No, I don't think that the hardware is so expensive. But I believe that if the manufactors of navigation CD would open their format of the CD they would sell much more of the navigation informations.

Another aspect of this situation is: You can buy the navigation data (from Navtech or Teleatlas) to a fixed price (If I remember correctly it's about $10'000 to $20'000 dollars) and you will get the complete data with all navigation related informations (map, directions, POI etc.). All manufactors of navi CD's calculate this price with the numbers of CD's they plan to sell and that's the price of the navi CD's.

Think verse vica: Why can a software manufactor offer a navigation software for $70 including navigation informations for Palm, PSION? The reason is very easy: They pay $10'000 - $20'000 dollars for the informations and can sell this together with the software many thousand times!!!

Rolf