Green Cars, A Marketing Gimick?

Now that the entire world realizes the need for more efficient fuels I'm finding that some car companies are finding loop holes in the equation. I know that, from just being a part of the car community, we have not met our goal of eliminating gasoline as a whole. Some companies such as Chevrolet, Kia, and Toyota, have all created cars that, yes are very fuel efficient for the times that we are in, but don't really include the normal features we are all used to. For example, Chevrolet has been running wild with their 2009 Cobalt. They claim it gets about 25 mpg (miles per gallon) in the city and about 37 mpg on the highway, according to their website and based off of their basic Cobalt model. That's ok, but what else does it come with? Well after looking around for a bit I found that they offered a 2.2L engine that produced around the equivalent horsepower as my 1997 Nissan Altima, which is about 150 horsepower. It also comes with the obviously standard features; mp3/cd player, side curtain airbags, etc. And because it's a GM vehicle it comes with OnStar as well. You know that little safety feature that comes with GM vehicles. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's a great feature but no other companies have it so does that mean that GM vehicles need that feature to cover up their vehicles' poor quality? So what makes this a marketing gimick you may ask? Well the bottom line is Chevy is selling cars solely based on the mpg rating, which means yes you get great gas mileage but you get the worst features along with it.

The same thing goes with Kia. Their Rio model gets about 25 mpg in the city and about 35 mpg on the highway. Those are some pretty good numbers right? Yes, they are but try these on for size: 110 horsepower, a base price of $11,495, and get this, that $11,495 that you spend (not including insurance and gas) will only get you about 5 years or 150,000 miles out of that car! My Nissan has lasted double that! And finally comes Toyota. Now at this moment they have truly made a name for themselves with the Prius model which gets about 48 mpg in the city and about 45 mpg on the highway. That's impressive but the car looks horrible! On the contrary though, Toyota does pull out the stops on the interior. Instead of having an actual gear shift, Toyota has created a "mini" shifter that switches gears electronically instead of physically changing gears, which might be good on the elderly. They also include their smart key feature which basically means when the car senses the key is around it, it automatically unlocks the doors, or allows the driver to start the vehicle.

The thing about this is they have had this technology for awhile now, at least on Infiniti cars. When I was at work one day this man lost his key inside of his car; so he can't lock the car because the car senses the key is near the vehicle, but he eventually found them (this just is to show a flaw in the system). To wrap this up, people, don't buy cars solely based on mpg ratings. Usually when a dealership is trying to persuade you to buy a certain model that gets great mileage there is usually something else, that you don't see, that they had to lessen the quality of to make the mileage rating go up.