The VIA F40 and P42 comparison is really not that helpful - those were much smaller orders under circumstances where there really was only one model available at the time.
The Flexity contract was for 204 units at a total cost of just under $1B. Many of the other Flexity orders out there have been for much smaller unit numbers. One would suspect that the per-unit cost is about as low as Bombardier could get it through economy of scale.
The more meaningful question would be, could the TTC have placed two orders for roughly 102 cars each, and what would that have cost. Note that even at 204 cars, the next highest bidder was 50% more - about $1.5 B. When you consider that both builders were adapting their designs to a unique TTC spec, the Bombardier bid for 102 cars would have been higher than 50% of $1B - to recoup its engineering investment, and due to lesser economy of scale - and the second bidder would likely have bid more than 50% of $1.5 B. So the difference would have likely been upwards of $250 million.
There would have been some added operating cost as the cost of spare parts inventory, test equipment, tools and machinery, training, etc would have increased. I don't see this as being in the hundred-million range, so I would not dwell on it.
We haven't spent that much money keeping CLRV/ALRV's in service....yet.
(I pulled those numbers from
http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com..._Review_of_Options_to_Exclude_Bombardier_.pdf)
- Paul
