Greenpeace says new Porsche Cayenne SUV is a big pig
When Porsche demoed the Cayenne hybrid last week, the friendly folks at Greenpeace were at the company's Stuttgart HQ with a quite colorful variation of the Cayenne. Even though the new hybrid will use a third-less fuel than the non-hybrid version, Greenpeace says that "Porsche builds climate pigs" and made the point with a pink-painted and pig-decorated Cayenne. Porsche must have been aware the activists were on their way, because from the roof of the building they unfurled their own Greenpeace-style banners promoting Porsche's low-CO2 emissions - lowest per horsepower, less than 0.1% in traffic (which I'm not sure I understand the meaning of) and then sent out a press release claiming the company has "made it" now that Greenpeace has targeted them. Greenpeace stuck to its guns, calling the Cayenne hybrid "simply an image campaign."
Greenpeace also visited Audi, BMW, and DaimlerChrysler last week. Read more here.
[Source: Wall Street Journal, Matt Vella]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter 8:04PM (8/01/2007)
It's the return of the pink pig!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Porsche917PinkPig.jpg
In the 70s Porsche painted a 917 race car pink and even marked it with different cuts of meat all around the bodywork. Now that car would be something for Greenpeace to get fired up about. I bet it returned about 3-4mpg.
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Joseph 12:34AM (8/02/2007)
I don't see what's wrong with Porsche hybrids. and I do not thihnk they are a marketing campaign.
The car can cruise on electricity at 70mph. Clearly, this hybrids system is different from the ones currently available. Which means that Porsche actually put design and initiutive into this hybrid. It's not like they just threw in a little 10hp electric motor between the 400hp something engine and the transmission to make it a "hybrid" with almost no improvement.
Also, I don't think Greenpeace has the right to critize Porsche just a few days after they release some info. I mean, who knows, maybe the Cayenne Hybrid will have eco-fabric and be 100% recycable or something.
And Greenpeace, listen up. Believe it or not, companies actually do things just for the image. I don't like it either, but it's marketing! What are the chances that you have someone who is truely passionate about the environment become leader of some huge coporation?
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koopa 12:42PM (8/02/2007)
Wait a minute. How is painting a Cayanne like a big pink pig with big pink ears and nose NOT AN IMAGE CAMPAIGN? Don't be afraid of actually doing something GreenPeace besides your usual bullying. And didn't they have to actually BUY a porsche to just paint it pink for this "shock campaign"? So GreenPeace is saying "Look how horrible Porsche is, now please donate some money so we can buy a Hummer and paint it." Yeah, you showed them GreenPeace.
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Tom Hilliard 7:33AM (8/03/2007)
Just a few questions about battery driven cars.
1. I suppose the batteries are charged from electricity. Is electricity generation more or less expensive than the internal combustion engine?
2. Over a ten year period of time, which leaves a smaller carbon imprint-bateries or the internal combustion engine?
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Joseph 1:29AM (8/04/2007)
"1. I suppose the batteries are charged from electricity. Is electricity generation more or less expensive than the internal combustion engine?"
Electric cars are cheaper to power than gas car.
"2. Over a ten year period of time, which leaves a smaller carbon imprint-bateries or the internal combustion engine?"
Well, electric cars produce less CO2, assuming that it is usign the nation's average electric grid, but I don't know how much CO2 is released during battery recycling/production of EVs. I doubt that it can fill up the huge gap of CO2 production between an electric car and a gas car.
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aptera_LUVR 6:46PM (8/05/2007)
these SUV drivers need to stop pushing air!
http://www.driversagainstpushingair.com/
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Chris M 10:04PM (8/05/2007)
To answer Tom Hilliards questions:
1. It is much cheaper to drive on electricity. Depending on local rates and car efficiency, the cost of electric driving is $0.01 to $0.04 per mile, for gasoline driving it is $0.06 to $0.30 per mile. The price of petroleum fuels is increasing much faster than electric rates, so the electric savings will increase in the future.
2. Over 10 years, electrical supply for battery electric cars will produce far less CO2 than an internal combustion engine, due to the growing percentage of non-emitting power sources, the high efficiency of coal and natural gas burning powerplants (45% to 60%), the extremely high efficiency of the power grid (95%-98%) and electric cars(80%), contrasted to the very low efficiency of IC engine cars (15% - 25%) and the CO2 produced by transporting and refining petroleum based fuels.
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Moe Badderman 1:36AM (9/17/2007)
duh_koopa wrote:
# How is painting a Cayanne like a big pink pig
# with big pink ears and nose NOT AN IMAGE CAMPAIGN?
Ever hear the phrase "fighting fire with fire", Duh? Try not to sh!t yourself defending the Corporation.
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FormulaZero 3:56AM (9/18/2007)
Moe, are you even kiddng? Questioning the effectiveness of painting an suv pink hardly qualifies as "shitting yourself defending the corporation". Naturally, due to your distrust of corporations and support of ineffective campaigns that offer no actual solutions to today's problems (unlike the cayenne hybrid, which cuts emissions by 2/3) i assume you use only totally sustainable means of transportation.
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koopa 2:17PM (9/18/2007)
Moe: I love how you call it "THE" Corporation. Because of course there aren't individuals who own and run corporations. No, "Corporations" is actually One business owned by Dr. Evil who's sole purpose is to destroy the earth.
Seriously, I look at what people DO. In this instance Porsche created a hybrid version of one of their vehicles and GreenPeace tried to shock me by painting that vehicle like a pig. In other words: one side is complaining about a problem while the other is actually doing something. If backing the latter makes me a "corporation defender" then so be it.
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