We’ve seen a lot of stupid videos lately, such as the 10:10 fiasco of blowing up school children because they were ambivalent about reducing their carbon footprint. Now, we are treated to a “behind the scenes” video of how Hyundai shot a commercial for a gasoline powered car, using no gasoline and leaving no carbon footprint. There’s all sorts of clever human powered props, and the whole set resembles some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. But the real punch line is: they had some guys push the car to get it going for one scene.
Honestly, I don’t see the point. It seems beyond ridiculous to make a zero carbon footprint commercial for cars that use gasoline. Note all the trucks, rental, and equipment vans surrounding the commercial shoot, now how did all those get there? Pedal power? Watch this video:
Here’s another video aptly titled “Creating the illusion”:
And yet another on the alternative power sources:
Nice, but the thing that makes this a candidate for the FAIL blog is this: transporting all this equipment to the shoot couldn’t be done “carbon free”.
Here’s the final product, the actual commercial:
If they really wanted to create an “illusion” you’d think they would have had the good sense to keep the U-haul, Budget, and Ryder rental trucks out of the video scenes. But, when you are on a mission, details like this apparently don’t matter. On the plus side, at least they didn’t blow up anything or anyone.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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Is this the same Hyundai that I remember protesting in the early 90’s for their logging operations in endangered Siberian tiger habitat in Russia? The same Hyundai that signed a 30-year logging contract to log 500,000 said Russian acres but had largely clear cut the area in only two years? The same Hyundai that then sought another 600,000 acres on prime tiger habitat and was only stopped by native peoples and conservationists who weren’t consulted prior to the deal being brokered?
I still have “Boycott Hyundai” petitions in my monster stacks of recycled paper in my home office. Real environmentalists such as myself who have continued to focus on real issues such as habitat destruction for the last twenty years don’t forget such matters. The phony AGW cultists have been distracted with their political science, but for those of us who were not swayed by the AGW propaganda, we never stopped our efforts in curbing true environmental degradation. So pedal all you want Hyundai. Continue your ridiculous greenwashing efforts such as this commercial. That won’t change reality, and it certainly won’t make people like me buy your cars. Cheers!
I agree with the earlier poster that this commercial epitomizes the green movement as it is today. It’s all about demonstrating your moral superiority.
R. de Haan says:
October 28, 2010 at 3:10 pm
> Who wants to buy a Korean car anyhow.
I might. I have a daughter in college, and am tempted to skip the graduation present for her and buy a new car for myself. My 1999 Saturn has 280,000 miles on it (448.000 km) and I’ve gotten rather fond of inexpensive high mileage cars for my longish commute.
I prefer to use the Australian colloquialism, ‘chunder’ green
‘chunder’= vomit
My diesel VW Jetta TDi kicks Hyundai’s butt!
Pull My Finger said “Where’s Monty Python when you need them.”?
I got tired of the yatta-yatta, cut to the chase and watched the actual ad. IT’S FOR A 270 HP CAR!!!
It was a joke, guys. No sane person on this planet would think a 270 HP car is anything but a gas-guzzling, CO²-belching wonder of conspicuous consumption. They’re saying ‘the only place this car could have a small footprint is in the commercial.’ Once you actually go anywhere with it, VROOOOOOMMM!
I want one.
I certainly hope this commercial was satire. Rather dimwitted otherwise. Hyundai’s engineering is apparently much superior to their marketing judgment. I have a newish high end Hyundai 5 passenger sedan that is fast, quiet, and relatively efficient (over 30 mpg at times at interstate speed) for a largish car. Comparable to a Lexus, and better made in some ways than my girlfriend’s BMW. But, they should know that my purchasing decisions also take idiotic “green” advertising into account. If your company buys into the CO2 is pollution scam, I won’t be buying your products.
If all your customers ordered their cars with green paint and manual wind-shield wipers it wouldn’t be sensible to ship them red cars with electric ones. I liked the polar bear hug better.
So, no cigarette lighter, right? Hyundai owners should get free bodywork if they run down a cow.
