Posted on 12/23/2011 12:23:12 PM PST by jazusamo
Without massive government support, it would not have made it this far and it doesn’t deserve too
There are some phenomenal cars available at that price point, and choosing a Volt over a BMW 5 series, Mercedes C Class or GM's own Cadillac CTS takes some serious priority adjustment. That, and people that buy $45k cars don't really care about gas prices.
Uh... How does a one year old car become “venerable” when it has yet to accomplish anything more than ripping off the tax payers? For that matter how can anything that “new” be considered venerable? Or did he mean vulnerable? This guy needs a dictionary.
I agree on the Tesla. They’ll have to have a lot more investors to keep going at the cost of them, there just isn’t enough car nuts out there for them to make a go of it.
Volt turns......
Stomachs!
Amen to that. For taxpayers to subsidize the sales of these vehicles is pathetic. Companies should stand on their own and let the market determine a product, not the mandate of the government.
The Stimulus gave Tesla something like a half million for every car they ever built.
Insanity.
You left out the fact that ALL electric vehicles are solutions to a non-existant problem.
Agreed, the price of the volt is way out of reason.
It’s a 4 passenger vehicle that’s easily priced 15K to 20K too much for the market. GM can’t rely on the enviro buyer that wants one for a status symbol.
A few days ago I read a piece that said GM would drastically reduce the price of the Volt, I believe it was the GM CEO that said it. I just can’t believe it because they are supposedly losing money on each one now.
For the same money, no car guy would choose Tesla over a 911 or M3.
Tesla/Fiskars are seeking a niche market inside of a niche market, but it could work if they keep production costs under control.
“Recently the Chevy Volt, General Motor’s (GM) venerable electric-hybrid car, turned one-year old”
I’ll bet it never turns two.
That V-8 is now a 400hp clean burning monster that drives a 6-speed transmission and gets 20MPG.
A public school journlist.
GM produced 200,000 Corvairs a year for the first 6 years of production. I believe that totals to 1.2 million just for the first six years. I don’t believe I would call that a failure.
The Volt however is a total failure.
>> “However, if a willing manufacturer makes an EV, and a willing customer buys it — with no government subsidy involved anywhere — then I wouldn’t say that it’s a solution to a nonexistent problem” <<
.
Not likely to happen on any measurable scale.
Electric vehicles for public highways lack a valid reason to exist (unlike rental golf cars on private courses). Electric vehicles actually add pollutants to the air because electric generation above the normal level is taken up by inefficient burning, as compared to the internal combustion engine, which by itself produces nothing that is legitimately labeled a pollutant (although the catalytic converters attached thereto produce pollutants by burning substances not normally subjected to oxidation in the engine)
I think GunsareOK was refering to the diesel conversion of the olds 350, which was truly a disaster.
Now as far as gas engines go, we had efficiency in 1969. I had a dodge 440 ci with three duces that produced 520 HP when demanded, and got 22 MPG crusing at 80 MPH. you could stand by the tailpipe of that rig as long as you wished and never inhale any undesirable substances, but five years later that became impossible when they added a catalytic polluter.
The enviro nutzies didn’t like the clean burning version.
Very true and his book was nothing but lies. The Corvair’s safety record was no worse than than any other car at the time.
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