General Motors used its spot in this year’s Super Bowl to throw down a gauntlet, challenging Norway to an electric-car-off, specifically because the U.S. is losing that fight. Other automakers are stepping up to defend the Norwegians, in one of the most entertaining and fast-moving rivalries we’ve seen.
The background: Last year, 54 percent of new cars sold in Norway were electric. Here? The best we could do was closer to 3 percent. But GM thinks we can do better, and enlisted Will Ferrell to punch a globe, challenge the Scandinavians to a fight, and send some friends to the wrong countries to start it. Note that Norway highly subsidizes electric vehicle sales, exempting them from local sales taxes and a 25-percent Value Added Tax (VAT).
GM also ran a few ad teasers in the days before the game, including one in which Ferrell orders five million anchovy pizzas delivered to the entire population of Norway.
That formed the centerpiece of Ford’s playful response, which featured the pizzas being delivered…in Ford Mustang Mach-E crossovers. Because Ford actually sells an EV in Norway (GM does not, yet).
But it was Audi that really put something together fast. They enlisted Game of Thrones star Kristofer Hivju, of Oslo, to point out that the best-selling EV in Norway is Audi’s e-tron, and that Norwegians don’t respect such tiny fish.
But it wasn’t all (playful) vitriol. Easee, a Norwegian manufacturer of charging stations, kindly built Ferrell his own charging point for when he finally reaches Norway. It’s in the center of a frozen lake.
The mackerel is in GM’s court now. Let’s hope they signed Ferrell to a deal that included sequels.
