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Automotive News & Views Does America Even Need Its Own Automakers?
1788 messages, Last post on Mar 03, 2009 at 2:18 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 16, 2008 1:36 pm) I agree $40K is way expensive for this car. But, at this point, GM can't afford for it to be a loss leader. However, as far as your electric only car, what price do you put on not having to plan a day trip auound an electric charge (on a cloudy day)??? |
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oh, man, I'll be all over that one like white on rice. I will plug-in and re-charge the 2010 Pininfarina-Bollore B0 overnight. It only takes 5 hours to charge up! At this point I'm pining to find more information on how it's regenerative braking system and photovoltaic solar panels will automatically be re-charging the car whilst I travel dangerously close to being out of it's range, which is 153 miles. Right now I don't see a reasonable explanation as to why this little all-electric shouldn't sit in my SE Arizona driveway in late-2010. Only 2,000 available in late 2010, though, so better make your connections early if you want one. Chevy dropped out of contention for sure with their Volt with me early this morning when I learned that Pininfarina-Bollore are definite in their plans to export this pup to the U.S. BTW-clouds are infrequent here in southern Arizona, I'm a perfect candidate to snap one of these little cars up. I have a warm and fuzzy feeling that I could experience automatic re-charge of my B0's battery pack as I travel. Have you ever been to Arizona, cooter? I'm serious, this place is sunny so much of the time when even California to our West is cloudy and rainy, or just cloudy. This place is the perfect testing ground for one of these cars, bring 'em on! This thing is moving fast, and I'm starting to make solid plans on buying one of these cars.  larsb, ya out there? Read up, my man!
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 16, 2008 6:32 am) "It is expected to become available in Europe, Japan and even here in the good old US of A by late 2010, starting with an initial run of 2000 vehicles. In 2011, that number is targeted to increase to 8000 units, 11,000 in 2012 and 15,000 in subsequent years." |
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 16, 2008 2:01 pm) |
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I'm going on the worldwide economic trouble-thing. I mean, if Pininfarina-Bollore announce a price of $30,00 for this thing, I would seriously drop out of the race for one. They will have a lot of technology integrated, but they own the battery-production center, it's owned by one of the partners, Bollore of France. For early benchmarking, you are spot on for fairly high pricing. Mitsubishi has announced prices in the $28,000 area for their new all-electric, the i-MIEV. And these two cars are similar in size, I'll have to compare their weights later. But it would stand to reason that Pininfarina-Bollore will for sure ask more than $20,000 for the car. I don't know, I just think that with the bad economic climate both Mitsu and Pininfarina-Bollore will have to chop their pricing expectations a decent chunk. What do you think they'll ask for the car? I'm sticking with $22,995. I'm usually pretty good at predicting car pricing, but, this is no ordinary car. They could ask $30,000 for the thing. One reason that Mitsubishi still stands to get my business is their generous Warranty. My '08 Lancer GTS has a 10 year, 100,000 mile Warranty. They should offer the same Warranty on the i-MIEV for 2010. So, that speaks volumes to me, if a manufacturer will stand behind their car with a Warranty like that. Pretty impressive and IMO helps add to increased sales. So that will be counter-balancing my excitement over the new B0.
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Replying to: iluvmysephia1 (Nov 16, 2008 2:27 pm) Next, who sells them??? If they can make 15,000 a year, and we get 7,500, and 40,000 people want one, can you smell dealer markup??? Lastly, I would think that it would be in line more w/ the Mitsu. Remember, they aren't talking 15,000 units until somewhere around 2012, well after the Volt will be out. So it's still a long way off. |
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and I notice that Pininfarina-Bollore is not making any announcement on pricing just yet. It's not one of those things where they're not sure about releasing the car, though. Their plans are definite and that includes the U.S. I am sticking to my estimate of $22,995. I have been wrong before, yes.  I find it interesting that they state in their press release that the car will go over 250 kilometres, which is 153 miles. So it would fit nicely in my needed mileage range. This puts in squarely in my personal radar, as that is the range I need to go play in Tucson, which is 80 miles away to our West. You'd have to see Willcox, then you'd understand.  cooter, they're not gonna overprice this car, believe me. gagrice, what is your price estimate on this little scooter, BTW? cooter, two things up front would sway me away from this car. 1) A price over $30,000(remember, there's an Obama $7,500 rebate that will be coming back to purchasers in the U.S.) 2) A sadly lacking Warranty Of these two dissuadants, the lacking Warranty is the one most likely to dissuade, IMHO, of course. It remains a lovely little car for aggressively pursuing for us. It is early on, I wholeheartedly agree on that. Another thing not yet laid out for our reading pleasure is U.S. dealer network for the car. And is that ever an important issue to still get hammered out. That can make or break their success in the U.S. for them. Also, no pricing or Warranty info. yet, just to reiterate.
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I think there is a wierd software problem or something. The "Electric Vehicle Pros & Cons" discussion seems to have been merged with this one. 
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What Every Car Guy Knows - GM's Survival and American Image 
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Replying to: steve_ (Nov 16, 2008 3:44 pm) Support for bailing out the Big 3 in the Senate is very marginal, even among Democrats. Most thinking people see this as prolonging the end of the dinosaur era in Detroit. Close the doors and sell all the assets to keep the retirees going a few more years. If the worst case 3 million jobs lost comes true, it will still be less of a recession than Carter caused in the late 1970s. It will give Obama a chance to prove his worth as a leader.
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