The Fordasaurus

In the 1999 Ford released its most profitable vehicle to date. At nearly nineteen feet long and nearly seven feet wide and weighing in at about three and one half tons (Ford Excursion). The ford excursion was the largest vehicle on the road. But being the largest vehicle on the road comes at a price. You become the enemy of all the environmentalists and conservationists in the country. Upon announcement of the release of the excursion the environmental group the Sierra Club ran a contest for the best marketing slogan for the Excursion. They received entries such as “Fordasurus, powerful enough to pass anything on the highway except a gas station” and “Ford Saddam, the truck that will put America between Iraq and a hard place.” The slogan that won it though was “Ford Valdez: Have you driven a tanker lately?” (Shaw 292) Upon seeing the vehicle nobody can deny its impact on the environment. It’s a behemoth, without even knowing the actual figures you know pollution has to be staggering. The Sierra Club released a figure that that estimates in one hundred twenty thousand miles of use the Excursion would emit one hundred thirty tons of carbon dioxide (Shaw 293). The industry average is about forty-two tons in one hundred twenty thousand miles (Carbon). That’s over triple of the emissions. One would wonder why you would ever want to build such a vehicle. In the 1990’s with American’s lavish lifestyle of exuberant spending and their mindset of bigger is always better the sports utility vehicle market took off. After everyone already had a Bronco, Explorer, or Suburban the public wanted only one other thing bigger. Enter the giant Ford Excursion. People didn’t care whether they needed the space or not. They just want a vehicle that can hold, tow, or drive over anything. Ford had the answer; if you want a big vehicle we’ll make you pay for it. The excursion started at forty thousand dollars and moved up to fifty thousand dollars fully loaded. The shady part is that

Cited: "Carbon Emissions from Cars | American Forests." American Forests. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2012. "Ford Excursion." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Feb. 2012. Web. 03 Dec. 2012. Shaw, William H. Business Ethics. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.