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Originally Posted by Hopper
I won't disagree with you. Americans have never embraced electric cars in the past. Largely because of their limitations....the long time to charge and low range combined with anxiety over that range. GM learned that with the EV1. Nissan is learning that the hard way with the Leaf. The Volt eliminates range anxiety and mitigates the time to charge by running a gasoline generator to produce electricity to power the drive motor when the electric range in the battery is exhausted. The only problems are communicating how it works (very hard to do in a 30 second TV commercial) and the high price point for early adopters. Like most new innovations, it takes time for it to take. Time to communicate the technology so people understand it and put it on their shopping lists and time for the price to come down to the masses. Both will happen and it's already starting. The Volt is gaining sales traction every month.
I would also contend that many early Volt owners do actually think it makes their life better. I spoke to one owner who has a $350/month lease. She also figures she saves $180/mo on gas which, by her math, equates to $170/mo net which is less than she was paying for her Camry. Sure, she is paying for the electricity to charge, so it is more than $170 in reality but she is thrilled. Saving money while driving a piece of rolling high technology is pretty cool for her.
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Just because the technology is sound does not guarantee profit. BetaMax was superior technology compared to VHS, but BetaMax went bankrupt while VHS made billions. Again, Americans have NEVER bought electric cars in volumes to create profit for them. As to sales, how many Volts are being bought by private individuals as opposed to fleet sales for companies like GE?
And trying to not get political, but the price to charge a Volt will skyrocket if certain policies are not changed. Our President is on record saying he aims to bankrupt coal plants. Where do you think the majority of electricity comes from? Yup, coal plants. So if he succeeeds in this, the Law of Supply and Demand will kick in and Volt owners will be paying alot more to charge their cars.