Ladies and gentlemen, the article is a first in the history of Canadian automotive writers. For the first time ever, someone, who knows and likes them, has written an article about the strange and different world of hybrid cars.
To be or not to be... subjective
Do you find me subjective? Well, yes I am. I plead guilty to the fact that I am more inclined towards the greenest modes of transportation possible, be it public transportation, bicycling, rollerblading, or greener cars. But I am no different in that respect to other car writers, since all of them lean towards a certain type of transportation or vehicle. Some prefer Porsches, others Ferraris or SUVs, and the youngest seem to be seduced by the tuning of cars.
That's why, when you read the column of a particular writer, you will sometimes discover, in the language and appreciation this person has regarding a specific vehicle, a certain inclination pro or con. You will occasionally read comments like "Not powerful enough," "the road handling is too soft," "not nervous enough," "boring," etc. My question is: For whom?
So I have to say I consider that objectivity in this type of journalism is highly overrated.
Once this point has been made, let's look at the difficult yet essential step that you will have to go through before being able to discover the strange and wonderful world of green vehicles, a step I call: Deprogramming.
The deprogramming cure
Before being able to talk to you about hybrid cars or any other type of green vehicles, you will have to be deprogrammed, since most of you have seen so many car commercials (where cars seem literally to fly on roads as magnificent as they are deserted in a dreamlike landscape) that you mistake reality and fiction. Case in point, an ad currently appearing on TV. In it, we see a car, an Acura RS-X S that seems to be going at mach 2 on different roads, and with the help of computer-generated images, we see a whole bunch of them criss-cross each other. But when I started to look more closely, I noticed that the most realistic image that we can see in this ad is the one where an iceberg breaks apart and melts!
So, for this first step, you will have to follow my instructions to deprogram yourself with these 6 easy steps:
1: Make sure you are in a quiet place;
2: Put on some comfortable clothes that will allow blood circulation to the brain;
3: Take off your shoes;
4: Prepare yourself a calming drink (some tea, soup, grog, or a meal prepared for you by your mother);
5: If possible, get a massage of any type;
6: And now, read the following sentences out loud 3 times:
I DON'T NEED THIS MANY HORSEPOWER
THE SPEED LIMIT IN CANADA IS 100 KM/HR
I DO NOT NEED TO TAKE A CURVE ON TWO WHEELS
I AM COURTEOUS DRIVER
I AM CAAALM...