Carmakers' Greenness In Blogs

Published September 24, 2008

JD Power and Associates got its start many years ago by talking to consumers about automobile quality, but the company has branched out considerably since then. Its latest study, issued this week by the Web Intelligence Division, looks at how car brands are perceived for their environmental sustainability. The answers should concern most auto execs—even those at some brands you might expect to do well.

Studies on this topic as recently as last year, said JD Power’s Averill Doering, just looked at the question, “Is there an issue around how people view a brand’s image of sustainability?” This year, he said, the conversation has moved on. Power’s clients now ask, “What can I do about it?”

To get its ratings, the company looked at a staggering 40 million blog posts over six months on topics like environmental sustainability and global warming. Then they rated brands on perpendicular axes: one for the number of posts, the other for the sentiment expressed in each posts.

The best category, “Pacesetters,” contained the usual suspects, more or less. Toyota had the highest volume, followed by GM, and then Honda—though Toyota was actually viewed less positively than GM, which itself only took a silver for in the popularity contest to Honda’s gold. Doering attributed Toyota’s weaker likeability to a “Prius backlash” its readers observed in the blogs they surveyed.

The interesting point here is that GM isn’t actually a brand. But clearly its corporate efforts around the Chevrolet Volt, its various hybrids (from the Malibu, Aura, and Vue hybrids to the Tahoe and Yukon Two-Mode Hybrids,) its forays into biofuels, and even its “Project Driveway” fuel-cell vehicle programs, all seem to have made a lasting impression.

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In the “Contenders” quadrant were those brands with favorable images that got less play on the blogs. Surprisingly, Nissan appeared here—seemingly due to its plans to launch a fully electric vehicle—as well as clean diesel stalwarts Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. In fact, Nissan had the highest overall perception rating—56 percent favorable—of any brand, including Honda (53 percent) and Toyota (46 percent). They must be doing something right.

Despite its long history of hybrids, including the Escape Hybrid SUV, Ford was the sole occupant of the “Emerging” category—a polite name that translates to “lots of talk about the brand, but not so much of it favorable." Doering suggested that, in light of recent publicity around the financial pressures on US carmakers, commentators are increasingly concerned that Ford (and others) simply may not have enough money to research, design, and launch advanced vehicles.

Finally, the “Challenged” quadrant included BMW, Dodge, Chrysler, Hummer (no shock there), and a surprise: Chevrolet. The flip side of GM’s positive showing, apparently, is that the Chevrolet bowtie badge on the Volt hasn’t sunk in yet. (It’s worth noting that the survey was done well before yesterday’s announcement about Chrysler’s EV plans.)

And what of the 27 other car brands sold in the States? The volume of comments about them was so low that they didn’t make the cut at all.

One final note: Doering cautioned carmakers that ethanol is not viewed nearly as well as it may have been a few years ago. Of all solutions offered to address environmental and sustainability issues, it had the lowest positive rating (31 percent) and the highest negatives (55 percent).

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