Posted on 07/31/2010 2:29:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.
For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.
In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.
Nor did the government or G.M. decide to sell the Volt at a loss, which, paradoxically, might have been the best hope for making it profitable. Consider the Prius. Back in 1997, Toyota began selling the high-tech, first-of-its-kind car in Japan for about $17,000, even though each model cost $32,000 to build.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just bought a new car, and Chrysler and GM weren’t even considered, owing to their ownership. Everyone should give pause to any vehicle produced by the UAW, as they have shown they are willing accomplices to the socialization of Amerika.
The outcome in the case I mentioned was that both cars were fixed under warranty and sold soon after. Shame too as the Vega could have been a neat little car.
My brother had a 71 Vega. Had to safety wire all the engine bolts to keep them from rattling loose.
My understanding is the installation will be $2500 to wire in the charger. My 220 volt welder pulls a LOT of juice. My electric bill SKYROCKETS if I use it much. Wait till they get their first electric bill, LOL.
Sounds like an old Plymouth Valiant I had. A couple of teenagers bought it from a junkyard, cleaned it up and got it running.
I bought it from them and ran it hard for a couple of years, had a valve job done on it and when the rest of the engine was utterly worn out my dad took the heads off and used them on his old “slant six” engine.
Total investment? About $300.
The old “slant six” engines were like ugly shirts, they just seemed to last forever.
But wait till folks get a load of the Volt! Buy a Volt, Get a Shock!
INDEED!
Remember:
It's ONLY for EIGHT hours!
A night...
If you want to USE it the next day...
Honey; I thought YOU plugged it in!
And the batteries slowly loses power by HOW much a day?
The 40 slowly shrinks to 20 HOW fast?
Theframe(?) was a bunch of layers of sheet metal spot welded together.
PLENTY strong when new, but with MANY surfaces to rust through instead of just 2, they lost strength RAPIDLY!!
Amen brother man, amen.
Ha Ha ! Safety Wire ! Brings back memories when I was a Jet Head & SAC Trained Killer.
“Honey, I thought you plugged it in”
Freaking hilarious and priceless. Boss, I can’t come in to work today, my wife forgot to plug the car in !
Hee hee
Has anyone calculated what the cost/mile (based on 40 miles) is, given the electricity cost of charging for 8 hours on a 220v circuit?
What aggravates me is the hypocrisy that an electric car is so much more green! Why? Because the car does not produce CO2 when it runs? What about the extra CO2 at the coal-fired power plants that generate the extra needed electricity? Aren’t we just moving the point of CO2 generation to a point earlier in the flow of energy production/use? Seems like a wash to me once you consider all factors.
And this particular design will still require fossil fuel if you need to go further than 40 miles. Seems like a horrible idea. (One that happens when big-government bureaucrats micro-manage what should be private-enterprise automotive design).
Look at you getting all logical and fact based !
You think Hussein and his crowd cares ? At all ?
“All YUGO s came with rear window defrosters, so you could keep your hands warm when pushing them.”
Laughing out loud.
What do you do after forty miles, revolt?
I read somewhere that the body panels on those cars were made of cardboard.
According to Wikipedia, the first six regions in which the Volt will be sold includes: Michigan, Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and D.C. Of these, Austin, Metro NYC, California and D.C. are the first available markets. Given the demographics of these areas, the question is not if but when will it be an employer requirement to subsidize Volt owners by recharging their vehicles gratis at the office.
I'm guessing that the Government Motors marketing department simply looked at Prious sales and chose their regions accordingly. What is clear they didn't consider is that the typical America hating demographic that operates these vehicles are those who also consider American branded products an evil thing.
I have a client in Austin who is a large social-network marketing company that manages many Fortune 500 company on-line campaigns. Out of all the cars in the parking lots, not a single one of them is an American car, all, without exception are foreign from BMW, Saab and Land Rover to Honda, Nissan and Toyota. I did an informal inquiry of the staff and every answer returned as to why this was so was a variation of "American cars = junk."
Good luck with that Voltswagen mein Fuhrer.
“Gee, so folks will have to hire an electrician to wire up a 220/240V charging station at home.....no big deal or added expense there AT ALL.”
I guess it depends on one’s capabilities.
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