Hi Martin:
___That was stated very well indeed.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

 

You didn't hear it from me, but let's see how long it takes manufacturers to increase the price of the HEVs by amounts slightly less than the applicable tax credits. Remember, I didn't say that.

IME, Buy v Lease is more a factor of geographic area, price / residual value of vehicle, and socio-economic status, not brand. Actually, the biggest influence that brand has on lease rates is that the more brand equity a vehicle has, the better the residual and the more likely it is to be leased. In other words, a Civic would have had better residual than a Cavalier (replaced by Cobalt)and would therefore have more attractive lease rates than Cavalier. The price of the vehicle and the socio-economic status of the buyer would still be more important factors in the lease v buy ratio.

 

If the leaked info is true, Toyota is increasing the Prius price by $1K. That leaves $2k for the consumer, unless demand outstrips supply, and then of course the dealers will take advantage.

I think your analysis of lease vs buy is true for the public at large, but I have my doubts if the Civic/Corolla/Camry populace is the same.

 

panty hose, plastics in your puter, plastics in your kitchen. all of which cost more to make than gas. globle warming hasnt be proved. its just a guess at best. function on dooms day... you better recycle farts or its over...

 

No more than environmental concerns are something the auto industry cares to concern itself with .. and yet we compare two cars with similar emissions ratings, before talking about MPG.

Even within the auto industry, large differences exist. Look at the environment position papers of Toyota. They are upfront in saying that good environmental stewardship is good business, and they make future plans factoring in increasing environmental costs to the value of the cars they make.

More and more people are realizing that foreign oil dependence is costing the US dearly in terms of security. Two cars that cost the same to the consumer, but one uses twice the gasoline, will not be viewed equally by increasing numbers of the population.

Frankly, this myopic view of car 'value' is part of the core problem at GM.

 

The differences are more in public perception and ability to influence regulatory agencies, not so much in actual deed.

• Who's building new Full Size Truck plants in the US? (These plants will introduce more trucks/year into the US market than the number of Prius sold in the same timeframe)
• Who's converting some truck plants to car plants?
• Who is deploying a fleet of fuel cell vehicles in Tokyo and another in DC?
• Who builds more than 100,000 vehicles a year capable of running on fuel that is 85% ethanol?
• Whose plants have VOLUNTARILY reduced greenhouse emissions by 72% since 1990? Carbon Dioxide emissions by 22% over the same timeframe?

The answers to those questions would surprise some people. It's not always what you do, sometimes it's what you can convince people to believe you're doing.

Peace,

Martin

 

put that way, it seems as though GM could use a better PR machine? If Toyota and Honda could... the fact that you asked those questions, assuming we would need to look up the answers, proves that point. Talk it up! Do the apples-apples comparison in an ad campaign.

Even that won't do all that much until the most public face of GM is seen as 'green'...in the form of mass market vehicles. Killing EV1 and forcing the holders to return them, for instance was not exactly a positive step- even if it made 100% business sense. A step away from 'green' to the public, even those who only caught the sound bite on Headline News, if that.

As you alluded to earlier, the steps GM has taken to date are largely out of the public consciousness, and thus will not be internalized when the consumer goes to write that check for the car. The largest impact is always from what the consumer sees/gets. A new car.

 

OK, so you say GM is is green but does not toot it's horn ? Lets start with your line items (I've numbered them for reference):

1., 2. Toyota has increased demand for it's trucks, while GM has decreased demand, which has lead to changes in car/truck production ratios. That has NOTHING to do with environmental sensitivity, and you know it.

3. Toyota has FCV on the road in CA, and prototypes since 2001 -- all without government hand-outs. The entire hydrogen car business is so much BS, I'm loath to even call it an environmental initiative.

4. OK. I'm not sure why that is a good thing over and above E10 as a substitute for MTBE, since Etoh is just as fishy a scheme as hydrogen, but one point to GM.

5. May be much more interesting, and relevant. Can you convert your statistic into per unit produced, and also report absolute amounts per unit ? Toyota reports a 27% reduction in CO2 production per unit from a baseline year 2000 of 9.4 mmBtu/unit, to 7.8 in FY 2004.

As long as we are comparing companies, lets also talk about landfill waste, VOC and other toxin production, fleet emissions, fleet CAFE, water use, Total greenhouse gas inventory, and implementation leading green manufacturing standards. I'll post information from Toyota in each of these areas in separate posts below later to facilitate discussion on each point.

 

I only have two comments regarding this thread:

1) It isn't the auto industries job to care about their 'soft' environmental and political impact? Yet currently the majority of our population want less governmental regulation.. So who's job is it to add some sense of responsibility larger than each individual if it's not the entities that are making money off them?

2) I'm amazed that a 2-5 year return on investment is seen as inadequate especially considering that it'd be considered perfect for a private business and considering how much money the average family constantly just throws away without any regard to return on investment. It seems rediculously short-sighted. I've been considering supplimenting my home electricity with solar with an expected ROI of 25-30 years.

 

Sirkut wrote:THAT IS SO TRUE !!!
I've wondered the same thing so many times myself, without coming up with a reasonable answer, other than one:

In many cases of emerging technologies, commoditization and technological advance makes waiting financially advantageous. Each case has to considered separately ..

E.g., look at wind power. The price per KW has dropped rapidly over the past 10 years, and is now leveling off. Grid accesible, high wind regions are in limited supply, suggesting that ROI will level off, if it has not already, so peak investment opportunity is probably now.