GM "Volt" ~ The People's Car

Voltless wonder. Report: Every Chevy Volt has over $250,000 in government subsidies

The Volkswagen Beetle was a smashing success for various reasons. Design, simplicity, reliability, econo cost, are a few. It was sold all over the world. The car was in production, reasonably unchanged, for several DECADES across several continents.

The Volt? Predictably, none of the above. In fact, it's what happens when you pump $250,000+ in taxpayer subsidies (per car) for a car that stickers at around $40,000 and requires additional "taxpayer incentives" to motivate a few select customers to buy the car.

Design doesn't matter, reliability doesn't matter, sales don't even matter. Why should it? Dude!!! The Prez just gave us money to steal your money!!!

If you were a GM executive and thought things were looking up, look again.

Not to mention that the first 100 were purchased by your government, who, along with their union bretheren, own most of the company, without normal bidding process.

What a clown Obama is. What clowns we are if we allow him to continue.

squerly said:

What a clown Obama is. What clowns we are if we allow him to continue.

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Be certain to remind your friends and neighbors. Many of them think he walks on water...especially those who shop with those little gubmit credit cards that us working idiots pay for.

And don't forget that Obama gave every union man a $5,000 "signing" bonus to stay and and built the Volt. Of course, we the taxpayers, funded the bonus. So we should ALL feel good, warm and fuzzy.

Imagine trying to convince the public that paying 40K for a car whose claim to fame is that it can go 30 miles on an electric charge. Give me a break. Which of our members would have (voluntarily) invested money in this boondoggle? Anyone?

squerly said:

What a clown Obama is. What clowns we are if we allow him to continue.

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Nah, Obama is an Ass Clown! He is such an ass that he is going to spend what time he has in office showing the rest of the civilized world that America, as a whole, is actually extremely stupid. This is really sad when Obama's are nothing more than the black version of Beverly Hillbillies but have the country's checkbook in hand to use how they please. It's a sad day when you honestly are rather embarrassed to be an American.

There is no way to say this without sounding racist, so please look up the facts for yourself. Teacher's pay became tied to their student's grades and what percentage passed their classes. You know what happened there. Colleges were given huge monetary gifts if they had more minority students in their schools. So, they simply overlooked qualified white students and tried to find every Asian possible to apply; with full scholarships, free room and board along with a $500 monthly 'stipend'. When all the Asians were snapped up, then the same offers were made to blacks and Hispanics. Please explain to me how a Hispanic can graduate with honors from a large state college and not speak a word of English; especially when almost none of their classes were taught in Spanish! One professor told me that they generally gave blacks a "B" if they scored higher than 30% on their tests but showed up for classes at least 50% of the time. I'm told it was a weighted grading scale with more emphasis on attendance. WTF?!

Nobody should wonder how Obama gets 43% of the people to 'approve' of his job. I would challenge you that over 80% of that 43% are illiterate. It's a sad, sad day when we have someone like Obama not only destroying our country, but having a blast and mocking the population while he and his family does so. IMHO, the banks should have gone under, GM and Chrysler should have been able to go out of business (some foreign company would have bought the pieces and by now would be producing reasonable quality vehicles). As always, HEY GM Same to your union.

Somemething I looked into a while back was the statement that we needed to bail out the car companies to save the industry. Data is sketchy as some of the companies for one reason or another are not obligated to post public P & E statements. From what I could figure out, of the 18 companies building cars in the US, not all were unprofitable. Many were doing just fine. Ford itself managed to bail itself out without our help. That is the market system. It's just not reasonable that no more cars would be built if a few were allowed to go under. Others would have picked up the slack. Once again we bailed out the weak at the expense of the strong.

Same thing with banks and insurance companies. From memory I think there around 14000 banks and 6000 insurance companies in business in the US. Some would love to help the customers of AIG, BAC, Citi, and others.

[rant on]

This Morning I’m watching the news, break time comes and I get blasted with GM’s BS Chevy Volt commercial. I’m sure you’ve seen/heard it. There’s a guitar playing soothing music in the background while we watch pictures of the Volt being assembled on the plant line. But the assembly line actually spreads through the heartland of America and through its towns and cities. There’s people on their porches waiving at the workers and the whole damn commercial sounds more like a public service message than a commercial.

For our town, for our country, for our future. This isn’t just the car we wanted to build; it’s the car America had to build. The extended range electric Chevy volt. From the heart of Detroit to the health of the country. Chevy runs deep.

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I’m so sick of this commercial. And it eats me up that taxpayers are paying for this ad. In a free enterprise system GM would be owned by someone else right now, not the American Taxpayer. So I go into my usual rant (much to the displeasure of my wife) about GM, Obummer and all the other normal stuff. I’m barely started when the next news segment is about Obummer wanting to raise the Volt subsidy from $7,500.00 up to $10,000.00.

I wouldn’t buy this piece of crap even if I liked GM. It’s junk. They advertise 30 miles on the battery (as if this was some sort of feat of accomplishment) but in reality it gets less. And that’s if it doesn’t burn up on the way to work. Fuck GM, I stopped buying their products back in the 80’s and I sure as hell won’t buy one today. Even if they built a good car I wouldn’t voluntarily give them any more of my money. Bastards…

[/rant off]

Tell us how you really feel about it. Maybe that is why the gas prices are being allowed to rise.

squerly said:

[rant on]

This Morning I’m watching the news, break time comes and I get blasted with GM’s BS Chevy Volt commercial. I’m sure you’ve seen/heard it. There’s a guitar playing soothing music in the background while we watch pictures of the Volt being assembled on the plant line. But the assembly line actually spreads through the heartland of America and through its towns and cities. There’s people on their porches waiving at the workers and the whole damn commercial sounds more like a public service message than a commercial.

