A Warning To Green Car Manufactuers - Make Them Pretty!

While I continue going through my 'green' phase I thought the cherry on the cake would be to test drive an electric car (REVA/G-Wizz) for a weekend.

My first impression was "Why, oh why do they have to be so ugly?". I feel like shaking environmentalists sometimes. They think that people will totally ignore the fact that something is so ugly and pay thousands of pounds for it solely on the basis that it is a 'green car'.

That is like making some horrible looking hemp trousers that are held up by string, but are organic and made by fair trade people and are carbon neutral blah blah blah, and think that they will compete with the jean manufacturers who have spent years (and billions of pounds on marketing) telling us that jeans are a status symbol and mean something much more than they actually are - which is just clothes to keep us warm.

Why do they think that if they make a really ugly car but it is 'good for the environment' - that people will run out and buy it? How hard is it to make an electric car cute? A note to the green car manufacturers: Your goal is to get as many people driving green cars as possible, right? Does it make a difference to you whether or not your customer decides to buy the car because they want to save the planet or because it is cute and they don't have to worry about petrol bills?

I know that tree-huggers are probably a bit anti-marketing but they should use it to their advantage. I bet you the most famous war-mongers in history knew their enemy inside out and would use this to their advantage. If you want to conquer the car industry with electric cars you need to beat the gas guzzlers at their own game.

OK. Enough ranting. Next step is to try and manage the thing for the weekend!