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September 13, 2005
Toyota Sees All Hybrid Future
Now this is great news. Toyota realizes that the American automakers with their Republicans puppets in Washington will do nothing to protect the American consumer from high gas prices. So they decide to protect us from the Republicans. I would be nice if we could find an American corporation that was half as noble. For those of you that don't know most of the Japanese automakers have already made Hybrid versions of all their car lines, so it's not like they have to do that much extra work to get that functionality available. The main problem is demand at the price they have. I think it's a safe bet that Toyota is thinking that if they can cut the premium for the hybrid in half that they will be able to sell twice as many of them. I was going to quote a Yahoo article on the subject but a line in it made me so mad I flipped over to people that actually were interested in America's future and not Neo-conservative anti-America writer hoping to kill off this country by keeping us in the dark ages.
"Hybrids use less fuel than similar gasoline-only vehicles, but they are priced at least $3,500 more. That means owners might never save enough on gas - even at today's prices - to make up for the premium."
If you're a grandma that drives a mile to town once a week, Hybrid technology has little chance of paying for itself in your lifetime. But if you live in a major urban area and your commute is filled with stop and go traffic for more than 30 or so minutes each way, then a hybrid can pay for itself. I mean if you want to get really technical about it, you can calculate the rate of inflation difference in as well from the time you buy the car till when you pay it off and then calculate the inflation of gas prices as well over the same time frame and then add in tax incentives. It doesn't take much to make the numbers work. But you'll always find Republicans at every corner of the globe attacking the technology requiring it to jump through hoops that aren't very realistic. I mean after December the tax break for a Hybrid is going to jump up to 3200 dollars. Which is a lot higher than what I got when I got my hybrid. That will probably spur a lot more Hybrid buyers. Now if it was a tax credit it would be a lot more impressive, but depending on your tax bracket people should get a decent portion of that.
Ok back on topic, a million hybrid sales a year by 2010 I think is an easily reachable goal for Toyota. They've got the reputation for quality that will convince people that they are worth the investment if they can lower their costs I think they can easily get the hybrid technology into the affordable realm for all Americans.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at September 13, 2005 9:04 PM
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