THIS CAR COSTS OVER $42,000
The "Dirty Little Secret Behind the Chevy Volt".... The Rest of the
Story..............
Patrick Michaels is a senior fellow in Environmental Studies at the
Cato Institute and the editor of the forthcoming Climate Coup: Global
Warming's Invasion of our Government and our Lives.
His Forbes column on the Chevy Volt is a case study in the nexus
between big government corruption and big business rent-seeking.
Michaels briefly recaps the well-known consumer fraud in which GM has
touted the Volt as an all-electric mass production vehicle on the
supposed basis of which its sales receive a $7,500 taxpayer subsidy,
which still renders it overpriced and unmarketable.
Michaels notes that "sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in
January, and 281 in February." There seems to be a trend here.
Michaels adds that GM has announced a production run of 100, 000 in
the first two years and asks what appears to be a rhetorical
question:
"Who is going to buy all these cars?"
But wait! Keep hope alive! There is a positive answer to the question.
Jeffrey Immelt's GE will buy a boatload of those uneconomic GM cars.
Here the case study opens onto the inevitable political angle:
Recently, President Obama selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
to chair his Economic Advisory Board.
GE is also awash in windmills waiting to be subsidized so they can
provide unreliable, expensive power.
Consequently, and soon after his appointment, Immelt announced that GE
will buy 50, 000 Volts in the next two years, or half the total
produced.
Assuming the corporation qualifies for the same tax credit, we (you
and I) just shelled out $375, 000, 000 to a company to buy cars that
no one else wants, so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars
that no one wants. And this guy is the chair of Obama's Economic
Advisory Board? But of course. Michaels includes this hilarious detail
in his case study:
In a telling attempt to preserve battery power, the heater is
exceedingly weak. Consumer Reports said their tests averaged a paltry
25 miles of electric-only running, in part because it was testing in
cold Connecticut.
The [GM] engineer at the Auto Show said cold weather would have little
effect.) It will be interesting to see what the range is on a hot,
traffic-jammed summer day, when the air conditioner will really tax
the batteries. When the gas engine came on, Consumer Reports got about
30 miles to the gallon of premium fuel; which, in terms of additional
cost of high-test gas, drives the effective mileage closer to 27 mpg.
A conventional Honda Accord, which seats 5 (instead of the Volt's 4),
gets 34 mpg on the highway, and costs less than half of what CR paid,
even with the tax break.
The story of the GM Volt deserves a place in the Harvard Business
School curriculum....but of course, it won't. It's a classic tale of
the GOVERNMENT deciding what the public needs, not the marketplace.
PS.- What is one of the reasons for this? Why.. to keep the UAW in
business, because Obama owes them for his election. Starting to make
sense yet?
WHY DOES OZ HATE AMERICA???
Why does Nemo fantasize about Obama?
Why does Oz obsess over the first patriotic president since Bill
Clinton???
~~"Tham is Good Car.........I gots me 10 of Tham and I has ordererd 10
moes a Tham Car also to.........."--Li'l Jak
~~"Tham is Good Car
Why does Nemo love the America-hating, Christian-hating, White-hating,
Socialistic, nigger-loving, Islamic fuckup Nobama????
Why is OZ a totallhy inbred, teatarded traitor???????
Why does Nemo see and call "teaparty" everytime she can, when a few
months ago she was busy parrotting the liberal media mantra that they
were insignificant and of no account? Does she have a brain of her
own? Obviously NOT!!!!!
Qut whining, Oz. Jaysus. <snicker>
Just can't handle the truth, can you?
Seriously, Oz, why don't you just sober up and admit that you hate
AmeriKKKa. It's a start.
You got it wrong, Nemo, as you usually do. I only hate peoplw who
hate America. Now go hang yourself.
'Fess up, OZ. Your fakery is getting you nowhere. You brim with
hatred like a toilet bowl full of turds.
You're still around, Nemo? I thought you'd have hung yourself by now,
Lay off the crack pipe, Ozzie.
Sez Nemo, with poppies sprouting out of his nose.
You're a hater alright, Ozzie -- a typical ignorant, knuckle dragging
teahadist -- like Bachmann and Palin.
Poor, pathetic Nemo. She hates two intelligent, beautiful, popular,
conservative ladies, and there she is: a braindead, hopped up,
perverted lesbian, who happens to be a leftist kook, hated by
everybody.
Nemo, you're so disgusting you could gag a maggot.
So gag already, Ozzie -- you pathetic spew of a worthless whore,
No wonder your cocksucking daughter hates you.
It's no surprise that teahadist vermin like you, Ozzie, pimp your own
mothers, wives and daughters and try to distract attention from your
disgusting selves!
It's no surprise that teahadist vermin like you, Ozzie, pimp your own