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• 
  science_fiction_girl
  

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  03/04/2009 10:51 PM

  Cost

  Of course it's going to cost a lot to start with. Every new technology does. Anybody else remember when you used to pay about $100 per RAM for a home computer?
  
  If we don't start somewhere, then those costs will always be high because there is no demand (high levels of production usually lowering costs). The technology probably also won't be researched as quickly to make it cheaper and/or more efficient, because the research funding won't be there.
  
  Why do we seem to forget that cost effectiveness takes time whenever someone proposes a "costly" new technology?
  
  Just my two cents, but seems like we should be encouraging innovation rather than writing it off so quickly as "too costly". It may not be the best possible idea, but at least it's an idea.

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  • 
    millikenresearch
    

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    03/05/2009 09:32 AM

    Re: Cost

    The article does not discourage innovation. It simply brought up the fact that the taxpayers will be financing the Volt. If the taxpayers had been required to finance RAM we would still paying $100 per Meg.
    
    I drive a small economy car and didn't try to force anyone to help me pay for it.

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    • 
      DennisBuller
      

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      03/05/2009 06:51 PM

      Re: Cost

      I seem to remember that the microchip industry was not going to get off the ground. The market was too small so the chips would be way to expensive. The government stepped in and promised to buy a bunch at a certain price to get them going.
        The internet was a government creation for universities.
         I am not against the government throwing money at a new technology to get it going.
        As long as they do not play favorites between companies (no cronyism) and only last for a couple years. Long enough to really see if the market is viable. ("clean coal" money breaks this rule. It goes on and on and on....with no improvements)
        Thinking long rang; if the Volt comes out and is affordable, we can say goodbye to oil fueled despots and keep billions of dollars that would have left the country, in it.
      
        
        

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      • 
        Tracker3
        

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        03/06/2009 08:31 AM

        Re: Cost

        Dennis,
            I always thought that the internet grew out of the military's secret message transmission system.  

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        • 
          colinnwn
          

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          03/06/2009 10:14 AM

          Re: Internet from where

          Funding for development of the Internet was based on DARPAnet, a distributed military communication network meant to survive critical nodes being disabled. The Internet itself was created as an educational institution communication network.

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    • 
      GaryB
      

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      03/05/2009 09:19 PM

      Re: Cost

      Good argument ... except that microchips and RAM in particular are poster children for effective government subsidy to get those industries off the ground.
      
      Now the Arpanet, I mean the Internet ... now there's a libertarian example ... oops.

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    • 
      tigerbody
      

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      03/06/2009 04:16 PM

      Re: Cost

      Hmm, I guess you don't realize how petroleum
      is very subsidized by gov't esp the military.

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  • 
    devassocx
    

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    03/06/2009 01:22 AM

    Re: Cost

    At the time with RAM there was no viable alternative. So it was fine to subsidize.
    
    With the VOLT there are already hybrids which are
    close in function. Subsidizing that makes no sense
    to me as there are alternatives.
    
    It seems to me that the gov't is playing favorites in this case and that is just wrong.
    
    Unless something new offers something better which implies better economics then I don't see the point.
    
    Just let market forces work...the best will win.

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  • 
    FreddyG
    

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    03/06/2009 12:07 PM

    Re: Cost

    Costs of technology are dynamic, not static.  As other comments imply, manufacturing cost declines logarithmically as a function of the cumulative production, like microprocessors, RAM, televisions, etc etc.  The nature of this experience curve means that the steepest declines are in the early years of the technology. 
    
    Furthermore, to see a high cost, highly subsidized transportation system, look at our current system of wildly fluctuating fuel prices, multi-trillion $ subsidies for fuel supply "security" (read military operations to ensure supply availability), and so on. 
    
    Fuel price predictability fundamentally reduces risk for consumers and the economy.  Investors and consumers will place place higher value on lower risk alternatives.  Combine a steeply declining cost that's less risky than the status quo, and I think automakers would be well advised to begin marching down the PHEV experience curve sooner rather than later. 

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  • 
    timrjohnson
    

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    06/13/2009 06:32 PM

    Re: Cost

      Any $40,000 car is irrelevant to me.  The last car I bought was a one-year old used car in 2004 for $10,000.  I read recently about an Indian company selling a new car in India for $2500.
      If they can do it in India for $2500, it should be possible to sell a low cost new car in the US for no more than 2 - 3 times as much, that is $5000 to $7500.  That is what GM, and other car companies, should be working on.

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