It is ecnomically feasable, until the price of these vehicles are down. The rebates should be retolled/reworked to make use it by all. This is a luxary vehcile in looks and ride. It is one a kind and this is the just begingin. Let us not kill the concept. Or look for the time to pay $10 per gallon and become economical slaves to oil producing countires.
Mr. McDermott: You said right, at present technical conditions VOLT is the right vehicle. I use it. But the price should come down to max . and the tax rebate should be rollover or upfornt . These are some economical issue with this car.
Also this car should make as FIVESEATER to make this attaractive and pleasant to look inside ( the back seating.
I agree, J. Williams. The other cost contributor is cooling systems. The National Academy of Engineering estimates that half the cost of a battery pack lies in the cooling system.
3drob, you calculations are correct, if they are going for mass production. In mass production the cost per vehicle comes down to bottom level. But here the news is GM is selling each Volt for a loss of approximately $30,000.
Engineers and industry analysts predict the prices will drop with economies of scale, but not as much as all of us hope. Two engineers -- both with major auto companies that are building electric cars -- have told me that they foresee battery PACK (not cell) costs coming down to between $250 and $300/kWh between 2020 and 2025. Several analysts have made similar predictions of $300/kWh - $400/kWh by 2020. Today, the figure is said to be closer to $800/kWh, according to automakers, analysts and the National Academy of Engineering. At $300/kWh, a big 85-kWh lithium-ion battery like the one in the Tesla Model S would run $25K, so much work remains.
High volumes only serve to make things less expensive when the labor costs dominate. I'm not able to say one way or the other at this point, but I rather suspect the material costs will tend to keep large batteries expensive. All the automation and process improvement will only help reduce the labor costs of assembling these cells. High volumes may in fact raise prices on batteries as the demand for limited resources goes higher.
VW did make a deisel "rabbit" pickup truck, some of the owners glaimed as much as 70mpg (they are collectables) but the rest of the veheicle was junk, rusting out in a few years and bad wiring. At that time i was with my first "love" a powder blue and white 61 chevy step side that I bought for $100 and helped me get through school and start my first business. Gas was 25 cents. Deisel was hard to come by then also unless you took it out of your heating system!
I want the Volt to succeed. I want to be free of the ties to parts of the world that actively hate us. Right now, they have some power over us because we need something they have. The sooner we can eliminate that tie, the sooner they become powerless.
almoore--This is exactly where I am parked at the moment. I looked at a Volt thinking that being friendly to the environment was the way to go and the thing I should do. I visited a Chevy show room, talked with the sales rep on the floor and got his "best estimate" as to the costs minus any rebate the Fed might give me. I could not justify the cost-- not at all. One thing also that was disconcerting, the sales rep had no idea as to what resale allowances might be. There is no data available (his words). I bought gas today for my Toyota Pre-runner, 15 gallon tank at $3.83 a gallon. We can all do that math so maybe there will come a time when the Volt will provide a decent ROI--but not now. Another disconcerting thing, we won't be getting any help from Washington any time soon so the cost of gas will definitely increase. We may all be riding the bus before this is over.
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