|
|
|
Jewish World Review Dec 26, 2011 / 30 Kislev, 5772 A Volt of what? By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
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 there are not enough idiots who will buy it."
The idiots who do, Mr. de Nysschen said, are "the intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are."
The Volt is, in essence, the electric version of the Chevy Cruze, which sells for about $17,000. At $41,000, the Volt costs as much as a BMW335i.
The Cruze seats six; the Volt just four, because of the space taken up by the battery. The Volt has less head and leg room.
The Cruze gets an estimated 42 mpg, and can go about 500 miles on a tank of gas. The Volt can run for about 40 miles before the battery must be recharged, about 340 miles more on the gas in the gas tank. The Volt's gas mileage (29 mpg) is significantly less than that of the Cruze, and the Volt takes only premium gas.
The Volt may not be the technological "leap forward" GM CEO Dan Akerson claims. The Roberts electric car, built in 1896, gets the same mileage per charge.
The Volt's battery caught fire after low speed collisions in crash tests conducted by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
That was in June. Volt purchasers weren't warned until late November. NHTSA "deliberately suppressed public knowledge of the safety risk," chaarged the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
If they take only short trips, Volt owners can go weeks without having to visit a gas station, a fact GM trumpets in its advertising. But the difference between the price of a Volt and the price of a Cruze can buy a lot of gas. And though electricity costs much less than gasoline, it isn't free.
Volt buyers think it's environmentally friendly. But a wholesale shift to electric cars would increase carbon dioxide emissions, Mr. de Nysschen said, because so much electricity is generated by coal-fired plants. More CO2 is produced when the Volt runs on batteries than when it runs on gasoline, calculated Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com.
CO2 emissions will be reduced somewhat by new EPA regulations which will shut down many coal-fired utilities. But the regulations also will send electric rates soaring, and likely will cause brownouts. When Volt owners plug in at night, there may be no electricity to replenish their batteries (which takes about 10 hours, using the standard home outlet).
Purchasers of electric cars get a $7,500 tax credit. This lowers the cost to the consumer of a Volt to just under double that of the Chevy Cruze.
The average Volt owner makes $170,000 a year, according to Mr. Akerson. In an editorial in October, the Washington Post wondered "how the modest projected energy savings could justify taxpayer support for a product that people of ordinary means cannot hope to own."
These wealthy consumers get only a small slice of pork. Mr. Obama tucked into his stimulus bill $2.4 billion in grants to electric vehicle and battery manufacturers. The Department of Energy loaned an additional $2.4 billion to build EV manufacturing plants.
Most recipients -- like most of the "renewable" energy producers who got DOE loans -- are in financial trouble. Two already are bankrupt.
"Like Solyndra, several of the firms receiving support had investors who were also important Obama campaign donors," noted the Washington Post.
When all government grants, subsidies and credits are added up, each Volt sold so far has cost taxpayers nearly $250,000, estimates a Michigan think tank.
Sales of the Volt and the Nissan Leaf combined are just one tenth of one percent of all new car sales this year. Despite this, Ford and Toyota plan to introduce their own electric vehicles.
"Why would two auto manufacturers jump into a market with almost no demand and a high failure rate?" asked Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. "Could it be because they are looking for the same kind of subsidies that gives them around $250,000 per vehicle before the car is ever sold?"
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2011, Jack Kelly |
Columnists
Toons
Lifestyles | |||||||||||
