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Monday, August 2, 2010

Buy a Volt? I don't think so.

As President Obama parades around Michigan and the country touting the Chevy Volt and crowing that "his" opponents would never have approved this vehicle, an objective eye at the Volt can see that the little car isn't, well, going to sell, which is why the government is greatly subsidizing it. The truth is if you have to subsidize a product as much as the Volt has been (and will continue to be) subsidized, it's never going to make back the money that it cost to create it. But then, there's a good chance Obama already knows that and doesn't care, since he's just not that great at understanding the value of money, which is why the government is subsidizing the Volt by $7500 for the car and $2500 for the charging station because you have to have THAT at home to charge your car.
  Hot Air has a great article on this:
Almost four hundred million dollars in federal subsidies were pumped directly into the design and production of the Volt.  The initial production run consists of just ten thousand units, with 45,000 more planned for 2012 if sales are good.  This would add just over $7200 more in taxpayer subsidies to each Volt produced over the next two years.  Since 2012 production will be scaled back if early sales are disappointing, it might be more logical to add the subsidies to the first 10,000 units only, which would leave early adopters outside of California paying $33,500 for a car which actually costs $81,000 per unit, with taxpayers picking up the remainder.  It’s actually even worse than that, because GM expects to lose money on every Volt sale.  Those losses will be spread among other GM products, or perhaps wiped out with further taxpayer subsidies.
The Nissan Leaf is cheaper and goes over twice as far on a charge, although 100 miles still isn't very far for a charge. So why does anyone think the Volt will sell? And yet they're doubling production. And where is the battery for the Volt being produced? Korea.

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