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I have to hand it to General Motors and those Chevy Volt supporters who continue to come up with creative ways to espouse the virtues of the slow selling and heavily subsidized vehicle. They just won't give up. The latest figures being presented in political fashion utilize large numbers that, on the surface, appear impressive. When analyzed, the figures give more insight into just how much taxpayer money is being wasted on green subsidies, particularly on electric vehicles (EVs). Sound the trumpets! According to Green Car Reports, the Chevy Volt has saved 17 million gallons of gas to date. Now...

General Motors Co. GM +1.89%is developing an electric car that can go 200 miles on a charge for around $30,000, officials at the largest U.S. auto maker said, offering a challenge to luxury electric-car startup Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA -0.58% Doug Parks, GM's vice president of global product programs, disclosed the effort on Monday at GM's battery laboratory and test facility in Warren, Mich., but didn't say when the car would be available. He said while the technology is available now, the cost of the batteries remains too high to be able to pull off the feat today. GM's move...

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM) said on Tuesday it is slashing the price of its Chevrolet Volt electric car by $5,000 to help boost demand for the plug-in hybrid in a segment still struggling to gain a foothold in the U.S. auto market. The price cut for the 2014 model will lower the price to $34,995, including delivery fees before federal tax credits. Pricing could fall as low as $27,495 with the tax credit. "We have made great strides in reducing costs as we gain experience with electric vehicles and their components," Don Johnson, U.S. vice president for...

Electric car sales hummed along in May amid a solid month for the auto industry. But the surprise story this year was May's strong full-size pickup truck sales – not exactly a sign an endorsement of efficiency and alternative fuels. Nissan sold 2,138 Leafs in May, up 319 percent over last year. In March, the company sold a record 2,236 units of its all-electric vehicle. General Motors sold 1,607 Volts in May, down 4.3 percent from a year ago. In the first five months of 2013, the company sold only 100 more Volts than during the same period last year.

Starting production of the all-electric Leaf in Tennessee helped Nissan sell more Leafs in the US in March 2013 than in any other month. April wasn't quite as sunny, but the 1,937 Leafs sold last month were still good enough for second place. Ever. April also marked the second month in a row that the Leaf beat the Chevrolet Volt. It's not that General Motors had a bad month. The 1,306 Volts sold last month were roughly in line with March and February (but it's a downward trending line, with 1,626 sold in February and 1,478 in March).

The Chevy Volt has inarguably been the poster child for President Obama's push to electrify America's auto fleet. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to produce and subsidize the plug-in electric car. For years we have heard about the supposedly amazing technology for the Volt which would lead America to energy independence, be a "game-changer" for General Motors and provide a multitude of new green jobs. Proclamations were made that supply for the wonder-car could not keep up with the demand. Well, March's sales figures are in and give further confirmation that the lofty claims were all lies. March's...

Steady Voltage Chevy Volt sales have been consistent lately, with no wild ups and downs as experienced by the Nissan LEAF during the production changeover. Sales of the Volt had hit a 12-month low of 1,140 units in January 2013, but rebounded to 1,620 units in February. For March 2013, Volt sales check in at 1,478 units.

When you buy a car, there are various ratings outfits in the business of calculating the true cost of owning that particular vehicle, inc. insurance, depreciation, maintenance, cost of repairs, etc. Such a comprehensive model is surely more realistic than just looking at the monthly payment or sticker price, and the customer knows if they're actually making a cost-effective, bottom-line decision. But even if you buy-into the now imploding globaloney scam, wouldn't it make sense to apply similar logic to calculate the entire environmental impact of electric vs. internal combustion cars over the full service life... esp since the actual...

Chevy Volt sales rebounded in February with G.M. reporting sales of 1,626 units....but you could benchmark February 2013 sales of 1,626 units as a big jump from February 2012 when G.M. sold 1,023 Volts

Though electric vehicles may not be attracting much hype at the Detroit Auto Show, their owners do enjoy privileged status in the city of Ann Arbor. While parking downtown, electric vehicle owners can charge their cars for free. The charging stations are typically located at the front of parking garages, and are reserved for electric vehicles only. On a busy weekend, electric vehicle owners can enjoy reserved, easy access downtown parking with a free "fill up." Drivers of conventional vehicles receive no such benefit. Pictured nearby is a Chevy Volt, a vehicle already infamous for costing taxpayers up to $3...

