Posted on 07/31/2010 2:29:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My first wife bought a 1971 Chevy Vega with her dad, which should have been my signal to end the engagement. When the automatic shifted, the entire car lurched, and the front quarter-panels rusted through within a year. Too bad they did not change the name of the car from the Volt to the Obama, so we could get a headstart on his legacy.
The YUGO of the 70’s but with even less quality.
...and there’s the Nissan Leaf, it’s competition. A product of the free market, selling for $32,000, and getting 100 miles on a tank of electricity instead of 40. The Chevy Volt is classic GM, the sort of noncompetitive garbage that helped take the company into bankruptcy in the first place.
(The YUGO of the 70’s)
All YUGO s came with rear window defrosters, so you could keep your hands warm when pushing them.
a golf cart would be more efficient, and we could have trade a horse stations to pull it when the battery dies. There ya go, just saved a billion bucks of federal wasteful spending..
Government-assisted bankruptcy will get you a green car every time.
YUGO but not far!
So, since it’s a green car wouldn’t it be a lime? Just askin’
I bought a used Yugo for 50 bucks to drive 5miles a day from home to my body shop so I wouldnt get my pick up all dirty inside. I used it for a year, never changed oil only added oil and gas.Sold it a year later for 50 bucks. It really was a pile of junk tho.
A lot of people think the Yugo was the real reason NATO bombed Belgrade.
The former (Thank God!) East German government used to make a car like this: tiny, underpowered, unreliable and poorly designed. It was called the Trabant.
The Vega had an aluminum block. If the car overheated the engine seized up. One of my brothers had this happen to him twice while under warranty.
If they had imported Trabants into the U.S. there might have been a nuclear war in central Europe.
I will NEVER buy a GM / Government Motors car again.
F Obamamobiles
I once heard a curious story about the Trabant. Used Trabbies supposedly commanded higher prices than a new one fresh from the factory. The reason was (allegedly) that the inefficient, state-run East German auto industry could never keep up with the queue. As a result, you had to wait months for a new Trabant, but could get a used one right away.
“If the car overheated the engine seized up.”
Yep, that’s what did my older sister’s Vega in, way back when.
To be fair, she got her money’s worth out of the car (bought it used for $125), but man what a junk bucket! Easily the worst car in the family. And my family had two Gremlins and an AMC Hornet at the time, so that’s saying something! :-)
Just keep calling it the ‘Obama Volt’ a la Rush. This is why Gibbs went off on Limbaugh the other day. They know that if it is associated with Obama and it fails (as it will), it is another very big nail in Barry’s political coffin.
Just went to the Nissan Leaf website. What a PITA. I wouldn’t look at those cars just on that basis alone.
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