Would you rather chat up someone with a fuel efficient car or a sports car?

Featured Debate 20:

Who's more appealing: someone with a fuel efficient car or someone with a sports car?

So I'm borrowing this one from GM's Challenge X study...but if you were at a party, who would you rather chat up?  Someone who drives a fuel efficient car or someone who drives a sports car?  (Everything else remaining equal.)  Feel free to explain your rationale with a "if person A was driving ____ vehicle and B was driving ____."  The Huddle probably isn't exactly representative of the rest of the world...but I figured since it's been in the news lately...it might be fun to see what y'all think.

Fuel efficient car.

Sports cars are just sleek bodies with big engines inside.  Boring.  Fuel efficient cars are much cooler.  Often they have more advanced technology (i.e. hybrid systems, electric motors, etc.).  Plus gas-powered sports cars are extremely inefficient and thus damaging to the environment, and the opposite is of course true of fuel efficient cars.  Thus as an environmentalist, I don't really have any interest in talking to the guy who's driving the inefficient car just because he's in a mid-life crisis and/or trying to compensate for some sort of anatomical defficiency.  Not to mention that he's wasted a ton of money on this inefficient car which he'll rarely get to drive faster than 75 mph.  That's just dumb.

 Hmmm, I guess a fuel efficient car because of what it reflects about the thoughtfulness/eco-consciousness of the consumer who drives it.  But I think it's an unfair bias, because some people aren't financially able to ditch their older model, gas-hogging ride for a newer, more fuel-efficient vehicle just yet (although one could argue that there's always a way...).  Anyway, for the sake of argument, I'd say I'd choose the fuel-efficient.  :)

Edited by lola - Fri, 30 May 2008 00:53:22 GMT

But they can ditch it for a sports car? ;-)

Hahah, i meant people who already own a gas-hogging sports car.  

So along those lines...(and not really along the lines of the debate), I thought this table was pretty interesting:

I first came across those stats in an article in the New York Times and later read various arguments about why it was "so bad" that people were buying the Prius for the sake of "making a personal statement" instead of for the higher fuel economy reason, lower emissions, etc. 

Take this bit from a post on Treehugger: "Perhaps all those real environmentalists are right; the polls show that even those most obvious environmental consumers, the Prius drivers, are buying them for the wrong reasons, not to save the world but to make a statement."

Personally....I come back to two points.  One from the whole David Roberts/Bob Lutz thing: who cares why people are doing it?  As long as they're doing it, that's great!

And two....why is making a statement "the wrong reason?"  If you're making the statement that you want to save the world, if you want to have a physical example of your commitment, if you want to show off that you're voting with your dollars...is that "the wrong reason?"  Not to mention...I think the change from 2004 to 2007 shows something about the trendiness of green...or the effect of folks "bringing green to the mainstream" or making green cool.  I think it shows they've been reasonably successful (and I think Treehugger has had a hand in it).

Again, that point comes up in the recent findings from the GM Challenge X study, which was the genesis of this featured debate to begin with.  I think we've seen a decent paradigm shift in the way people are looking at green and at environmentalism.  I mean really...when we now have terms like "eco chic" or "vegansexual"...something's changed from the days of yore.

And one last thing...the "real environmentalists."  I don't know.  The whole holier-than-thou thing just irks me.  I'm of the opinion divisiveness and "my green is better than your green" is just not helpful.

So now that I've ranted for a bit...I open the debate a bit wider.  What do you think?

I don't have much to add except to agree with you.

a) It doesn't particularly matter why people are buying (or making) greener cars, as long as they're buying (and making) them.

b) 'Making a personal statement' is pretty vague.  If your personal statement is 'a green car is important to me', I don't see what's negative about that.  I don't really know what the personal statement being made is supposed to be, or why it's supposed to be negative.

c) It's great to see green products becoming the 'cool' thing, assuming the trendiness doesn't wear off.

fuel efficient car vs sports car owner?  How bout neither?

I try to *not* engage the owners of Prius cars in conversation about their cars -- have you seen how geeky they are?  They whip out PDAs and laptops and show you charts of fuel efficiency and all kinds of stuff.  It's admirable but not exactly party chat.

Sports cars... man, I tried to talk a friend out of buying a Ferrari.  I was shocked, honestly.

The people who have the most well-rounded view of things are the people who can tell you about converting a car to biofuel.  Now that's a fun conversation!

Dude, harsh.

For the record, I don't own a PDA and don't carry my laptop around!  If somebody asks, I tell them I get around 50 mpg and leave it at that!

Sorry - but you haven't seen the parties I've been to.  These people have WEBSITES!!! Then the whole thing turns into 60 minutes of clicking on charts and graphs.

Seriously.

Driving a sports car doesn't have to be a completely impractical decision. Even though most sports cars have just two seats and minimal trunk space and great car parts, there are some that don't fit that description. You can console yourself with the following cars, which all get pretty good gas mileage for being sports cars, with ratings similar to much more boring vehicles.

** edited to remove link in violation of Commercial Use Policy

I want a car that I can plug into a house electrical system that is connected to a wind turbine.   Having said that, as human beings we must still maintain an appreciation of art

I think I have to go with the Fuel efficient owner for some things. I also like starting conversations with people who own sports car because most of them are strongly interested in cars in general and conversations go both ways. We might start by discussing the other persons sports car but the conversation will almost inevitably lead to the "so what do you drive?" question when I tell them about my car they normally get really interested in hearing more about what it can actually do while getting about 40mpg. After that its easier to introduce them to more efficient or alternative fuel cars and most of the time they seem genuinely interested.

It really depends...for me.

Is the guy to my right driving a Tesla or the new Porsche Hybrid? If so, I'll definitely be interested! But I'm really curious about what's under the hood, how fast it'll go from 0-60 secs, and how many BMW's he's dusted.

Otherwise, I'll have a chat with the guy in his Z06 Corvette. Who knows maybe he'll surprise me and tell me about his recent installation of solar power panels and his monthly carbon offset bills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenn 

 

Sorry - but you haven't seen the parties I've been to.  These people have WEBSITES!!! Then the whole thing turns into 60 minutes of clicking on charts and graphs.

 

Seriously.

You mean a bit like this:

But apart from tracking my daily solar power output, I still like to drive my old gas guzzler on the Autobahn at 200km/h or round the Nurburgring at 160km/h.  Sadly I'm trading it in for a Honda Insight soon so I'll just have to get busy with Excel to get my thrills from now on.  That is until we can zoom around in electric sports cars like the Lotus Tesla.

What most people fail to appreciate about sports cars is that it's not the absolute speed which is important (although that's a big part of it, sure) but how well the things go round corners that put an "O-M-G" grin on a drivers face.  The Nurburgring isn't the fastest of circuits but the bends are to die for.

SO.. If I wasn't married already, I'd chat up a woman driving a Lotus Tesla at the 'Ring.