Posted on 07/17/2012 11:43:44 AM PDT by grundle
The Jurassic Press is missing much in their reporting on the $50 billion bailout of General Motors (GM). The Press is open channeling for President Barack Obama - allowing him to frame the bailout exactly as he wishes in the 2012 Presidential election.
The President is running in large part on the bailout’s $30+ billion loss, uber-failed “success.” And the Press is acting as his stenographers. An epitome of this bailout nightmare mess is the electric absurdity that is the Chevrolet Volt. The Press is at every turn covering up - rather than covering - the serial failures of President Obama’s signature vehicle.
The Press has failed to mention at least five Volt fires, myopically focusing on the one the Obama Administration hand-selected for attention.
The Press has failed to mention that the Volt fire problem remains unsolved. Is it the battery? Is it the charging station? Is it the charging cable? All of the above?
GM and the Administration don’t know. And the Press ain’t breaking their necks trying to find out.
In more recent news, the Press has almost as one hailed the June Volt sales increase.
GM's Volt Sales Up in June
Surprising June Sales for Volt
Chevy Volt Leads US Plug-In Car Sales
Chevy Volt Sales Increases
Volt Records Second-Best Sales Month
The Press has for the most part failed to mention how pathetic this “second-best sales month” actually is. And even when one Dinosaur does, the unwarranted enthusiasm is palpable.
GM sells 1760 Volts in June, double from 2011
Wow. Huge number.
The Press also fails to put this pathetic tally in perspective.
The Chevy Cruze is basically a Volt without the dead-weight, flammable 400-lb. electric battery. Which makes it $17,000, rather than the Volt’s $41,000.
Chevy in June sold 18,983 Cruzes - more than ten times the number of Volts. And that’s down 1/3 from last June’s 24,648.
But that feeble Volt tally has the Press all revved up.
And speaking of the Volt’s ridiculous $41,000 sticker price:
According to multiple GM executives there is little or no profit being made on each Volt built at a present cost of around $40,000. Furthermore, the $700 million of development that went into the car has to be recouped.
Get that? GM makes “little or no profit” on the Volt.
So it makes perfect sense that GM would spend millions of dollars advertising it, does it not? No ideological or campaign intent there, eh President Obama?
Look, I get it, it’s fun. I just spent $1 million - of your money - advertising free air. On which my profit margin is just as good as GM’s is on the Volt.
Only my ads didn’t have a song, or a dance. We just aren’t as cool as the Volt.
I mean, it’s so cool - it can travel back in time to inspire the production of cars before it even existed.
I mean, it’s so cool - it can travel back in time to offer the exact same technology as a car from 1991. And the exact same electric battery range as a car from 1897.
We’re talking retro-grade cool.
But wait - there’s so much more.
(A)dd $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.
Speaking of those “tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives” - as of November of last year that tally all by itself was $250,000 per Volt sold.
And that excruciating pain is ongoing. Again, a Volt sold makes GM no money - but costs We the Taxpayers a $7,500 bribe - I mean “incentive.” Oh - and President Obama wants to jack that bribe to $10,000 per.
I guess it’s good news after all that Volt sales remain so anemic.
And with GM’s new 60-day return policy, it looks like you can buy a Volt and cash the $7,500 bribe check. Then return the Volt - and keep the $7,500 bribe cash. How’s that for Taxpayer coin stewardship?
Keep all of this outrageousness in mind when next the Jurassic Press joins with the Obama Administration in celebrating the Chevy Volt.
But it (allegedly) helps President Obama get reelected. And nothing would make the Press happier - and for that there’s (almost?) nothing they won’t do.
Voters bolt Volt dolt
Maybe they’ll only have to stop production for three weeks next year.
The ads are pathetic.
One I saw today has a middle aged black man bragging that all the young kids give him a thumbs up when they see him.
Ugh! How ‘gay’.
Consumers have as much confidence in the Obamamobile, as they do the Obama economy.
What crap!
Throwing away taxpayers' money on "green" cars.
Why do Americans put up with such a waste?
When are we going to rise up and go to Washington to tell them, "Enough"?
How many billions and billions will the fedgov waste before we get angry?
Who will pay these trillions of borrowed money wasted on Solyndra, Volt, and other Obama's projects?
I SAW THAT! The wife and I laughed and laughed. Thumbs up from kids for a VOLT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????? Bullfu&*ing Sh&$!
It would cost more than $7,000.00 to get me to drive an exploding golf cart.
But isn’t that why you buy a car? So some brain dead punk will approve?
That reminds me. Its about time to take my beater F150 for a cruise down the main drag in Ann Arbor. I’ve actually considered how easy it would be to rig an oil squirter for the hot exhaust.
Come on now. the volt does not explode. it simply catches on fire. a good nose and a long cord to charge it at the other end of the drive way....
you *should* be safe.
I don't think they are gonna make it, to me the business model doesn't make sense, still to much stock owned by entities that make it non-free market and if they sell they are toast.
But two things are on my radar screen.
1.) Mancow has been on a screed about June sales being 79% fleet sales to the FEDERAL GOVT.
2nd.... No one here on FR saw it and reposted it. A while back "Jalopnik" had a story on GM's land Trust. It is all the land they are trying to sell, much of it polluted and if has a potential value of something like 2 billion dollars in assets but they will never get it. It has been spun off, who still owns it? Do we as "Shareholders" Will we ever "recover" that investment?
I hate to say it I think they still could go bankrupt again..
What is laughable is all this car does that is different; is that it stores the equivalent of a gallon of gas, in the form of electricity that you burn before burning the real gas.
So the source of fuel for the first gallon per day is electric. Big deal. Electric is primarily generated from coal, spewing more carbon than gasoline would into the atmosphere.
Besides paying thousands for this minor change in hydrocarbon consumption, there is no carbon advantage, net; to the atmosphere.
Only the government gets away with this kind of logic, like the song lyric “Money for Nothing”.
This is what Myth Romney should be saying, but won’t..
WHY?.. MAybe he is jockeying for position to take a “dive”..
What could explain his lack of enthusiasm for dumping Zero.?.
He sure is not displaying the truth about Obama..
You know... except for things nobody really cares about.. or is hard to express accurately..
OR goes over the heads of people that are not planning already to vote for him..
WHich are the very people he should be aiming AT!..
Preaching to the choir is what Juan McLaim did,, AND LOST..
Ya think maybe he wants to take a “dive”?..
On the otherhand Myth may be only protecting the UNIONS...
Like.... you know.... Zero-Obama is doing..
bump
Introducing the Chevy Volt Bar-b-que. A steal for only 40k!
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