Cevy Volt cosing us HOW much?

Chevy Volt Lies

we will just add it to this conversation.

so now is it not only just a jacked Prius, it is paid for with our own money. Great

Have people forgotten how much of GM the Govt. owns?

racerfink wrote: Have people forgotten how much of GM the Govt. owns?

Have tree-huggers forgotten how much of our electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels? Or how much Sulfur Dioxide is produced in foreign countries to make the batteries because those emissions are illegal here? Or how many thousands of gallons of diesel are burned to transport those batteries to the US for installation? Or how much crude oil is required to make the plastic body panels that can't be repaired easily... which drives up the cost of repair, increases insurance cost, and requires more crude oil-produced panels for every fender-bender?

Its all bullE36 M3 politics. The new wave of "environmentally responsible" vehicles may not emit smog, but they definitely emit smug

If you drive these cars and use the electric function only, will the ethanol in the gas turn to crap after a while?

Jay_W wrote: http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16192 Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle Analyst: 'This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant' Crony capitalism. Quite a lucrative career if you can get into it..

Jay, I have a bridge to sell you if ur interested

egnorant wrote: If you drive these cars and use the electric function only, will the ethanol in the gas turn to crap after a while?

I remember reading about that question. The engine controller is programmed to run the engine at intervals while the car is in operation so that fuel in the tank won't be there for longer than a year under normal electric-only driving.

Besides, modern EFI systems are surprisingly tolerant of old gas. My '90 E150 5.0 EFI sat for more than a year w/o being started. I popped in a new battery when I sold it and the engine started up nearly in an instant and purred like it had last run the day before. Compared to my Cummins which is very unhappy if not started at least once a week, it was depressing.

the Volt seems like a gigantic money pit of you think of it as a standalone thing. .but once you look at how the technology shoots off into other parts of our daily lives and spread the costs out over the next decade or so and think of the money spent by the government as tax rebates and it starts to look not so bad..

i don't know if they are a direct offshoot, but there are a lot of pretty sweet power tools coming out that use lithium ion batteries that take half as long to charge and last twice as long per charge while costing about the same as the old 18 volt tools they are replacing.. i'm sure there are advances in the electric motors in them that came from investing in projects like the Volt, too.. go to Home Depot and play with the new Dewalt 20 volt power tools and tell me they aren't sweet, but be prepared to boycott Black and Decker (parent company of Dewalt) if you are dead set if boycotting any company that is making money from this new technology.. you might wanna avoid any newer cell phones and laptop computers, too, because i'm sure the tech is in those, too..

derp- double post

and I still love my Elantra...

fast_eddie_72 wrote:

carguy123 wrote: I think the people who drive Prius' are retarded and should not be allowed on the public road.

That's a reasonable point of view. Well thought out and well argued. You make a compelling point.

100% agree

Ian F wrote:

carzan wrote:

(sniff, sniff...) I smell smug. Most of the Prius' around here are driven well above the speed limit...

Same way around here. They are more common than Camrys and Accords. An no more likely to be going slow than any other appliance-mobile. But they get double the mileage.

Seems appropriate to post the GRM review of the Volt again:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/new-cars/2012-37-volt/

In short, it rocks. It is seamless new technology that is bleeding edge----from GM! Yeah GM gets govt. help and needed a bailout, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that they have built the most sophisticated and usable electric / hybrid in the world.

Plenty of companies are subsidized--- but that devolves into politics so I'll leave that alone....

My mind is always boggled by the Volt hate from car guys. No, it isn't perfect for everyone......also No the powergrid won't shut down and the coal-fired powerplants won't see even a blip of extra activity because of these cars. We aren't talking about EVERY car in the world being electric, but boy, it sure would be nice if say 5% of our cars were.

