You may have seen the Jeep ad starring Harrison Ford that played during the Super Bowl. In it, the actor who played Han Solo in the Star Wars movies explains that “freedom is yes – or no – or maybe.”
And he’s right about that.
Freedom is about the right to choose. More finely, it is about your choices being respected by others, who have an equal right to choose.
The irony of the ad is that the option to hear the “roar of one man’s engine,” as he styles it – is a choice that’s being winnowed down to a choice for the very few. And even for them, for not much longer. The roar is being replaced by the “silence” of the battery powered devices that Jeep has been forced to say “yes” too, in order to coerce us into saying “yes” to them. . . by leaving us no option to say “no” to them.
Jeep said “yes” – to the government.
Jeep’s parent company, Stellantis – has been purging engines that roar from its vehicles and replacing them with devices that are silent – just like the grave it is digging for its brands. It has been doing this in order to avoid being bled white by fines for offering vehicles like the Wrangler with engines that roar – and use “too much” gas – according to the government, which fines Jeep and other manufacturers for manufacturing them. These CAFE fines make vehicles with engines that roar more much more expensive to sell and thus for us to buy – and that’s how we’re forced to say “no” to them.
CAFE fines have been reducing the choices available to us as regards vehicle types as well as engine size for decades, such that big cars with big engines are no longer available at affordable prices – because the government has effectively said no to them on our behalf.
Jeep – Stellantis – is also desperate to avoid paying Tesla instead of the government – for carbon credits – which the government allows a vehicle manufacturer to purchase in order to reduce the size of the carbon footprint made by the “roar” of engines like the 6.4 liter 392 cubic inch V8 you can still get in a Jeep Wrangler.
But only in the top-of-the-line Rubicon iteration – which starts at $56,905 or about $20k more than the base-trim Wrangler.
And then it’ll cost you about $91k to buy the thing with the 6.4 V8 – because Jeep can’t afford to sell too many of them due to regulatory compliance costs. Those CAFE fines – and carbon credits.
The V8’s mileage – 13 city, 16 highway – really drags down those Corporate Average Fuel Economy averages and so costs Jeep money (in fines or credits, take your pick) and that’s why it costs us what it does to hear that engine roar.
A rich movie star can afford to hear it. Probably 99 percent of the people watching the ad can’t.
And no more V8 at all – at any price – in other Jeep models such as the Grand Cherokee and Wagoneer – or the Ram 1500 pickup. All of which used to be available with V8s but now come with turbo-sixes and hybridized drivetrains instead.
See that part about CAFE and carbon footprints and carbon credits.
The new six helps reduce the size – and costs – of both. At our expense, of course. Including the cost of our freedom to say yes, no – or maybe.
“The most sacred thing in life,” Ford explains in the ad, “isn’t the path, it’s the freedom to choose it.” Too bad Jeep – too bad the entire industry – stopped defending the freedom to choose it. The poignant irony of this commercial is remarkable. It combines an ode to freedom with a telling nostalgia for the fact that we’ve lost it.
And then Ford explains why, sort of:
“You don’t have to be friends with someone to wave at them,” he says. “We won’t always agree on which way to go. But our differences can be our strength.”
But disagreeing isn’t the problem. Being forced to agree is. Who feels like waving at the asshole who won’t mind his own business?
Is Jeep being permitted – unfettered – to sell engines to those who want them and to not have to try to sell battery powered devices that look like Jeeps to those who do not want them?
We know the answer.
And that is why those of us who do esteem the freedom to say yes – or no – or maybe – do not feel much like waving to people who think we (and Jeep) ought not to have the freedom to say yes – or no – or maybe – to battery powered devices that look like Jeeps.
“So choose,” he goes on – while closing the charge door to a device that looks like a Jeep. “But choose wisely.” Note the dig made here implying that those who choose something that is not a device have not chosen wisely. This dig ought to come as no surprise given Ford believes the “climate” is “changing.” Implicit in that is that you are a bad person if you do not believe it is.
“Choose what makes you happy.”
Well, great. Sure. Isn’t that the point of being able to say yes – or no – or maybe – to anything? Ford misses the point while trying to make it, which is what makes this ad so interesting – and telling.
Maybe Jeep was trying to plead – ever-so-gently – for the freedom to choose yes – or no – or maybe. Maybe the ad was written to push back, just a little bit, against the regulatory pressure that has effectively forced not just Jeep but also Dodge and Ram and Chrysler to shy away from “engines that roar” in favor of the silence of devices that probably no one other than Ford, perhaps, asked for.
That would be good in that at least it’s a start.
It would have been better, though – for Jeep and for us – if instead of a hesitant endorsement of the freedom to choose yes – or no – or maybe after that freedom was accosted by the federal regulatory apparat and those who wished to take it away, Jeep (and the rest of the industry) had chosen to defend it, themselves and us when the apparat began to accost it.
