replying to jon_banquer , passerby wrote:
jonbanquer wrote:
"Industry analysts have estimated it actually costs GM as much as
$75,000 to build each Volt, or nearly twice the base price."

Find the right analyst and s/he will estimate you anything all the way
right up to the point that *you* want to make. What is so incredibly
different in Volt from, say, Prius which costs $25,000 (to the customer)
and Toyota is making profit on it? Volt has a larger and different
technology battery, so it probably costs $3K more. OK, let it be $5K more,
but still, what would explain the incredible $50K difference in the
alleged estimate?

If the estimate has any relation to reality, it most likely does not take
into account economy of scale that hasn't yet started to show since the
sales are not very high and the model is relatively recent. Toyota started
selling Prius in 1997 and announced making first profit in 2001 after
75,000+ were sold. Gotta give it time, I'm sure GM understands that.


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