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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
2104 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2006 at 5:34 AM
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Replying to: rorr (Jun 22, 2006 2:21 pm) Um, can't do that with EV's. I've got a patent pending on the Fifty Mile Extension Cord™, which will allow you to keep the car plugged in within that radius of your home or office. We haven't sorted out how exactly to keep it from getting tangled with semi-trucks, house pets and power-lines, but our engineers are working on it. Problem solved. Or, maybe not...
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 2:15 pm) Where were these electric cars available for years? I have never seen them for sale only lease through exclusive offerings. Or are back to the diesel cars being widely available? I have tried to buy a VW diesel off and on since 1978. They were always order and wait. The last time in CA was 2002. You could still get one if you ordered it and waited. Well I was not going to buy something without giving it a test drive. So if that is what you consider widely available I guess we just disagree. The fact you have glossed over is that 40% of the new Jettas sold are diesel. That without one sold in CA. Your negative views on diesel make me wonder what you would propose to save on fossil fuel.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 2:25 pm) You make problems where they do not exist. I have a Lexus LS400 that has not gone over 12 miles from home for the last 5 years. An electric vehicle that would go 30 miles would be just as good & cost a lot less to drive those 12 miles. |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 22, 2006 2:28 pm) If GM had a market for electric cars, they would have increased production and started selling them en masse. (Why wouldn't they, if there was all that demand and no competition?) So, why do you think that it didn't do it? As badly managed as they are, even GM knows to build a car that it already had in its inventory it it knew there was money in it. They stopped for a reason, and the reason is very easy to see. The answer is obvious, and the answer is the market. No reason to build it if they aren't going to buy it.
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Replying to: rorr (Jun 22, 2006 2:13 pm) Too complex. Too much crap to go bad. Toyota is thinking long term here. Sell it at a loss and get even when all that crap quits. It has already started if you follow the Prius posts. I still cannot believe a $250 charge to reset the computer if you run out of gas in a Prius.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 2:35 pm) They were already built. They refused to sell the ones they had out in the field. There is a lot of people in CA that wanted to keep their EV-1 when the lease ran out. I think that GM did not want to have the warranty to contend with. It is the same as the one on the hybrid crappola.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jun 22, 2006 2:41 pm) Somehow, you seem to think that the Prius is a flop, even though Toyota has now sold over 500,000 hybrids worldwide and sold over 100,000 Priuses in the US during CY 2005, yet at the same time, you believe that 800 people leasing an EV-1 over a several year period is a resounding success. Forgive me for believing that your ideology is trumping your logic. Between 800 units over several years, and 100,000 cars in a single year, I think I'd know which one has a better shot at making it.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 2:35 pm) In a recent issue of Motor Trend, an interviewer asked GM chief Rick Wagoner about the central regret of his tenure. He said it was killing the EV1 program. The answer is obvious, and the answer is the market. No reason to build it if they aren't going to buy it. Try to imagine the frustration of a buyer being told that he can't have a product because nobody wants it. This buyer then asks, how do you know nobody wants it? Answer, we know that nobody wants it because we only sold 800 units in 4 years. The buyer then asks, how many units were produced? The answer, 800 units. So every unit produced was sold? Answer, yes. Were dealers offering big incentives or any incentives to sell these vehicles? Answer, no. Did these vehicles spend a long time on the dealer's lot? Answer, no, they were pre-sold. Yet there was no demand? Answer, yes, only 800 units were sold.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 3:02 pm) You seem to think that you have some greater insight into what Americans want. How many people want Hummers? While I don't know the answer I'm sure it's not very many. Why are they being produced if nobody wants them? A company would be crazy to produce a car that a fraction of a percent of the market would buy. Right?
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Replying to: tpe (Jun 22, 2006 3:05 pm) If this was such a hot product, why wasn't there a 50,000 person waiting list? 100,000? 200,000? Why weren't they lined up out the door of the dealership, demanding their cars? And why didn't all the other automakers see all of the excitement, and jump into the game? They all leaped in when they saw the minivan and SUV, and now they're jumping into hybrids, yet the EV programs remain tiny and experimental. Actions speak louder than words. I appreciate the desire to find a silver lining on the cloud, but it ain't there. And as for Wagoner's regrets, I can think of several more things that he should really regret, but I guess that sounding green in retrospect sounds nice in an interview.
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