. . .
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I also thought that the Super Bowl ad for the Ram trucks was interesting, though the ad pushing a brand new weight loss drug was cringe. Some company called hims & hers pretty much admitted there’s an obesity problem in the country, but instead of advocating things like eating healthy & losing weight, it had video of the various UNHEALTHY foods we eat, and it was pushing some brand new weight loss drug, and didn’t even list any potential side effects of taking it. I suppose next, Larry Ellison will advocate AI created drugs for weight loss.
Comedian Jimmy Dore had his own take on that Super Bowl ad….
https://rumble.com/v6jg951-the-most-misleading-super-bowl-commercial.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
One thing that I can’t figure, is if it was so easy to implement these stringent EPA rules that Obama and Biden implemented that led to these EV mandates, then wouldn’t it be just as easy to rescind these rules?
Trump dialed back the rules in 2017 but the manufacturers kept the designs in the pipeline unchanged. Bootleg projects like the new Crown Vic I photographed on the street in Chicago in Spring 2019 quickly disappeared once Impeachment started and the manufacturers saw hints of what was coming in November 2020.
This time around, I doubt the manufacturers will even think about altering the pipeline until after the midterms. Cars may not start to get measurably better until well into Trump’s successor’s first term.
There are, however, already glimmers of hope. The reintroduced Toyota FJ Cruiser will have a 4.0 L V6 and six speed transmissions, automatic *and* manual.
I agree, Roscoe –
The situation must not only reverse but stabilize. If Trump can make the necessary changes and then hold the line for at least six years, then there’s a chance. Trump 2028…
Strllantis has made a mockery of what used to be MOPAR (or NO car). Hard to believe this is the company that produced the Dodge Polara cop car for the Mt. Prospect, IL, PD, with a “cop motor, cop tires, cop shocks, and a 440 cubic inch plant, made before catalytic converters, so it’ll run good on regular gas.”
Fix the lighter.
This is all so sad all I can think of is my past times with Jeep . So I will go with better times .
My brother in law bought a CJ-7 new back about @1980 and that was such a great vehicle , straight 6 cylinder and 4 speed no frills . First time I drove it around the block I had to put my seatbelt on LOL , thought I was gonna fall out because he had the top and the doors off ! He later put headers on it , oh what a great sound that was .
Harrison Ford didn’t make the commercial for nothing.
We gotta do something to sell these electric vehicles nobody wants to buy.
If you got to the right up river backwaters, you could net minnows and suckers to use as bait. You can use bait to lure in a walleye or bluegill, Jeep fished in a Ford.
The Tesla store in Loveland CO was vandalized and arson was committed by the culprits.
Keyed Teslas and some Teslas were painted with graffiti.
If you want to drive a Tesla, it is a risk.
Why bother?
I miss the old man tonight
I can almost see is face
With his corny jokes and cheap cigars
He could look you in the eye and sell you a car
That’s not an easy thing to do
And no one ever knew a more charming person on this old earth
Than my old man – Steve Goodman, My Old Man
Ford may have the dough. His wife, ding-dong actress of “Ally McBeal” infamy, has his cajones firmly in a vise.
My wife & I watched that ad.
Just as Ford shut the access port door on his EV/device, we exclaimed to each other, simultaneously:
“He can afford to choose.”
Too bad for the rest of us Ordinaries.
We’re left with only one choice:
• hope our 20+ year-old cars keep running (and pray DOGE axes the FMVSS & EPA).
Hey ! I am not ordinary , just underfunded , lol . But yeah , carry on .
Speaking of Jeep (and other Stellantis Garbage), you will now see full screen ads on your infotainment screen whenever the car is stopped.
https://techstory.in/stellantis-introduces-pop-up-ads-in-vehicles-sparking-outrage-among-owners/
Coming soon (probably): pay $99 per month to upgrade to an ad-free Jeep.
Or just sprinkle five gallons of gas in the interior, and torch the p.o.s. 🙂
There was some other lecturing going on during the super bowl commercials…
white kid bullies wearing varsity jackets demeaning a nerdy black kid (although I thought he was old enough to be a teacher at first) then misogyny put down of a black girl. All for the sake of the NFL promoting flag football becoming a varsity sport in HS for women (didn’t say no trans).
Then… Snoop dog (Calvin Broadus) and Tom Brady lecturing us on a hate discussion. Didn’t know I needed one.
Then… the breast cancer ad which seemed to put men in a light of boob bate for bubba’s and we are all guilty of something for noticing. (Try Ivermectin is my advice).
Then…Budlight trying to make amends which fell flat. Nice try. At least they didn’t have a bunch of loser nerdy white guys and a cool black guy with a white wife demographic.
