If you live in a city then you don’t need to own a car. So said, William Clay Ford Junior. His great grandfather invented the Model T but today the the famour Ford saying is ‘any colour you like as long as its green’!
Cityhop, NZ’s first car club, co-founder Victoria Carter says, “He’s right, and we can’t tell enough people, you really don’t need a car if you drive less than 12,000 km (7,500 miles) a year and you don’t need a car for work every day. Why? Because in Auckland and Wellington city, you can use a car by the hour from a car park nearby. Car sharing is saving people thousands of dollars a year, giving them greater mobility – and is also reducing pollution.”
Ford recently was interviewed in the Guardian about his green values. He doesn’t want any of his children to apologise for working for the Ford Motor Company, in fact he wants the opposite.
Ford is now the only car maker to audit its environmental performance. He pulled the company out of the Global Climate coalition and has lobbied for higher petrol taxes. He has taken up environmental groups’challenge to follow BP’s John Browne in accepting climate change is a reality.
He doggedly claims that what is good for the planet is good for Ford. He points to the ISO 14001 audits, that are now saving millions of dollars in energy, waste, materials and waste handling costs.
What interests, Victoria, is that Ford recognises that the notion of car ownership is antiquated. Whereas Ford’s great grandfather wanted everyone to have their own car his great grandson appreciates that if you live in the city you don’t need to own. That the future for Ford is making cars available to motorists as and when they need access to transport.