I think it's a pretty amazing machine, and worthy of investment But that's just my .02

mguar wrote: In reply to Joe Gearin: Well said; You might also point out that Ford is also coming out with their version of the Volt this summer.. As far as the hate the Volt crowd; The less gas they use the more gas is around for ourhobby cars.. The more gas the lower the cost. Supply and demand..

Don't forget the (gasp!) Prius PHEV

http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/

mguar wrote: They do get double the gas mileage in typical rush hour though.

This is what I was referring to. The driving cycle around here will net you 25ish in a Camry, 50ish in a Prius

Joe Gearin wrote: Seems appropriate to post the GRM review of the Volt again: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/new-cars/2012-37-volt/ In short, it rocks.

Well when the tree huggers come knocking on the door of GRM with a lawsuit saying they promote the ICE and there for are indirectly responsible for global warming, they will have this post on this thread as their defense.

I have stated before my objections to the Volt. Won't go over it again.

Just to show I am not a troll, I will say this.

They are the second best looking hybrid or electric out there.

When they are actually positive in the pollution reduction arena I will throw in my nickel. Until then, you keep your battery assisted Cruze.

I want steam power or hydrogen power. Is that too much to ask ?

Commercially produced hydrogen is derived from fossil fuels. And you have to burn something to get steam, so it's in the same environmental bucket as an ICE.

It's the cost of being the cutting edge of technology and remaining competitive in a global market. If the technology was not developed here in the States, then it would probably just be developed overseas in Europe, Japan, or Korea with the help of their respective governments.

Schmidlap wrote: They say that they included a $106 million subsidy that was given to GM for the assembly plant where the Volt is made, but what they don't say is that the 2011 Chevy Malibu is also made there. Last I checked GM sold a heck of a lot more Malibus than Volts. Why attribute all of the subsidy to the Volt? Why not spread it out over the 100,000+ Malibus that are sold each year too? I haven't looked at any of the other things they reference, but I suspect it will also contain a lot of similar "facts". This is a ridiculous article by a group whose sole purpose is to criticize public policy. While it raises a good point about the amount of money the government is throwing around, raining hatred down on the Volt because of it is stupid. Bob

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Schmidlap wrote: This article is so biased it is ridiculous. The incentives will be paid out over 15+ years, but they attribute them all to the first year of a vehicle. A lot of the grants they are citing don't have anything to do with the Volt: From the article: "If those manufacturers awarded incentives to produce batteries the Volt may use are included in the analysis, the potential government subsidy per Volt increases to $256,824. For example, A123 Systems has received extensive state and federal support, and bid to be a supplier to the Volt, but the deal instead went to Compact Power. The $256,824 figure includes adding up the subsidies to both companies." So A123 Systems makes batteries, bid to sell those batteries to GM for the Volt but didn't get the contract, but their government subsidies can be attributed to the Volt? Talk about grasping at straws. Why not say that Nissan got $300 million in state subsidies to build the Titan in Mississippi, the Titan is an automobile just like the Volt, so naturally we should attribute that $300 million to the 6000 Volts made, so now the number is a whopping $316,000 in subsidies per Volt! Do they not realize that A123 Systems makes batteries for other automakers and a lot of non-automotive applications? They say that they included a $106 million subsidy that was given to GM for the assembly plant where the Volt is made, but what they don't say is that the 2011 Chevy Malibu is also made there. Last I checked GM sold a heck of a lot more Malibus than Volts. Why attribute all of the subsidy to the Volt? Why not spread it out over the 100,000+ Malibus that are sold each year too? I haven't looked at any of the other things they reference, but I suspect it will also contain a lot of similar "facts". This is a ridiculous article by a group whose sole purpose is to criticize public policy. While it raises a good point about the amount of money the government is throwing around, raining hatred down on the Volt because of it is stupid. Bob

But the FACT is, the Malibu has been produced at that plant for a while, and requires a different assembly line entirely. You can't assume they used ANY of that grant for the Malibu line, because it's more than likely they did not.

