Chevy Volt is not doing too well.

[StudEbiker]

Well said.

[Ykick]

That's quite a pile you're shoveling.

[liveforphysics]

Just as a reference point, Im in China right now, and along with the seas of electric bicycles and scooters, Ive seen a few dozen lightweight car EVs driving around that look affordable. Hanging right with traffic and seeming to do everything I ask of transportation in a car to do for me.

No Volts or Leafs spotted so far, and Im not too suprised. A number of Nissan GTRs and of course the usual parades of M3s and M5s littered with Ferraris and upper model mercedes.

This place seems noticeably richer and sporting noticeably more EVs than last time I was here just a few months ago.

[scotticeberg]

Subject should read: "Ayn Rand fanatics not doing so well"

[StudEbiker]

Subject should read: "Ayn Rand fanatics not doing so well"

Talk about ignoring reality!!!

Sounds like you don't know much about Rand to me. This is her predictions coming true! Sales of Atlas Shrugged have been higher since Obama has been elected than in the 50 years since it was originally published.

Objectivists are doing just fine thank you very much!

[Hillhater]

..... if you are a California taxpayer, Volt buyers get an additional $5000 tax rebate (bringing the price of a Volt down to $28,000-ish).

Anyone crazy enough to buy one down here is going to have to pay Au$60,000+ ( = US $65,000 ) !!!

[Toango]

Oh, and if you are a California taxpayer, Volt buyers get an additional $5000 tax rebate (bringing the price of a Volt down to $28,000-ish).

I dont think that full revate is available anymore. Last time i check the rebate is half that or might be likely gone.

Btw i think the volt rear seats has not enough leg space and its uglier than the leaf. Theres no sex appeal in either car.

rooting for tesla. Hope they can deliver with proposed prices

[dogman]

Heh heh. Gotta love silly season. All the silly people that think the president has a lot more power than he does.

Personally, I'd prefer a pure EV myself. Hybrids have their good uses, train locomotives for example. But as the best smallish car solution I really don't think so. Still burns a lot of gasoline after all for most.

Rent a gas car for the longer trip, especially if it's weekend jaunts.

[spinningmagnets]

Just to clarify my position, I occupy a middle ground that allows both sides of most issues to hate me. The Democrats Vs Republicans arguments seem to remind me of two old hookers arguing over which one is the biggest whore.

Unions: GM is making a profit this quarter, so the UAW is giving the members a profit-sharing bonus of $7000 per member. Their pay/benefits package wasn't enough...did they take a cut in pay when GM was about to go bankrupt?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/uaw-7-000-bonuses-on-record-gm-profit-drives-u-s-economy-cars.html
http://theunionlabelblog.com/2008/12/10/uaw-workers-actually-cost-the-big-three-automakers-70-an-hour/

Management: GM was supposedly about to go bankrupt, then they got the giant bailout (from taxpayers), then the executives gave themselves huge bonuses?

"...Compensation for GM's 100 most highly paid executives is based on parameters approved by the U.S. Treasury...GM received a bailout of $50 billion by the U.S. government, starting in early 2009, a plan that included giving the government a 61% stake in the company...about $27 billion in bailout funds remain unpaid"
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/11/news/companies/gm_bonus/index.htm

I just saw a documentary on the economic meltdown of 2008, called "Inside Job". I was impressed with how well referenced it was. Clinton, both Bushes, and Obama,...they all allowed the foxes to run the henhouse. The laws haven't changed, and the people in charge haven't changed.

In fact, the "too big to fail" banks that got bailout money, after they gave themselves bonuses, they bought out smaller banks so now there are even fewer banks and less competition.

Heres a one minute-long movie trailer...please watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqWHP7OuAj4

[Tom Tom]

The meltdown has been happening since 1913 in my opinion. Theres only one reason why a loaf of bread cost more today then it did in 1913.


Back to the volt thing..... Fords connect van is available as a 100 mile range all electric if you can swing $60,000

[lester12483]

The Volt should have gotten a larger government subsidy instead of giving $500 million to Fisker !

[Arlo1]

The Volt should have gotten a larger government subsidy instead of giving $500 million to Fisker !

Why would you say that?

