The Automobile: Profit and Status, Waste and Pollution
Originally used as basic transportation for home and business, the automobile emerged as an awful lot extra for that day of the Model T Ford. Today, it helps a first-rate industry and provides extremely good comfort and a higher trend of residing for many people. But the poor aspects of this terrific invention are now becoming extra apparent.
Consider the mess vehicles are making of our stunning natural world as they release fumes and noise into serene surroundings. In their manufacturing and usage, motors are chewing up Mother Nature’s resources at a growing rate.
As in other industries, car companies’ drive toward greater profits has modified the way motors are produced, marketed, and bought by consumers. The product that producers need to sell most isn’t your primary transportation desire, and the marketing departments are painting feverishly to steer your selections. They have accomplished an amazing advertising activity over a long time as new owners proudly park wonderful, shiny, more modern-styled vehicles on their driveways, similar to the TV commercials.
As in other vending regions, automobiles are aggressively marketed for maximum corporate income and profits. As long as groups want to increase their bottom line, their efforts to sell excellent and sometimes awful merchandise may be strenuous in the presence of strong competition.
This larger, pricier car sales method isn’t always new. In a provider showroom manner lower back in the 50s, I had my thoughts set on a positive economic system model; however, I have always steered far away. The salesman refused to promote me to the smaller model, and I left. Thirty-five years later, in a showroom helping my daughter with her concerns about desire and price, the salesman approached me and asked, “Who’s buying this car, you or her?” As we headed to any other provider, I remarked that he ought to have some non-public problems with his sales supervisor, perhaps at home.
The automobile enterprise is a prime example of how clever marketing can sell maximum corporate advantages. Consider the car advertisements on TV; they are not critically trying to sell small and undeniable automobiles that expend the least assets. Most are for larger and flashier styles, with extra capabilities that your friends will envy. Hybrids or electric cars may additionally take the lead in future years, but they will be made expensively and sold to generate maximum profit. Most, by some distance, will not be modest in a layout.
Along with always revamped patterns, the latest products can consist of frivolous gadgets and features that are reputedly precise selling points if advertised just right. There has been a strategy wherein a model’s length grows yr-by using-yr until it’s time to shop once more; then, your favorite model has grown in size, features, and cost, and you gotta ante up considerably more than anticipated. What will your buddies suppose if the selection is downsizing to a more sensible purchase as the only one you want to trade in?
Car commercials are amongst the noisiest on TV and might interfere with their family communication if they’re now not muted. But the invasive, demanding clamor attracts interest and consequences; it’s how marketing works. Rude and in-your-face works for them. In targeting the younger and young at coronary heart, advertisements regularly sensationalize performances showing excessive speed maneuvers on metropolis streets and highways. They are sending the incorrect message, considering the lives lost to excessive driving speeds. This is callous and dangerous, but it sells the product. One has to marvel at what the right and wrong of the corporate supervisor is hiding; possibly, ethics is important in growing to top managerial positions with some agencies.
The trendy final results of many years of this large marketing effort are that automobiles are currently generally purchased for superficial popularity, despite the fact that they’ll be too luxurious or excessive for the proprietor’s budget or desires.
It’s unfortunate that purchasers are so infatuated with these environmentally unfriendly, glossy, roomy, system-featured ‘Look At Me’ motors in the richer regions of the sector. But that’s what they have been telling us to buy, maximum days of the year, and we are like sheep as we are herded toward industry showrooms.
Marketing and branding are continually at work, as is the ongoing push to consume more metal, plastic, oil, and gas. But why could the industry promote a primary product representing a modest, concerned, and pleasant existence when it might decrease business?
On TV for the duration of an earlier oil disaster, a smiling spokesperson from the Automobile Association changed into defending why they are not advertising smaller motors. “People could not promote their cars and buy smaller ones.” The TV commercial that immediately observed the news byte became a flashy full-length SUV. Funny and grim.
Friendlier automobiles are coming off the design board as the public interest in the environment rises. Can clients withstand the persuasions toward pizazz and additional extras that they may force into the place of business automobile parking space? Can we practically expect them to switch to financial system autos? Granted, there may be a case for improved comfort for longer commutes, but where is the practical limit?
Let’s face it: This inefficient, pricey, and unnatural way of getting around needs to be changed. It may be important to own a car to get to work, college, and shopping; it really is the way planning has designed our urban layouts. However, that has turned out to be one big mistake.
Even if we’re inclined to use public transportation, it isn’t always there or unrealistic to apply if the authorities have had different pastimes. And if it’s miles to be had and handy, it possibly still isn’t what most of us could keep in mind; everyone else is riding, and Pete has a brand new Super Spitter XYZ!!
The public’s preference for improving how we live and treat the environment will change, but it’ll not be clean if we’re always faced with large persuasions to eat more. This essential transportation approach evaluates design, advertising, and its effects on society. The common man or woman does not need luxury on wheels while spending only a few hours a week in the automobile. Nor does the car require rapid speed and polluting energy to pressure in the velocity restriction. A description of the fuel-green automobile should include The smallest car on the way to fit your transportation needs in affordable consolation.