Jay, I have a bridge to sell you if ur interested

I assume there are kickbacks and payoffs involved in this transaction...

racerfink wrote: But the FACT is, the Malibu has been produced at that plant for a while, and requires a different assembly line entirely. You can't assume they used ANY of that grant for the Malibu line, because it's more than likely they did not.

If you're going to write FACT in big letters, at least make sure you're going tell us a fact. The Hamtramck plant where the Volt is now made used to make Buick Lucernes and Cadillac DTS'. The Malibu was made and continues to be made in Kansas City.

But that's just me nitpicking, sorry.

Since you're not going to let me attribute ANY of the $106 million towards the Malibu, I'm only going to let you attribute $7 million of that $106 towards the 6000 Volts that have already been made. Why $7 million? The $106 million is going to be paid out over 15 years if GM maintains a certain level of employment at that plant, regardless of what vehicle is being made there to maintain that required level of employment. Since the Volt has only been in production for one year, that's 1/15 of $106 million. Spreading that over 6000 cars that's $1166 per car, not the $17,666 that the article claims. If GM stops making vehicles at that plant, they stop getting money. Did GM get tax credits for the skilled tradesmen and engineers working to set up the line before production started? I suppose it's possible, but since it will be a much lower number than the number of production workers on the line and the tax credit is tied to the number of workers, it will also be much less than $7 million per year.

But are you absolutely sure that the Volt and Malibu don't share an assembly line, or at least parts of the line, like the paint shop, or the body shop where the majority of work is done by standard industrial robots? I've seen a few assembly lines where two very different vehicles are produced on the same line. I've never been in an assembly plant that had two separate paint shops. Because of the incredibly strict standards for clean air inside the paint shop (and emissions from the paint shop) separate lines have always shared a paint shop. If you've seen otherwise, please let me know.

Since i don't want to assume they share any part of the line, I'll say they don't. But do you really think all of the money that GM got was spent on just the actual assembly lines? I'm willing to bet that delivery docks, train tracks, maintenance cribs, HVAC systems, power and IT systems, engineering/administration offices, cafeterias, access roads, and a whole host of other systems that GM more than likely updated while preparing the plant for the Volt are not specific to just one assembly line but are shared by the entire plant. They probably also use the same robots to assemble the vehicles, so those could be swapped between lines as well.

So again, the article is incredibly poorly written.

Bob

sitting here at work still... I figured I'd point out something:

Until the Volt project was launched, electric cars were going nowhere fast because of current (pun) battery limitations up until now.

The most successful elec tech car in the Prius when designed used pretty much only current generation battery technology already in existance.

To be viable, batteries would need a forced 2 generation leap at least to be useful today, and the only way that was going to happen is an epoch in research, or a money infusion forcing it along.

The cost is not without very clear explanation in my mind. Wether or not a justifyable expense of the government, is up for discussion. I was excited that GM was willing before they were in immediate bankrupcy danger to still start fronting the money for this project years ago.

wasn't the first generation of prius an echo with lead acid batteries

madmallard wrote: sitting here at work still... I figured I'd point out something: Until the Volt project was launched, electric cars were going nowhere fast because of current (pun) battery limitations up until now. The most successful elec tech car in the Prius when designed used pretty much only current generation battery technology already in existance. To be viable, batteries would need a forced 2 generation leap at least to be useful today, and the only way that was going to happen is an epoch in research, or a money infusion forcing it along. The cost is not without very clear explanation in my mind. Wether or not a justifyable expense of the government, is up for discussion. I was excited that GM was willing before they were in immediate bankrupcy danger to still start fronting the money for this project years ago.

yeah, it's not like Obama told GM to throw some batteries and an electric motor into a car and put it up for sale as a part of the bailout.. the R&D on the technology that went into the volt can be traced back almost 2 decades- they were working in this even when they were making money hand over fist selling $45k 4X4 pickups and SUV's to people that live in the suburbs.. the bailout just pushed the schedule ahead a little bit.