Roy J. Tellason said the following to MIKE ROSS on the subject of
ENGINE DESIGN (16 Oct 97  21:18:43)
 RJT> MIKE ROSS wrote in a message to Elvis Hargrove:
 MR> their 1st production hybrid car model. It does over 80 miles
 MR> per gallon not 8.
 RJT> And they
 RJT> said that the company was losing thirty thousand dollars on *each* of
 RJT> those cars!  But they wanted to be first to market...
The 1st line of any mass market product is a loss leader. You can bet
Henry Ford had a loss on his 1st 100 cars too. It is normal and expected
the 1st car coming off the line probably cost many millions to build.
As for the reporters, "they" didn't inform us of something we don't
already know in saying the company loses 32K. Roy, I am surprised you
would repeat just any stupid thing "they" said. It's dishonest reporting
and obviously made simply to sooth US car industry workers egos and
that's why it's a stupid thing.
The industry should instead be reacting not sitting back and feeling
smug in believing the hybrid car will fail to be accepted and not get
cheaper. BTW the Japanese weren't the 1st because there were already
Volvo and Mercedes models.
 Mike
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