{"id":6075,"date":"2008-11-25T09:20:16","date_gmt":"2008-11-25T09:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html"},"modified":"2008-11-25T09:20:16","modified_gmt":"2008-11-25T09:20:16","slug":"plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html","title":{"rendered":"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even though the technology isn’t there, Congress is pushing it and we will be stuck with expensive, substandard cars<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like.
\n“A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week. “We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”
\nBut the car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a “sustainable U.S. auto industry” that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.
\nThat’s because car manufacturers still haven’t figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them. After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The battery adds $8,000 to the cost of the car. Obama’s $7,500 tax credit won’t even cover it (half of the American public wouldn’t even quality for the credit). And what about the cost of the replacement battery? Anyone with a laptop is going to be leery of a battery that doesn’t come with a lifetime warranty (you can bet they won’t be issuing any of those).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though the technology isn’t there, Congress is pushing it and we will be stuck with expensive, substandard cars: Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like. “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[405,399,398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment-2","category-politics-2","category-technology-2"],"yoast_head":"\nPlug in cars are not going to be cheap - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even though the technology isn’t there, Congress is pushing it and we will be stuck with expensive, substandard cars: Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like. “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-25T09:20:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Susan Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"Even though the technology isn’t there, Congress is pushing it and we will be stuck with expensive, substandard cars: Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like. “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2008-11-25T09:20:16+00:00","author":"Susan Johnson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html","name":"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-25T09:20:16+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-25T09:20:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/11\/plug-in-cars-are-not-going-to.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Plug in cars are not going to be cheap"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065","name":"Susan Johnson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","caption":"Susan Johnson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/sjohnson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}