Great Grandson of Henry Ford is a vegetarian

[Guest guest]

and potential " environmentalists "

 

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/22/IN1\

38543.DTL

 

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DETROIT

The Infernal Combustion Engine

A Ford, not a Muir

 

Vicki Haddock, Insight Staff Writer Sunday,

September 22, 2002

 

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Kermit the Frog had it right: It's not easy being

green. If you don't trust an amphibian, take it from a

capitalist.

 

Take Bill Ford Jr.

 

This amiable great-grandson of Henry Ford was known as

an iconoclastic environmentalist -- not to mention a

vegetarian who studied yoga and four versions of

Buddhism -- so he looked to be the Eco-White Knight of

the Auto Industry when he became chairman of Ford

Motor Co.

 

He raised expectations by vowing that within five

years, Ford would build vehicles that got 25 percent

better gas mileage.

 

He ordered an eco-friendly rebuilding of Ford's

original plant on Michigan's Rogue River, topping its

roof with a 10-acre lawn.

 

He even ventured into the belly of the beast -- a

Greenpeace conference -- to tell a cheering crowd that

the internal combustion engine was headed for

extinction.

 

Coincidentally, last year Ford Motor Co. reported a

net loss of $5.5 billion.

 

So what happens to a corporate executive when lofty

principles crash head- on into sagging profits?

 

See for yourself. Watch the new Ford commercial

recounting how old Henry Ford used to take Thomas

Edison and Teddy Roosevelt camping in a Model T --

then hear Bill Ford sentimentally claim that Ford

deserves credit for " sort of inventing SUVs. "

 

Yes, SUVs. Environmental bugaboo. Gas-sucking symbol

of Americans as planet pillagers. Ford wants credit

for that?

 

He's also pumping the virtues of tough trucks and

muscle cars -- the ones bearing friends-of-the-earth

names like the Mercury Marauder.

 

And note his observation after tangling with

legislators in Sacramento over the state's new law

limiting vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions: " In

California, people used to write songs about T-birds

and Corvettes. Today, they write regulations. "

 

Ford's remark came in a speech decrying the waning of

America's love affair with the car -- but the same

could be said of environmentalists' love affair with

Bill Ford himself.

 

Things began souring earlier this year, when Ford

joined with other automakers in a fiercely successful

lobbying campaign to kill proposed federal legislation

to mandate higher fuel guidelines.

 

The Sierra Club responded by unleashing what it called

the largest and most intensive corporate consumer

campaign, designed to shame the Big 3 into building

vehicles that get 40 miles per gallon. The ads decried

the automakers' obliviousness to the new urgency for

the United States to move toward energy independence

following Sept. 11, and one ad took the unusual tactic

of naming Bill Ford -- prompting radio stations in

Detroit to refuse to run it.

 

By last month, when Ford released its annual so-called

" Corporate Citizenship " report, it revealed that the

average fuel economy of its vehicles has remained

virtually the same since 2000. Ditto for the carbon

dioxide emissions.

 

" Many environmentalists are disillusioned, " said Carl

Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based

Sierra Club. " I'm not disillusioned, I'm disappointed.

.. . . But I still think he's the best shot we've got

to change the industry. When he took over Ford, he

said to me, 'You're going to have to be a barbarian at

the gate because I'm going to have troubles inside the

company with people resisting change.' "

 

If expectations had not been set so high, Ford might

be earning more plaudits for what it is doing. Not

only is it killing the Excursion -- a tank- on-wheels

that Car Talk radio hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi called

a garbage truck with seven seats, but it's also

introducing for 2003 the first gasoline- and-electric

hybrid SUV, a version of the Escape. Despite no

progress to date, Ford hasn't backed off its pledge to

boost fuel efficiency by 2005.

 

And while other automakers prepped to sue California

to revoke its new law restricting carbon dioxide

emissions, Ford said he would like to " lower the

temperature a little bit and lower the rhetoric a

little bit " and find a solution. Gov. Gray Davis

congratulated Ford, only to be taken aback when a Ford

spokesman said the company might still sue after all.

 

These days, Bill Ford -- whose brief tenure has been

buffetted by the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire scandal

and an economic downturn -- sounds a bit shell-

shocked. As he told the Financial Times: " Every

decision ends up making somebody mad -- even the most

seemingly innocuous decision makes people mad. " And he

says that while it may be easy for environmentalists

to lob bombs from the outside, it would be better to

engage in productive dialogue.

 

That won't be easy. Pope of the Sierra Club says Ford

has stopped returning his calls.

 

E-mail Vicki Haddock at vhaddock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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