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, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 01:25:05
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The Prius was subsidised not so much by the Japan govt but rather it cost more to make than it was being sold for initially. That is really no different than what every manufacturer goes through when there are lots of engineering costs to amortize. The key difference between Prius and Volt is that there was a straight forward viability for the Prius. A car that used a lot less gas particularly in urban driving. Cost of operation was less.
The Volt is an intriging concept that only really works to save money if you live in a warm but not hot climate and hardly ever drive more than 35 miles in a day. And since the savings are on a per mile basis it takes decades if this limited use to see any savings and this is assuming the battery will last that long. IF the Volt could afford, both in cost and weight/space, to have a battery of 4 times the capacity, it could mean that most owners would never purchase gasoline for their Volt except for longer trips and the real world cost of operation would come to a point of making it worth while.
To look at the Volt in a simple way, ignoring any capital costs or subsidies, you get to go about 30 miles for about $1.80 of electricity once a day. After that you use gas at about 30 miles a gallon. So the electric saved you the difference between appx $4.00 and $1.80 or $2.20. No matter how much you otherwise use the Volt it can only save that $2.20 per day )it takes appx 8 hours to recharge). However with a Prius you get to save all day long, and the more you use it, the more you save. So an active Volt that is used every day of the month can only "save" appx $66 a Prius that is actively used could easily be used for 1,000 miles in that month with a fuel cost of appx 20 gallons versus 35 gallons for many other vehicles, thus a "savings" of $60. Looks good for the Volt. But I drive 30,000 miles a year. So the savings with the Prius go up by 2.5 times $150 per month but the Volt can never do better than $66.
Bottom line is that us taxpayers are paying through the nose to produce a very impractical vehicle. And that money did nothing to do the only thing which seems to approach alchemy. That is create a battery that can store and release power by a factor of 4 or 5 times the current state of the art while reducing the per watt cost by 80%. Then we can talk about an electric car.
posted by 69.205.35...
, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 03:31:21, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:17:52, Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:25:13, Tue, 6 Mar 2012 08:33:10, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 22:27:47
, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 16:06:29
, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 06:59:26, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 18:55:09, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 01:25:05, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 05:13:25, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 17:10:36, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:48:50, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 18:37:44, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:29:10, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 09:08:32
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