If you watched the Super Bowl, or even if you didn’t, you might well have seen the General Motors ad that features Will Ferrell pitching GM’s electric vehicles. It opens with Ferrell explaining that “Norway sells way more electric cars per capita than the U.S.” He then declares, “Well, I won’t stand for it,” before punching a globe and claiming that, with GM’s new electric battery, “we’re going to crush those lugers. CRUSH THEM! Let’s go, America.”
Ferrell, aka America’s loveable oaf, goes on to recruit Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson and actress/comedian/celebrity Awkwafina to meet him in Norway, with him driving an electric Cadillac and them an electric Hummer to somehow get there. He actually ends up in Sweden and his two pals in Finland. But that’s beside the point.
Because the point’s been made: America will lead the world in EV use.
The Good
The ad doubles down on GM’s recent commitment to stop manufacturing gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035. As this Atlantic article explains, that’s quite the about-face for the car company, given how it advocated for two regressive Trump administration positions: a rollback of anti-pollution rules and an attempt to block California’s regulation of vehicle emissions. Indeed, GM has been quite the laggard in this regard, as Ford and other automobile manufacturers opposed the administration on both issues.
Given how two-faced GM has been, we can’t be certain it will deliver on its promise until it’s further down the line. Still, the change itself couples with the company’s very public declaration of the move – you can’t get more public than a Super Bowl commercial – to reflect a decisive shift in the right direction for GM and the automotive industry more generally.
And it makes so much sense, even above and beyond environmental repercussions. According to the Atlantic piece:
In the future, Americans’ mass adoption of electric vehicles will seem inevitable. After all, EVs cost less to run than gas-powered cars (because electricity is cheaper than gas); they require cheaper maintenance; they break less; they are quieter. For many types of drivers—daily commuters, for instance, or errands-around-towners—they are already preferable to gas-powered cars.
The Bad
GM’s good news comes with a message that should curb our enthusiasm: Note that the vehicles it uses in the Super Bowl commercial are a Caddy and a Hummer. As environmental/energy expert Philip Warburg notes, “GM’s soon-to-be released electric vehicle flagship, the three-ton, 1,000-horsepower all-electric Hummer, stands as a warning that American auto manufacturers will not be abandoning their energy-wasteful giants, even as they move from internal combustion engines to electric power.”
Warburg goes on to caution that, even as the Biden Administration thankfully steers the United States toward an EV future, it must still focus on exhaust emissions from fossil fuel vehicles and on restraining vehicle size:
First, while the prospect of an all-electric vehicle fleet is alluring, we are decades away from achieving that goal. We therefore can’t afford to shrug our shoulders while most of our cars and trucks continue to rely on gasoline and diesel fuel.
Second, an electrified U.S. fleet dominated by oversized SUVs and pickups will consume substantially more energy than a leaner line of electric vehicles, making it much harder for clean electricity sources to edge out the gas and coal plants that still supply most of our electricity.
However affable a face Ferrell puts on GM’s shift, then, the government and public still need to force and pressure car companies to head in the right direction.
The Ugly
Though this ad will never win any awards for subtlety, it nevertheless plays up the unwittingly Ugly American in a creative and positive way. Ferrell’s taking umbrage at the idea that Norway (!!!) is beating America in EV usage is really a knock at the notion of any country besting us in this regard.
What’s significant here is that GM is making EV progress a matter of pride and patriotism. The commercial plays a bit on our national ignorance by bringing together the mindless “We’re Number One!” notion with Ferrell’s globe-piercing display and his little group arriving not in Norway but neighboring nations.
But hey, if a good-natured but cluelessly competitive American stereotype serves a good cause by highlighting how we must catch up with other countries, I’m all for it. At least in this instance, the Ugly American is a beautiful thing to behold.
[Hat tip: MS]
I love the way you sneaked in the Curb Your Enthusiasm reference.
I thought it was interesting that the ad made DJT the butt of its humor so soon and at. the Super Bowl!
I not-so-subtly included Clint Eastwood, too. It was my evening for allusions.
It hadn’t occurred to me that the ad poked fun at Biden’s predecessor. But yeah, given the ridiculous rhetoric, it works on that level also.
Have you been to Norway recently Steve? You need a bank loan to gas up an SUV with regular unleaded.
You quote from The Atlantic,
“ After all, EVs cost less to run than gas-powered cars (because electricity is cheaper than gas); ” as a pointer that cost will push people towards electric vehicles. I live in Israel where a gallon of regular self-serve costs around $8, but this hasn’t yet deterred people from buying gas guzzlers or line up to test drive EVs.
And gas is even cheaper here in Colorado.
No, regrettably, I haven’t been to Norway (or Colorado) recently. I believe the Atlantic author’s point is that the cost of gas (perhaps even in Colorado, but certainly in Norway and most of the world) helps to make the operating costs of electric vehicles a reason we’ll look back on the shift as inevitable. Of course, for now there remain all sorts of obstacles in terms of putting the necessary infrastructure in place, but that wasn’t the main point of his piece or mine. He in fact wrote, “EVs command 54 percent of the market share in Norway not because Norwegians love Tesla, but because Norway has thrown a small fjord’s worth of incentives and mandates behind them.” Perhaps my bad for not including that insight.
Anyway, the point here is not the substance of the policy but that the politics has shifted here. Facebook and Twitter may be the most obvious examples of corporate about-faces, but GM is not far behind. When it comes to the environment and so much else, what a difference an election makes!
Since we now have an energy czar, that alone signals that our focus is shifting. In California, with the encouragement to get solar at home, that will also encourage EV purchasing.
One of the many benefits of our new, science-oriented administration is that it will often back rather than resist California’s environmental initiatives.
Not only was the GM ad one of the more humorous ads of the night, but it served as the vehicle to roll out its updated logo for all the world to see. The sea change in product development these signal, though, won’t be enough to accomplish the environmental change we need. Phil hits the nail on the head. We have to address two major problems facing us: the “it’s not good if it’s not BIG” attitude deeply held by so many car/truck buyers, and the driving force of corporations’ profit motive, which underlies the cultivation of that attitude.
Indeed, Phil’s a smart guy. To my much less informed mind, we’ll need policy and legal changes to create incentives that increase the pace and scale of the public’s and corporations’ shift toward smaller vehicles. Maybe introduce a revenue-neutral carbon tax that doubles as an energy rebate? Anyway, I’ll leave that to wiser heads to sort out. Thankfully, we now have an administration that has many of them.
We bought an EV last year (NOT a Hummer!) and still can’t resist feeling smug every time we drive past a gas station. Our electric bill has gone up around $10/month–much less than we would have been paying for gas. And we’re looking forward to our $7500 tax rebate in a few months.
To Neil’s two big problems we have to confront, I’d add a third: the US electric grid. It’s precarious now, and with a substantial increase in demand, it will probably buckle. A major shift toward better coordination, smart management (meaning digital technology including AI), and distributed generation with renewables, has to happen. A perfect challenge for Biden’s Department of Energy.
Great point. And certainly a great challenge. But what a relief to now have Energy Dept. leadership that might be willing to take up the challenge, rather than doing the worst it can.
Meanwhile, in a mansion someplace warm,
(The Independent)
Don Jr complains about Super Bowl ads, calling them ‘woketopia’ after first commercial