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Originally Posted by tjts1
You have a firm grasp of the obvious.
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Not so obvious. The point is that it's senseless to hold the Insight up as an example to show that it's impossible to turn a profit on aluminum-bodied cars, because it was never intended to be profitable.
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Nobody builds a cheap aluminum car because its impossible to turn a profit.
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Something I have problems understanding, at a pretty fundamental level, because by that same logic beer cans should still be made out of steel :-)
The real lesson here is that if you want to turn a profit building cars, then you have to either build lots of them, or sell each one at a high price. If you introduce a new technology, whether it's aluminum bodies or plug-in hybrid powertrains, then you have to either charge high prices for the first ones (Volt, NSX, Tesla), or eat a big chunk of R&D costs for the first few years (Insight, Prius).