Each year in recent memory, General Motors (GM) has invited the press and other key influencers out to the famous Milford Proving Grounds to spend a day testing out its upcoming model year line of vehicles on a closed course. The company has learned a lot from their last (hilarious) attempt to leverage social media, and for the first time ever, they decided to bestow the same access upon writers from around the blogosphere. Although they made sure that a smattering of green blogs were in attendance, tech blogs, trend blogs, and others were represented as well. Since by now, they have all covered major aspects of the event and GM’s green and non-green offerings , I’ve decided to use the opportunity to take a look at how the proceedings reflect on GM’s move toward sustainability, both in its marketing, and in reality.

First, credit where credit’s due: GM is one of the few major public corporations (and the first I’ve seen in the auto industry) to realize that social media, and the blogosphere in particular, doesn’t take kindly to being treated like any old marketing mechanism. On-message spin doesn’t work online because bloggers are people who take pride in peering through the fog, and distilling information for their readers. Conversations on the web are not one-way, and information can’t be controlled in the ways executives are used to. They are learning that the blogosphere is never afraid to call “bullshit” when it sees it, and the possibility of instant feedback ensures that all viewpoints can be heard, immediately.

Okay, I’m being too kind. I’d guess that the vast majority of the company’s top executives still don’t understand exactly why they approved the creation of their social media unit, but at least they know they needed one. They managed to hire people who realize that success in the blogosphere is about having an honest conversation, good or bad, and that admitting mistakes builds trust with consumers. But a disconnect remains. Bob Lutz, GM’s main internal blogger, has advocated for a gas tax to help create consumer demand to force the industry to invest aggressively in breakthrough transportation technologies. That’s great, but if he can’t speak for the company, is it doing any good?

GM’s social media people hope that it will. I honestly got the sense that they really do want to help change the company’s culture from the inside. Obviously, that’s a long road. In this environment, only an honest, respectful dialogue is ever going to overcome the decades of inertia of a behemoth like GM.

Finally, with the advent of our medium, that dialogue is becoming possible in ways it never has been. One thing’s for sure: the louder and more aggressive the environmental community is in calling GM a bunch of fascists who pushed the Hummer on unsuspecting Americans, the less they’re helping their (and our) cause. They only provoke a more defensive reaction from the people at the top of the company. Despite my distaste for Hummer owners, no sane person can fault a company that answers to shareholders for responding to demand in a high-margin niche. A part of me can’t help but think that activists who try to pressure corporations into putting the planet above profit are missing the forest for the trees.

Obviously, something is seriously wrong with a system in which well-meaning people continue to create products that ignore the environmental, resource, and economic crises that lie ahead. But it’s not as if they’re acting irrationally, given the information available to them. We all work in a system that is fundamentally flawed, and if activists want things to get better, they might be better off banding together to address root causes rather than the symptoms. If every person with a “downstream” (i.e. GM- or DuPont-specific) complaint joined a national movement to advocate for public financing of elections, or changing the way corporate rights are considered under the law, we might finally be able to start addressing the fundamental tensions between activists and the business world.

As an activist who runs a business, I can say with confidence that both sides are well-meaning. No one wants a world in which our grandkids look back and scream “What were you thinking?!” So let’s start working together to create a future we can be proud of. None of us can succeed without the rest of us.

Note: GM paid for my airfare and accommodations in connection with my coverage of the event. Finally, in the spirit of honest, open dialogue, I’d like to issue a formal invitation for someone from GM to discuss with an electric vehicle activist the issue of the EV1 electric car, including the “hows” and “whys” of its history. The movie Who Killed the Electric Car? was a great way to start the conversation, but film remains a one-way medium, and I am personally interested to see a real conversation about the issue develop. Email me, and I’ll make sure it gets set up.

Besides welcoming him back from his Honduras hiatus, we here at GreenOptions want to wish a happy birthday to Clayton, our intrepid writer on biofuels (and the policy issues swirling around them). We love his thorough, academic approach to such complicated topics.

Although they might not appeal directly to your average 'lite green' consumer in the same way that much of our other content does, Clayton's posts are always well-read, and tend to draw thoughtful, thorough responses from readers, which make for long comments, but also make for a real dialogue on issues that a growing segment of society has a real desire to understand.

On a personal note, I've known Clayton now for most of his 25 years on this little planet, and never have I met anyone more dedicated to learning for the sake of learning. This value is quickly slipping in our society, and it's good to be reminded of people who are caring about the details for all us lazy sinners.

