Auto News 5

You and your investment banker colleagues made piles of money creating indecipherable financial instruments, got your friends at the ratings agencies to give them their stamp of approval, and just like that, all the risk magically disappeared and, not incidentally, your firm reaped huge fees selling the stuff to every financial institution in town. Now, sadly, the scheme has all come hideously undone. You no longer work on the Street; instead, you're out on the street. And, worse, your car lease is up. What to do? Of course, you're not destitute - you couldn't possibly have spent all the money you've raked in over the past few years - but you need to curb expenses. And yet, you want to keep up appearances. Allow us to help . . .

You and your investment banker colleagues made piles of money creating indecipherable financial instruments, got your friends at the ratings agencies to give them their stamp of approval, and just like that, all the risk magically disappeared and, not incidentally, your firm reaped huge fees selling the stuff to every financial institution in town. Now, sadly, the scheme has all come hideously undone. You no longer work on the Street; instead, you're out on the street. And, worse, your car lease is up. What to do? Of course, you're not destitute - you couldn't possibly have spent all the money you've raked in over the past few years - but you need to curb expenses. And yet, you want to keep up appearances. Allow us to help . . .

No one is bringing good, solid design into an environmentally friendly vehicle," says Franz von Holzhausen. "We either get strange, quirky vehicles that the general public isn't ready for, or we get iterations of the Prius. Nobody would buy a Prius if it were a normally powered car. My opportunity is to create a brand that revolves not only around clean, environmental stories, but also around awesome design. We are past the idea of an environmentally friendly vehicle needing to look different. As the idea becomes more mainstream, the quirkiness of the product will go away. People won't want to sacrifice anything, including style, to own an efficient car.