by Jack Lee
Lawmakers seem intent on imposing their notions about what sort of cars Detroit should build in exchange for the bailout money. This has the net effect of people who have blown through trillions telling people who have blown through billions how to run their business.
The Prius example gets brought up regularly by politicians as a good example of a popular selling “green” car that gets 48 mpg city and 45 mpg hwy. 
The Prius sells for around $20,000 and because of that Congress thinks Detroit should be selling something similar and then their problems would be solved, right? Wrong! Prius is Toyota’s halo car, because it’s so politically correct and for that great advertisement Toyota is willing to sell it for nearly zero profit and has been ever since it came out. The Prius is expensive to build because it has two drive trains and in order
to keep the base price low and yet feed the corporate mouth Toyota was forced to add a little extra into the price of their luxury models, like Avalon or their big 4X4’s that get less mpg’s than a 4X4 Chevy or Ford…I call this another version of taxing the rich. Don’t get me wrong, if this is Toyota’s business model and it works for them, that’s great, but to think hybrids are the answer to the big three’s cash flow problem is nuts.
Landrover gets 13 mpg city, costs $63,000. And lawmakers say GM should be more like Toyota?
The Prius is a gimmick car, it’s a “loss leader” just like those super specials at the grocery store that are sold at or below cost just to get you inside to shop and this is what our brilliant leaders in Congress would have Detroit manufacturing to save the industry? Or worse, manufacturing pure electric cars? These people are idiots. They have no grasp of reality and they obviously don’t know the first thing about basic economics, yet here they are, taking this opportunity to impose their will on Detroit. If they do, expect Detroit to be about as cost efficient as Washington. In other words, if you think they got trouble now, you ain’t seen nothing yet!