Conditioning Them to Plug it In

Plug in hybrids can be seen in the same light as those bandanas some people wore during the “pandemic” in that both are examples of ways to get away with not doing what the government-corporate nexus wants. The bandana qualified as a “mask” – allowing the wearer to get into stores requiring them without having to actually wear a mask. Similarly, plug-in hybrids are a way for car companies to get away with not making more purely electric cars because plug-in hybrids are capable of operating as electric cars and so help the car companies comply with the regs that can only be complied with by electric cars.

A plug-in hybrid can be driven on battery power alone – just like an electric car. But it does not have to be driven on battery power alone because it does not have to be plugged-in when its battery runs low on charge. The gas engine automatically kicks in to recharge the battery while you drive, which means you do not have to stop – except occasionally for gas – and as everyone knows, stopping to get gas (a full tank) takes just a few minutes. As opposed to waiting for at least 20-30 minutes to recover a partial charge at what are hilariously called “fast” chargers. Yes, of course, they charge faster than charging at home – which takes hours. But it still takes comparatively forever vs. filling up a gas tank.

That is the appeal of the plug-in hybrid – to the person who drives one. He does not have to drive an electric car.

The appeal of the plug-in hybrid to the car companies is that they do not have to try to sell people a car that forces them to wait and plan around the wait. Plug-in-only cars (electric cars) are hard to sell because they do force their owners to wait and plan around the wait. There are a few people willing to do that but not enough to make selling plug-in-only vehicles viable as mass market vehicles. But – Catch 22 – they effectively have to manufacture plug-in vehicles to achieve compliance with the “zero emissions” regs as well as the mileage regs, which effectively require vehicles that do not burn gas at least some of the time.

Plug-in hybrids fit the bill. When they’re running on battery power, they are “zero emissions” – and aren’t burning any gas. Bingo! compliance achieved.

But they’re able to burn gas – which is how they get away with being noncompliant. It is why plug-ins that do not have to be plugged in are under attack for being just that – and not just by anti-driving car sites that bemoan the fact that plug-ins do not have to be plugged in and so do not force their owners to plan their driving around the waiting.

Toyota is using behavioral science to wheedle people into plugging in. Naturally, there’s an app for that.  It is called ChargeMinder and it “integrates more than a dozen interventions based on well-replicated findings from behavioral science research that have been tailored for specific charging behavior change goals.”

Italics added.

B.F. Skinner – the behavioral scientist who invented the Skinner Box  – phone home.

Why is everything about changing our behavior? Implicit in this is that our “behavior” is wrong and must be corrected. Does it not make you want to smash something – like the ChargerMinder app?

It works very much like the seatbelt “reminder” every new vehicle has in that it isn’t a reminder. It is a petty punishment.

The dinging/chiming that doesn’t shut off until you give in and “buckle up.” That is an example of changing behavior goals. Similarly, the ChargeMinder app “reminds” you to plug in – implying you’d merely forgotten rather than just didn’t want to – and it “recommends” stops to charge when the car is in the vicinity of a place to plug in – which it knows because it is connected, something this column has been trying to warn people about for some time. It knows where the chargers are and it knows where you’ve been and what’s nearby and uses the data to “remind” you that you could stop and wait for a charge up ahead.

How very thoughtful!

Except of course no one asked for this (as one might a wake-up call at a hotel).

The CEO of of the Toyota Research Institute, Gill Pratt, says “Technology is not the only way to reduce emissions – people’s choices matter too.” Always the dissembling. If it were about people’s choices, Toyota wouldn’t be trying to change them, eh? And the change, in our time is always via euphemism and disingenuous coercion of one sort or another. “Driver assistance technology” is the obvious example. Most drivers did not ask for this “assistance” because they do not need it. Yet there it is – embedded in every new vehicle as standard equipment.

“This research and development shows how science-based behavioral interventions can both help us reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, as soon as possible, and increase customer satisfaction,” Gill says.

How many customers asked for this? How many want it? More to the point, how come customers won’t be able to opt out of it? It isn’t very satisfying to be wheedled into something via “behavioral interventions,” in the manner of a pink eyed white lab rat.

Another Toyota mind-diddler, Dr. Laura Libby, of Toyota’s Human Centered Artificial Intelligence department at the Toyota Research Center, says “Research in behavioral science shows that small, targeted interventions can have a large impact on people’s decisions and actions. Furthermore, compared to other causes of behavior change such as public charging infrastructure initiatives and consumer financial incentives, behavioral interventions are inexpensive and can be deployed quickly.”

What happened to the car industry? What happened to us?

The Brave New World Huxley wrote about a century ago is upon us and many of of us don’t even realize it even as we’re increasingly immersed in it.

Which is probably why.

. . .

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