I’m so sick of this commercial. And it eats me up that taxpayers are paying for this ad. In a free enterprise system GM would be owned by someone else right now, not the American Taxpayer. So I go into my usual rant (much to the displeasure of my wife) about GM, Obummer and all the other normal stuff. I’m barely started when the next news segment is about Obummer wanting to raise the Volt subsidy from $7,500.00 up to $10,000.00.

I wouldn’t buy this piece of crap even if I liked GM. It’s junk. They advertise 30 miles on the battery (as if this was some sort of feat of accomplishment) but in reality it gets less. And that’s if it doesn’t burn up on the way to work. Fuck GM, I stopped buying their products back in the 80’s and I sure as hell won’t buy one today. Even if they built a good car I wouldn’t voluntarily give them any more of my money. Bastards…

[/rant off]

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I'm with you Squerly. Electric cars are a joke. How can anyone ever hope to recoup their initial costs? Example, the new Ford Focus Electric will have a base price of $39,000 according to the Ford Magazine I get because of the Ranger I bought 7 years ago. 39K when a regular one that gets close to 40 MPG costs less than half that? How can anyone hope to make up that difference in price? Stupid is a stupid does.

muleman said:

Tell us how you really feel about it. Maybe that is why the gas prices are being allowed to rise.

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Mule, what we are seeing right now from the Collectivist-In-Chief is Cap & Trade V2.0. They could not get the original C&T (V1.0) rammed through even with a Dummo controlled congress at the time so now we see V2.0. V2.0 consists on constraints on all domestic oil & gas production. Shutting down coal and pushing for alternative energy even if it cannot support itself without subsidies. After all, we have an Energy Secretary, and I use that term loosely, that is on record as stating that $10/gallon gasoline would be a good thing. A good thing for Republicans, that's for sure.

It's shocking how you don't like that vehicle!
To each their own, as for me I will stick with my good old coal fired steam car.

^^^ probably has a better range, consumes less energy ,doesn't need a government subsidy ,doesn't catch on fire , and is at least as practical .

Here's a 1916 Owen's Magnetic owned by Jay Leno that gets 50 MPG!! So, in 96 years how far along has the Voltage come.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX1TDkswa9U"]Owens Magnetic[/ame]

Electric cars won't be practical until quick charge, slow discharge room temp + capacitors and superconductors become a reality.

loboloco said:

Electric cars won't be practical until quick charge, slow discharge room temp + capacitors and superconductors become a reality.

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Actualy there is a simple solution. I worked on it with Shell, Sears and a custom kit car manufacturer back in 1970. It never got past the what if stage but I still believe it would work.

It is based on the idea of a central tunnel frame construction of the car with a battery you literaly drive into the car. Takes less time than filling your tank and you never own the battery. The oil company does.

Simply drive onto a guide rack like at a car wash. You drive forward and the new battery exchanges places with the old one. Re connect the plugs and you are off. The old battery is then plugged in for a recharge and later passed onto another car.

All you pay for is the charge and the exchange. At that time a buck fifty would cover the exchange and the charge. Car production cost would be about the same as a Ford Pinto or a Chevy Vega. They were selling around $2800-$3500.00

It was a bit too ambitious for a time when gasoline was $0.56 a gallon and muscle cars were the rage. But a gallon would only get most cars 12-15 miles back then. So for a buck fifty you were only going 35-45 miles.

We calculated a fifty mile range on conventional, at the time, resistor technologies.
70 MPH top speed and what would feel like four foward speeds automatic. Archaic and energy wasteful. I wonder where we would be with todays' SCR technologies and better motors.
This was also at a time when gasoline was pumped by an attendent and you got a set of steak knives for a fillup. All with your windscreen cleaned and oil checked.

The car was called the Sebring. Designed to use Pinto or Vega running gear. It was a kit car and the manufacturer couldn't get enough V6 engines from Buick to make his dream of building complete cars come true. I wanted one but couldn't afford the kit so I was motivated to come up with a solution.

I truly thought,in my innocence of vigorous youth, this was a good one.

I still have some brochures and paperwork from the time. But back then I was a trading-time-for money factory worker and had no credibility in the big world of cars.


Here's one built on a VW pan chassis and gull wing doors
And a Utube of one rolling andthe cab forward top lift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=4AKieg3ykSA&NR=1

Chevy Volt is a communist enterprise.

Back in 1980 one could actually buy a totaly electric car. It was built on a Chrysler TC3 Horizon chassis and went 40 miles on one charge using Lead acid batteries.

A true production car built by Jet industries it was not a kit or a conversion but built as an electric from the ground up. Called the Jet Electrica it was available in Arizona.

40 miles on a charge,the Chevy Volt only goes 33. We have come a long way since 1980.

I would suggest the GM guys just copied the Electrica to get something out and on the road.

The Volt is a pure example of beaurocratic nonsense, big dreamy , faculty lounge ideas using other people's money. Ours.

Welcome to the new Amerikan enterprise.

I saw my first one on the road around Williamsport on Sunday. Had a vanity plate on it that was funny too. ZZZ-Zap!

Caught on the news this morning that Obama wants to raise the gov'n give-away for buying one of these from $7500 to $10,000.

They also said that of all the Volts sold, the buyers average income was $170,000.

bczoom said:

They also said that of all the Volts sold, the buyers average income was $170,000.

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Nobody said that having money means your smart.

bczoom said:

Caught on the news this morning that Obama wants to raise the gov'n give-away for buying one of these from $7500 to $10,000.

They also said that of all the Volts sold, the buyers average income was $170,000.

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Come on now... be fair.

If the rich are supposed to pay all the taxes,why not let them have some of the taxpayer supported Benefits?