{"id":25331,"date":"2021-02-03T21:29:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T21:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=158144"},"modified":"2021-02-03T21:29:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T21:29:12","slug":"in-gms-new-super-bowl-ad-will-ferrell-loves-evs-and-hates-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/03\/in-gms-new-super-bowl-ad-will-ferrell-loves-evs-and-hates-norway\/","title":{"rendered":"In GM\u2019s new Super Bowl ad, Will Ferrell loves EVs \u2014 and hates Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s got Will Ferrell. It\u2019s got Awkwafina. And it\u2019s got \u2026 electric vehicles?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u201d in this case is General Motors\u2019 new Super Bowl ad<\/a>, which the company released Wednesday on Twitter. The ad features Will Ferrell, beard shaggy from COVID-19 quarantine, smashing his fist through a classroom globe when he realizes that Norway has a higher number of electric vehicles per person than the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna crush those lugers!\u201d Ferrell says, driving his shiny GM car to the actor Kenan Thompson\u2019s house. Thompson, dressed like a pirate for his daughter\u2019s birthday, looks suitably bewildered.<\/p>\n

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Norway is crushing us at EVs. That\u2019s crazy. We have to do better. Are you in? #EVerybodyIn<\/a> #NoWayNorway<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/QH8kXRd4rp<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 General Motors (@GM) February 3, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

General Motors is in the middle of an electric vehicle publicity blitz, following their promise \u2014 announced last week<\/a> \u2014 to end sales of gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. In October, the company also released plans for its \u201cHummer EV<\/a>,\u201d an all-electric version of the monstrous, gas-guzzling behemoth that still tears through some suburban American streets. (The first edition of this new \u201csuper truck\u201d sold out within 10 minutes<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a wild turnaround for an automaker that \u2014 until November of last year<\/a> \u2014 had been resisting cutting the amount of carbon dioxide its vehicles spewed into the atmosphere. In October of 2019, General Motors sided with the Trump administration<\/a> in a legal battle, pushing back against California\u2019s stricter requirements to cut climate-warming pollutants from cars. But in November, after Joe Biden was elected president, the company seemed to see the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident-elect Biden recently said, \u2018I believe that we can own the 21st century car market again by moving to electric vehicles,\u2019\u201d Mary Barra, CEO and chairman of General Motors said in a statement<\/a> at the time. \u201cWe at General Motors couldn\u2019t agree more.\u201d<\/p>\n

From an economic standpoint, however, the company didn\u2019t have much of a choice. China \u2014 the largest single market<\/a> for General Motors vehicles \u2014 has vowed to allow sales of only \u201ceco-friendly\u201d cars by 2035<\/a>, meaning mostly electric vehicles and hybrids. And in September, California made a similar pledge<\/a>, promising to prevent sales of all but \u201czero-emission\u201d vehicles by 2035.<\/p>\n

Now, General Motors is surging ahead, promising to release 30 new electric vehicles<\/a> and add 2,700 electric charging stations to the country\u2019s network by 2025. And it\u2019s doing so not by appealing to the values environmentalists hold dear \u2014 hatred of consumerism, protecting wide-open natural spaces \u2014 but by hitting on some uniquely American virtues: bigness (an electric Hummer!), and beating other countries (watch out, Norway!). The ad is airing during the Super Bowl, after all.<\/p>\n

The U.S. won\u2019t be able to catch up to Norway anytime soon: 6.5 percent<\/a> of the vehicles on the Scandinavian country\u2019s roads are electric, compared with only 0.3 percent in the U.S. But President Biden has also promised to replace all vehicles in the U.S. fleet<\/a> (there are 645,000 of them, including a whole bunch of postal trucks that sometimes catch on fire<\/a>) with EVs, and momentum is building to electrify cars across the country. Change, as they say, happens slowly \u2014 and then all at once.<\/p>\n