GM's Electric Lemon

[amborin]

G.M.'s Electric Lemon


snip

.....For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.
Nor did the government or G.M. decide to sell the Volt at a loss, which, paradoxically, might have been the best hope for making it profitable. Consider the Prius. Back in 1997, Toyota began selling the high-tech, first-of-its-kind car in Japan for about $17,000, even though each model cost $32,000 to build.
By taking a loss on the first several years of Prius production, Toyota was able to hold its price steady, and then sell the gas-sippers in huge numbers when oil prices soared. Today a Prius costs roughly the same in inflation-adjusted dollars as those 1997 models did, and it has become the best-selling Toyota in the United States after the evergreen Camry and Corolla.

Instead of following Toyota’s model, G.M. decided to make the Volt more affordable by offering a $350-a-month lease over 36 months. But that offer allows only 12,000 miles per year, or about 33 miles per day. Assuming you charged your Volt every evening, giving you 40 miles of battery power, and wanted to keep below the mileage limit, you would rarely use its expensive range-extending gas engine. No wonder the Volt’s main competition, the Nissan Leaf, forgoes the additional combustion engine — and ends up costing $8,000 less as a result.
In the industry, some suspect that G.M. and the Obama administration decided against selling the Volt at a loss because they want the company to appear profitable before its long-awaited initial stock offering, which is likely to take place next month. For taxpayers, that approach might have made sense if the government planned on selling its entire 61 percent stake in G.M. But the administration has said it will sell only enough equity in the public offering to relinquish its controlling stake in G.M. Thus the government will remain exposed to the company’s (and the Volt’s) long-term fate.

So the future of General Motors (and the $50 billion taxpayer investment in it) now depends on a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car.....

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.html?ref=opinion

[zeemike]

1. Sounds like GM is trying to kill this one too.

They did a good job on the EV1.
I can see no reason why they would not offer an economy all plug in electric car if the were serious about it. They have the infrastructure and capital to do it but apparently not the will.

[ixion]

2. The 50 billion would have been better spent on encouraging companies

that actually give a damn to build a decent green vehicle.

[Schema Thing]

3. what horseshit

"the performance of a $15,000 economy car"? bullshit.



I don't know of any $15,000 cars that can go 40 miles w/o using an ounce of gas (the average mileage per day for Americans is 29 miles), go 90 miles on one gallon of gas, and still get 50 mpg on trips over 150 miles.

Nor are there any 150,000 dollar cars that can do the above.

This is first generation technology as used in a vehicle. It has a 3 cylinder turbocharged gas engine working as an electric generator - which means it can work more efficiently than a normal ICE working to drive the wheels, while the electric motors that drive the wheels are always working at high efficiencies.


And while GM is under no more obligation than any other car company to make a production car look outlandish, no, it does not look like a Prius.

It's new and better. Why shouldn't it cost more, at least at first?

[amborin]

4. Not

very few ordinary Americans can fork out 40K for this car

did you even read the article?

[Schema Thing]

7. Nor can "ordinary Americans" fork out the cost of a Prius.

"Ordinary American" can't afford to drive new cars at all, for that matter. Most "ordinary Americans" can't really afford the depreciation hit they take when they drive their base model $14,000 kia off the lot, but a lot of them do it anyway.


That said, the average car price of a new car sold in America last year was $29,270. Especially with tax credits, the Volt is getting into that price territory.


It's new technology, and it's conceptually better technology. Of course it's going to cost more.

[amborin]

8. disagree

as much as union-busting Nissan is to be detested, at least the Leaf is quasi-affordable

and, if you read the article, you'd probably not say the Volt is "conceptually better technology," because it's not

[Schema Thing]

9. well yes, it is. the writer is an idiot who wants to jab at the auto bailout

and if you could read, you'd see that he wraps the entire cost of the GM bailout into one big ball of idiotic goo and calls it the Volt and then proceeds to turn it's unmistakable positives into breathless unexplained negatives for consumption by people who wouldn't know good technology from bad technology if their life depended on it.


The delivery of the Volt may not be executed well, and fail. But it's a good concept with good technology at, when compared to other advanced technology cars, a good price.

And given what said concept and technology could do to improve the gas consumption for the tens of millions of <100 mile round trips taken by cars and trucks every day in this country, we should all be wishing it to be a success.

[JNelson6563]

5. Yes, the first of things are always more expensive

Remember when calculators came out? Like the pocket kind? They were pricey at first, now you can buy them at the dollar store.

Julie

[Turbineguy]

10. It's American made

around here lately, that in itself is a bad thing.

[provis99]

11. The Nissan Leaf is all electric

It can go 100 miles, charges twice as fast as the Volt, and will be $8,000 cheaper. And plenty of other all-electric cars are better than the Volt. GM should be ashamed for pushing this outdated boondoggle on the American car buying public.

[blue_onyx]

14. And the Volt can fulfill all your driving needs

If you ever need to go on a road trip longer than 100 miles, the Leaf isn't the car for you. Spending so much money on a car that can't even fulfill all your needs is such a foolish decision.

