Free Republic

Incentives: Doubling down on industrial policy failure, the administration decides to bump up the taxpayer subsidy for Government Motors' touted electric car. Who said its range wasn't enough to drive us to the poor house? Tucked away in the recesses of President Obama's 2013 budget, a budget that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will not bring to the Senate floor, is a nugget that speaks volumes about the troubles we're in: While delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration plans to increase the subsidy for the Chevy Volt and other "new technology" vehicles to $10,000 per car. "We...

Proof electric cars DO cause more pollution than normal ones: Study shows impact is worse than petrol-powered vehicles Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2100936/Study-shows-impact-electric-cars-worse-petrol-powered-vehicles.html#ixzz1mNkAhlSk

Drudge pulled this link after just a few hours, but has others on there all day. A $10,000 proposed subsidy for Volt buyers is a relevant story. Is Drudge not a reliable source anymore?

General Motors appears to be looking to spur sales of its Chevrolet Volt by offering potential California customers a chance to lease the $40,000 extended-range plug-in vehicle with no cash down, GreenCarReports.com said, citing a California Chevrolet dealer. GM is offering a so-called "Quad $0" lease program on the Volt, in which leasing the car requires no down payment, no security deposit, no first-month's payment and no cash due upon sale, the website said, citing Randall Baum at Quality Chevrolet in Escondido, CA. That program gives those interested in driving the car a chance to lease one for as little...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced today that Chevrolet Volt purchasers are now eligible for the state’s $2,500 electric vehicle (EV) rebate. The rebate requires that consumers qualify for and participate in The EV Project, a national study on EV use and charging infrastructure deployment. The EV Project will provide participants with a free Blink® 240V networked charge station and a credit of up to $1,200 towards its installation. To be eligible, Tennessee residents must sign an EV Project participant agreement, purchase the Volt, take delivery of the car, and have SPX Corporation install...

GM noted that Fox has issues with the Volt. They give Eric Bolling a Chevy Volt for a week. And this is what GM receives in return. Ingrates. * * Bet you poor dumb working stiffs can hardly wait until there are a few hundred of these overpriced golf carts on the road in New York City ... and they all run out of power ... on a cold day ... at the same time ... on narrow roads, intersections, bridges, overpasses, ramps, and tunnels ... at pretty much the same time. Then, you really will be a bunch...

Has this ever been mentioned on Cable News? Did Obama actually hand GM 50 Billion Dollars to build the Volt? And if so? How many have been sold and how many had to be recalled? The last update so far was that we have spent 250 Thousand on every Volt Sold, and didn't they all get recalled? Kinda like what happened with the Ford Pinto Blowabout? If the math is wrong,please recalculate. But it looks like another 50 Billion went down the tubes,along with Solyndra. You could of fed millions of starving Americans with 50 Billion !!!

Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration's obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure.

The world’s largest automaker avoided embarrassment but became the only American automaker with negative sales in January 2012: it was down 6.1 percent to 167,962 sales. Sales were down across all four of GM’s brands, although the automaker’s most improved models were unlikely heroes, the Chevrolet Volt and GMC Canyon... As for the most improved models, there were some interesting inclusions: the best model was the Volt, which rose 87.9 percent to 603 sales.... Buick: Down 23.1 Percent to 10,208 Cadillac: 8924 Sales, Down 29.1 Percent Chevrolet: 123,864 Sales, Down 1.2 Percent GMC: Down 9.7 Percent to 24,966 Sales

Despite their small share of total vehicle sales, the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius garner a lot of attention from new-car shoppers, according to J.D. Power and Associates' 2012 Avoider Study. For people who like the Volt, the most cited reason is its impact on a person's image; that's a good shout-out to Chevrolet's successful marketing campaign. Consumers think the Volt costs too much and that's why a lot of shoppers avoid the plug-in hybrid, according to the study. When people decide to skip over the Leaf or Prius, the most cited reason is the styling is unattractive....

