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Originally Posted by cheapybob
As usual we get idiotic ideas from Washington. Nothing like giving people tax breaks to buy more foreign cars.
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Ha, "Foreign".
Not all hybrids are foreign. At home in Kansas City, they make the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner Hybrids. Some of the other statements so far were jokes, but you seem to be serious, and thus I must respectfully respond in disagreement.
Where was GM, Ford and Chrysler in the early 70's during the gas crisis? Where were they in the mid-80's when the small economy car market heated up? Where were they in the 90's when reliabilty was a priority? Where have they been this decade? Answer: asleep at the wheel, and slept-in. Meanwhile across the globe, Honda and Toyota set their alarms and woke up early, started to figure out what we needed better than our own CEOs did. Domestic execs' pure arrogance thought that people would only buy American, and soon, imports started eating away at their sales. In each decade respectively, the "Big 2" from Japan introduced:
70's: The Honda CVCC and Toyota Corona which increase in sales
80's: Honda Civic, CRX, Accord; Toyota Tercel, MR2, Camry: gaining momentum based on reliability and efficiency
90's: The 2 Build plants in the U.S., Camry becomes the best selling car in the U.S. followed by the Accord (which still stands). Reliability is key. 100,000 miles is no longer the end of a car's useable lifetime.
00's: Having efficiency on the front burner for many years, Honda introduces the first Hybrid: the Insight, shortly followed by the Toyota Pruis, and Civic Hybrid and the Accord Hybrid that's faster than the standard V-6. Then America caught up, late as usual, and with a small SUV. The problem: we haven't caught back up and earned the trust back of the public. Statistics show it, and it's sad.
Wouldn't it be nice if we came up with the Civic, or the first hybrid? What happened?
70's: Our Big 3 continue to build huge gas guzzlers despite the gas crisis.
80's: Chrysler goes bankrupt, and has the gov't bail them out. Small cars started appearing in the late 80's. The Taurus saves Ford, and GM makes it by people hanging-on.
90's: Smaller American cars lacked the reliability and efficiency of Japanese imports, people figured it out in droves and started buying other brands (myself included -- being from, and having lived in Northeastern Ohio at that time, buying a "Foreign" car was cause for treason. Someone knew someone that worked at the Big 3, so you didn't dare buy anything but). But I was the first in my family to buy an import: a '96 Civic DX Coupe. Cheap, dependable, efficient, safe. Was I going to buy a Cavalier? I already went down the GM road and they failed me 3 times. Honda/Acura is now 4-0 for me and I consider the switch of the best decisions I made. My first Civic was even made in Ohio: Marysville, near Columbus. But some argue that the profits go elsewhere. I'd rather keep the potential repair or replacement money in my bank account to buy some other stuff later instead of an engine re-build, for example. Much Independent research proves it.
SO
Chevy, the "American Revolution" has a Daewoo in it's lineup (Aveo)
Ford builds a lot of cars in Mexico.
And Chrysler isn't American anymore: it's German.
It's a world market, so I don't buy the "profits" nor "foreign" arguement.
If we give money to GM to develop a hybrid, what will happen?
If we give money to Honda to improve their hybrids, how do you think that will solve our gas problem? We learn from our History.
RH77
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