User 169775

Are Hybrid Vehicles Worth the Price?

On 2008 Nov 22 06:00 PM lesceil wrote:


> 2. Battery lifetime has not been proven by a long history, but for
> all I have experienced with rechargeable batteries before, they get
> stale quicker than advertised.

You don't understand how the battery in a hybrid car works.

They last VERY long because they are NOT deep-discharged like your rechargeable batteries.

Rechargeable batteries wear out because of all the full-charge-then-full-... cycles. Hybrid car batteries DO NOT do that.

The Prius hybrid computer is always trying to keep the charge state of its hybrid battery between 60%-80%, where it has a life span measured in decades. Even when you see the charge state in the Prius MFD display a low charge state of just 2 red bars, the battery is still 60% charged.

Purely Battery-powered electric cars like the Tesla do go through full-charge-then-disch... cycles, which is why their battery life is problematic-- Tesla recommends replacing the battery pack in the Roadster after 5 years. Non-plug-in hybrids do not suffer from this problem because they don't deep-discharge their batteries.

Are Hybrid Vehicles Worth the Price?

Hybrids compare favorably in terms of performance to their conventional counterparts.

For instance, the Ford Escape Hybrid has a combined output of 196hp from its I-4 engine and electrical motor. The regular I-4 Escape has 171hp.

Are Hybrid Vehicles Worth the Price?

Replacing the battery pack is not an issue. All current new hybrids sold in the U.S. have an 8-year / 100,000-mile warranty on the battery, and the warranty is extended to 10 years / 150,000-miles in the 8 states with California-standard emissions laws.

If it fails within the warranty period, the cost of replacement is FREE.

That is assuming you didn't do anything stupid to void the warranty, like crash the car, tamper with the hybrid system, etc.

Failure of the battery pack in the 2nd-generation Prius within warranty terms is virtually unheard-of.

Brand Names: Important, But Not Key to Investment Decisions

...Except even though people thought the Japanese cars in the 70s and 80s weren't well-built, they still bought them in droves because they got BETTER FUEL ECONOMY.

This year it's history repeating itself-- People buying Toyota Corollas that can get 30mpg COMBINED (not just highway as GM and Ford have been advertising) because of $4/gallon gas.

Ford and GM needs to realize that not only do they need to build cars that are put together well, they also need to make cars that are MORE FUEL EFFICIENT than the Japanese if they want to regain market share in North America.

The situation in Europe for Ford is not applicable here in North America. Ford is doing well in Europe because they have less-stringent emissions laws, which means Ford's fuel-efficient diesel cars are a big hit there. They can NEVER sell those diesels as-is here, because they don't meet the EPA's Tier2 emissions standards.

The situation for GM in China is also NOT applicable for the North American market-- GM is doing well in China because gas is still cheap there at $2 a gallon, and the noveau-riche Chinese middle class don't mind buying gas-guzzlers because of that.

Until one of the Big Three can produce a 50mpg car that is street-legal in the U.S. with comparable reliability and cost about the same as the Toyota Prius, they are not going to gain back market share in the era of $4/gallon gas.

(Don't bother mentioning the Chevy Volt. Sucker is going to cost $40,000 and by the time it comes out Toyota will have its 3rd-gen PHEV Prius with similar 40-mile-electric capability in the showrooms for $30,000.)

Chrysler's Rebadging Plan: Strategic Blunder for Nissan?

@211293:

Agreed. Toyota has left the door open for Chrysler to introduce a hybrid minivan for the past 5 years. And Chrysler has not taken advantage of it!

The window of opportunity is closing fast. Toyota has been selling their Estima Hybrid minivan in Japan for years, and in the next couple years they plan to bring it to the U.S. as the Sienna Hybrid.

The opportunity is there.. It's just Chrysler is doing everything they can to flub it!

Detroit: Tow Ridiculous

bobjou:

I don't see the point of your complaint. The current market conditions is awesome for you country folks who need to buy SUVs-- The carmakers are offering them with 0% financing or incentives up to $6000. It's a great time to buy an SUV if you actually need one.

Fact is 79% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Most of those folks don't need to haul bushels of crop or tow trailers with livestock, and with fuel prices being what they are, it is only natural that they are migrating to 4-cylinder cars. U.S. carmakers have encountered this situation before in the 1970s, apparently they never studied history so now they are doomed to repeat it.

