Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Chevy Volt Makes Economic Sense

But only if gasoline costs at least $12.50/gallon.
President Barack Obama has said that upon leaving office after his second term, he plans on buying an electric Chevy Volt.

But according to the Lundberg Survey, the price of a gallon of gas would need to rise to $12.50 before the Volt would be cost-effective for consumers. The reason: before government subsidies, the Chevy Volt costs roughly $40,000.

The Nissan Leaf fared little better. Gas would need to skyrocket to $8.53 a gallon in order for the Leaf to be economically competitive, "based on the cost of gasoline versus electricity, fuel efficiency and depreciation."

Mr. Obama has set a goal of having one million electric battery-powered vehicles on American roads by 2015, but experts predict the actual number will be less than 200,000, due to low consumer demand. By 2017, Edmunds predicts that "pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids to make up only 1.5 percent of the U.S. market in 2017, compared with 0.1 percent last year," a projection that, while lackluster, some experts believe is overly optimistic.

Still, Mr. Obama wants to raise the taxpayer-funded subsidies for electric vehicles from $7,500 to $10,000.


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