Prius hybrid at the top of the vehicular sales in Japan

One of the major concerns of anyone with green issues in mind is the motor car. There is no doubting that a massive amount of the pollution in our cities is caused by cars, and a large amount of that caused by the more gas-guzzling vehicles which just so happen to be among the most popular on the market – popular, at least, in the sense that they are much coveted, even if the average driver would need a very generous extension of credit to actually buy one. Indeed, it is price that seems to be the sticking point for cars which do just the opposite – if you want genuine fuel efficiency then you are going to have to pay for it.

Governments are trying to take a lead on cutting vehicle emissions by offering incentives to consumers who buy a green car. Certain lenders, also, are getting in on the action by offering more generous repayment terms on their loans if the car that the loan will buy is one which will pollute less. The success of their efforts to turn the roads green will only become clear with time, but it is clear that they are battling on two fronts.

Firstly, people will still have to spend more than they would ideally like to in order to get a green car and secondly, there is a continuing belief that fuel-efficient cars simply are not cool. It may be more or less fashionable to care about the environment, but if that means taking a rain check on the car of your dreams then the cool points decrease rapidly.

There are car manufacturers who realize that this problem exists with a lot of the green cars on the market. The simple fact of the matter is that a green car that looks exactly like another car with worse fuel economy will generally be seen as less cool. There is just a tendency among people to feel like their car should be their little walk on the wild side. This is not the same everywhere in the world, mind you. In Japan, home-based manufacturers Toyota are fresh from celebrating the placing of their latest Prius hybrid at the top of the vehicular sales in Japan for May.

It isn’t just a matter of cool, of course, that prevents economic vehicles from taking to the top of the charts elsewhere. The other major problem with vehicles that give an excellent fuel economy is that they cost more up front. If you have the money to spend on an economic vehicle, then you will save enough on fuel to pay for the difference from a new, less economic one. Additionally, cars that run on electric which have for some time been seen as the future of fuel-economic vehicles, still have a long way to go before they are seen as a real answer. Recharge points for the vehicles are still very unevenly distributed, and without a real push – which they haven’t been getting, they look set to be overtaken by hydrogen cell engines by the end of the next decade.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.