Just for your perusal, I'd picked up the July '03 Money Magazine on a recent flight. It had an article about the upcoming hybrids focusing on the '04 Prius with mention of the Lexus 330 and Ford Escape.
I was interested to see what they foresaw the investment opportunities and growth potential for the industry. Instead I found a very pessimistic author who feels people will either crave their power hungry SUVs and luxury cars or will want to save a couple thousand dollars rather than pay a little more for the hybrids. They calculated that it would take some 8 years to recover the cost in gas saved--they used $2.00/gallon for calculations which gives the advantage to the hybrid, but then they compared the 55mpg mid-size Prius to the 38mpg compact--hmmm. They also discounted the fact that the Prius is so much more advanced technology and feature wise and to get that feature pack would jack up the price of any comparable vehicle.
All in all I got the sense that the author had never driven a hybrid and that he probably hadn't done his research well on the number of hybrids already on the road and the high customer satisfaction or the number already ordered months before the '04 is even available.
Tempted to right a venomous letter to the editor, but we'll see....
--evan
I was interested to see what they foresaw the investment opportunities and growth potential for the industry. Instead I found a very pessimistic author who feels people will either crave their power hungry SUVs and luxury cars or will want to save a couple thousand dollars rather than pay a little more for the hybrids. They calculated that it would take some 8 years to recover the cost in gas saved--they used $2.00/gallon for calculations which gives the advantage to the hybrid, but then they compared the 55mpg mid-size Prius to the 38mpg compact--hmmm. They also discounted the fact that the Prius is so much more advanced technology and feature wise and to get that feature pack would jack up the price of any comparable vehicle.
All in all I got the sense that the author had never driven a hybrid and that he probably hadn't done his research well on the number of hybrids already on the road and the high customer satisfaction or the number already ordered months before the '04 is even available.
Tempted to right a venomous letter to the editor, but we'll see....
--evan