There is a car named Aptera.  It was supposed to go into production in the last month or two.  I am number 42 on the reservation list.  I love this company because it was started by people who decided to take matters into their own hands and redesign what we consider “a car” and make it environmentally conscious.  They didn’t adhere to conventional opinion and make a car that looks like a car.  They made a car that is designed AROUND the idea it was intended to be.  A car that leaves the smallest foot print possible in the world.  A car that is intelligent, and at the forefront of our engineering abilities (at least on their budget).  The result was a car that had a drag coefficient that was less than mirror on a regular car.  But something bad happened.  A few months ago they sent out an email to deposit holders and asked them to participate in a survey.  The survey was intelligent.  It asked about product design, and function and the ideology around the product and why people are buying it.

The result saddens me.  Aptera sent an email to depositors recently which had this paragraph:

“For months we have been receiving important feedback from you, our depositor community, and we have come to realize there were flaws in our initial product assumptions -- specifically as it pertains to satisfying the needs of real-world consumers. Our greatest degree of learning came just a few months ago when we asked all of you to participate in a brief survey. This critical piece of research requested insights about your expectations for our company and our products, and we discovered a notable disconnect between our product plan and realistic expectations. Some modifications had to be made. For example, you helped us realize that some trade-offs for convenience (like being able to grab a burger in a drive-thru) might be necessary to make the ownership experience more palatable, even if it cost us a couple tenths of a point on our drag coefficient.”

So they are going to make the car LESS advanced for the lazy, overweight fast food culture of America.  if they don’t, they are self admittedly going to fail in their sales thus potentially end the product and it’s market viability.

That is business.  But what about ethics.  Isn’t it sad that our world is so derailed from ethics that the consumer’s desire is what demotes the superiority of a product?  Why don’t we have consumers that are more informed?  I have an answer.  The proof is in an article recently posted on www.treehugger.com.  This article also covers the Aptera email.  I read it.  And decided to write a comment on the site.   Let’s see if the comment posts after they read what I said?  And if it does post, let’s see what other people say?  I included my comment below.  Reading it will give you insight to the point I am trying to make here.  I hope you are different than these other consumers that changed and demoted this remarkable car’s design philosophy.

Visit the site (scroll to bottom to see if they posted me or not?) and see if my comment is up.  It will prove to you their intent http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/aptera-delays-production-2e-electric-car.php

TreeHugger Comment Copy:

I think this is ridiculous!  People who are eating hamburgers are effecting the design of a highly advanced automobile that will set a new bar for useless companies like the ones in Detroit.  This is a company that was started by a brilliant man to create a product that will change the landscape of automobile design and function, and help the environment.  But because of the false environmentalists who want to be part of the “hype” and the “feel good” green movement, they have actually changed the company's position to sell a no compromise product.  Instead their confused brains voted that they should be able to go to a DRIVE THRU TO GET A BURGER with this car.

Now where do we put the blame for this?  The consumer?  Partially, but not effectively.  Why?  Because the consumer is called “consumer” because of their intrinsic INABILITY to decide their purchases rationally and intelligently.  Hence the all the companies in our current economic model that are feeding on the “consumer mind” with "conventional" products.  These products have minimal environmental consideration because of the inconvenience this would cause.  Let’s look at the plastic bottle industry as an example.

The real blame lies with the weak media and news systems.  ALL of them, including TreeHugger.

You see, I am a lover of this planet.  I also want our world to be a better place.  And I am an avid environmentalist.  I have changed my life in the past 10 years to be part of what really matters… our world.  I am number 42 on the list of depositors for an Aptera.  I have invested in Solar Panels that will charge my Aptera.  I practice medicine in a the first of it’s kind, green medical office that I designed.  I started a nonprofit environmental activist agency.  I am vegan.

The last one is the most important.  Not eating meat is agreed to be one of the most effective means of bettering our environment.  Not only just because of the CO2 emissions associated with the meat industry, but because of all the environmental effects of the industries that are peripheral to meat.  This is a well documented and understood fact.  Regardless of your position on the relevance of CO2 in the discussion of climate change, Meat is a problem.  From water, to feed to transportation and containment, meat is an issue that MUST be addressed.

But here we have new sources that current and future environmentalists refer to for perspective, and the meat issue is never pressed.  Take TreeHugger for instance.  Here is the source, a well respected resource for the “beginner environmentally concerned” individual, and instead of aggressively pushing the meat issue, hence making the most impact of our environment, they report on a loft in Florence made of recycled materials?  http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/stair-reno-b-arch-florence.php  Now, how many actual people in this country can afford to live like that?  And even if they could… how many would change their entire living condition to live like that and be environmentally conscious.  But how many of those people could easily reduce or stop their meat intake?  Almost all.

So the fact that TreeHugger doesn’t take a harder line against the meat industry and the effects of meat in our diets and it’s effects on our environment proves that they are another in-effectual environmental resource facade. 

If you really want an accurate and honest perspective about the environment, visit http://thegoldenspiral.org and there you will read honest and reporting about what is happening and what you should be doing.  I know there will be challenge to this, but most you are informed about the upper 30% of the issue.  I haven’t even discussed the environmental effects of meat taking medical diseases into consideration.  So rather than argue the fact, get educated about the facts and then come to the table.

The bottom line is that until we have strong, non conventional news sources who show the public the real issues and push them, nothing will change.  Future Aptera’s of the world will release products that are made to concede to the lazy and overweight fat food culture of America.  Not because they are unethical, but because they see that the greater good is served by releasing a product that WILL raise the bar for the competition; even if that means making a small compromise in your philosophy.  The sad part is not the compromise.  It’s the fact that the media hasn’t educated the public well enough that they WOULDN’T desire an Aptera that can be functional in a drive through.

This is why things are going to change fast enough.