It is appalling reading about General Motors Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz’s opinion on hybrids. In an interview with Just-Auto this week, Lutz tells: Hybrids are technologically of doubtful benefit, and expensive, but necessary from a political and public relations point of view.
Lutz adds ‘it doesn’t make economic sense for consumers to pay several thousand dollars more for hybrid cars that get up to 30 percent better fuel economy’. He also believes that the only way a company will recover the extra cost of a hybrid system is installing it on higher-priced, bigger vehicles like pickup or SUV and would have a better environmental effect than installing it on already fuel-efficient small cars
Equally disappointing is Toyota’s statement. The leader of the hybrid cars manufacturer shares, ‘economically, hybrids make no sense. The reduction in fuel [consumption] does not pay for the technological content and cost of the vehicle so therefore economically it remains fairly nonsensical’.
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