Super Bowl LII: Batteries Not Included

Internal combustion dominates this year’s big game

Like many of you, I spent Sunday night in front of the television watching Super Bowl LII. This year’s matchup featured the AFC’s New England Patriots versus the NFC’s Philadelphia Eagles. But since my beloved Green Bay Packers weren’t playing, I didn’t really care about the game itself (other than hoping the Eagles would stop the Patriots’ dynasty from winning yet another championship). I was watching for a different reason. Two reasons actually. First, I needed to know–would JT include a Prince hologram in his halftime show? And second, how many plug-in electric vehicles would we see advertised throughout the game? After all, this was the Super Bowl, one of the few times when companies can actually count on viewers to watch their commercials. In fact, Super Bowl commercials are an event all of their own. This was an opportunity for the auto industry to double down on last year’s media message of combustion’s demise and pave the way for an electric future.

I braced myself for it. I prepared myself for images of windmills and green pastures. Promises of a clean future through charging stations and batteries, lots and lots of batteries. We keep hearing about auto companies going all-in on electric vehicles–surely they would want to keep this message going and “plug” some of their plug-ins (pun intended)?

But the commercials we got were very different. Instead of dreams of an electric future, we saw the types of vehicles that people are actually driving. Take, for instance, the Hyundai Kona, a new crossover SUV that features two gasoline-powered engine options. You read that right–GASOLINE. Both the 2.0L 4-cylinder engine and the 1.6L turbocharged 4-cylinder engine have a combined fuel economy of 30 MPG. Not too shabby. For the sportier type, Kia showed off their Stinger GT, available with either a 3.3L twin-turbo V6 engine (with 365 HP and a 0-60 mph time of 4.7 seconds) or a 2.0L turbocharged 4-cylinder engine with a combined fuel economy of 25 MPG. And the fuel? You guessed it: gasoline. And for the even sportier type, the Lexus LS 500–with a 0-60 mph time of 4.6 seconds, 416 HP, and an estimated 30 MPG highway–fit nicely in the ad for the upcoming Black Panther movie. This car also comes in a hybrid version, the LS 500h. Trust me, I played and paused the commercial several times to be sure that the car in the ad was, in fact, the 3.5L twin-turbo V6 gasoline-only version. Oh, and the car in the commercial for Monster headphones? None other than the Lamborghini Urus, a super-SUV with a V8 twin-turbo, gasoline-only, 640 HP engine.

And then you have the jeeps and the trucks. Jeep had a big showing this year, with the Cherokee and the Wrangler sharing center stage. The new 2019 Jeep Cherokee has three powertrain options–a 2.4L 4-cylinder, a 3.2L V6, and a 2.0L turbocharged 4-cylinder. Nothing electric about those options. The 2017 version of the 2.4L engine has an on-highway fuel economy of 31 MPG and can drive up to 490 miles on a single tank of gasoline. (No range anxiety here!) The Jeep Wrangler comes with a 3.6L V6 or a 2.0L turbocharged 4-cylinder, and the Wrangler’s Anti-Manifesto ad was one of my favorites of the night. As was Toyota’s One Team, featuring an unlikely group of friends riding together to the big game in a gasoline-powered Tundra pickup.

Finally, drum roll please, we have the guest of honor. The one electrified vehicle of the evening was… wait for it… wait for it… the 2019 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck!? Yep, this mild hybrid vehicle was featured in not one but two different commercials during the Super Bowl. But wait, this truck features either a 3.6L Pentastar V6 or a 5.7L Hemi V8–there’s nothing electric about that! This is where I remind you that “electrified” and “electric” are not the same. Even 48V mild hybrid systems count when auto companies refer to electrifying their lineups. These are engines that use some electrification (in this case, so-called eTorque technology) to help with initial acceleration, short term torque boosting, stop/start, and energy recovery during braking. But make no mistake, the dominant source of power is a gasoline engine.

So while 2017 was the year of government bans and media hype, the 2018 Super Bowl ads were instead a much more realistic representation of the types of vehicles that are actually selling, at least in the United States. There is no doubt that more electrification is coming, but the internal combustion engine will remain the core energy source for transportation for many years to come.

Not to be outdone by the Super Bowl, Tesla, a company known for not investing in paid advertising, is running quite possibly the biggest commercial ever with Elon’s Roadster currently floating through space. And how did it get there? That’s right, combustion. What do you think is that rocket’s carbon footprint?!

So while images of the Starman are beamed down from space, you might argue that for this week LII stands for LIthium Ion. But down here on Earth? Here on Earth it just means 52. Super Bowl 52, that is, which was dominated by the Eagles and by internal combustion, your reigning transportation MVP.