What I'm saying is that we appreciate Clayton's contribution to a real dialogue on some very muddy issues. If you want to understand how science and policy mix when it comes to biofuels, take a look at some of Clayton's previous posts:

Yesterday: 'Free Trade' Descends on Biofuel Arena

2/14: Eugene's Green Biofuel Station

2/7:Ethanol Could Face Hazy Future

And, from our beta period:

1/31: Oregon Seed Growers United Against Canola

1/24: Live From Sundance 2007: "Everything's Cool"

1/17: Cold-Flow: A Firsthand Experience with Frozen Biodiesel

1/9: EPA Requires New MPG Estimates

1/3: It still smells good: B20 Biodiesel emissions show no NOx increase.

All of Clayton's posts can be found here.

Photo by Mike Magda
As a rule, I avoid all things LA. The traffic, the sprawl–it’s an intimidating place, and it certainly doesn’t seem very environmentally conscious. Then again, life thrives in the most inhospitable environments; challenges spur innovation. Where better than the city with more roads and freeways than any other to introduce the next generation in transportation?

Phoenix Motorcars is doing its part. Last night, the company held a major event to celebrate the launch of its first line, an all-electric sport utility truck (SUT)–appropriately enough–at LA’s famed Peterson Automotive Museum.

Company engineers were offering up test drives all evening, and I was lucky enough to be one of the first in line to get behind the wheel. All I can say is: wow. This was my first time driving an electric, so I didn’t push it too hard, but test-drive-mate J. Karen Thomas (of Who Killed the Electric Car?) had no reservations about seeing what the truck could do. As she hit the accelerator (and I reached in vain for a seatbelt), all I heard was a slight whirring sound, which quickly faded to silence. Awesome.

While all 500 SUTs Phoenix plans to produce this year are already spoken for by high-profile supporters and corporate fleets, the company will introduce an SUV version later this year, and expand its production capabilities to make thousands of these beauties available in 2008.

Phoenix CEO Dan Elliot (who showed off his SUT to President Bush recently) was hell-bent on creating an all-electric vehicle that could meet the daily needs of a wider range of users, “from the grocery store to the hardware store.”

The Phoenix SUTIt’s obvious that the truck was specifically designed to undercut all of the traditional knocks on electric vehicles: it fits 5 easily, has 1,000 lb payload capacity, and cruises at 95 mph on the freeway. It still only has a range of 130 miles per charge (which runs around $3), but the company is aggressively pursuing partnerships to set up high-powered charging stations that can flash-charge the vehicle in 10 minutes or less. Reps from multiple companies who want to make this happen explained to me that these stations could be fed from on-site renewable resources, with grid-connected or fossil backups to ensure reliability.

So, someone remind me again why we’re spending billions in California on developing one “hydrogen highway” when we could be making “electric highways” the new standard in transportation, using technology that exists today? There must be some powerful interests at work here…

Despite the threat that electric vehicle (EV) technology poses to the auto and oil industries, the public holds a trump card. As long as it was GM making and then aborting the EV prematurely, they could control the technology’s public image. But as companies like Phoenix and Tesla prove themselves in the market, the auto giants are going to have to adapt. Now that others are commercializing it, the power to control public perceptions about such new technology (as GM tried to do with the EV1) is quickly fading.

After last night’s event, it was clear that the electric vehicle is back, and this time, it’s here to stay. The technology is mature; all that’s left is to allow mass production to bring costs down. As that happens, the advantages of coupling transportation with our other energy needs is a no-brainer. First, it’s more efficient than internal combustion, meaning less energy gets wasted as heat, and more goes into pushing the vehicle. Also, it’s completely scalable, from the 3-wheel ZAP to performance sports cars that destroy the best muscle cars head to head.

But for me, the major advantage of EVs is that they allow us to decide where our fuel comes from. Even though your new electric SUT will be powered by the same dirty energy that powers the rest of our lives, going electric gives you options to do something about it. You could buy green power for your home with your savings on fuel and still come out ahead, or take the plunge and make your own power with a set of solar panels. As the event’s host and green activist Ed Begley, Jr. put it, “you can’t make gas on your roof.” It might not be right for everyone yet, but moving in this direction is the smart thing to do for families, for our oil-addicted country as a whole, and for the earth. It’s time.