Market forces at work.

Is One Automaker Default Almost a Sure Thing?

Catching up to Toyota in quality is nothing groundbreaking.

Considering that in the past 10 years Detroit spent the same amount on R&D as the 10-year Apollo Program, you would expect them to put out revolutionary things!

I remain unimpressed.

Detroit: Tow Ridiculous

In the larger scheme of things, does CAFE even matter? The true character of the auto companies will out during the oil shocks, again and again (1970s and today)-- Those who have the prescience to offer fuel-efficient cars are surviving, those who don't are getting crushed.

I say leave Detroit to their devices and let market forces determine their fate.

Is One Automaker Default Almost a Sure Thing?

Just how does the Big Three spending their $19 Billion / year of R&D money? What do they have to show for it?

To put it in perspective, the Apollo program cost the U.S. government $20 billion over a period of 10 years, and it put men on the moon and spurred revolutionary technologies such as integrated circuit miniaturization and fly-by-wire controls.

Even after adjusting for inflation, $19 billion per year for 10 years from the Big Three would have been equal to the the expenditure of the Apollo program. What does the Big Three have to show for it for the past 10 years (1998-2008)?

Big Three Automakers: Recapitalization or Bankruptcy?

The UAW at the end of 2007 has 464,910 members according to this article: www.detnews.com/apps/p...

Not sure how that would affect the middle class, considering that UAW members isn't even half a percent of the entire U.S. workforce.

General Motors: General Malaise

Right now American consumers don't care if a GM car gets JD Powers awards for quality coming out of the wazoo. Right now they care about fuel economy, and that's where the Japanese cars are trouncing GM.

Chevy's commercials say they have a line up with more cars that get 30mpg than other makers, but that's misleading. 30mpg HIGHWAY only. If you factor in city mileage, even the Chevy Aveo (which is made by Daewoo in Korea by the way, not here in the U.S.) gets only 25mpg.

Meanwhile, Toyota has Yarises and Corollas that can get 30mpg COMBINED, ditto Honda with their Civics and Fits.

Why should the American consumer keep buying GM cars if they can't match the fuel economy of foreign cars to prop them up so GM has no incentive to change? That's corporate socialism at its very worst.

Is There Any Hope for the Big Three Auto Makers?

I think the 1980s Federal bailout of Chrysler created a bit of moral hazard here. It's a bad thing to have GM and F think that Uncle Sam is always going to be there to clean up their mess no matter how badly they misbehave.

Considering how the Fed handled the Bear Stearns crisis (arranged for JPMorgan Chase to buy them out), I think more likely Uncle Sam would probably try to arrange for some private equity firm to take over F or GM if they should fail, though I have a feeling a lot of private equity firms have looked at Cerberus's experience with Chrysler and would probably politely refuse. :-P

F does have a takeover candidate lined up though-- Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. Uncle Sam would probably guarantee a loan for Kirk to take on the unsavory job of salvaging Ford's collapse if that does come to pass.

Don't know about GM..

Some Consequences if Oil Prices Stay High

@ Barry's Pharmacist:

I think the chief objection to using a rocket to shoot nuclear waste into space is that rockets are only 98% reliable. Which means for every 50 launches, there is going to be 1 failure where the rocket blows up in the atmosphere during its booster stage.

A rocket filled with nuclear waste blowing up during its booster stage would not be good for the folks living in Florida. :-)

Is There Any Hope for the Big Three Auto Makers?

Up until last week, I believed the Chevy Volt will be GM's savior... No longer.

Some Chevy spokesman had said the Volt is going to have an MSRP of $40,000. People are already whining about the price premium of current hybrids like the Toyota Prius, and the Prius costs only $21,500 MSRP. If those prices are true, the next generation Prius is going to absolutely KILL the Volt in sales.

Things look grim for GM.

Is There Any Hope for the Big Three Auto Makers?

I wonder if Kirk Kerkorian is still harboring dreams of gaining control of Ford, considering that he bought his few million shares at $7 only to watch it fall to $4. Well, at least Ford has someone who may be willing to pump more money into the company.. Not sure if GM or Chrysler can say the same.