DETROIT When the Sierra Club approached Ford Motor last year and offered to help promote the company's first hybrid electric vehicle, the company spurned the olive branch.
The Sierra Club has long been a nemesis of Detroit automakers and a critic of the Ford chairman and chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr. But when Ford later heard of the decision, he was said to be angry that an opportunity had been missed to buff the company's image in the way that Toyota Motor has done so deftly with its hybrids.
Ford is not letting the chance slip a second time. On Monday, the automaker and the Sierra Club said they would jointly help promote the company's second hybrid, a version of its Mercury Mariner sport utility vehicle that went on sale this week and will be sold almost exclusively online.
The Sierra Club will promote the Mariner in a newsletter sent to 300,000 members and has invited Ford to bring the Mariner to an environmental conference in September that will also feature hybrids from Toyota and Honda. The Sierra Club and Ford will also work jointly on a campaign to teach consumers how to drive hybrids for maximum fuel savings.
But while the Sierra Club was offering a carrot to Ford, two smaller San Francisco-based groups, Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange, said on Monday that they would continue to wield the stick with a company that has been their main target in the industry.
In the past, they have financed newspaper advertisements including one that depicted Ford's chief executive as a Pinocchio figure and accused him of going back on a commitment to improve SUV fuel economy. On Monday, they said they would run a new newspaper ad directed at the executive this month. The ad features a picture of Ford next to images of Vice President Dick Cheney and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
"What do these men have in common?" the ad asks. Answer: "They all love gas guzzlers."
Ford's new cars and trucks had the lowest overall average fuel economy of the six largest automakers, at 18.8 miles to the gallon, according to Environmental Protection Agency data for the 2003 model year, the most recent figures available. That was in large part because the company sells so many pickup trucks and SUVs.
As a result, Ford's chief has had a tortuous relationship with environmentalists, in part because many groups feel that he is the only auto executive who will listen to them. In Detroit, he has been outspoken on issues like global warming, and he had the company's River Rouge plant rebuilt with a grass roof to reduce emissions.
At the same time, his environmental commitment has been tested by the rocky business climate of the automobile industry. Although Ford is profitable, unlike General Motors, its debt is also rated at junk levels by Standard & Poor's. And environmentalists have not been patient.
"My fear is that Bill Ford is showing his true stripes as just another shortsighted auto executive with no interest in the environment, our oil dependence or the truth," Daniel Becker, top global warming strategist for the Sierra Club, said in an interview in March 2002. Ford took over in late 2001, a year in which the company had a loss of $5.5 billion.
Now, however, Becker says the company deserves credit for the steps it has taken.
In the newsletter to Sierra Club members, he said the group would still push Ford to significantly improve mileage and to stop fighting environmental regulations. But he also said that "the Ford we challenged at the beginning of this campaign is different from the one we face today."
For the Sierra Club, the campaign is an acknowledgment that Ford has been more aggressive on hybrids than its European and U.S. competitors. Last year, Ford became the first automaker to offer the public a hybrid electric vehicle on par with those offered by Toyota and by Honda Motor - a version of its Ford Escape SUV.
Ford will be about three years ahead of GM and DaimlerChrysler in offering Americans a hybrid comparable to the Toyota Prius.
But Michael Brune, the executive director of Rainforest Action Network, was not ready to pat Ford on the back, saying Ford would produce so few Mariners that it would barely affect the company's fuel-economy performance.
Ford plans to produce 2,000 Mariner hybrids for the 2006 model year and eventually expand to about 4,000, in addition to the 10,000 Escape hybrids that it now produces annually.
"It's a nice gesture, but we think it's more PR than progress," Brune said. "Until we see a serious commitment to overhaul their entire fleet, we have no choice but to continue pressuring the entire company."
Becker said: "We have not sheathed our sword, but we're recognizing that they're making some cleaner vehicles. Our hope is that that will convince Ford they should do a lot more of this."
By Danny Hakim |
