Originally Posted by
onetrack
I guess the simple fact is, that the C172 liability insurance cost factor is purely related to the low number of C172's produced -
That's one of the major factors that folks are neglecting from thier economic comparisons. In 2015, cessna sold 143 172s. They sold 539
total aircraft that year. In the US alone, MB sold 4,000 SL roadsters in 2015. MB's US sales are around 25,000 vehicles
per month
If MB engineers a new airbag system, they amortize the development costs over hundreds of thousands of units. If Cessna engineers a new seat, those development costs are amortized over, at best, a few thousand units.
Seats come to mind because of an experience a few years back. I was writing for an aviation publication and travelled to Columbia where a new utility aircraft was being developed (The Gavilan, very similar to the AirVan) One of the things I learned while down there was just how big a deal seats were. Part 23 has specifications for crash energy absorption for aircraft seats, and the company developing the Gavilan had spend in incredible amount of money engineering a pilot seat to meet those specs, then demonstrating the seat's ability to meet the specs. Demonstrating that ability was a considerable portion of the cost. I wish I recall the cost I was told as it would make a better story, but I just recall that it was astonishing amount, for something which seemed so simple. In a way, it was the seat costs which sunk the Gavilan. They essentially ran out of development money after designing and getting approval for the seats, and were unable to design and certify passenger seats. As a result the aircraft never received US certification with more than the front seats, which is obviously a pretty significant disadvantage in a fairly large utility airplane.
ANyway, the point being, if you take the large costs of engineering and testing energy absorbing seats, and amortize that cost over very few units, the per unit cost is very high, and is reflected in the price of the airplane. Then you consider that an airplane contains lots of things like the seats which require a lot of money to develop and prove.