Hybrid sales could be seeing a sales slowdown and Carlos Ghosn was one of the very few people who had enough foresight to see this during the days of the hybrid hype where everyone was jumping onto the bandwagon.
Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan and Renault said it was far too early to invest in hybrid technology, because costs outweighed the benefits for both consumers and manufacturers. The fuel savings of a hybrid vehicle did not justify the fuel savings incurred.
In fact, on highways a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius might actually use more fuel than a normal car. This is because on highway speeds, the Toyota Prius runs on full gasoline as the ECU detects highway long journeys might drain the battery too fast as the time for journeys are usually long and there is very little opportunity for regenerative braking. Since the Toyota Prius gasoline engine is quite tiny relatively, it actually has to work harder and use more fuel compared to a conventional powered vehicle with a larger more potent engine.
“At least admit I was the only guy saying, Watch out, the consumer decides, don’t be excited about it. I have some kind of satisfaction of being a little bit right on this one.” said Carlos Ghosn at the New York Auto Show. He says diesel or ethanol vehicle holds more promise for now, but he is not abandoning the idea of hybrids completely. He just thinks it’s not time yet. Nissan is still on track to release a hybrid version of the Nissan Altima this year.
J.D. Power and Associates predicts hybrids will make up 1.5 percent of automobile sales in 2006 and will grow to nearly 5 percent by 2013.
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b4 this i oso wonder, on highways when the battery got the chance to recharge, bcoz less brake usage… so here is its weakness… i guess hybrid cars only suit for city driving…
Oh Fifth Gear i saw this electric sports car. 3-4 hours of charge and you can drive it for 200 miles. Why cant they do more research on this and try to make it cheaper. I guess the fuel companies sure give this car manufacturers some bribe.
Wahlaueh…
hybrid also not help much on fuel saving & to cover up the cost spent to buy the vehicle.
like what Jason said, the fuel companies sure will buy.bribe the technologies that will save fuel for 50% or more. This is a common sense, if too much save on petrol then sure their gold mines would not make much money for them. they rather buy & keep the projects from the world's knowledge.
i saw a 'Urban legend' documentary on ASTRO, a comsumer bought a car from a dealer, after drove for couple hundreds miles, he observed that the petrol indicator still stick at near full. He thought it was faulty meter unable to give correct reading. So, he drove to petrol station to fill up, amazingly, only 1~2 gallons already fill up the tank. he was so surprised & unbelieable. He tried for another times & refilled then gave the same result. He & his wife so happy & satisfy about the car. The busybody wife was writing a 'thank you' letter to the auto company to thanks them for creating such fantastic good fuel saving car.
After few days of sending the letter, 1 morning the husband saw somebody was open his car front bonet & checking on something, he shouted at the man, then the man quickly took out something from the engine area & run away. the husband check & start the car & nothing strange found. But after that the car become normal fuel sucking car.
The legend behind strongly believe that the prototype car had been accidently send out to the market & they came to collect back the 'fuel saving device'. & i am quite sure the fuel companies bought the project & covered it from the world.
Few issues to be resolved first I think with regards to this hybrid cars, namely the depreciation, the maintenance and the lifespan of the battery..
On top gear, i saw this car being introduced, it need not to be charge, as it is being charged every time the petrol engine is running.
the electric motor will run at certain time such as constant speed drive, slow drive. If the car senses any acceleration, the petrol engine will start to power the car or both e-motor and p-engine will run together.
Ghosn statement remind me of IBM can't see PC is the product of future and stick to supercomputer!
Hybrid technology is still in its infancy so it is really a matter of time before those kinks are sorted out and if Toyota is the driving force behind it, you can trust them to deliver. I have my faith in hybrid. But I am not too sure about Ghosn and Nissan – if this is not the time – then when's the time? When oil hits US$100 or what?! Can Nissan still afford to sit on the fence? If Ghosn doesn't think that hybrid is the answer – then what would be? Trusting his "foresight", can he gives us an engine that cleans the air, preserve fossil fuel and acheive great gas mileage while cheap to produce? If he can't, he'd better shut his month and do what he does best – cost cutting – and leave the innovations to Toyota.
I've already stated he thinks turbodiesel and biofuels like ethanol are more feasible.
But the Prius has a 1.5l engine if I'm not mistaken. That should still allow for an okay fuel consumption depending on the gearing.
Yeah, Ethanol are better and easier to produce as compared to the bio-diesel(expensive). It more practical than having electric motor in the car. As shown in TopGear, the Prius is quite slow. Acceleration rate is quite low. Actually, diesel engine are good in fuel economy only if the C.C. of the engine is higher, which is around 2.5L to 4.0L.
However, to buy a car with 4.0L diesel engine will cost a lot in the form of the price of the car and the road tax here will clean off your bank acccount in no time.
That's why the G should have thought of it, lower down the road tax and excise duty of diesel cars(cheaper cars ) and let the citizen enjoy big cars which is good in fuel efficient.
if not mistaken, hybrid and these sort of cars get reduced road tax in singapore… sadly there isn't anything of the sort here, hence slow sales of such cars like the civic hybrid
I think Ghosn doesn't really knows what he is talking. Fuel grade Ethanol (ie. E15 & E85) and other forms of gasohol and green fuels could be used with hybrid engines. So why does he thinks it is not the right time yet to invest in hybrid tech?! An ethanol hybird car is simply by far the most usable green energy car. And if he thinks he can sell turbodiesel to the Americans, then good luck to him. Ego can't get him far…
My opinion is that nowadays the hybrid technology is not that stable yet, as most of the drivers still prefer petrol and diesel engine because of its responsive acceleration as compare to hybrid cars. The recent hybrid technology might need high maintenance cost or fee because most of the mechanics in town are totally blank on this type of new advancement.
These would lead the users to resist to change. Let's wait for a while(around 5-7 years where all the bugs and weaknesses of hybrid cars are improved in its reliability and of course, user recommendation on these cars are very important and it is not enough for today to convince any new car buyer to try or change their taste.
Nissan might be investing, but they are lying (for some business reasons). As they might be scouting or spying around what have other companies did.
Such comments from the boss of Nissan are hardly suprising at all since Nissan cars are known to be petrol-guzzlers. Nissan cars lose out to Toyota ones in terms of fuel-efficiency big time thumbs down.
CEO of Nissan and Renault making this statement?? So sad!! Renault do so well in F1 and the CEO can make this kind of statement, no wonder Alonso will jump to McLaren Mercedes next year.
i think some of you guys are literally talking rubbish.. Ghosn is right. Please do some research or at least read Pauls posted article fully.
This is not something that we haven't seen happen yet. It is happening now already. This is not like IBM. He stated early on that hybrids will not kick off. and he is now proven right. Hybrid sales were very low from the beginning, and they are now slowing down even.
Although he states that it is not the right time yet to invest in them, nissan is still launching a hybrid soon. so it doesnt mean he doesnt believe in them either.
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