ITPro,
The 45K price on an EV1? Where did you get that from? I was given to understand that it was for lease only. This was not a profit making program for GM, and the Prius is still not profitable for Toyota. The cost of a Hybrid program is huge, and the Prius sales figures are much less than that of even the Cavalier.
For a car company to make money on hybrid vehicles, they would have to build and sell volumes closer to that of Accord and Camry, not low volume like Prius. The real goal of Toyota's hybrid program is to gain emissions credits to offset their higher fuel consuming SUV programs.
Remember how Federal CAFE laws are structured, and that Toyota and Honda have a lot of emissions credits from selling smaller crs in the 80s and 90s. Now that Toyota and Honda are moving into full sized trucks and SUVs, they want to retain those credits by producing hybrids so that their Average Fleet Fuel Economy stays in place.
It's a great plan on their part, and what really will gall US automakers in years to come will be if they have to buy those same emissions credits from Toyota, hence pumping cash into Japanese R&D in order to keep manufacturing the way they currently do.
Skull & Bones Member since 2003
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Skull & Bones Member since 2003 - H1 Forum Troll since 2004
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