It’s a special kind of stupid

CNN/Money reports,

A first: Lincoln hybrid costs the same as a gas-only car

Really? The cost is the same? Or do they mean retail price? And I’m not just nitpicking here. Ostensibly, CNN/Money is a financial news service and one might reasonably make the presumption that a financial news organization would be in tune with costs versus retail price.

But let’s dig further.

The sticker price will be $35,180 — exactly the same as the non-hybrid version of the car.

So it is retail price, not necessarily “cost”. Ok, cleared that one. It’s just the headline which is stupid. Or is it?

Hybrid cars generally cost considerably more than non-hybrid versions of the same car. In many cases the extra cost of the car can cancel out what the owner saves on gas.

Over the years here we’ve been down this road so many times that I would think most news organs would just avoid this. Yet, here it is again. The old trope that hybrids cost so much more than “regular” cars. Not true and not true.

The rest of the article isn’t much better. It’s basically press release and some mindless rumblings from, oh god save me, an analyst.

Here’s my take on it. Ford probably makes a decent amount on the MKZ. If not, they’d be GM. So the idea that they’re giving a few points in profit to price these cars equivalently isn’t a big deal. In fact, said analyst says,

It’s not unheard of for a hybrid and non-hybrid versions of a car to be priced close to one another, Toprak said, but not exactly the same and not in the luxury market.

So aside from refuting the earlier part of their story, this analyst says something I don’t get at all. While it may not be standard practice in the luxury market, that sector is the one that can most easily absorb this kind of strategy because of the higher retail prices and the larger profit margins. That’s kind of obvious, no?

I guess not.