Getting Charged for the Chevy Volt

GM's last electric car lost them over $1 billion.

Government Motors has announced pricing for the Chevy Volt, at $41,000.00, not including the $7,500.00 Government rebate.  GM is surely losing money on each vehicle it produces.  Why are U.S. taxpayers subsidizing failure?

GM’s last all-electric vehicle, the EV1, was a massive money loser, with GM having set the price of the lease-only car at $33,995.00.  Each vehicle actually cost between $80,000.00 to $100,000.00.  Not only did GM lose tens of thousands of dollars on each vehicle, they received a huge public relations black eye when Who Killed the Electric Car? came out to theaters wrapped in silly conspiracy theories.  The entire exercise, including advertising, cost the General over $1 billion.  According to Wikipedia, only 2,224 EV1s were built between the 1996 and the 1999 model year.

The true costs of the Chevy Volt are not known, however looking at its pricing, it’s fair to say the amount is far higher than its $41,000.00 advertised price meaning that GM will lose money on each one sold.

According to GM’s President of North American Operations:

“We can’t make money on the first Volts,” said Troy Clarke, president of GM’s North American operations. “But as we get a chance to change the generations of technology, we’ll lose less and less.”

Mr. Clarke, speaking like a real businessman here admits:

Clarke said: “It’s not our intention to lose money forever,” so all vehicles “have to have a line in sight to be commercially viable.”

Is it any wonder that of the “Big Three” automakers, only Ford is making money and they are the only company which did not take money from the U.S. Government.

Obama drove it an entire 10 feet!

The Chevy Volt does not make any economic sense for the company which builds and sells it, GM, and it doesn’t make economic sense for anybody to buy it when you consider the ownership costs of a similar gasoline powered car and so the real question is: why build it and why buy it?

The Chevy Volt is touted as a “Green Car” because it can run for up to 40 miles on its batteries.  Unfortunately, those batteries are very toxic and energy intensive to produce and because CO2 “dirty” coal produces 54% of America’s energy, their CO2 “impact” is practically nil (burning coal to charge “eco batteries” that are anything but is a Fool’s Errand).

The only reason for the Volt can be answered in one word: Liberalism.

Capitol Commentary can only hope the Volt goes down in flames along with its $7,500.00 rebate.  After all, the batteries will be mined in China, the money will come from the taxpayer, and the advantages of owning a Volt will only be in the heads of its Liberal owner.

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