Saturday, August 17, 2013

Chevy Volt...It should have been called the Chevy Dolt

Once again, GM sold the government a bill of goods on the Chevrolet Volt, the wonder car that would soon be flooding America's streets with amazing fuel mileage and beating the crap out of the imports.

It didn't happen and it isn't going to happen. Reports released yesterday show the Volt will probably die from a terminal discharge sometime in the near future, unless GM can con the Obama administration to throw more  money at a sinking ship.

Here's the latest IBD Editorial:
August 7, 2013
Chevrolet's Electric Volt: Is Failure Within Its Range?
"Gone Green: Nearly a year ago General Motors was losing almost $50,000 for each Chevrolet Volt it built. Now GM's business model, driven by trendy environmentalism, calls for it to cut the price and lose even more money.

The green lobby wants more hybrids and plug-in electric cars on the roads. Therefore the president wants 1 million electrics humming around by 2015 — and the car makers have to ignore market reality under pressure to do what the environmentalist-political complex demands.

Even if it makes no sense.

In September of last year, we said "Obama's Government Motors needs to shut down the Volt line indefinitely" — not just for the month it planned to halt production — then restart the assembly lines only when it could make a profit on the car.

In May, we noted: "The market for electric cars is so weak that consumer costs are approaching almost nothing."

Here it is August, and the Volt, the car that USA Today calls the "supposed" star of General Motors' portfolio, is back in the news.

This time it's because the automaker is going to drop the price by $5,000. USA Today reports that with "a full $7,500 federal tax credit, the price is cut to $27,495," a figure that doesn't include some state tax credits.

Aside from those whose egos demand that they use their cars to scream out their moral superiority as environmentalists, and maybe a few enthusiasts who dabble in the technology, does anyone really want these electric cars? Their dismal sales numbers simply do not justify their existence.

Sales of the Volt, the most popular electric vehicle, were only a little more than half of the 45,000 that GM expected last year. Ford built 1,627 Focus Electrics in 2012 and sold only 685 of them.

Foreign makers fared no better. Mitsubishi could sell only 600 of its i-MiEVs while Nissan sold fewer than 800 of its Leafs last year. Sales in 2013 remained stagnant until Nissan cut the price by $6,400 early in the year.

Yes, Tesla seems to be doing well. But remember: It makes a luxury car that appeals to the wealthy who buy them as toys. It's an outlier.

Meanwhile, Chrysler has wisely decided to stay out of the EV market until "consumers are willing to step up and pay for the technology," Automotive News reported this week. That's the way it should be.

Government involvement invariably introduces inefficiency, improper incentives and, in the end, failure."

Well said. Government encouragement, money and lack of foresight and oversight equals squandered taxpayer dollars. All the while watching the economy go south as those sad cars plow the streets at way below the cost to make them, due to subsidies paid by the taxpayers.

Here's the story from The Blaze, dated yesterday, August 16, 2013:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/16/whatever-happened-to-the-chevy-volt/

More detailed info on how, in 2012, the government spun the losing proposition in to great political press: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2012/07/17/media-fail-chevy-volt-makes-gm-no-money-costs-taxpayers-hundreds-thous

How much money will the government throw at Green technology that fails? Just look at the record of the current administration and the back-room deals.




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