Reporting - information vs. opinion?

I have usually appreciated Ethical Man... when I learn useful new stuff.

What we've been up to...

But not when I feel an agenda is at play, and the science gets tinkered with.

Merry Japes, eh?

Full load in a car... excellent. Be interesting to see how that equates to other forms of transport when you're off on a protest when you're not off on spring break skiing I guess.

Just wondering, how does a hybrid perform in such cases at high speed over long distances, lugging that battery along?

I guess it can be used for the all the laptops and iPod battery chargers no student would be seen without. Even on an Amish visit.

Pity about the hitch-hiking law (?)... very nanny-state. The rationale will be interesting, and how that gets reported vis a vis other government-imposed efforts 'for our own good'.

A plug for plugs

Thanks to a post on a blog, I have been introduced to this:

Plug-in hybrid boosts electric motoring

Of course, I have been moved to write:

I have noted that there are some well-informed contributors here whose education and experience in technical matters I have come to trust more than almost any BBC 'analyst' I have to pay for, especially when overseen by editorial selection by agenda rather than objective fact.

This is an interesting and in many ways exciting story as we confront a future of ever-reducing fossil fuels.

Now I have to confess I fully accept that in an urban setting an internal combustion engine, especially running at idle (though a lot of ads I see - BMW - seems to suggest this can be addressed with ic too) is looking less and less ideal.

But then we need to consider urban and non-urban usage in totality. Being that most of these 'reports' are in the city, by the city and of the city (where one trusts, for the sake of one's charging reliability unless you post an armed guard at the parking bay, no local lads have a pair of tin snips), the whole thing seems to focus on this aspect, ignoring those who live and work in the country and have to pile up and down motorways. I am really hoping that the mindset in luvvie central is not a Prius or G-Wiz in the garage for the CC, and then one jumps in the Range Rover to get to Hay-on-Wye to discuss global warming. Frankly, in the city, why does anyone need a car at all? At least the caption on the wee orange jobbie raises the dilemma that presents. To meet my family/work needs/desires we have to plump for one Volvo estate, which we're looking at converting to LPG (which seems better for planet, and pocket if they don't monkey with the fuel taxes). Many (not all) of these things seem only suitable for singles or in combo with others.

I was thrilled to see that at least we no more have a moppet gurgling that electric is 'pollution free'.

But I'd still just like to know how 'environmentally-better' this option is beyond reduced localised pollution, and against all other options, including hydrogen. I am already wondering about the costs and wisdom of pursuing two such options at once, as the infrastructures are surely going to compete and hence dilute the possible eco-benefits of reduced Co2 emissions (which I gather is the main 'problem') NOW?

Ignoring for now the costs of getting the power of these new sources of energy to the wheels (isn't 'leccy soaring? No wonder our Vince at EDF is a fan, er, 'sous la lune' as we say not in the UK'. Seems also that nuke energy is coming in as a dun deel as I'm guessing the Kingsnorth half dozen have done for coal), I would love to know a bit more about the enviro claims, as that is how they come across here... just claims: if the wording of this, again from an EDF (does the BBC have shares?) rep is scrutinised more closely:

'Toyota's plug-in hybrid offers a 40% reduction in overall CO2 emissions compared with conventional petrol vehicles, according to Mr Hofman.'

I'm sorry, but this reads less and less like an objective report, and more and more like a PR for a bunch of various folk who have a fair bit of dosh to make from taking this direction.

No problem at all with that if it also serves my kids' futures well (by their own definitions of what is important to reduce, now), but not so great if this is just helping a bunch of folk use green, and the BBC's unthinking 'anything that claims to be green is good' to jump on a bandwagon.

Any proper tech/eco/economic insights appreciated. Grin:) (as all involved seemd to share their wisdom with them if you read the piece.

With luck I may get some feedback, and will share any that helps.

It also gives me another new acronym: PR As News - PAN Reporting.

Indy Letters - Been here before

I am old enough to remember both the fanfare that accompanied the launch of the Sinclair C5 – an electric vehicle boasting cutting-edge technology that, we were told, would do away with the need for cars – and its descent to popular object of ridicule ("Make way for the Segway", 8 September). If the Segway finishes its days as spectacular a commercial disaster as its British predecessor, it will be because it failed to take into account its cheaper, faster, greener and greatly more efficient rival – the bicycle.

Yannick Read
Environmental Transport Association

"Any colour, so long as it's green"?

This certainly twitched my eyebrows somewhat. From The Times.

BMW "makes cars that are much more fuel-efficient than the likes of the hybrids built by Japanese manufacturers"

Well, that statement made my eyebrows reach the top of my forehead! If that's true, why the German consumer rush for the Pious et al?

They reckon that its down to a "colossal failure of marketing by the German auto industry".

The consumer survey final point is a real WOW:-
Within ten years ...."more than a quarter of people say that they will not have a car at all and 50 per cent say that they will have some kind of environmentally friendly vehicle: a hybrid, an electric car, a hydrogen-fuelled car or an LPG-powered car."

So its all about consumer perception then. The big question is just how much that perception is driven by marketing? Or, perhaps, how much is marketing driven by consumer perception?

Who's greenwashing who? If the Advert says it's green, then is it always so? EnviROI answers on a postcard please.

Addendum:
And on the same day that this story appears, BMW announce plans to radically reduce the CO2 emissions across their vehicle range. Details on Motoring Reuters. And other additional gizmos to reduce fuel consumption - details at What Car.

Maybe the first salvos in a new marketing effort to overcome their previous 'colossal failure'?

Musings from a mall

Time for a picture I feel. And as the new Olympic logo seems to need a health warning to view, let's go with one I made before the blog.

I just felt like pondering a few bits of advertising and promotion, starting with the Toyota Prius ad: Toyota ordered to drop TV commercial for hybrid vehicle

Why do 'they' do this? It's a perfectly reasonable car, with a pretty fair story to support its USP (hybrid), but they just have to go and blow the trust factor by trying to squeeze a silly set of stats out to look like it will solve climate change just by driving around all day, emitting away.

Then there's the new Tesco ad. I like it (shock horror). Makes the point, which I hope is a good one. I refer to their new local milk initiative. Now, there are some questions I'd like reassuring on (please let it be that there is a genuine enviROI to the food miles story, and it's not just a bit of natty marketing smoke and mirrors), but in addition to a nice bit of comedy theatre I now know (well, to the best of my knowledge), that I can buy milk in a local store that is produced locally. I just hope the consumer is not going to get stung too badly for going greener, and the farmers get a fair price, too. On balance a step in the right direction, with win-wins all round if done with genuine intent. With an ad like this I can't see the consumers not responding.

And finally, I come to the example pictured above. One of my local clothing outlets has some kind of a thing where you support trees by buying stuff. I haven't looked at it too carefully and perhaps should not comment without doing so. But to this consumer, I can't see it as being that big an incentive, and the fact the place was festooned with flyers and posters and cards blathering on about it all, seemed a tad contradictory at best. Actually, I have a certain view that the whole waste paper thing is not as chronic as made out, but symbolically this came across as more of a bit of excess CSR promo window-dressing (geddit?) than a serious attempt to go green.

Guardian - Easyjet attack on green Virgin Train ads fails - kinda speaks for itself