing children?

Lastly, electric vehicles don't use gas. Well and good if you're talking about not using oil purchased from countries that hate America and seek its destruction. However, electricity generally involves burning coal. Coal mining can be dangerous, and environmentalists fight coal mining as hard as they fight drilling for oil and creating new refineries in our own country. Burning coal creates pollution. California is already suffering from high electric prices and electricity shortages because the state government is prohibiting new electric plants from being built. I'm not sure how electric cars would compare in cost savings to gas-powered ones currently, although I'm sure once enough people started using electric cars, the greater demand for electricity would make the price of said go up. So what's the great advantage to an electric car?

On the Indians game: I think we need to fly Travis Hafner *and* Ryan Garko's parents in for every game now.

5 comments:

Presbytera said...

I think the parental flights would be a good investment for fall baseball!

Elephantschild said...

Vegetarian? What a hoot. Sounds like the word was focus-grouped and then dropped into the advert as a way to hook the hybrid drivers. Who were busy in the kitchen frying their tofu instead of engaging in the great all-American pastimes of watching TV ads and baseball! Was the word "vegetarian" said rather louder than the rest of the ad?

Electricity is only "cleaner" if it comes from Nuclear... shhh... don't tell anyone!

Barb the Evil Genius said...

Hey, whatever it takes to win, Presbytera!

Elephantschild, it's not like environmentalists are big on nuclear plants either. We could go back to horses and carriages, except for all that methane from the horses. But hey, we could use the manure to fertilize all our vegetable gardens, right?

Gino A Melone said...

Generally, electric cars are worse for the environment in several ways. Their production involves uglier processes. The inherent waste in centralized production and distribution of electricity creates more, ahem, greenhouse gases. Disposal of these cars involves some truly nasty substances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Controversy

Gino A Melone said...

Oops, I posted too soon.

The real issue is one of energy distribution. The energy density of petroleum-based fuels is extremely good. The only thing we've found that's really any better is straight elemental gases, like H2 (Hydrogen). However, these are extremely energy-expensive to produce and more dangerous to transport than petrol/diesel.

Just like electric cars, the enviro-hippies like to tout fuel-cell technologies(H2) as so clean but don't take into account the "cleanliness" cost to produce (and dispose of) the fuel cells.