Cry me a river. General Motors' CEO is complaining that the Chevy Volt has become a "political punching bag." As the Detroit Free Press reports , GM CEO Dan Akerson defended the Volt before a House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday, saying that the hybrid electric vehicle seemed to be under attack as much for political as practical reasons. 'We did not design the Volt to become a political punching bag, and that’s what it’s become,' Akerson said. The optics of Akerson, CEO of a company whose very existence today stems completely from an infusion of tens of billions of...

On Thursday, General Motors announced an alert system under development that would instruct the Chevy Volt to charge only when a relatively high percentage of renewable energy was available. Being plugged in at those times would further minimize the carbon footprint of the plug-in hybrid. When a substantial percentage of the energy transmitted to the grid came from a renewable source like wind power, OnStar would receive a signal from P.J.M. Interconnection, a company that manages the electric-power transmission grid for numerous utility companies. The telematics system would then cue the vehicle to begin charging. “This demonstration shows that in...

(CNNMoney) -- Now that the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin station has closed its investigation into vehicle fires in the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors is left to clean up the public relations damage. The media counter-attack started Wednesday with newspaper and television advertisements. In a TV ad, which was also broadcast Wednesday, Chevrolet Volts are shown being built on an assembly down the middle of a suburban American street. Since Volt sales are so small, to begin with, and GM executives have admitted that the car isn't profitable, the automaker's ad campaign will cost it more than it will ever...

- Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid. For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said. In Clovis,...

U.S. safety regulators said Friday that they've closed an eight-week investigation into the Chevrolet Volt, concluding that the plug-in hybrid's battery doesn't pose a significant fire risk following a crash. In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it "does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles." The agency said that modifications intended to reinforce the Volt's 435-pound lithium-ion battery pack that General Motors announced on Jan. 5 should "reduce the potential" of the pack catching fire in the days or weeks following a crash.

For the first time in a few years, electric cars are mostly an afterthought at the auto show in Detroit. To be sure, electric cars and hybrid electric models are on the show floor and still being promoted at various intensity levels by Detroit's automakers as well as Japanese companies and upstarts building — but not selling many — high-priced, electric sports cars. But the niche vehicles are not as prominent this year as in past years. That's a good thing. Electric vehicles aren't the answer to curbing America's dependence on foreign oil or putting a dent in climate change....

It seems that General Motors is sticking to its guns as they continue to blame lack of supply for low sales of the Chevy Volt. A story by the Detroit Free Press quotes GM Vice Chairman, Steve Girsky, as saying that market demand for the Volt will not be known until around June as "...there are still dealer orders that are getting filled and there are customers that are still getting out there." GM's president of North American operations, Mark Reuss, addressed criticism of the Volt by adding, "The worst thing we could do would be to back off...

The US auto industry remains unsold over the future of "green cars" such as electrics and hybrids, as carmakers struggle with the first steps in a market most agree shows promise over the long term. Automakers wheeled out a variety of new hybrids and plug-in electrics at the annual Detroit auto show this week, touting their great energy savings along with new, freshened designs. But despite that apparent commitment, behind the scenes, the manufacturers remain split between doubts and optimism over their potential. Ten years after the Toyota Prius hybrid swept into the market, only about three percent of all...

General Motors Co will cut production of its Chevrolet Volt if sales of the plug-in hybrid fall short of estimates in the first half of the year, GM vice chairman Steve Girsky said on Tuesday.

VIDEO 4:19 minutes NLPC Associate Fellow Mark Modica says it is time to end tax credits and subsidies for electric vehicles. He is interviewed by Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network on Friday, January 6. Here's a transcript: Neil Cavuto : Meanwhile, a Fox Business Alert that is going to be a topical issue, drivers paying more to fill up. But it doesn't look like they're getting fed up with the gas guzzlers. Gasoline now at its highest price ever for the start of the year. It's still rising. But look what else is rising. Sales of really big...

