Electric cars and the liberal war with science (GM suspends Chevy Volt Production)

Washington Post ^ | 03/06/2012 | Charles Lane

[SeekAndFind]

President Obama boasted at a United Auto Workers conference last week that General Motors was back in business, producing cutting-edge vehicles like the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt. He even promised to buy one when his time in office ends “five years from now.”

Whoops! Just three days later, GM announced that it would suspend Volt production for five weeks this spring, idling 1,300 workers at a Hamtramck, Mich., factory.

Alas, Obama’s endorsements notwithstanding, there’s not much of a market for this little bitty car, at least not at the price of almost $32,000 — after a $7,500 federal tax rebate.

GM fell 2,300 units short of its sales target (10,000) for 2011. It is not on pace to hit 2012’s goal of 45,000 units.

So much for Obama’s goal of 1 million all-electrics and plug-ins on the road by

A123 Systems, a maker of electric-car batteries that has received $374 million in state and federal loans, announced 125 layoffs last fall. The cause: problems at its main customer, Fisker Automotive, which builds expensive plug-in electric cars. Fisker got a half-billion in loans from the Energy Department, though the money was recently frozen because of the company’s failure to meet production targets.

These events confirm the wasteful folly of allocating capital according to the dictates of politicians, such as when Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in November 2008: “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable. We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”

The electric vehicle flop also illuminates a point about science — or the politics of science.

[Army Air Corps]

Well, compare a century of development of electric cars (the damned things have been around since the turn of the previous century) with a century of internal combustion engine development.

[cuban leaf]

—Well, compare a century of development of electric cars (the damned things have been around since the turn of the previous century) with a century of internal combustion engine development.—

Kinda like comparing 8-track to Cassette. ;-)

[Army Air Corps]

In terms of range, the electrics haven’t made much improvement.

The ICEs, in terms of power and range, have made incredible advances.

[etcb]

This may actually be a good time to buy a Volt and place it in storage. As soon as Oboma looses the election, GM will scrap this dog and, like the Edsel, it may be worth more as a collector’s item than it was as a production model.

[SoothingDave]

Units sold, not the price in dollars.