Oh Boy! New 'Supra'?

Hachiroku ��ロク wrote:
> http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=15&article_id=4440
>
>
> I guess it's a Toyota Concept called the Volta. It's a 'Hybrid Supercar'.
> Looks good to me. But, if it's a Hybrid, there goes the price. The last
> 'rumor' car was a bit nicer looking, and supposedly priced at about
> $35,000. In the grand scheme, that's not bad, considering my '88 cost
> $28,975 new.


Interesting... Here's another Toyota concept called the Alessandro Volta

http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/volta.html

In article <[email protected]>
[email protected]
"=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?=" writes:

> I guess it's a Toyota Concept called the Volta. It's a 'Hybrid
> Supercar'. Looks good to me. But, if it's a Hybrid, there goes
> the price. [...]

Don't give up the ship too soon. As this is not the first hybrid
Toyota have made, they may be learning how to maker them cheaper.

OTOH, there is some sense at this stage of the tech's development
and marketing to aiming any hybrid at the mid-to-upper end of the
price curve.

Some speculations...

Wealthy people help to make a vehicle a success because they tend
to buy new then display their vehicle to similar people (friends,
business contacts, other club members &c) during use -- sometimes
deliberately. <g> They also can afford to keep the vehicle fully
maintained, which is important to preserving its reliability; and
this encourages a "good feeling" about the product in the market.

On top of that, wealthy people are often seen as arbiters of good
taste: "Hey, Arnie has a Humvie, it must be good." That alone is
likely to shift a few units. (Was it DiCaprio who bought 4 early
Priuses? Or were they Version 2?)

On top of _that_, if you are going to make a costly vehicle, load
it with bells and whistles, to make sure that nice honey attracts
enough flies. (So to speak.) This means there'll be a dead zone
in the pricing band of innovative products: not worth designing a
product (here, a hybrid) to be sold down in that band. The Prius
was, I think, affected by that thinking but at least T had enough
sense to ensure the bells and whistles were good ones.
--
Andrew Stephenson

The all-electric Tesla ia a competitor in this arena.
Most people with sports cars don't drive very far in one sitting.
If they did, they'd need a minivan to transport family and dogs.

Andrew Stephenson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Don't give up the ship too soon. As this is not the first hybrid
> Toyota have made, they may be learning how to maker them cheaper.

The electric motor is like the alternator, and the gasoline motor
is smaller in a hybrid than in a traditional car, so aside from
the battery pack, hybrids shouldn't cost much more to build.

Toyota economized on the Prius by not having any gages (speedometer,
tachometer, fuel, oil, volts, temperature) and by not providing
any knobs for climate control. Speedometer and fuel went on a cheap
LCD panel, and climate control is done by touch-screen LCD. I'd bet
the backup camera costs less than a fuel gage on a traditional car.

> On top of that, wealthy people are often seen as arbiters of good
> taste: "Hey, Arnie has a Humvie, it must be good."

Hey, Arnie has a broken femur! I'm gonna go skiing and try to do
an aerial 180 in a terrain park!!

> The Prius was, I think, affected by that thinking but at least
> T had enough sense to ensure the bells and whistles were good ones.

Although the MP3 player really could provide more characters
in song titles, jeesh, they have an entire laptop-sized LCD there.

Hachiroku ???? wrote:

>http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=15&article_id=4440
>
>
>I guess it's a Toyota Concept called the Volta. It's a 'Hybrid Supercar'.
>Looks good to me. But, if it's a Hybrid, there goes the price. The last
>'rumor' car was a bit nicer looking, and supposedly priced at about
>$35,000. In the grand scheme, that's not bad, considering my '88 cost
>$28,975 new.

I think you're dreaming if you think they'll make something that
affordable. At a minimum, it will need the power and performance (and
hence price) of the IS350, which is around $40k...