[Thud]

One of my Larger clients bought a new Volt....he absolutly loves it.
He's an average " knows nothing about cars" or ellectric vehicles in general....he just thought it was cool.

I'll be curious to have a discusion about in after he own's it for a year.

[ZOMGVTEK]

I'm in the market for a new vehicle, and right now its a difficult choice. I'd really love an all electric vehicle, but the Leaf is too slow and lacks the range i'd need. The Model S is extremely appealing, but I'm not sure I would be able to buy the 40kW model. The Tech pack, Air Suspension, and Sound pack are all required, of course. 160 mile (rated) range would be just enough to do most everything I'd want, but a little overhead would be nice, especially as the vehicle ages. I'd probably make the push to the 60kW model as a minimum. The only issue there, is they almost force you to get the 85kW model, by allowing 'supercharger' access, making it faster, and giving you 15kW for $10K, compared to the previous tier of 10kW for $10K. That means the lowest model I can reasonably buy and REALLY enjoy would be about $75K... A little spendy, considering i'd probably have to buy a cheap beater for long range trips towing stuff.

I'd be willing to forget the Model S exists, if the Volt was $20K. At it's current price, its basically not an option. I'd rather get the more efficient, cheaper, Prius and never plug it in.

That said, the Model S Signature Performance sounds like the best frocking thing ever made.

[neptronix]

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/03/05/toyota-widens-u-s-hybrid-lead-in-february/

Volt currently outselling most hybrids.

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/03/05/chevy-volt-and-opel-ampera-named-2012-european-car-of-the-year/

Europe has 7,000 pre-orders lined up already..

What a failure! dig it a grave already!

[Dauntless]

The Volt should have gotten a larger government subsidy instead of giving $500 million to Fisker !

Why would you say that?

Ummm, maybe because the Volt is built right here in the U.S.? I'll never forgive Fisker for taking the plant my Solstice was built in just as DeLorean was trying to continue to build the car. Let alone wind up not using it afterall. (At least last I heard they weren't.)

But rather than let some Kansas City Tree Hugger speak for us California Alternative Car Buyers, lemme say that:

#1. IF you have an electric bill averaging over $125/month, you can get a solar system no money down, no change in payments. You just keep paying your $125/month, even if you start charging your car at home. I don't have the $125/month bill, I haven't been able to take advantage. But If I got electric central heat/AC then bought a Volt. . . .

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/e ... tions.html

#2. . . .I would still need a charger. If you run around and check all those FREE chargers around here, you'll notice most of them no longer work. The one at the train station near me fell down in the last year. The base rusted away and "Timber." You couldn't have used that thing if it had worked, they put one of those lockers for bicycles in the two spaces you'd have needed to park in to charge your car. The map at the bottom is inspecific. It's my understanding that there was once over 1,000 charging stations in California, they were all free, and that we did have more than half those in the country. I could tell you where there's lots of stations not listed on that site or on http://www.carstations.com. Now when you DO find one, good luck getting it to work. . . .

#3. . . .Or would I need a charger? Last weekend someone came to the neighborhood and parked his Volt to block the street, seeking attention for whatever reason. I talked to him, he lives in an apartment so he never bought a charging station and doesn't have a place to use the slow charger. He's had the opportunity to plug it in a few times, but mostly he's driven it as a gas car and has been happy with it. But for over $40k . . .

#4. . . .You still draw the wrath of those who are anxious to see GM fail. (Sigh) I think the better move would have been to have built the concept they were taking to the carshows years before, a plugin hybrid Camaro. (Although they were calling it the Volt.) That was a neat looking mockup. But the Volt itself looks pretty good. Nothing will prevent the haters and their mindless diatribes. . . .

