Dancing With Dinosaurs

And now, from those wonderful folks who taught us that we are what we drive, that beyond mere transportation automobiles are about luxury or freedom or muscle or even patriotism, the heartbeat of America and all that, now comes a new pitch. Environmentalism.

We begin with Natural Gus. Natural Gus is a dinosaur-mascot, sort of like Barney. Unlike Barney, Gus is not his own boss. He works for General Motors. Monday the mascot could be found at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, an annual Convention Center extravaganza designed to let auto makers show off the latest in fender curves and fuel injection systems. This year the show offers a theme: The Automobile and the Environment.

Enter Natural Gus. He stood on an exhibit hall stage, singing to a small clutch of children about clean air and alternative fuels--natural gas, see?--and, most of all, about GM’s commitment to clean skies.

“The earth is our home,” Gus sang.

“Keep it clean,” Gus sang some more.

GM, he assured the kiddies, will do its “best, but it’s up to you to do the rest.”

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Move now to Ford’s corner of the show. Amid a sprawl of new pickups and redesigned Mustangs, Ford representatives have placed on display a “Yuletide card” box, allowing show attendees to recycle Christmas cards--proceeds to benefit a “nonprofit, non-sectarian home for neglected and abused children.” Close by looms a huge color portrait of a pristine mountain scene--snowcaps and blue skies reflected on the surface of a lake. “Ford,” a caption declares, “supports conservation of endangered species, preservation of tropical rain forests and natural births of animals.”

Elsewhere, it’s the same. From Toyota to Mercedes, almost every major car maker is showing off a prototype of some kind of electric or solar or gas vehicle. “Let’s create our future together,” spokesmodels tell the curious who gather around these often strange-looking machines. Other manufacturers tout new, environmentally sound components, such as asbestos-free brake liners. Potted evergreens and photographs of blue skies are everywhere. And the small, independent experimenters in electric vehicles and the like, banished in previous years to back corners of the show, find themselves in more prominent settings.

“Last year,” one said, “they stuck us next to the car wax guy and the guy who sells coffee cup holders. This year we actually are getting some people to come by.”

This choice of theme is no accident. It reflects what a lot of people believe--or, at least, hope--is a sea change coming soon to California and its cars. Current law mandates that, by 1998, 2% of all new autos sold in the state must be pollution-free. Given present technology, that means electric. The percentage is supposed to climb to 5% by 2003. As the auto show program points out, these requirements “will change cars more . . . than they’ve changed since the Model T--and at least 17 other states are on the verge of adopting our vision of the future.”

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We pause now, however, for a reality break. Natural Gus and recycled Christmas cards aside, supporters of the coming zero-emissions requirements are braced for one last political assault on the electric car movement by the Big Three. Already there have been direct appeals by Detroit executives to Gov. Pete Wilson to suspend the mandates. Legislation to do the same was introduced earlier this month. And there is much talk in Sacramento of a concentrated lobbying effort against the coming zero emission rules.

The Detroit people argue that the regulations are unreasonable, unworkable, unnecessary. Not only is the technology lagging, they suggest, but so is consumer demand. Having trained customers over decades to expect vehicles with power and range--cars with muscle--the auto makers now claim that wimpy little electric things simply won’t sell. Who wants to buy mere transportation?

Proponents of the rules--an alliance of environmentalists and utility and aerospace officials--see this emerging campaign as the last scream of a dinosaur industry. They believe electric cars offer an opportunity, not only for clean skies, but also for new business: the mass production of a new kind of automobile, or at least components, in places other than Detroit. Like, say, California. They concede, however, that defeat would be a tremendous setback for any movement away from internal combustion engines, exhaust pipes and that brown stuff you can see most any day out an L.A. window.

So, there it is. Right now, the auto makers convened in Los Angeles are demonstrating that, when it comes to environmentalism, they can talk a terrific game. Later this year we should learn where the slogans end and the commitment begins. It should be, as one famous former Detroit executive would put it, the year when the rubber meets the road.