At least they had Torreto in a cool 69 Camero with a hot chick for Haagen Dazs Ice Cream.
Yeah, wtf was with that Tom Brady-Snoop D-Oh-Double G thing. Who’s hating on whom? I don’t see any of that in my daily life. Apparently there’s just not enough real hate and racism in these United States so they have to just manufacture it.
That breast cancer thing tried to kill 2 birds with one stone. It attempted to demean men who are visually attracted to breasts (a natural evolutionary response) which are almost always on display, and furthered the medical industrial complex’s intent to over test with mammograms’.
The whole superbowl spectacle/propaganda event is just so annoying and stupid.
Snoop Dog the gangsta lecturing us on morals, how ridiculous!
Yea, Calvin was convicted of possession with intent to sell cocaine which he did almost 3-years in prison. He was later acquitted of murder of a man (Philip Woldemariam) in a dispute with Calvin and his bodyguard. Not sure how Calvin dodged that one…the jury must have concluded that Woldemariam decided to commit suicide during that argument with Calvin and his bodyguard that day.
Oh, let’s not forget the make-up artist lawsuit: “trouble came in 2005 when he was sued by a makeup artist who was seeking $25 million in damages. She claimed that the rapper and some of his friends drugged and raped her after his appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in 2003. She dropped her lawsuit later in 2005, saying that they had reached a settlement.”
So, I am supposed to take a lecture about *hate* from this guy??
Since I have no interest in the NFL, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl or the commercial. I trust Eric’s review of it.
It’d be fun to turn the tables & make the USG follow their own edicts on federalized military style police vehicles, F-16s, B-52s, M-1s, etc. Further, I’m pretty sure the ordinance they shoot releases all kinds of nastiness. And I can tell you firsthand that the DoD is the worst polluter on the face of the earth.
Oh, and toss in the solid rocket boosters for the Senate Launch System charlie foxtrot jobs program for Boeing.
You’re spot on that the DoD is a yooooge polluter. In one of my past jobs, I worked on a project that focused on cleaning up closed military installations. These places had nastiness you can’t find anywhere else, from tons of lead on former firing ranges to leaking fuel tanks to hastily buried explosives to medical waste…with biochemical weapons thrown in for good measure.
I’m surprised that the greens haven’t really taken on the issue of the DoD’s ravaging of the planet…I suspect Uncle Scam has either paid off the greens to look the other way…or threatened them with losing the tax exempt status of their organizations.
PS: What’s the carbon footprint of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza? What was the carbon footprint of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam? Asking for a friend.
Electrified Mopars…the worst of the worst.
The 4XEs have horribly designed battery packs that like to explode and have been subject to multiple recalls due to their unpredictable ability to initiate structure fires.
Stellantis needs to either ditch the entire electrified plan and go all in on ICE Hemis and Pentastars – or die trying.
And Indiana Jones should go back to crashing planes with Ally McBeal or whatever he does on weekends.
I vote for ‘die trying.’
Electric Jeeps: burn these abominations with fire.
Exactly.
Maybe Stellantis should even double down, split off CDJR and have them merge with Nissan.
Then they get cheap cars, (saleable) crossovers and a normal mid-size truck – all things they currently lack.
A late-life marriage of two retarded, wrinkled dinosaurs, wheezing on the black beach of the tar pit as the predatory pterodactyls circle above, crying CAW! CAW!
Best reality TeeVee evahhh …
I’d watch that reboot of “The Land that Time Forgot.”
The Mercedes CLA and GLA platforms scream “Chrysler” to me, vehicles in the pipeline when the Germans abandoned Auburn Hills to the whims of private equity and took everything that wasn’t nailed down.
I was starting to think maybe it was a sort of ok commercial. Until he took the charger plug out. Of course it had to be an electric jeep. It seemed like they were trying to weave in a bit of victimology. “Don’t hate me just because I am morally and intellectually superior. You can still wave as I drive by in my better than your car electric jeep!”
He was a lot more tolerable in the days of driving his “field car” around Petaluma. But like most celebrities, he’s chosen to spread the bovine excrement on more than the lettuce.
Having any of the shrill harpies known as “Hollywood Elites” even mention the word “freedom” is enough of a spike on the BS meter to ensure that I tune out.
Harrison Ford sold out to Disney and allowed his two iconic characters to be killed off by Woke hack screenwriters, Indy being finished off by the hilariously unqualified DEI hire Phoebe Waller-Bridge, previously best known for killing Daniel Craig’s James Bond in the script for the last film, and, before that, her one woman show, “Fleabag”.
At least Disney spared us the original rumored ending of the last “Indiana Jones” film — “Fleabag” taking Indy’s place in all of his adventures in time, leading to a new film/TV series.
