Word: costes
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...powered engine, the first electric vehicles might feel like a letdown. Most Chinese drivers will be on their first cars, and won't have memories of Thunderbirds and Corvettes as they make their selection. An electric car, if priced well, might seem like a smart choice, especially as the cost of gas rises again. "The Chinese customer is just getting off a bike, so they're not worried about not being able to drive six hours without a recharge," says Philip Gott, a director for automotive consulting at research firm IHS Global Insight. "China has the chance to work...
China's Great Advantage There will be kinks. Chinese customers are likely to be just as sensitive to price as American ones, if not more so - and even China's low-cost manufacturers have yet to figure out how to make a reasonably-priced battery. Then there's the question of infrastructure. Few Chinese live in houses with easy access to plugs to power their cars, and there is little infrastructure ready for public charging. But none of that takes away China's late-starter advantage. Chinese companies don't have a hundred years of auto manufacturing to unlearn before...
...increasingly favored renting. House prices went up and up while rents stayed relatively flat, meaning you could get a lot more bang for your buck by choosing a lease over a deed. Now, with the housing market in a pulp, the tables are turning. Choe's most recent rental cost him $1,500 a month. His new mortgage payment, for a same-size house, is $1,570 (after a 20% down payment). "Not a bad deal," he says - especially considering that once Choe takes into account the money he saves on taxes by deducting his mortgage interest, his new payment...
...figure out which is better now, start with the fact that in the long run, the costs of owning and renting stay in fairly steady proportion. Economists call this the price-to-rent ratio - take the average cost of buying a house and divide it by what you'd pay in rent in a year. The analysis shop Economy.com calculates that since 1986, the price-to-rent ratio for U.S. cities has averaged 16.5. In other words, the price of a house is the same as what you'd pay to rent it over 16.5 years...
...late 2001, this ratio began to climb, and by 2003, it was soaring along with home prices, hitting 24.7 in 2005. In those days, you could get 24.7 years in a rental for the cost of a house. That was right about when Choe decided that renting looked like a steal...