#5. . . .Especially those who alledge themselves the fans of electric cars. The EV1, nicknamed the 'Thermal Incident' because it had so many, caused one particularly famous fire that brought the fire department, (No car accident involved) was deemed a fire hazard in the investigation for the materials it was made from, yet still remains, like the backup quarterback, the most popular guy in town. The charging coupler alone torched 16 EV1's, there's unspecified additional incidents, this thing was far more likely to burn than GM's previous spontaneous combustion champion, the Pontiac Fiero. (My brother raced one Fiero and kept another in his garage as a museum piece.) I'd say hats off to GM for not publicly trashing the electric car while taking such abuse from the Neoelectriccarfans, but they probably considered the many hazards of it their dirty little secret. The car couldn't be sold no matter how many riots you staged at the storage facility, it didn't pass American safety laws and therefore GM was not allowed to sell it. That's laws, with a lot of sss's, not law as in singular. And yet people pretend the EV1 was somehow wonderful. Ayn Rand would be proud, all these people rejecting the conscious acknowledgement of the inadequacy of the machine and instead pursuing their rationalized self interest as proper moral purpose, transforming ther metaphysical ideas into a selective reproduction of imagined reality where they only have to conceive and those conceptions are thus proven true, given rise to their inner rage at. . . .

. . .Sorry, my inner English Major escaped for a moment there, won't happen again. The point being, these people tell themselves they're entitled to hate the Volt out of existence as a way of forcing GM to give them back their beloved EV1, even though in fact their beloved EV1 never actually existed. Objectivism is NOT supposed to mean you objeK't to everything. Ayn Rand only chose to call it 'Objectivism' because 'Existentialism' was taken. Meanwhile, a fire at an Internet Service provider shortly after the release of 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' took more than 9,000 websites offline. The name of that ISP? EV1!. Coincidence. . . ?

My own thought is that a $529 million government subsidy for the Volt itself --- And a bailout of GM is NOT A SUBSIDY OF THE VOLT ITSELF! --- could have taken the form of a $2,500 installation of a charging station for the first 200,000 who bought a Volt. I'm assuming those are made in the U.S, that's probably 2,500 jobs for one year building them, maybe another 500 jobs for one year installing, although it's probably spread over maybe 5 years. How many American jobs is the Fisker creating with that $529 million? (I think it was 4,400 Volt buyers were to receive the free charger.)

Meanwhile, a used Volt might be impossible to sell. If they won't buy a new one because of the charger, why would they buy a used one?

Meanwhile, Ayn Rand wrote a play with seemingly herself as the suspected killer. At the trial, the testimony contradicts, the subjext matter leans more to the moral character of those involved and there is no clear ending. A vote is taken, without any clear evidence you decide whether she's guilty or not. Just like what people are doing with the Volt. Dude, when you brought up Ayn Rand, it was a stroke of GENIUS. . . .

[bane77087]

I hope they sell a ton. I am looking forward to being able to go scrounging for cells in junkyards. And no I don't wanna go looking for a delta v cell now.

[jonescg]

Great American breakthrough...????
Cost to operate a Chevy Volt

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range, including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road-trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph. According to General Motors, the Volt batteries hold 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. @ 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. @ $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32mpg.$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile. The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000. So the government wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country. Go Ahead, Waste Your Days.

There is so much wrong with this I don't know where to start, but who in the world pays $1.16 per kWh for electricity? And wasn't the point of the Volt the fact that you could go on a road trip without range anxiety?

I also can't rule out that the car might well be a piece of shit, but still, some Fox reporting never did any harm...

[TylerDurden]

"....the figures given for the Chevy Volt above are calculated using a price of $1.16 per kwh (kilowatt hour) of electricity. Although electricity costs vary from place to place, nowhere in the United States is the average residential retail price of electricity anywhere close to $1.16 per kwh. The average consumer price for electricity in the United States in December 2011 was only $0.127 per kwh...

...So, according to the criteria used by the author of this item, rather than being a car that "costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country" than a gasoline-powered 4-cylinder car, the Volt costs about one-third less to run (in electric mode) and takes the same amount of time to drive across country."

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/chevyvolt.asp

[Arlo1]

Great American breakthrough...????
Cost to operate a Chevy Volt

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range, including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road-trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph. According to General Motors, the Volt batteries hold 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. @ 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. @ $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32mpg.$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile. The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000. So the government wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country. Go Ahead, Waste Your Days.

There is so much wrong with this I don't know where to start, but who in the world pays $1.16 per kWh for electricity? And wasn't the point of the Volt the fact that you could go on a road trip without range anxiety?

I also can't rule out that the car might well be a piece of shit, but still, some Fox reporting never did any harm...

