US automakers under fire in new ad campaign

3.45pm

DETROIT - United States automakers, who reap a big chunk of their profits from gas-guzzling "sport utility vehicles", have come under fire in a new advertising campaign attacking them for failing to build more fuel efficient cars and trucks.

The television ad, which has the slick look of a traditional car commercial, depicted an apparent new model SUV parked in a desert with its outline barely visible under a billowing satin sheet.

"It is the first car built for the road and the world around it," an announcer said. "It can take America to work in the morning without sending it to war in the afternoon," he adds, saying the vehicle's low fuel consumption can help break the US dependence on foreign oil.

As the sheet was pulled off the dream car it vanishes, however, and the chorus from the Talking Heads tune Once in a Lifetime rises in the background. "The only problem is Detroit won't build it," the announcer said.

One of the sponsors of the 30-second ad was the Natural Resources Defence Council, a New York-based environmental group. The other is the Detroit Project, a Hollywood group led by syndicated columnist and author Arianna Huffington, who sponsored another recent TV ad pitching alleged links between Mideast oil profits and terrorism.

Apart from the war in Iraq, the new ad came against the backdrop of last week's report from the Environmental Protection Agency which said US fuel economy reached a 22-year low in 2002. And a benchmark annual survey of vehicle quality, released on Tuesday by JD Power and Associates, showed that poor gas mileage was one of the top complaints among owners of 2003 model cars and trucks.

Jason Vines, who heads a group called SUV Owners of America, dismissed the new ad as the work of "a small, but well-funded group of anti-SUV activists." And since automakers from Europe and Japan also produce lucrative but gas-thirsty SUVs, some industry insiders said it was unfair to single out Detroit for criticism.

- REUTERS