By Lee Pang Seng

THE Malaysian car-buying sentiments are largely driven by the price factor, though there remains a growing and fairly big niche sector that has its sights on several other areas.

The environmental concern is not high among them, but being seen to be helping that cause may arise if the lifestyle factor can be attached to the vehicle profile.

To elaborate on this 'niche' sentiment, let us take a more conventional example, the Volvo V50.

Marketed as a 'wagon', it is selling in far smaller numbers than the S40, a sedan.

Has Volvo Malaysia considered promoting it as a 'Multi-Purpose Vehicle' or the more readily accepted 'MPV'?

If you were to assess the V50, it has all the merits that an MPV can offer.

By marketing it as an MPV, I believe, the prospective buyer looking for a Volvo may see the V50 differently.

I'm not insulting the intelligence of such buyers, but there is such a thing as persuading the customer to view a product positively through proper labelling.

To call anything a wagon in our market is so out of date that it would be better to call it a 'dodo' (an extinct bird, if you don't know what that is).

Back to hybrids or Hybrid-Electric Vehicle (HEV), positive profiling can help to move cars.

Other than that brief spell when the fuel price went above RM2 a litre, few would give two hoots about stretching the petrol ringgit.

Or that using one would help stabilise the climate for future generations. The current promotion of the cheaper RON95 fuel is not helping that sentiment either.

Based on the V50 example, there is this trend among some car buyers of being with the times.

Marketing the hybrid as a lifestyle vehicle rather than a life-saver may do wonders in how car buyers view such a car.

You can say that one may like to be seen driving something fashionable to the cause of doing one's bit for the environment, rather than to be seen as actually doing it!

In short, a lifestyle statement.

For the moment, hybrids are priced at a higher level as their production numbers are smaller.

This has to do with economies of scale. Once their numbers increase, prices will come down, but you may have to wait a bit longer for that.

Therefore, you need a multiple, rather than a single, approach to making such vehicles attractive and appealing.

Having its own identity helps: take the Toyota Prius for one. It is a model on its own, in that it is not adapted from an existing range.

That gives it an individual flair, and helps it to stand for its cause better.

Toyota has raised the hybrid game by improving on the system to achieve greater mileage, while providing it with a good level of equipment to make driving easy and convenient.

The fickle weather conditions that are afflicting quite a few countries and continents may press the issue for hybrids.

Or the recent Shell statement on declining fossil fuel sources.

Nonetheless, until hybrids become more affordable, the best approach to making headway into the Malaysian market is to make a fashion statement instead of an environmental one.

--The Star/ANN