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Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and . . . Hybrids?
7/13/07

Hi folks, ScottN back from vacation following my beloved New York Mets to Denver, and just had to do a quick blog on the baseball/hybrid convergence at this year’s All-Star Game (unfortunately won by the AL again . . . but that’s another blog entirely).

Chevrolet has been the “official sponsor” of Major League Baseball for some time, which you know very well if you watch Saturday baseball on Fox—where you are serenaded ad nauseum by John Mellencamp’s “This Is Our Country” while being shown how patriotic it is to drive gas-guzzling SUVs. This isn’t surprising considering how advertisers tend to label the typical sports-watching demographic.

What was surprising to me was that GM decided that for its central All-Star Game advertising device—giving a Chevy vehicle away to the winner of the game’s MVP award—it would unveil the Tahoe Hybrid to the nation. Now, yes, it’s a muscle hybrid, but to see GM preaching something fuel economy-related during a key moment in our national pastime is, to me, truly an expression (or in GM’s case, a reluctant admission) that there has been a cultural shift in our country when it comes to fuel economy.

Okay, also have to point out the irony of the Tahoe Hybrid being won by Ichiro Suzuki, Major League Baseball’s most popular Japanese import. A related post on Metsblog.com might show the kind of stigma GM is going to have to overcome to give its hybrids mass appeal:  

[Ichiro] was all dressed up after the game to accept his mvp award in the form of a hybrid chevy tahoe...a hybrid tahoe, isn't that like jumbo shrimp...

Not only did GM use the All-Star Game to trumpet the Tahoe Hybrid, but to also roll out its Malibu hollow hybrid as well. Much like the Saturn Greenline Aura and Vue models, the new Malibu represents the kind of solid conventional technology improvements we would laud if applied throughout the Malibu fleet rather than packaged as a limited-production “hybrid”—something automakers will have to do if we get real improvements in fuel economy standards out of the Energy Bill.

Have a great weekend, and, oh, I can’t help myself…LET’S GO METS!

Posted by: ScottN 7/13/07

Original post and comments can be found on Hybridblog.org.