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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: 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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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 3:02 pm) You may think it was good business I don't. I lost interest in cars when I bought my first Toyota Land Cruiser in 1964. So GM cars are of little interest to me. If any other automaker comes up with a reasonably sized diesel PU, the GMC PU will be sold. I know for a fact that a Ranger sized PU with a 4 cylinder diesel is capable of 45 MPG. That would suit my needs just fine. If not I keep using more than my share of fossil fuel. That should be simple enough to understand. |
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Replying to: tpe (Jun 22, 2006 3:16 pm) Not quite. But the indicators thus far hint strongly that this technology has a real-world shot of breaking through the consumer market, because the right consumers (the innovators who like tech for tech's sake) are clearly interested enough to spend their money, and because the early adoptors (the visionaries who are ecology minded) seem to be transitioning the baton to the "early majority" (pragmatists who like to save fuel, even if the payoff isn't immediate and a premium price is required). This handoff from the early adoptors to the early majority is critical if the product is going to have a market breakthrough, and eventually gain mainstream acceptance. EV's haven't even attracted the innovators, and there's no reason for them to do so. If anything, hybrids reduce the short-term likelihood of pure EV's making it in the short run, because hybrids have stolen all their thunder. So I go back to the past bit: Without demand and a chance to eventually earn a profit, there will be no reason to build EV's. If you don't think that the auto industry has studied this forward and backward to see whether it makes sense to do it, think again.
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