My grampa forwarded me this same email. I responded with the real numbers. I also commented this idiot should be removed from society. Its amazing how much people belive in this shit. I also got one showing a small car that had a head on with a semi, with the title would you still buy a smart car... The who email went on about how the guy was cut in half in this "Smart car"... But I responded with who plans to survive a head on with a semi not even another semi would have survived that as well THE CENTER OF THE WHEELS HAD WV EMBLEMS ON THEM! Im not sure if the people who start shit emails like this are just stuborn and hate change or if they just want more gas to be bought. Either way grampa stick to sending me porn and I will forward it to Luke so he can open it in front of his female co-workers. BAhahahah.

[pdf]

My take, and apparently that of BP (yes, that BP, the oil people) is that plug-in hybrids are the mid-term (2030 time range) future of the personal automobile in the US (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/02/28/ ... isnt-part/). I'd love a Leaf if I weren't so cheap. I have the money for two, three, or four cars and it is a rare weekend indeed when I would use the full single charge range of a Leaf. However, the American consumer has told the automobile industry over and over again that (except for a game changing trebling of gas prices) they will not accept an automobile that doesn't look pretty much like the automobile they now have, in terms of range, size, comfort, amenities, etc. How do they tell them? They don't buy anything else in any significant amount.

People will, ultimately, vote with their wallets. I've never driven a Volt (I have driven a Leaf) and while the Volt might not be it, the mid-term future of the automobile is something very much like the Volt. Electricity is super cheap because coal is super cheap. It will continue to be cheap as long as coal is cheap. There is a lot of coal.

Rabid car people are like rabbits, they will eat their own young. I've heard cars bashed over the floor mats. It's just a car, people. There was an interview on the radio a few days ago with a guy who owned a Volt for several months before he went through a single tank of gas; he loves it. It has good points and bad, like all cars. It is a completely new design, ground up. I am sure it has bugs. How many completely new cars come out perfect the first year they are introduced? My father-in-law claims all American cars are pieces of $hit. I've only ever owned 3 cars and two were US made. As I said, they are just cars. Some good points some bad. I've never driven one less than 200k miles. By the way, assuming an American presidental administration spent $2B helping GM build the Volt is nuts. Some people a reality check and to be more discriminating in the source of their information. All electric vehicles with similar battery capacities are subsidized with tax incentives. GM was specifically "bailed out", first by President Bush for about $14B and then more ($40B) was added to the package by President Obama. This is all of GM. This administration is very actively supporting transportation system electrification in general, however. That is the prerogative of a presidential administration. I'm pretty sure there were plenty of people who thought Kennedy was nuts for throwing away all that money on the space program.

The main problem with the Volt is the same as with all large electrics, they cost way too much to compete with their all-gas counterparts. People vote with their wallets. The payback period for a Volt is on the order of 10 years. Who is going to shell out extra money today for an investment that depreciates constantly and doesn't pay back until after 10 years? Nearly no one; the average time people keep their cars in the US is aroudn 10 years now. So you are going to spend extra money now to break-even in the long run. Not hardly. Now if the price of gas doubles and the payback period halves, people will start to get interested. And anyone who uses a price per kWhr of over a dollar is just plain full of crap and is hoping people are idiots.

Worth what you paid, or less.

[bigmoose]

I listened to Mr. Spinningmagnets and watched the movie "Inside Job"... Wow! You want to know what these high and mighty international bankers did to you and your family? Get it and watch it 4 or 5 times. You will be madder than a hornet under a hot tin roof!

We have been betrayed gentlemen...

[Arlo1]

I listened to Mr. Spinningmagnets and watched the movie "Inside Job"... Wow! You want to know what these high and mighty international bankers did to you and your family? Get it and watch it 4 or 5 times. You will be madder than a hornet under a hot tin roof!

We have been betrayed gentlemen...

Yup

[Lessss]

I want a twizzie.

[DAND214]

$1.16 per kwh

Miss print, maybe gigawh and back to the future!

My grampa forwarded me this same email. I responded with the real numbers. I also commented this idiot should be removed from society. Its amazing how much people belive in this shit.

In my case iit was my mom (she's a blonde). I get more crap that doesn't make sense than stuff that does.

Dan