See what I did there with that headline? Government Motors won’t like it. Here’s a little vignette that might tell us much about the difference between the mainstream media and the rest of us. As I’m walking into Newt Gingrich’s townhall at Public Service New Hampshire in Manchester, I am behind a pair of MSMers, a man and a woman. The two are chatting about the event and the fact that it’s a Republican candidate, and the woman mutters something about “crosses and swastikas.” The man just chuckles. No bias to see here. As we’re walking along the sidewalk...

The Chevy Volt, much like former East Germany’s Trabant, is a centralized government planner’s idea of what an automobile should be. The Trabant, incidentally, was dubbed one of the worst cars produced -- ever. But what government bureaucrats believe is “good” for us generally has little to do with what consumers are looking for. The two concepts are as different as Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan.

Pitched to the American voter as the vanguard of a “greener” future, the heavily subsidized Chevy Volt was dubbed one of the worst product flops of 2011 by Yahoo Finance’s 24/7 Wall Street site. The low sales volume—-an estimated 8,000 vehicles for 2011 (all of which are currently under recall notices to correct defects)–-has made the effective unit cost for each car amount to around $250,000. Representative Hansen Clarke (D-Mich) insists that “despite the reluctance of the American driver to buy these cars we must not falter in our efforts to make them understand the necessity for government’s role in...

MSN Autos - General Motors announced in Shanghai today that it will jointly develop an electric vehicle with longtime Chinese partner SAIC -- a move that some U.S. lawmakers have likened to a shakedown. China has built its manufacturing infrastructure around low-cost production and continues to lag behind other developed countries when it comes to developing and implementing cutting-edge automotive technology. For the past 25 years, the Chinese government has required foreign automakers to partner with Chinese companies, which are required to own a stake of at least 50 percent. China also imposes heavy tariffs on imported cars, which some...

The Link above is for the photos of the car leaked from a Czech Blog, but is their a bigger story?Look at this car compared to the Volt, obviously easier on the eyes, but will it spark a bigger debate? I.E., the free-market approach of product improvement vs the Governments envolvement in GM and lack of market acceptance of the Volt.What we know from the web. * It will use the very good handling "Ford Mondeo" Chassis ( possibly new or upgraded ) * It will probably be 4 or 5 star crash rated, seems to be Fords redesign mantra...

VIDEO 4 minutes Last night, NLPC Associate Fellow Paul Chesser discussed the Chevy Volt recall with Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network. Here's a transcript: Neil Cavuto : ...Forget Volt sales and that they are far from catching fire. Apparently the cars really are in danger of catching fire. GM is recalling nearly 8,000 Chevy Volts for what they're calling enhancements. I actually hate it when people do that but that's what they're calling them, enhancements, aimed at preventing the battery from bursting into flames. The National Legal and Policy Center's Paul Chesser says that this recall should be...

General Motors reported Chevy Volt sales of 1,529 for the month of December. The still unimpressive number is an improvement over previous months, but the gains were mostly driven by fleet sales. According to GM, 992 of the Volts sold were to retail customers while 537 went to fleet purchasers. GM says the fleet sales were to corporate buyers and not to rental companies. The number of Volts sold to townships receiving federal grants remains unknown. The corporate sales claim makes sense as crony company, General Electric, starts to make good on its promise to buy thousands of Volts....

General Motors plans to ask Volt owners to bring their electric cars into dealers to strengthen the structure around the batteries, according to a report. The move is similar to a recall and involves the 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years.

The Chevrolet Volt ended 2011 on a high note, charting its best month of sales to date. Chevy moved 1,529 of the plug-in hybrids in December, despite the specter of a possible recall to address the potential for battery pack fires. Full year sales checked in at 7,671, well short of the company’s stated goal of 10,000, but enough to outsell one of its top rivals, the Toyota Prius. Not in 2011, Toyota sold 136,463 Prii over the last 12 months, once again cementing its position as best-selling hybrid in America, by far. But, go back to the turn of...

