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The clever hybrid, or the deceptive one?

New Buick LaCrosse eAssist commercial explains it all

Last night I was watching Kitchen Nightmares — what a fantastic show — and was able to catch a commercial for the new Buick LaCrosse eAssist during a break. You know the one. The hybrid that isn’t a hybrid, at least in terms of GM nomenclature.

My first impressions were: what a good looking car and what a clever ad. And then GM killed it, and now I know why GM doesn’t want to call eAssist ‘hybrid technology’.

The bulk of the commercial is a couple inching through some congestion. ‘Now regenerative braking is capturing energy. Now start/stop is saving fuel’ the man says over and over to his wife until the congestion lifts and the car darts away and the commercial ends — with a concluding statement and a big number representing the LaCrosse’s highway fuel economy.

Highway fuel economy?

The bulk of the commercial highlights LaCrosse eAssist technologies for improving city fuel economy, yet the commercial ends without even mentioning city fuel economy and instead presents its much larger highway numbers?

Why? Because the city numbers aren’t very good? Because they don’t match up to the competition?

Now that doesn’t mean the LaCrosse eAssist isn’t a worthy car built upon a worthy technology, and it might be a much more cost-effective choice compared to the conventional LaCrosse, or even a similar equipped Toyota Camry or Ford Fusion — I just haven’t crunched the numbers enough. But it’s a little deceptive to use the bulk of a commercial to discuss city driving conditions while touting highway fuel economy since regenerative braking and start/stop have almost nothing to do with highway fuel economy.

Why not just present the combined numbers, for instance? Ultimately, that has to be the point of eAssist technology anyway, right?

For example, in the city the LaCrosse eAssist improves fuel economy compared to conventional gasoline-engine vehicles while providing solid highway numbers. Hence, combined numbers provide a a cost-effective fuel efficiency option for consumers — maybe more like Ecoboost than hybrids, or somewhere in between, but still a cost-effective choice.

Is there anything wrong with that? Isn’t that, ironically, the truth?

In fact, when I searched YouTube for the commercial, the version I found left out the highway fuel economy numbers and simply called the LaCrosse the most fuel efficient vehicle in its class. Much better. GM should revert back to that version. Skip the highway fuel economy shenanigans and the LaCrosse eAssist commercial seems clever rather than deceptive. And wouldn’t GM rather be considered clever instead of deceptive?