What would happen if everyone owned a hybrid vehicle?
Lets say that a majority of people owned a hybrid vehicle…which is basically only produced by foreign Honda and Toyota i believe. What would this do economically? How would this effect gas prices? the environment? Would Ford and Chevy continue to produce more gas guzzlers and just reduce the prices on them? Or would they need to increase the prices on those vehicle? Or maybe just stop making guzzlers?? Maybe they would begin making more and more hybrids or some other alternative to compete with Honda and Toyota…what would be the immediate and long term impact if more and more people bought hybrids??
Actually Ford does have hybrids in the market and if I’m not wrong they were the first to introduce an SUV hybrid or something. As far as the impact goes, the demand for gas would go down significantly which should drive down the price. We would have cleaner air to breath (note that some critics say that dominancy of hybrids would subsequently lead to the problem of pollution from disposal of dead batteries that are used on the hybrids). I think the American car makers would have to have already introduced and promoted hybrids before they can become common as there are plenty of American car lovers here.
However, I noticed that for people to actually start focusing on hybrids, there needs to be a psychological change in thinking and the people should be aiming towards saving the environment cos I calculated and noticed that to cover the premium charge for a hybrid, I’ll need to drive the car for like 5 to 10 years to break even!!!
Gas prices would go down.
Gas prices would drop, and and even if they didn’t, you’d spend less money on commuting because you’d be filling up less often..
Ford, Dodge and Chevy would go out of business because they couldn’t remain competitive.
You ask a very complex question… speculative… interesting.
I suspect that the change would lead to an eventual elimination of gas guzzlers as production items over the long run, but that some would still be produced to satisfy a small interest group and guaranteed sales into that market until such time as engineers required to design a “hybrid muscle car“ and a hybrid “performance car“; and, that the world economy would remain almost as it is with the US and Euro manufacturers rapidly becoming avid producers of hybrid cars in order to remain in the marketplace to compete as usual. Gas prices might rise rather than fall in order to keep oil producer profits steady in an environment of declining demand. I suspect that the world’s ecosystems would be very favorable to such a change as you suggest and I hope that it comes about very soon. (My family is buying hybrids in great part with this last aim in mind – We’ve joined the war against global warming.)
{}{}{} r u randy? {}{}{}
Gas prices would drop, but not by much. Most people don’t realize, but oil is used to make plastic, a lot of cosmetics, and also to run the generators at our non-nuclear power plants nationwide. So we’d still use tons of oil, ESPECIALLY if everyone bought electric cars that they had to plug in and charge at home. Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler would not go out of business, they would just put more effort into making gas-less engines (which they have been putting a lot of effort into in recent years anyway), and would probably go to the government for assistance to keep them in business. Since these are some of the biggest companies in the U.S., their going out of business would significantly impact the economy, so the government would not allow them to shut down.
I found this on consumer reports:
"It also pointed out that each gallon of gasoline not burned prevents the emission of 19 pounds of carbon dioxide…"
I think its safe to say that it would be a bit cooler if everyone had a hybrid.
You seemed to be worrie about foriegn companies gaining American market share the most. If you’re worried about Americans losing jobs, no worries, Toyota loves making cars where they sell them, so if more people drive hybrids they’ll make more in the US and hire more US wokers. Toyota just built a huge Camry hybrid plant in Kentuckey. Honda does the same thing, it build many of it’s cars in the US and is planning on a new one in Ontario.
The only side effect I can see from more people driving hybrids is better air quality, quieter neighborhoods, and less dependence on oil. The price of gas, I doubt will change signficantly, their are too many factors beyond supply and demand controlling oil prices.