"The question, then, is why are so many companies -- especially GM -- scrambling to release these grossly overpriced plug-in electric compact cars? Trying to shoehorn expensive electric vehicle technology into entry-level economy cars makes absolutely no sense, unless you think about it from the perspective of governments, who have inserted themselves into the EV equation by subsidizing the purchase every electric car to the tune of $7,500 to $10,000. ... Currently, the only reasonable value proposition in the EV segment can be found at the top of the price spectrum, which is no doubt where electric car development would...

Someone gave the Chevy Volt a tuxedo, and it fits well. The Cadillac ELR coupe is the luxury automaker’s take on extended range electric vehicle, and its first ever hybrid car. The dramatic two-door is wider than the Volt and dressed in a slightly toned down version of the sharply creased, broad shouldered bodywork seen on the Cadillac CTS coupe. It rides on turbine-look 20-inch wheels and features vertical head and brake light clusters, the latter with a slight tailfin design. Like the Volt, the ELR is powered by a combination of an electric drive unit and 1.4-liter internal...

In late 2011, photos of melted and damaged Volt charging cords appeared on the internet. GM initially blamed wiring problems in the electrical outlets, eventually, the company announced that they would replace all the 120V chargers in all 2011 and some 2012 models with a new unit. About 9,500 charging units were replaced. When the 2013 model came around, Volt owners were faced with a new and improved feature: Longer charge time. In self-help groups on the Internet, the culprit was quickly found: GM had reduced the default circuit load of the charger from 12 Ampere to 8 Ampere. Then,...

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors is giving its Chevrolet Spark a jolt of electricity. An all-electric version of the mini-car will debut this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It goes on sale this summer in California, Oregon, Canada and South Korea, where it's made. Other markets will follow. Unlike the Chevrolet Volt sedan, which can run in all-electric mode but also has a backup gas engine, the Spark EV is a pure electric. GM won't say how far the car will go on a charge, but says it will be a top performer among the small number of...

President Obama touted it in 2010 as evidence "manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States,” but two years later, a Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/08/lg-plant-that-got-150m-to-make-volt-batteries-in-michigan-puts-workers-on/#ixzz28l2MseL9

The U.S. military's newspaper, Stars & Stripes, recently reported that the Pentagon is buying Chevy Volts in a 1,500 electric-vehicle purchase, as part of the Defense Department's "green initiatives," which seek to reduce the country's dependence on foreign energy sources. A recent Congressional Budget Office study challenged the assumption that electric vehicles have any impact on such dependence, prompting the question of why the government is spending money this way. Against the backdrop of the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, and looming embassy security cuts due to sequestration, it appears politics and ideology are trumping common sense.A little poking...

Osama is dead, and GM is alive! So declared Joey B, our most senior foreign relations expert next to BO himself. Of course the full import of his comment depends a lot on what your definition of “dead” is: Tunisian Salafis, raising the dead in order to fight another day....Of course “GM is alive” also depends on what your definition of “alive” is: Currently on life support, thanks to Obamacare“Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by...

A Reuters' article earlier this week created quite a buzz when it suggested that General Motors was losing $49,000 on every Chevy Volt sold. While many continue to debate just how much money GM loses on the politically-motivated car, a more important story on the Volt was reported by Automotive.com last week which explained the increase in August sales numbers for the vehicle. The piece exposes how GM (along with taxpayers) is heavily subsidizing leases and even gets an embarrassing admission from GM on the struggling Volt that, "The whole idea is we're creating a market." And this blockbuster,...

<p>AS A CANDIDATE for president in 2008, Barack Obama set a goal of getting 1 million all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015. In February 2011, the Obama administration’s Energy Department issued an analysis purporting to show that, with the help of subsidies and tax credits, “the goal is achievable.” This was a paltry claim in the first place, since 1 million cars amount to less than 1 percent of the total U.S. fleet. Yet it is increasingly clear that, despite the commitment of many millions of taxpayer dollars, the United States will not hit Mr. Obama’s target by 2015. A recent CBS News analysis suggested that we’ll be lucky to get a third of the way there.</p>

Yesterday, Reuters reported that (federally-bailed-out) General Motors' Chevy Volt is selling at a loss of as much as $49,000 per vehicle, and that certain experts think it doesn't look likely that GM will ever make that money back. GM fired back today, claiming that Reuters performed an unfair, "grossly wrong" assessment of their business operations, but whatever, GM -- you're missing the point. Either way, I don't really care how you choose to run your company or whether you choose to take big risks and develop new products, because that's what businesses do. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they fail....