Jim Robinson
Posted on 02/15/2012 1:24:23 PM PST by raptor22
Incentives: Doubling down on industrial policy failure, the administration decides to bump up the taxpayer subsidy for Government Motors' touted electric car. Who said its range wasn't enough to drive us to the poor house?
Tucked away in the recesses of President Obama's 2013 budget, a budget that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will not bring to the Senate floor, is a nugget that speaks volumes about the troubles we're in:
While delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration plans to increase the subsidy for the Chevy Volt and other "new technology" vehicles to $10,000 per car.
"We give consumers the incentive to buy these cars," White House economic chief Gene Sperling said at a budget briefing where he announced the 33% increase from the current $7,500 subsidy. The budget document, titled "Investing in Our Future," includes a goal of putting "1 million advanced technology vehicles on the road (by) 2015."
So, doing the math, we're talking about a $10 billion dollar "incentive" to get people to buy the Chevy Volt and similar vehicles. Can people be bribed to buy Government Motors' electric car? Even with the $7,500 rebate for each buyer, Chevy sold only 7,671 Volts in 2011.
We wonder if people making $170,000, the average income of the relatively few buyers of the $40,000 Volt to date, really need the incentive. It is not your typical family or factory worker's car. So doesn't that make this the functional equivalent of tax credits for the rich?
As the Daily Caller notes, only Mercedes-Benz drivers, at an average $174,000 a year, earn more than Volt drivers. Their high income puts Volt buyers in the top 7% of households, according to census data, and slightly above the rankings held by households with BMWs, Lexuses or Cadillacs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Volt ping
I have read that dealers are telling GM to not ship any more Volts because people just don’t want any and they can’t take the inventory hit..............
We will always loose.
Voting is 100% wasted effort.
Even with the $10,000 dollar subsidy the thing is still $10,000 dollars over priced.
Hell: Why not just give them away to anybody with a car that gets less than 20 MPG and then take the old cars and destroy the motors.
HMMMM where did I get that destroy the motors stuff.
Hey, Obamabutt, sell me one of those Volt turkeys for around $1k, and I’ll gladly buy it.
That way, I can have sufficient funs to repair it after GM goes under again and they pull the warrenty rug out - also again - from those suckers who stupid enough to purchase their MBA designed slugs. (Corvette excepted, of course.)
(Speaking as a consumer who made the same d*mned mistake with GM too many times.)
A big killer to the Volt is that, if you lease it, you CANNOT take the tax credit. The Leasing Company gets it.
Even at the GMAC/ALLY promo rate of 2.9% for 60 months, that’s a $750 car payment, to get the credit. Not a lot of regular folks are going to be able to afford $750 car payments.
If they could, they’d be buying a Benz that gets almost the same mileage.
Well judging by the absolutely dismal sales for these worthless vehicles, hopefully the majority of those funds won't be squandered before it can be ended.
In a related story the City of Manassas, Virginia has purchased a Chevy Volt for a Utilities Department meter technician. The Chevy Volt requires a nightly charge and fill-up of the 10-gallon gas tank once a month – if that. The City vehicle maintenance technician has completed installing emergency lighting and radio equipment. (I wonder how that will affect mileage.)
The Volt will run up to 40 miles on a charge and then switches to gasoline. The City is scheduled to install five charging stations throughout the city – part of a federal grant award from ChargePoint America, a US Department of Energy program through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
No word on cost or break-even point. I suggest you contact the City of Manassas if you want more information.
If I wanted a golf cart, I could get one a whole lot cheaper than the Volt, and I could get it from an honest company, not from a corrupt organization that stole the assets of their bondholders and then raided the United States Treasury. There is no way I will ever purchase a GM product again, and even if I was willing to deal with that sleazy company, I would not want a Volt. I make fun of Volt owners, but I would never want a vehicle that is that useless.
Volts and others like it are good for that kind of service...........
No, reward for obedience. Absolutely necessary for patronage based governance. Punish the dissidents, reward the faithful. No matter what cost.
Stupid East German Communists sold the crummy Trabant cheap.
Wise American Communists sell the crummy Volt dear.
My Buick has been fantastic. No complaints about it at all.
Its a failure so lets up that subsidy
FAIL
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