The reason the auto makers are in trouble.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an automotive engineer) to figure out why General Motors (note the "general" in their name) is in trouble or why the others are scrambling to figure out why they're losing money hand over clenched fist. Look no further than the hybrid car market. Let's start with the Nissan Altima and its little brother, the Nissan Altima Hybrid. The Altima has a base sticker price of $19,900 and gets (EPA estimated) 23mpg city and 31mpg highway. The Altima Hybrid has a base sticker price of $26,650 and gets (EPA estimated) 25mpg city and 33mpg highway. The higher city mileage is because it's running on battery power. Even so, the extra $7,500 doesn't make sense when you figure in an extra 2 miles per gallon of gasoline. You'd have to be a hard-core tree hugger to shell out $7,500 and get literally nothing in return other than the satisfaction of running a car on batteries for a short time. By comparison, the Versa and Sentra ...