Electric car company that received a $529M federal loan recalls vehiclesBy Andrew Restuccia - 12/30/11 10:31 AM ET An electric vehicle manufacturer that received a $529 million loan from the Energy Department is recalling 239 vehicles. The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that the company, Fisker Automotive, will recall its Karma vehicles made between July 1, 2011, and Nov. 3, 2011, because of a faulty electric battery component that could cause a fire. “Within the high-voltage battery, certain hose clamps may have been positioned incorrectly during assembly. If positioned incorrectly, the batter compartment cover could...

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently...

Pennsylvania Congressman, Mike Kelly, wants to end the $7,500 tax credit that affluent purchasers of electric vehicles are currently taking advantage of. The most hyped of these vehicles has been General Motors' Chevy Volt, but other plug-in cars, like Fiskers and Teslas, sell for close to $100,000 and make a strong case for Rep. Kelly's argument. Let's look past the recent Chevy Volt fires. The value of a vehicle will be determined by the consumer. It does not matter if Jay Leno and other rich purchasers say they love their Volts. The real questions are, should taxpayers be paying...

Shortly after he gave General Motors a $53 billion bailout in 2009, President Barack Obama said the plug-in Chevrolet Volt would be salvation of the beleaguered automaker. Consumers will buy 120,000 Volts each year from 2012 onwards, the Energy Department predicted then. But through November, only 6,142 Volts have been sold. And that pitiful figure is inflated by purchases for government fleets. Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, isn’t surprised. “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla,” he told Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos in 2009. “So...

Green Policy: A think tank crunches the subsidy and bailout dollars and puts the true cost of Government Motors' electric car at a cool quarter-million. And the few sold have been largely bought by the 1%. At a time when Democrats are blaming the GOP for blocking a payroll tax cut deal that will add $40 in the average paycheck, they have no problem taking that worker's tax dollars to make and subsidize what we once called an electric Edsel bought by a precious few with an average income of $170,000. "Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as...

December 19, 2011- Mark Modica, an Associate Fellow of the National Legal and Policy Center, discusses GM's apparent goosing of Chevy Volt sales figures. Mark is interviewed by Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel.

Analyst: 'This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant' (Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a reaction from a General Motor's official.) Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently...

General Motors predicted it would sell 10,000 Chevrolet Volt automobiles by the end of the year, but it is only on track to sell roughly 6,000 of these plug-in hybrids before 2012. “We’ll probably hit that [6,000 target] early in 2012 … [but] we’re not going to get into specifics,” said Chevy spokesman Rob Peterson. President Barack Obama’s support for the Volt may have been a vote-winning strategy in states where the auto industry is a large employer. The president, however, has the backing of only 41 percent of likely voters in Michigan, according to a November poll sponsored by...

Volt Named 2011’s Collectible Car of Future Years from now General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt extended-range hybrid sedan will be the most desirable North American-made model from the 2011 model year, according to the Friends of the National Automotive History Collection in Detroit. The group names a future collectible each year. Past winners, which have all been domestic brand cars, include the Chevy Camaro (2010), Ford Flex (2009), Dodge Challenger (2008), Dodge Viper SRT10 (2007), Pontiac Solstice (2006), Ford Mustang (2005) and Chrysler 300 (2004). The honor was first bestowed on the Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Aurora in 1995. The...

Not a good day in Obamaville. His newly owned car company is having problems. Government Motors engines are catching fire on their Environment conscious flag ship, the Volt. Heres the run down: Government saftey checks were ignored it seems.Sales were already miserable.And it looks like the Repub controlled House might start an investigation! This brings back memories of newly minted Car Czar, Transportation Secretary Ray Ray LaHood. He was talking about the fraudulent claims of an accelerator problem. (Toyota did an investigation and proved it was bogus.) But leave it to Obama's loveable RINO Ray Ray LaHood to say this...

