That is great! Hopefully the price will be in line with other gasoline econobox cars of similar class. I looked into buying a tiny electric 'car' (it was barely a car, more like a street legal golf cart, but sold at the regular car dealer) several years ago, but it was so rediculusly expensive, I could have bought a brand new diesel dually truck for less money!
I think it is great they are building hybrids and EV's. I reckon someone will buy one. With the present technology and cost and with the commutes we make from the suburbs I wouldn't touch one. It doesn't really matter who makes what, if they can't sell it and that goes for the foreigns as well. As for all the USA haters, you know what I think about you!
fla-gypsy wrote: I think it is great they are building hybrids and EV's. I reckon someone will buy one. With the present technology and cost and with the commutes we make from the suburbs I wouldn't touch one. It doesn't really matter who makes what, if they can't sell it and that goes for the foreigns as well. As for all the USA haters, you know what I think about you!
For me and my wife EVs make perfect sense. My daily commute is 10 miles round trip and hers is 30 miles round trip. Cost to purchase of course would be the deciding factor.
My daily commute is right at 98 miles round trip. When I moved down here on the bay I started looking for a high mileage commuter. One that was tops in reliability and room for me to be comfortable in 3 hours a day. I was on the fence with either the Prius, the Corrola, the Civic or the sportier Matrix. I settled on the Matrix for it's great room, carrying capacity and good gas mileage. I get on average 32mpg, day in and day out. While I could have bought the Prius with it's better in town mileage, the purchase price of the Prius was $10,000 more. As someone said, that buys a lot of fuel even at $4 a gallon. Same with any hybrid, initial cost difference really offsets fuel savings. I will be shopping for another commuter in the next year or so as the Matrix(2005 model) now has 110,000 trouble free miles. Probably go with another fuel efficient gasoline Toyota or Honda unless Honda finally brings to our shores their great diesel Civics or Accords.
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I think its excellent that the Big 3 are starting to look into electric vehicles to complement some of their (necessary) larger vehicles. Shame on the people who are bashing the Big 3 for developing them now, better late than never. It seems the big three are dam*ed if they do and dam*ed if they dont. Some people neglect to realize that the reason the Big 3 built so many large vehicles was because WE demanded them, and now they are building electric vehicles and hybrids because WE are starting to demand those. Will they be more expensive than a comparable fossil fuel powered car? Sure, but that is to be expected with any kind of new technology. Chances are GM, Ford, and Chrysler will sell these cars at a price just to break even on manufacturing them in order to get them on the streets, then when the demand for them gets high, they will start to lower production costs per vehicle and make a profit.
1) Saudi Arabia needs $55 a barrel to keep their country going, more like $75 and they would be happy, so what would that translate to us per gallon?
2) Chrysler is a bit late on their new vehicle. I think the big question is will they survive at all.
3)Why is Honda, Toyota or Nissan ok, maybe they are not but I have not heard any news about them.
turninghawk wrote: No need to pay for the electric technology when gas is barely above a buck a gallon!! Too little too late, once again. Sounds like a broken record from the American makers. When will they learn?
And if they did not make these changes now, two years from now when gas is $4 per gallon, you would be saying that the domestics did not learn from their previous mistakes, blah blah blah. Get over it. At least they are doing something. I just hope they survive so that this can happen.
I agree Fast Mopar.
Some folks wouldn't give credit where credit is due, even if Chrysler or GM/Ford came up with a vehicle that ran on CO2 and put out clean air and water as exhaust.
Sure, and all you geniuses that think electric technology is going to fix everything need to spend a little time overseas, as I have. Look at the vehicles there. Many of them the same ones we sell here, with the difference being they are built with smaller gasoline engines, an array of diesels, and with transmissions with more gears, allowing the same vehicles to achieve mpg ratings (yes, re-calculated to mpg from kpl) of 55- 70mpg on the highway (and they've been doing it for years). That technology exists, in cars that we have here, developed by the same manufacturers that are "doing something" as you put it. Get out from under that rock and look around the world. The technology is there. So why isn't it here? The "something" has already be done, but would the ignorance of the American populous prevent it's success here? I'm afraid it would.
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