The Ford Fusion Hybrid: Grow a (Digital) Tree on Your Dashboard

According to the 22 May 2009 CarAndCaboodle.com article "The Ford Fusion Hybrid: Deserving of Recognition," the Ford Fusion Hybrid provides a great application of behavioral economics. Fuel efficient driving is rewarded by the illumination of increasing numbers of leaves on a digital tree on the dashboard.

According to the article:

You made me love you. I didn’t want to do it.

Let’s be perfectly honest. I wouldn’t normally look twice at a mid-sized sedan. I have four kids. Two who sit in carseats. I rarely even glance at normal vehicles that seat less than six. Plus I’m a car snob. I’m into auto everything, extra options and the leather seating. So I probably would have completely overlooked the Ford Fusion Hybrid (and really missed out on a fabulous vehicle) if it were not for two things:

1. This past Wednesday I got to drive the Fusion all around LA with fellow blogger Jessica Gottlieb as part of an “eco driving challenge”, prior to attending the American Idol finale. We drove on a course with yellow flags. I pretended I was on Amazing Race.

2. The music video commercials for the Ford Fusion shown all season during American Idol, were just so cool. They definitely piqued my interest. I love car commercials, and when I see a great one, I’m more inclined to want to check out the car.

Hopping into the Fusion Hybrid I was struck that the interior was really nice. Posh even. The leather seats had contrast stitching like a nice handbag (I am forever comparing car seats to handbags) and were comfortable to sit in. The interior was quiet and surprisingly luxurious. Sitting in the drivers seat I admired the high tech gadgetry. It felt very cockpit-like, in a good way. I might even have thought I was in a higher priced luxury car, until Jessica attempted to adjust her seat. She discovered the passenger side seating was manually operated. A little odd, but not my problem. I was behind the wheel. A fun place to be. I was willing to overlook the seat issue, considering the Fusion’s other charms. Namely, it appreciates me.

I could go on about the way it handled, and how great the mileage is but you can get that kind of review anywhere. So I’ll tell you why I really loved the fusion. It was all about the recognition.

As a self employed mom, I so rarely get told that I am doing a good job. Whole weeks go by without kudos. My kids don’t evaluate my performance and tell me I got a gold sticker for recycling this week. No one ever musses my hair and says, “job well done on the cloth diapering!” Come to think of it, perhaps I was an easy mark for Ford. They definitely clued into something that I was hungry for. That nod, that pat on the back, a little recognition!

The Ford Fusion dishes out the recognition right on the dash via the SmartGauge with EcoGuide. This unique display is one part personal driving coach and one part behaviorial therapist. It rewards good eco driving behavior by “growing” leaves on the dash. Drive really well and you’ll not only save dollars at the pump, you’ll grow a full leafy tree. Which is the grown up, eco responsible version of a sticker chart full of gold stars. As silly as that sounds when I type it, it was terrifically fun and rewarding to see the tree grow as we drove.

Jessica and I were awesome eco drivers I should tell you. We grew a gorgeous tree with our fabulous eco driving skills. We had an average of 42mpg between us, on our urban driving course. We blew most of the other drivers out of the water. 42 mpg through downtown LA is just phenomenal. But honestly, who cares about numbers, because…tree!

Sadly , despite our eco-prowess, we did not win the eco driving challenge. In the end it was our vanity that did us in. We left on the AC after we exited the freeway. Our efforts to be cool put a ding on our mileage and cost us the championship title.
Another (far less cool and far more sweaty!) team managed 43.4 mpg on the same course. I personally, did not get to see their tree but I refuse to believe it was anywhere near as pretty as ours.

Ford is really onto something with their attention to detail, and clever user friendly technologies. I could get spoiled with all this recognition and reward. Pretty soon I’ll be expecting my low-flo showerhead to make me pretty rainbows for me when I manage to wash, rinse and condition in under 10 minutes.

Japanese "melody roads" play tunes as you drive over them

According to the November 14, 2007 boingboing.net blog entry "Japanese 'melody roads' play tunes as you drive over them,"

POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, NOVEMBER 14, 2007 6:56 AM
Several experimental Japanese "melody roads" have been deployed, whose cut grooves and bumps play distinctive songs through your car, but only when you drive slowly and carefully down them. This seems like a potentially useful bit of social engineering -- set the musical timing on a road at the safe speed, and combine that with timed traffic lights that reward you with a "green wave" if you stick to the limit, and you'd have a pretty good set of cues telling you how to travel at speed. Bobbie Johnson writes in the Guardian:

A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of "melody roads", which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.
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The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes.

Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes, enabling cunning designers to create a distinct tune.

Here are some YouTube videos of melody roads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTsoP3WWgU4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Aey7Jq0G3EU&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBfRZH8kkdk

Joel Stein satirically suggests some ways government can improve social outcomes

In the October 12, 2009 TIME magazine article "Dictator of My Dreams," Joel Stein satirically suggests some ways government can improve social outcomes:

I have voted for two libertarian candidates for President, believe in drug legalization and have done many things that would have gotten me caned in Singapore, a Catholic school or anyplace someone happened to be near a cane. I've fought the left's paternalism of the body and the right's paternalism of the soul. But recently I've been wondering if my political assumptions are wrong, if America might not be better off under a dictatorship. I've also been wondering if somewhere deep inside, I secretly want to be caned.

My opinion shifted after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg banned smoking in bars. At the time, I believed having a scotch in one hand and a butt in the other wasn't just essential to the pursuit of happiness but a necessary means for Jersey women to let people know that they weren't going home alone. I was outraged by Bloomberg's hubris. Was he also going to outlaw short skirts, hair spray and singing along to "Livin' on a Prayer"?

But almost seven years later, smoking in bars and restaurants seems insane. It went from dictator Bloomberg's horrible idea to something you wouldn't think of doing anywhere, including Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong and Istanbul. Not only do I go to far more bars now, but I even bring my baby. Which is something Bloomberg should probably also make illegal.

Social change may happen fast, but no one stops polluting unless an Indian cries on TV. My point isn't that activists and advocates don't shift the way we think; public opinion shifts in various ways, the prolonged explanation of each of which has made Malcolm Gladwell millions of dollars. My point is simply that, everything being equal, a dictator can make an Indian cry fastest.

And people love a good dictator — or at least get over their hatred of one pretty quickly — provided that the dictator doesn't put up too many pictures of himself. We instinctively object to new forms of paternalism, but we also quickly accept them: laws requiring seat belts and motorcycle helmets, forced retirement savings through Social Security, waiting periods for marriage and gun licenses. Though you're not hurting anyone else, you can't commit suicide, have sex with your dog, drink in public, do drugs, be a prostitute, swim at a beach without a lifeguard, eat unpasteurized cheese or do most things that are crucial to the plot of independent movies.

President Obama should probably get a little bit dictatorial up in here. He's the only person in the U.S. unaware that we elected him dictator, giving him both houses of Congress and the major television networks whenever he wants them. Instead of ignoring people's objections until they get socialized medicine and realize they like it, as England's leaders did, Obama is worried about seducing Olympia Snowe so he can say his health bill is bipartisan. Do you know how long it takes to charm people from Maine? They're uptight white people coated with a hard exterior made from other uptight white people. While Obama negotiates on climate change, the Chinese government has forced China's entire tech industry to focus on energy efficiency, and soon we'll all buy Chinese products because they'll be far cheaper to power — and people can stay mad about poisoned babies and puppies for only so long. The lesson for Obama isn't that we didn't like George W. Bush because he bossed us around. We just wanted to be bossed around far, far better.

In fact, we need a dictator to do all kinds of things. I want a law making all Internet browsers' default setting block pornography and for that setting to be difficult, but not too difficult, to change. I want all alarm clocks, when they go off, to mention going to the gym. I think there should be limits on when you can sue, a ban on guns not used for hunting, parenting licenses enforced by social-services visits, more obstacles to post-first-trimester abortions and a European-size tax on gasoline. Soda should be sold in containers no bigger than 8 oz. People should pay for their garbage by weight. And their plane tickets.

Despite what you're thinking, I don't want to be the dictator. That's mostly because I'm already prone to bad haircuts. But also because instead of an actual dictator, I think what we need is to recognize that social mores require government nudges like the ones Bloomberg creates and Obama adviser Cass Sunstein advocates. We live in a connected age in which our liberties bump against one another. I know this is all easy to say since I'm not a smoker, a soda drinker or a columnist whom politicians listen to. But in an age of overwhelming choice, some dictatorial direction would help. Plus, then Obama wouldn't have to be on TV so much.