Actually makes me much less likely to buy their car. I am paying for a car, and I great car is what I want. While I would be unhappy with a company that dropped massive amounts of toxic waste into the environment, I am just as unhappy with a company that thinks a big goal for them is environmental sainthood and not the perfect engineering required to produce a high quality vehicle.
I don’t what you are all complaining about, the hypocrisy of the commercial pales into insignificance alongside the Darwin to Adelaide Solar Car Challenge, most cars are shipped from overseas along with the drivers and support staff (best guess, 12 people) who accompany the car in clapped out people movers or box vans the 3,018kms (1,1875miles) between cities. The convoy also contains observers, TV crews, Police escort and idiot hanger-on’s trying to get publicity. Traffic is also held up and forced to crawl along behind until it is safe to pass. Ever seen a 76 wheel truck trying to overtake 4-5 vehicles at a time? Carbon footprint as big as Al Gore.
@GoatGuy says:
October 28, 2010 at 12:07 pm
The amount of energy that it takes to safely can food en masse is 97% less…
—————————————————————————————-
Who bothers to cook them? I suck ’em frozen. .
And I suppose that the people refused to breath when they made this rubbish. It is impossible to manufacture anything without producing CO2.
I wonder if the file makers received a grant from any of our “central planing agencies” to off set their costs?
On the subject of technology, Danish Bird-Chopper manufacturers Skykon (Now, there’s an appropriately named company!) is suspending payments to its creditors, looking like receivership is in the offing.
This comes after it’s milked £2.5 million from the UK Government.
http://www.skykon.com/Media/NEWS.aspx?Action=1&NewsId=53&PID=1137
Farce reaches a new level.
Yes! Excellent points that are guaranteed to sail right over the heads of an ecochondriac.
It most certainly is not carbon-free, essentially or otherwise. More importantly as further calories are expended with the added work, the footprint grows. If the current human biological (that is, disregarding everything but the human body) carbon footprint is x, after adding the labor of pedal power (and rickshaws for well-to-do ;-), well, x becomes 1.3x or 1.5x or whatever.
This is a result of decades of disassociation between effort and rewards. Your only have to try. It does no matter whether that trial is really really asinine. At least I can it makes the perpetrators feel elevated. Watching the “green consultant”, I was wondering if she goes home and ROTFAL her AO.
I love it. The purpose of this nonsense is to sell cars to ecofreak kids and yuppies. More power (as it were) to them.
Look. We live in a society where — no kidding — you buy a bag of fried pork rinds and on the bag it says “Zero carbs!” in huge letters, and your grapefruit juice carton brags “No fat!”
Would we have bought into this whole AGW nonsense in the first place if we ever did any actual thinking?
It is a fantasy to believe work can be done without involving carbon dioxide. You cannot avoid it…unless, of course, you talk about electricity generation via nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, etc. However, carbon dioxide was involved in creating the infrastructure & equipment to accomplish those tasks and wind & solar are not a source of constant, reliable electricity to satisfy a max current draw situation when defined by the weather (extreme heat/cold events).
Just some thoughts to ponder…
Jeff
Human powered energy is in no way “carbon-free”, unless the food supplying that energy was gathered or hunted on foot or horseback, using hand- made- and-powered tools, the way Native Americans did for example. Horse power would of course also have to be carbon-free.
As evidenced by this totally bogus ad, the Green Religion has nothing to do with logic or rationality, but is all about emotion, and assuaging guilt. To greenies, the Original Sin is that of existing as a human, placing demands on Gaia, using up her resources and polluting her with our evil Carbon. Being “Green” is one way of doing pennance, thus alleviating some of that Guilt, for which our Grandchildren will thank us, at least in their Green-fevered minds.
[No horses over here until the (evil, western,Spanish) horses came during the 1500’s … 8<) Robt ]
“using no gasoline and leaving no carbon footprint”
Hey, what is it that the fellow riding the bicycle is exhaling? I’m not sure, but I think it might contain, no it can’t, OMG, it’s carbon dioxide!!!!!!
Hyundai has successfully converted CO2 into methane with a hint of hydrogen sulfide.
Notice the one guy who LIKES the ad is a car salesman….
jorgekafkazar says:
“It was a joke, guys. ”
But they did their best to make it look like a lame, emotional, serious thing. The piano!