Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
(Sigh) That old nonsense again? The people who are the customer base for hybrids, and who will be the customer base for the Volt, don't care that much about fuel cost. As I keep saying, if it was just money, I could run a Hummer and never worry about the cost of gas (beyond my ingrained thriftiness, anyway). But if the extra money I spent on my Insight has kept a few tons of CO2 out of the air, and a few dollars out of the hands of the jihadists, then IMHO it was money well spent.
|
I applaud people like you, I really do. But I have a deep fear that people such as yourself are in the minority. It is often said that people vote their pocketbooks, in other words, no matter what red button issues might be on the table the vast majority of (well.. Americans) will vote for whatever helps them, or perhaps a class of people they most understand. If people VOTE based on their billfold, then I feel they most certainly BUY based on their wallets.
You , imho, happen to be a cool exception to the rule. I find it very enlightening to learn of people willing to buy things that are "green" and help the environment more than they may ever see back in savings on energy. However I have a strong sense that people with such views are buried by the greed that are at their seed of so many buying decision makers. I do not believe there are enough "tree-huggers" (no offense, I mean that in a good way!!) to make diddly squat difference in The Volt Sales. Just like our politics, I feel the kicker will be performance and $$ matters, The Volt will need to be at least be as cheap to drive as they have lead us to believe, and it would work so much better if they would not over-hype our expectations of this car. Just think how cool it would be if when they FINALLY get this car (IF) into production it does double as well as they have been hyping it as? Would that not be an ice-breaker, or as they say in these parts: "Would that not be a Barn Burner?"?
For people like my dear father, 40K is not a drop in a bucket. So he has a very hard time trying to understand how difficult it is for today's bulk of Americans to afford 40K for a car. He comes from an era in which America had a dense middle class and middle-income families in which it was easier to afford such a price for a car because their base wages were averaging so much higher than the median American wage is now (I am speculating a little bit here). I feel it is just plain more difficult to find enough customers who can afford 40k these days, UNLESS they can really be convinced the car can pay back for itself within the car's expected lifetime in fuel savings.
Personally, the good people in these foothills of East Kentucky that have $40,000 to spend in cash or credit for a car, are much more likely to invest it on a Double-Wide Trailer!!