"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:59:17 -0400, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:38:19 -0400, "Existential Angst"
wrote:

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
m...
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:18:02 +0000, passerby
wrote:

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.

Eisenstein, the reporter of that article Jon quoted, just says
"industry analysts say." Although Eisenstein knows what he's talking
about, you can do the accounting on this kind of thing in a variety of
ways.

In this case, the "analysts" appear to be Sandy Munro, who was quoted
in a Reuters article from which Eisenstein likely got his "analyst"
quote:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...88904J20120910

You can't do accounting that way and get a result that makes any
sense. It's good for producing a corporate balance sheet or P&L, but
it doesn't tell you anything about the cost of manufacturing a car.

Bob Lutz says the story is nonsense:

"The statement that GM "loses" over $40K per Volt is preposterous.
What the "analyst" in whom poor Ben Klayman [one of the authors of the
Reuter's piece] placed his faith has done is to divide the total
development cost and plant investment by the number of Volts produced
thus far. That's like saying that a real estate company that puts up a
$10 million building and has rental income of one million the first
year is "losing" 9 million dollars, or several hundred thousand per
renter."

Good point. What a lot of bull****.


GM also released a statement saying something close to that, but it's
corporate PR, so take it with a grain of salt.

Doing accounting in the car business is difficult, especially for a
new type of vehicle that encountered huge research and development
costs. The only reliable thing you can work with is the marginal cost
of building the last car, or the next one -- they should be the same.
I'm sure that Lutz is well aware of that marginal cost.

Then you have to decide how you're going to amortize the R&D. And that
could be something you do over years for tax and stockholder purposes,
or a decade or more if you're doing corporate planning.

Economics: the mystery science, where perpetual motion is allowed.
Economics gives mathematics a bad name.
Hey, why bother with fukn math, when you can just handwave??

Economics is little more than game theory with a generous sprinkling of
The
Mind****, where one side can read the cards of the other side, but the
side
getting their cards read don't know it. Cuz, well, they're too busy
getting mind****ed, and, well, too busy ****ing each other -- crabs in a
barrel, donchaknow.

Still, even with one-sided game theory, you still gotta have players.
GM
somehow lost their players. Cuz, well, even mind****ed assholes getting
their cards read have enough functioning brain cells to know enough to
buy
a
Prius, which is 1/2 the price of a Volt, and gets 20-30% better overall
gas
mileage.

You're looking at the wrong market segment. That isn't where GM is
with the Volt.

Neither are they in the Tesla S segment, where a typical model costs
$100,000 (with 300-mile battery pack and other options -- they've
dropped the low-end version recently) and weighs a half-ton more than
a Volt. It's nearly 2-1/2 tons. Jesus. And they're selling more than
they planned for.

As I said, the Volt, in terms of price-point and market segment, is
between a rock and a hard place. They've got to change something, but
it isn't clear what. Going downmarket may look attractive in the short
run but it sounds like they could wind up identified with a category
they don't want to be in.

When you buy a car to save effing gas, it's a reasonable expectation to
save
money, as well.

That's not why people are buying Teslas, which sold something over
4700 in the first quarter. It may be why they're buying Leafs. But
even there, it's an enthusiast market as much as anything.

I think the dichotomy/irony of the Volt is a bit hard for most people to
swallow.
But not for Kidding, who can apparently swallow anything.

g Not having followed most of the antagonistic arguments between you
two, I can't comment. But the Volt is the best effort by anyone to
satisfy *several* of those market segments you described in your
e-mails.

It appears to me that the Volt is the best cross-segment effort anyone
has made, or probably *can* make, given the state of the technology.

Well, there are all kinds of "cross segments". You have to specifiy the
segments you wanna cross.
Think AngstMobile.... lol

But true, the Volt WAS a very good effort. But apparently with fatal flaws.
Oh, excuse me, NO flaws, Le Pubic is just not as smart as Kidding, so they
can't truly appreciate the Volt's greatness, or the penis-size of the GM
engineer.
How silly of me....

People who want a family sedan, with all of the bells and whistles,
and who want unlimited range plus all-electric operation for the large
majority of typical car trips, want something like a Volt. It's just
that it's overpriced. The weight is a non-issue, based on its reported
performance, plus the fact that the 2-1/2-ton, $100,000 Tesla is
selling just great.

Well, I wouldn't say it's a non-issue. Ultimately, the ends justify the
means, but lighter means would always help.


And the price resistance shows how the high-volume market is sliced.
When you're after that market, you'd better be under $30,000 for
volume, and under $40,000 for reasonable competitiveness. Otherwise,
you're competing with M-B, Audi, and BMW. To do that, you need more
panache than Chevrolet can muster.

