Automakers Getting a Taste for Vegan Values

Actor Michael Bell's is. The 66-year-old Encino resident doesn't eat or wear animal products, and his hybrid car doesn't have a stitch of leather in it.

If it had, Bell said, he wouldn't have bought the car, a 2001 Toyota Prius, despite its impeccable green credentials.

In raw numbers, vegans such as Bell are so few that they barely register on surveys of consumer habits. But to automobile manufacturers trying to win favor among the increasing number of consumers who say they are environmentally conscious, vegans — who avoid all animal products — are what one marketing expert called the center of the bull's-eye.

Pleasing vegans, the theory goes, is key to reaching a wider group of consumers — affluent shoppers who worry about the environment and who are willing to pay extra for food, clothing and even automobiles, if they are made in ways that do less harm to the planet.

Toyota Motor Corp. is so attuned to the sensibilities of these so-called green consumers that the company doesn't even offer leather seats for the popular Prius.

Memorable Discussion Points & Quotes: These consumers are the crossover market Toyota wants for its hybrid car. But putting leather in the Prius, even if it is just an option, could turn off the vehicle's core customers.

"It would disturb me because I would feel that they are caving in for the few extra bucks they could make," said Bell, the vegan actor, who has already ordered a new 2005 Prius.

Still, there is a way around the issue of dead cows: synthetic leather.

"There are imitation leathers that do not have an impact on the environment and we are looking at that," Daverio said.

But Daverio insists Toyota will never make a Prius with real leather.

"Oh, no," he said. "We would never do that."

[Poster's note: They wouldn't do that, unless Toyota found that leather goods from China are cheaper than petroleum-based synthethetic leather. Now what was that about synthetic leather not having an environmental impact?]

Sez me: These "vegans" are people whom I like to describe as "reformed whores." Have you ever met a reformed drunk, whore, or smoker? After they've indulged and had their fun, they certainly don't want you to partake. You can bet the ranch that before getting p.c., these vegans smoked, drank, and debauched their way through most of their lives while wearing their Gucci and Ferragamo loafers."

Non-P.C. Moral of the Story: The definition of a liberal (read neo-communist elitist) is, that while indulging themselves, they are afraid that somewhere, somehow that someone not under their control is having fun.

personally, if the market will support it, I think that Toyota should create an assembly line whose workers are all vegetarians and require suppliers to only have workers who are vegetarians and then it could sell a true "vegan" possitive alternative to this important market. (/sarcasm)

The market isn't big enough for these folks to have much influence.

Until these Vegans have brooms mounted on their cars to sweep aside all insect and other life, and install deterent devices to keep birds from being hit while they are driving, I'll just consider them fraudulent posers. Why are they even driving? Just think of all the lives each of us has snuffed out by driving cars, bikes or horses. Oh, I cringe!

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