What's Wrong With This Picture: Volt Gets Gassy Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

After the zusammenhang of the bailout era, green car ads have juiced up the competitive battles in automotive marketing, with Chevy attacking “range anxiety,” Hyundai wrangling the asterisks and now, Nissan busting the Volt’s chops for enjoying the odd sip of gasoline. After leading off its Leaf marketing effort with a saccharine ad featuring a polar bear driven by global warming from his arctic home, Nissan is getting back on track by bashing its highest-profile competitor… and given that the EV market is still dependent on early-adopters in search of EV purity, the attack is a fairly shrewd one. Eventually the market will be less hung up on the novelty of pure-electric cars and will look at overall efficiency and capability. For the time being, however, Nissan’s got to make the most of its unmatched gamble on the pure electric car. Watch the ad after the jump



Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Evan Reif Evan Reif on May 27, 2011

    So you all do know that there's no reason why the Volt couldn't be converted to run on natural gas (Which is cheap, fairly easy to find, very low emission and American/Canadian made), which would cut out the middleman, right? Let's face it. Gasoline and Diesel are on their way out, and it will probably happen within our lifetimes. Natural gas is a great way to ease the transition. Not only that, but if we really want to be green, we should be focusing on rail and stop eating so much beef.

  • Jeffzekas Jeffzekas on May 28, 2011

    Okay, so coal is dirtier than diesel... but... we don't buy coal from Saudi Arabia or other Muslim terrorist sponsors... so, domestic electricity sales mean money in OUR pockets, not the pockets of Al-Qaeda...

  • Bertel Schmitt Bertel Schmitt on May 28, 2011

    I like the ad. It's funny. And most of all, I admire the gumption it took to run it. As Gslippy intimated, all other Nissan products run on gas or possibly diesel. In the companies I made ads for, this ad would have been applauded, but killed, because "gentlemen, we still have product that runs on gasoline."

  • Steven02 Steven02 on May 30, 2011

    Till I can park anywhere and have a charging station like he does in the commercial, I am not interested in a Leaf.

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