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.”
Agree - I simply BOYCOTT any union built car (as have been the case for 7 cars now). I don’t care where they’re built, but I WILL NOT buy a car from workers who HATE their company, because it keeps ‘screwing them over’ (in their brainwashed eyes).
“The 40 slowly shrinks to 20 HOW fast?”
Or if you go up a hill on the way to work.
“I read somewhere that the body panels on those cars were made of cardboard.”
Come on, let’s not beat a dead horse. It Masonite (pressboard), as long as it didn’t get wet, it was fine.
You guys were green before green was even cool, to paraphrase Barbara Mandrel.
Like you said: "The old “slant six” engines were like ugly shirts, they just seemed to last forever."
As for the VOLT, it is an Obama/Greens wet dream come true and TOTALLY useless... it is still-born and DOA. No none in their right mind is going to buy this Obamamobile.
After what Obama did to the bond holders who will buy GM sock?
GM stocks will be a union bailout pump and dump.
Heh, not green so much as “too poor to buy a nicer ride back then.”
I will say, though, the Gremlins were tough little suckers. Always started, kept running even when the floorboards rusted completely through. :-)
I assume you are talking about the government laundering money for the pension fund through stocks, otherwise I am missing the point. Who will buy the stocks, someone like Goldman-Sachs? Who will buy them when dumped, the working schmo? Help an old dumb guy.
YUGO and get it fixed again!
The 40 mile battery range...is that with the radio turned off? How about with the heater or air conditioner in use (assuming they have these)!
Yet, then go and buy an Asian or European car... built by union-workers, and be perfectly happy with it.
(If you buy a car that was made in South Korea, Japan, or Germany... it was made by union-workers.)
—
The 2 biggest problems with US unions are:
1. Management that will not, under any circumstances, stand up to them.
2. Lack of competition. The UAW is the only autoworker union in America, so it holds a monopoly on the organized autoworker labor market. If we broke up their monopoly on organized labor, we'd have multiple unions competing for customers, ie: auto companies. And they'd either cut their prices to complete the transaction... or provide a better product, ie: more highly skilled workers.
Toyota knows how to run a profitable business.
Also, Toyota's hybrids are even showing up as taxis; apparently their in-town performance is considered desirable by some number of taxi companies.
“I find it funny how union-built cars from American companies turn out to be lemons and POS-mobiles...Yet, then go and buy an Asian or European car... built by union-workers, and be perfectly happy with it.
The other issue is that unions are not Socialist front organizations, bent on destroying their own country’s Capitalist system, at least in Asia.
I drive 40 miles one way to work..
Well that’s just wrong. You’ll have to quit that job and get one closer or take mass transportation. /s (unfortunately our “elite” rulers are guilty of this magical thinking}
My dad finally discovered a problem in his '55 Chevy where a main oil bore was plugged with a broken drill!
It'd broken off and was just left in the block. No doubt the next 250 blocks on the line after that one were simply missing a hole!
BTW, my dad fixed the problem by cutting the cheap Chevy drill out with a VERY EXPENSIVE state of the art super tungsten carbide tipped drill bit ~ and a hand drill.
I doubt it ever occurred to Chevy's QC managers to ever count bits on their Millholland and other borers at the end of a shift.
What grid do they plan on using? The one that is already overloaded?
LOL!!! I refuse to take Public Transportation... I don’t care if gas is $20.00 per gallon..
That's fine. You could work 400 miles away, but you would have to buy gas --- Government Motors gives the maximum distance on a single tank of gas and full charge as 300 miles.
The Volt is a gas/electric hybrid. The difference in this and the Prius is that the Volt is a serial hybrid; in the Volt, the gas engine only charges the batteries. (Yes, I know that Government Motors doesn't call it a hybrid but rather a "Range-Extended Electric" vehicle, and technically that's more correct since the gas engine doesn't directly provide any propulsion.)
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