During these last decades, the automotive industry seems to have taken some steps towards “sustainability”, by increasing fuel efficiency and developing hybrid and “emission-free” powertrains. Despite this, it is still often accused of greenwashing, since many brands still don’t plan to cease the production of internal combustion engine vehicles nor to stop collaborating or lobbying with fossil fuel companies, even when their line-up is “fully electric”. And when it comes to batteries, there
lays the problem of mining rare-earth metals. So, we decided to investigate some of the communication strategies that car brands adapt to make their models appear more “eco-friendly” in their video advertisements. More specifically, we analysed 30 internal combustion engine (ICE), 30 hybrid electric (HE) and 30 battery electric (BE) models—for a total of 90 different vehicles—to see if they present them differently according to their propulsion.
