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Originally Posted by Hylton
That point has been stated many times by many people but it's not a valid argument for stating that those peeps would be potential customers. The closer people live to their work, the more likely they are going to walk, bike, cab, bus or use rail. No market there so subtract them from the 70% and then tell me what the market is.
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You are completely missing the point. No one ever said that % was the market. It was the % of people that that range would work for. Of course it's a further subset of that 70%. What that point meant was simply there aren't that many people (30%) that need more than the Volt could deliver.
To be practicle a car program does not need to be sold in giant volumes. The Corvette sells today at volumes less than the Volt and no one is jumping up and down calling it a failure.
There is a lot of passion behind this and some is very emotional. Me, I hope to never be driven to an EV. What will do it is the price/scarcity of gasoline. And the Volt stands there, as do all EVs, saying "get ready, the %^&*storms coming"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Awesome
Holy cow! Someone still knows about the free market!
Now if we could just figure out how to stop well intentioned beaurocrats, and crony politicians from funneling money they are borrowing from potential enemies into these things, the free market will invent them for the purpose of selling them and making money for all involved.
The free market would FORCE them to figure out how to do it practically and affordably.
The present day borrowed/plundered subsidies and graft leave much less incentive to make them both practical and affordable.
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So here is the question for you Captain, and I know you have a good opinion on it, at what point does the government have a duty to foster development of technology? If there is a %^&*()storm of oil scarcity coming, should the goverment get us prepared by "encouraging" the development of EV technology to be ready? Or do we wait?
I've said all along when someone can make money on CNG, EVs, Fuel Cells, etc. there will be CNG, EVs and Fuel Cells, etc in the market. Profit seems to bring out the best (or worst) in people.
The Volt is a huge homerun merely for the technology it developed. Is it a moon shot? Maybe not. I have a lot of passion for the space program and what it does from a pure emotional point of view (exploration, blahbitty blah, blah).
But the Volt has an emotional hurdle to cross to get mass market appeal just as much as a financial one.