The Chevy Volt Ain’t an Electric Car
Share this Article
Twitter
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Stumble
RedditAuthor:
Harrison
Tags:
chevy volt electric cars government spending green energy Liberals Obama waste
Obama touts the electric car that isn't.
Chevrolet received about $52 billion from the U.S. taxpayer and another $9.5 billion from the Canadian taxpayer. The company is still a mess and its newest product – touted by Liberals everywhere and driven for ten feet by President Obama – is the Volt… an electric car. The car will be sold (at huge losses) for about $41,000.00. each.
During the height of the bailout, President Obama touted the Volt as a symbol of how Chevy was going to “make it” thanks to the help of great products like it and the wallets of the American taxpayer. The Volt’s batteries are made by a South Korean company (which received $150 million in U.S. taxpayer monies).
Now, it turns out, the Volt isn’t even an electric car… it’s a fancy hybrid like the Civic or Prius.
What?
The Volt was touted as being an electric car – one that is driven purely by batteries. Sure, the car has a 1.4 litre engine, but that was supposed to be used only to help keep the batteries charged up… giving the car 240 MPG. Now, we learn, it was all a lie:
Since the Volt was first unveiled as a concept car, GM engineers, public relations staff and executives have all claimed adamantly that the internal combustion engine did not motivate the wheels.
Even as late into the development cycle as this June, we were told the only drivetrain that motivated the wheels was the electric one.
We’re now told by Volt’s engineering team that when the Volt’s lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph the Volt’s gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors.
Why should we care? The Volt now looks to be more of a symbol of Granola Crunchy haughtiness and government waste than anything so technologically advanced as a purely electric car. All that money… all that talk by the president about the “green economy” and all that lying by GM that the Volt would be an electric car… all lies.
Here’s how to breakdown the cost of the Chevy Volt:
Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants doled out to G.M. last summer, $150 million in federal money to the Volt’s Korean battery supplier, up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives, and some significant portion of the $14 billion loan G.M. got in 2008 for “retooling” its plants, and you’ve got some idea of how much taxpayer cash is built into every Volt.
GM could have built an electric Volt but they didn’t… and they lied about it. Nissan does have a real electric car available, the Leaf, but its range is so limited that dealers have been ordered by Nissan to discourage people from buying one unless they can accept the car’s limitations.
On the scale of Conspiracy Theories, Voltgate ranks pretty low on the totem pole however it is one of the more expensive lessons that the government should not be touting certain technologies and spending taxpayer monies on private companies lest it run the risk of getting egg on its face.
Egg is something the Obama administration is probably used to by now, however.
Did you like this article? Get new articles daily for free via RSS or Email.
3:41 AM
This is just one more case of the government pushing policies that are not viable at this time. All because of the non-existent threat of global warming and climate change. It really is amazing at the amount of money they can waste when they put their minds to it.
LD Jackson recently posted..Chilean mine rescue nears end
10:14 AM
This is a classic example of “rent-seeking” by firms with government all too willing to assist—afterall, it buys votes from pie-in-the-sky voters.
What a waste of resources and taxpayer funds.
VH recently posted..TARP Lives!
10:57 AM
I just love that $150 million of our money went to South Korea.
10:44 AM
Nice post, Harrison.
First, they screwed over secured creditors in favor of the unions in the bankruptcy cramdown. Then, they lied about the source of funding for being able to pay back the TARP loan (it came from simply a separate TARP line of credit) and now they’ve lied about the power source of the Volt.
Hitting the trifecta!
Link forthcoming.
10:54 AM
Yes, yes… the trifecta.
It has been very amusing to read the Obama/GM/Chevy Volt/electric car Apologists on some of the other websites.
Disgraceful.
3:07 PM
You should compile a greatest hits of the apologists I am curious to read them.
Burro recently posted..Jim Matheson’s Voting Record
3:52 PM
Here are a couple:
[The fact that's it's not an electric car] is a distinction without a difference. You can burn gasoline to spin a generator to charge the batteries to power the electric motors, or you can partially skip the middle man and send some of that gas-generated power straight to the wheels. Either way, gas is burned to turn the wheels.
It’s disgusting to see all the bashers coming out to try and destroy this revolutionary car before the general public can get in it. Shameful.
GM should just stop talking to the media. Cut ‘em off and maybe they’ll treat you a little better.
Great article! I agree with a previous poster that it is far too reasonable to be accepted in main-stream media.
Great innovation on GM’s part. Batteries fail people. good backup and power-assist solution.
8:23 PM
That is a big lie. As you pointed out, from day one, the Volt was supposed to be an electric car, with the gas engine to charge the batteries. Now, we find that is not the case.
You point out the other big points as well. It’s too expensive, and it will be sold at a loss. It’s also thought that even after 1,000,000 sold, the Prius has still been a money loser for Toyota, a high tech halo car that is not the car of the now, let alone the future.
8:41 PM
How about this:
Japan’s top automaker rejected a March 24 Business Week report that quoted Jim Press, vice chairman and president of Chrysler LLC and a former board member at Toyota, as saying, “The Japanese government paid for 100 percent of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius.”
Press worked for 37 years at Toyota, including the years of research for the Prius, which sent on sale 10 years ago. He left Toyota for Chrysler last September.