{"id":3740,"date":"2008-12-03T14:12:06","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T19:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2008-12-03T15:48:17","modified_gmt":"2008-12-03T20:48:17","slug":"if-youre-ugly-and-you-know-it-honk-your-horn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3740","title":{"rendered":"If You&#8217;re Ugly And You Know It Honk Your Horn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3051\/3079831671_06b6c47d75.jpg?v=0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hybrid automobiles are ugly. The Honda insight, which will presumably be successful, is no exception.<\/p>\n<p>Uhhh-gly.<\/p>\n<p>The Honda insight is a mirror image of the Toyota Prius and equally hard on the eyes.<\/p>\n<p>By design.<\/p>\n<p>People don&#8217;t buy Hybrids for the energy savings; at least those that can do math. Relative to comparably-sized cars, you can\u2019t drive a Hybrid enough miles to make up the difference in cost or to mitigate the environmental impact of manufacture and disposal.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone want Nickel Metal Hydride in their back yard?<\/p>\n<p>People buy Hybrids because they want to make a statement. They want a pat on the back and a place to put their Franken sticker.<\/p>\n<p>Honda acknowledged poor sales of the previous generation Honda Accord Hybrid and ceased its production: they had not adequately &#8220;differentiated&#8221; the Hybrid variant. Read: not ugly enough.<\/p>\n<p>Even the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid was accompanied by a memo to dealerships assuring them that the unsightly \u201cHybrid\u201d monikers and badges could be removed without cosmetic damage for well-heeled but less conspicuous tree-huggers.<\/p>\n<p>Being \u201cGreen\u201d \u2013 or at least looking \u201cGreen\u201d is big business and consumers willingly pony up, even when the costs are too high and the benefit negligible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hybrid automobiles are ugly. The Honda insight, which will presumably be successful, is no exception. Uhhh-gly. The Honda insight is a mirror image of the Toyota Prius and equally hard on the eyes. By design. People don&#8217;t buy Hybrids for the energy savings; at least those that can do math. Relative to comparably-sized cars, you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-warmingcoolingchange","category-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}