kwillia
11-25-2008, 09:49 AM
$8,000+ just for the battery... and how long is this battery going to last? What happens when it no longer holds a charge? Who can afford to pay out $8,000+ for a new battery and then the labor charges to boot? Also, the car needs to be plugged in... isn't most of our electricity generated from burning coal and such? Isn't our new president-elect promising to place huge restrictions on the coal industry? Isn't that going to result in hire costs for electricity and possible less generated because of the companies that will have to shut down due to the restrictions and regulations? :confused:
washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112403211.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR)
The car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.
That's because car manufacturers still haven't figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them. After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.
But there's no guarantee that the new business model would be any more viable than the current one. Automobile experts estimate that the battery in a plug-in vehicle could add at least $8,000 to the cost of a car, maybe considerably more.
washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112403211.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR)
The car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a "sustainable U.S. auto industry" that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.
That's because car manufacturers still haven't figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them. After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.
But there's no guarantee that the new business model would be any more viable than the current one. Automobile experts estimate that the battery in a plug-in vehicle could add at least $8,000 to the cost of a car, maybe considerably more.