Seriously, what's with your desperate need to trash the Volt?

[Schema Thing]

15. lol, it's anything but "outdated".

It's the bleeding edge.

The Volt can drive all day.


It's 40 mile electric range equals Leaf's 100 mile range for most American drivers, on most days, because the average miles per day for American drivers is 29. Between 40 and 100 miles, the leaf wins, hands down, but the Volt is still a 100 mpg car at that range. But over 100 miles, the Leaf loses big time, because it's out of the game. The Volt is motoring off to the beach for the weekend, at 50mpg.


You don't have to not like one and like the other.


If you have a brain and a heart and a modicum of mechanical wisdom, you'll at least love the *concept* of both vehicles. They may turn out to both suck in execution; but the concepts are both WAAAAAAAY past what we get from straight ICE cars.

[MajorChode]

20. I believe plug-in hybrids are the future

Hybrid technology was great, but really only improved efficiency in limited circumstances, and you still were using gasoline to generate every bit of the power needed to move the car. Pure electric cars are great for people who have a limited mission, but until they can achieve 300-400 miles of range and fill up as fast as a petroleum powered car, I don't see them as a true replacement for the American automobile.

[MajorChode]

17. The Volt isn't an "all electric car"

So you're making an apples to oranges comparison, as is Mr. Niedermeyer. The Volt is a plug-in-hybrid, which means I can use it to drive to work every day and never use a drop of gas, or I can use it to drive to grandma's house or to the beach also, which may be > 100 miles. So if you own a Leaf, you'll be looking for a power plug enroute and if you can find one, you'll be playing with yourself while it charges even if it does charge faster. With the Volt, you can make those trips just like any other vehicle.

The technology used by the Volt has the potential to replace most every single passenger car in America. The Leaf, not so much.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

6. A lot of naysaying and negativity

Gotta start somewhere. It's too soon to know if the Volt will succeed, but give it a chance.

[Historic NY]

12. Who wrote this Rush...the titular head of the GOP?.......

What the article doesn't say is the batteries used in the volt will be used in other manufacturers products also.

[Omaha Steve]

13. The Chevy Volt, President Obama and Rush Limbaugh

http://www.freep.com/article/20100730/BLOG24/100730003/1001/NEWS/The-Chevy-Volt-President-Obama-and-Rush-Limbaugh

Cartoon here: http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&Date=20100730&Category=BLOG24&ArtNo=100730003&Ref=AR&Profile=1001&MaxW=580&Q=50

Posted: July 30, 2010

Electric cars are a boondoggle according to Rush Limbaugh – “nothing more than an expensive way to promote the environmentalist agenda,” as Politico.com summarized Limbaugh’s views on such vehicles. Rush has singled out the Chevy Volt, a car he claims has limited technology and a steep price tag. Limbaugh seems unable to grasp the fact that over time technology improves and becomes far more affordable. The first cell phone, for example, cost $4,000, weighed two pounds and could only go 30 minutes on a charge, according to msnbc.com. Nowadays, cell phones weigh just ounces and are given out for free by service providers.

I’ll bet that back in the 1980s, before he was famous, Rush probably marveled at the brick-sized cell phone used by Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Geckko in the movie “Wall Street." Rush probably pulled out his three-pound, first-generation handheld calculator, did the math, and concluded that only rich Wall St. titans like Gekko could ever hope to afford big, cumbersome cell phone technology.

On the way home, Rush likely bemoaned the fact that he’ll have to shell out money for movie tickets for the rest of his life since devices that allow people to watch movies at home were rather expensive and would always be that way. Good thing it was a short trip, because his bulky Walkman only stored a single cassette tape - not that portable music devices could ever be capable of storing thousands of songs and fit in the palm of your hand or anything.

Once home, Rush no doubt sat down to play Pong on his TV, thinking how unfortunate it is that video games will never catch on because the graphics would always be so crummy. But, hey, it beat watching television since it could never be possible for a TV to get more than just the same four old channels.

Rush would have played on his computer, but computers had, and would always have, so little memory, which makes them kinda boring. “ If only there were a way to get news and entertainment over a computer,” Rush undoubtedly mused. “Nah, it could never happen.”

Become a fan of Mike Thompson on Facebook and follow his updates on Twitter.

[winstars]

16. Google is your friend...

So I used the google on the author, he has not been a fan on the 'gubmint bailout blah blah--- (gee that's surprising)!!!!!!!

And Rush, Redstate and some others have already picked up on the "Electric Lemon" tag. And remember this article is from Saturday; it shows us that ANYTHING OUR PRESIDENT does these racist fucks are gonna BE AGAINST. Always.

[upi402]

18. Can they invent an uncrusher or time machine

EV-who?

[theophilus]

19. I wish the Nostradami would just STFU and wait and see what happens with sales and

performance AFTER the Volt and the Leaf hit the road. Predictions are usually a major fail, anyway. Talk about stuff that has already happened, sheesh. We should all be pulling for GM and Nissan and Tesla and whoever......imo.