It's the Chicago way. (AutoGuide)- Apparently, way back in June, General Motors heard about a Volt fire that happened three weeks after said vehicle was crash tested, yet it wasn’t until November that the company, nor NHTSA disclosed there was a potential problem, urging both dealers and customers to drain the battery pack immediately following an accident.

The Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car is the most popular among owners, topping a perennial favorite that costs twice as much, the Porsche 911, and a recent addition, the Dodge Challenger, according to an annual survey published Thursday by Consumer Reports.

General Motors will buy Chevrolet Volts back from any owner who is afraid the electric cars will catch fire, the company's CEO said Thursday. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, CEO Dan Akerson insisted that the cars are safe, but said the company will purchase the Volts because it wants to keep customers happy. Three fires have broken out in Volts after side-impact crash tests done by the federal government. Akerson said that if necessary, GM will recall the more than 6,000 Volts now on the road in the U.S. and repair them once the company and federal...

Electric-car sales are on fire. Okay, well, only a few electric cars have actually gone up in smoke. But with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opening a formal safety investigation into fears about fires started by the much-hyped Chevrolet Volt, it’s become clear yet again that electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing — and they always will be. Safety questions are the last thing that the electric-vehicle market needs. Indeed, the U.S. already has a huge excess of electric-vehicle (EV) battery-production capacity. This month, A123 Systems, one of the country’s highest-profile battery makers for the EV market, cut...

In an unprecedented move, General Motors will lend Chevrolet Volt owners another GM vehicle for free until the automaker resolves a federal probe over three fires in Volt battery packs. Following Friday’s announcement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it was opening a formal defect probe into the plug-in hybrid Volt, GM told reporters today it was standing behind the car and would do everything it could to ease any owners’ concerns — including borrowing a non-electric set of wheels. No other automaker has ever handed out free loaners simply because of a defect investigation which may or...

There are some ideas that, no matter how often they rise and how spectacularly they fail, just won't go away. Perpetual motion machines, for example. Passive exercise machines. Diets that work. These technologies sound great in theory, but don't seem to pan out in practice. Add to the list, electric (or largely electric) cars. People who have looked into the history of automobiles have noted that while electric cars have never managed to rival internal combustion cars for their performance, comfort, reliability, or customer-attractiveness, they persist in inspiring a small segment of the public. And would-be social engineers have always...

Industrial Policy: The investigation into the safety of electric car batteries intensifies after additional fires involving the flagship of a proposed electric vehicle fleet. Central planning doesn't work for cars or insurance. When the Toyota Prius was being accused of having overlooked design flaws that were causing accelerators to get stuck with fatal results, the owners of Government Motors, a competitor, wasted little time pushing for a recall and congressional hearings while accusing Toyota of cutting corners for the sake of corporate profits. We wonder if the same sense of urgency will prevail in the wake of new safety tests...

Federal officials say they are investigating the safety of lithium-ion battery in General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt after a second battery fire following crash-testing of the electric car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday that three Volt battery packs were crash-tested last week. In one instance, the battery caught fire afterward, and in another the battery emitted smoke and sparks.

Batteries in Electric Cars Examined After Chevy Volt Fire By NICK BUNKLEY DETROIT — Federal safety regulators said Friday that they are examining lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars after a Chevrolet Volt caught fire three weeks after it underwent a crash test. General Motors, which began selling the Volt plug-in hybrid last December, defended it as “a safe car” and said the fire would not have occurred if G.M.’s protocols for deactivating the battery after the crash had been followed. In a statement, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is working with all automakers to develop post-crash...

U.S. regulators are investigating the safety of batteries used to power electric vehicles after a General Motors Co Chevrolet Volt caught fire following a routine crash test. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Friday that it has asked other manufacturers who make electric cars or who plan to do so for information on how they handle lithium-ion batteries. The request also includes recommendations for minimizing fire risk. NHTSA said it does not believe the Volt and other electric vehicles are at greater risk for fire than gasoline-powered engines. "First and foremost, I want to make this very clear:...