Why don't all car manufacturers make all cars Hybrid?

Question

It would save at least 20% gas immediately nationally. The performance is great... and fuel economy unequalled... Why doesn't the government make that a requirement RIGHT NOW?

Answer 1

They're working on it. Some makers are concentrating on E85, others are working on making the best 4 cyl engines, & others are into diesel. Hybrid tech is costly for the consumers as well. A hybrid can cost $8K above the price of a base car of the same model. Plus the costly batteries & recycling of the batteries. Hybrids in the short term are ok, but we still have need for petrol even in a hybrid. Many cars in the past did get 40mpg or better w/o being a hybrid. But as safety became a hot topic, those cars got heavier and needed more power just to get going down the road. Remember the Geo Metro? It was a little tin can that got 45mpg. However, it couldn't hold it's own in an accident. The govt can't make car makers do much of anything. It has heavy political influence & most of the gov'ts suggestions end up in committee for years before it's rejected. By that time new ideas have sprung up making ideas that were suggested years ago obsolete. As bad as it may look, I believe things are improving. The nation has received it's wake up call concerning our dependency on petroleum. For now, what you need to do is reduce your dependency on oil. Go ahead and buy an electrical lawn mower, get a hybrid, make all those changes to your home that will save money, & do whatever you think will help you. Because if you are waiting for the govt to help you, keep waiting.  

Answer 2

anytime the govt gets into it it will go wrong...like why don't we go to all E85....second unless we go to a dictatorship the market tell car makers what to build

Answer 3

Many, if not most auto manufacturers simply aren't set up to build hybrid cars, at least not at that volume level of production.  In order for them to build nothing but hybrids, they'd have to completely re-tool and re-organize every one of their factories, and redesign every car they make to accommodate the hybrid technology.

Even if the U.S. government mandated this tomorrow, it would take YEARS for the auto manufacturers to meet these new standards and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to do so.  And what would they sell in the meantime if they're suddenly no longer allowed to sell cars with conventional internal combustion engines?  They'd go bankrupt -- and that would damage the U.S. economy FAR worse than  our using an additional 20% gas for the next few years.

We can't simply expect everything to change overnight.   The problem with hybrid technology -- and the problem with fully electric vehicles -- is that currently the batteries needed are so big and heavy and have such limited range that its not yet feasible.  We need much lighter, much cheaper, much more efficient batteries to be developed before we can expect hybrid technology or fully electric vehicles to be the norm.  

Answer 4

Because hybrid cars are expensive, and a government mandate would make them much, much more expensive.  The infrastructure to build all the components needed in that number of hybrid cars does not exist right now.  If all new cars were required to be hybrids, then the cost of a new car would be out of reach of most people.  That means that more people would be forced to continue driving older vehicles until the cost came down.  You would end up with fewer hybrid vehicles actually on the road than if you just let them arrive gradually, as is happening now.

Government mandates always come with unintended consequences.  There aren't any silver bullets.

Answer 5

Because hybrids quite honestly suck. There are more things to break, more weight and overall they are more complicated. A 1992-1995 Honda Civic VX Hatchback gets better gas mileage than a Prius. The only car I know of that got better gas mileage than the VX was the Honda Insight and due to low demand they canceled it years ago. If you haven't figured it out the VX is NOT a hybrid, just a 4 cylinder engine on a lightweight car.

Answer 6

$$$

and my old vw gets same gas mileage as any hybrid and it cost a h**l of a lot less and i wont have to buy an $8000 battery in 4 years there just not economically efficient

and since when is it the governments job to regulate business at that level not that they dont but who gives them the right to make anything like that a requirement

Answer 7

Because it would make sense, cost prohibitive, and would p**s off the oil makers.

They want us to buy oil. they are just trying to steal every dime they can get before obama is elected. They know that chaos and mayhem will rule the day he is elected and then things will go haywire.