There’s plenty of choice, as long as you stick to the choices on the menu. You can have a hamburger, cheeseburger, Big Mac, or Quarter Pounder. See, choices! Four of them!
Our betters have made the tough choices for us, so we don’t have to. Oh sure, it’s all old dairy cow hamburger and GMO wheat, but in different configurations, so that’s choice. And real sesame seeds, if you like.
Just like Tom Woods’ 3X5 card of allowable opinion. You can choose between this turbocharged 2 L inline 4, or that turbocharged 2 L inline 4. Not seeing the subtle differences between the two shows that you’re just not informed! Obviously the cam lifter lobes are slightly taller on the second choice. Only a philistine would call them the same engines.
Remember the old Star Trek episode with the half-white, half-black species? A lesson in racism delivered with a 5 lb sledge, it was one of the more cringe episodes. But that’s our choice when it comes to politics, as demonstrated over the last two weeks. What? You can’t tell the difference between the two people? You’re clearly not seeing it.
I buy Chicken McNuggets at McDonalds.
All of the hamburgers loaded with the usual condiments taste vile to me, and I don’t want to wait the typical 15 minutes they make the customer endure when the order is for “plain”.
Morning, Roscoe!
I stopped going to McDonald’s when they began to charge $10 for a hamburger and fries. One can buy a decent steak for that – plus the fries – if one cooks these at home.
BTW, longtime SoCal burger and cultural staple Inn-N-Out Drive-Thrus has relocated its company HQ from Orange County, CA to Tennessee (Nashville?). While that may be to support expansion east ofvthe Mississippi, likely it’s also to escape the woke stupidity that’s all but made any San Andreas fault event a mercy killing!
Maybe, just maybe, with all the DOGE actions questioning GovCo’s processes and the legitimacy surrounding them, someone will ask Trump or DOT head Sean Duffy, where in the Constitution are the Feds allowed to regulate CAFE or cars in general.
I won’t hold my breath.
The problem with DOGE is that it’s being run by Eloon Musk. There’s no way he’s going to put a stop to the “carbon credits” scam that made him a billionaire.
You are correct, Mike in Boston. The idea that a man that made billions on carbon credits and GovCo spaceship contracts is going to cut GovCo to the bone is ludicrous.
Then again, like making Papa Joe Kennedy the first head of THE SEC. He knew all the corrupt practices, and, more important, WHO was doing them!
Saw my first EV ad on the TeeVee last night. It was for a black colored Audi sedan going through the pine trees on a twisty mountainside hyway.
They kept playing audio of a roaring V-8 ICE engine.
I guess they were selling a fake steak by adding a fake sizzle?
It just seemed surreal to me. Or, Pavlovian? …And, dishonest.
Dead man walking . . . Both of them.
Has been’s yearning for that which they intentionally have destroyed. Harrison Ford fully bought into the climate change narrative.
I will gladly take a leak on both their graves.
‘The poignant irony of this commercial is remarkable. It combines an ode [to] freedom with a telling nostalgia for the fact that we’ve lost it.’ — eric
The ad’s WW II clips remind us that the US military never demobilized from Europe and Asia, eighty long years ago. Now our accidental empire is drowning in $36 trillion of debt, running $2 trillion annual deficits forevermore. Is this what they call a Pyrrhic victory?
Or not so accidental empire — here’s how the modern RINO party got its start:
‘Given overwhelming popular opposition to war intervention, Roosevelt’s prospects for an unprecedented third term might have seemed difficult.
‘But in one of the most unlikely twists in all of American political history, the June 1940 Republican convention selected as its nominee the obscure Wendell Willkie, a strong pro-interventionist who had never previously held any public office and until just a few months earlier had been a committed lifelong Democrat.
‘Historian Thomas Mahl thoroughly documented that British intelligence agents played a crucial role in that unexpected turn of events. The resulting Roosevelt-Willkie race thus provided voters virtually no choice on foreign policy matters. FDR was reelected in a landslide, freeing his hands to pursue a much more aggressive foreign policy.’ — Ron Unz
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-charles-a-lindbergh-and-the-america-first-movement/
‘No choice’ — welcome to the Uniparty, comrade. That’s why the ‘Biden’ entity gave Mitt Romney a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He took one for the team.
Revenge for losing the Revolutionary War…?
‘the “roar of one’s man engine” ‘ — eric
LOL! I could swear Harrison Ford says “one man’s engine.”
What is the sound of one’s man engine at redline? :-0
Thanks for the catch, Jim – it’s early and I didn’t get enough sleep last night, apparantly!
Hey, if you don’t Eff up, you aren’t doing anything.
“roar of one’s man engine”
Better this way. Maybe next year.
Thanks, Worker!
I sometimes transpose things when it’s early in the morning and I haven’t had enough coffee yet. I appreciate the copy editing help I regularly get!