Yup.



Toyoter don't have that dichotomous fence to jump.
Neither will a properly-strategized AngstMobile.

Toyota has an econocar that has very little all-electric capability,
at a mid-size price.

They have a much better price point, however, and they have enough of
a track record to appeal, marginally, to a different class of buyers.

Don't forget their overall mpg's.



And yer right, Tesla has a whole nother mind**** going, and they did it
right, as you astutely observed, with the Roadster.
High-priced high performance (decent range) stuff for assholes *already*
willing to spend gobs of money for that stuff..

I don't think there are *any* EV buyers now who aren't buying the idea
as much as the economics.

But that's the automobile market in general, in the US as well as in
most advanced economies. When people buy a car, they're buying an
image with which they feel comfortable. It applies to econoboxes,
sports cars, SUVs, and even pickup trucks. We haven't just bought
"transportation" for over 60 years.

Well, some of us do:
I have 4 requirements for a vehicle:
Good mpgs, cheap to buy/cheap to fix, reliable, and low on the stolen-car
list.
Pickups are another story. No decent mpg's there, but the context is
different.


Thus, I drive a Ford Focus -- with two doors, leather seats, stiff
suspension, and the widest tires and biggest engine they made. All I'm
missing is the SCCA sticker, tyre mark on my Pirellis, and
flamethrower headlamps, which I avoid in deference to my son, who
wouldn't be caught dead with any of them. g

Sounds like you could use a Tesla Roadster.... LOL
Hey, you shoulda finagled yer way in as a reporter/reviewer, to at least
drive it!!


Other people want to be out front with other things, like a series
hybrid.

So really, this is just the same ole same ole conspicuous consumption, but
greener and on the flipside.

Absolutely. As are probably 80% or more of all car sales, of all
types.

How many pickup owners do you know among your neighbors, in
Westchester, who really haul manure or roofing shingles? How many 4wd
Land Rover owners in Yonkers actually drive up logging trails to hunt
deer or fish for brook trout, or who have a beach permit to surf the
point breaks on Fire Island or surf fish for striped bass? They're
just going for the outdoorsy image.

In other words, asshole consumers.... just like Kidding....
Why didn't you just say so??


By assholes just like Kidding, except more successful.



All Hail the AngstMobile:
A (cheaper) Leaf with a ****ty li'l genset -- no transmission, no
planetary gears, no multiple clutches, nuthin ceptin batts, a genset, 4
wheels, and a cupla small motors.
And A/C, of course.

You know, I tried to submit this to fuknNissan, but you can't send ****
to
them unless you have a twitter account?? WTF????

I'm sure they'll be fascinated with your idea, when you reach them.
d8-)

I wonder what my cut is going to be..... LOL
Fuuuuck, they could at least send me a free car....


Why don't you just start building aftermarket trailers with packaged
gensets, and sell them to existing Leaf owners? BTW, the Leaf's sales
are sucking wind, too. 'You know where their biggest market share is?
In Norway. You could offer a trailer option on skis...

That's silly. Roof rack, roof rack. With a swing-arm wench.


Maybe they think it's named after that Ericson guy. g

LOL!

For domestic sales, I should call it the TaoMaoDaoMobile, after that PBS
dumb**** who can't even remember the names of his own kids.
You ever see fuknDyer pontificating his bull**** BAREFOOT on stage??? In
a
Ninja suit??

I don't think so. I haven't watched PBS for a while.

If you haven't, and don't believe me, I swear to god it's true....
goodgawd....

I believe you. g

There is so much ejaculate flying out toward the audience during those
semenars, you need a rainsuit AND an umbrella.
But most of the audience is slack-jawed and gap-mouthed..... the rain
suit
is just to protect their hair.....

Dat li'l fagit Dr. Dan Amen lost weight, pumped up his glams, wears a
black
*short-sleeved* ninja suit now, for his PBS stumping....
Which is why Mensa peeple are assholes, falling for all this bull****.
Altho earlier on, Amen had some good nutritional info -- above and beyond
his semen.

I've emailed PBS: Hmmm, you have the ultra-great Bill Moyers, and then
you
have the incoherent dumb**** Wayne Dyer for 3-hour gigs....
Is your effing programming dept on schizophrenic meds, and not taking
them???

Which ties right in with my TaoMaoDaoMobile..... It oughtta be a big hit!

Good luck to you in your future endeavors. g

I'll even have the Kidding Edition of the Angst/TMDMobile:
It'll have a clear plastic box with spinning planetary gears -- which of
course won't do anything, but it will make the KiddingAssholeIlk FEEL
complicated and important.
Lookeee Mommy, I got spinning planetary gears!!!!
--
EA




--
Ed Huntress