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Chevy Volt costs $40,000 to build.
- Thread starter obeygiant
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Does anybody here remember the urban (and rural) legend about the guy who "invented" the 100 mpg carburetor, which was either bought from him by the "oil companies" who then "destroyed the blueprints," or who was murdered by them? I had people tell me that story many times.
Last week I ran into the 2011 version. A guy looked at me with a straight face and said, "Did you hear about that German couple who invented a new kind of battery that was a hundred times as efficient as what we have now, and GM bought the rights from them, and then buried it?"
Some things never change. Like credulity.
Last week I ran into the 2011 version. A guy looked at me with a straight face and said, "Did you hear about that German couple who invented a new kind of battery that was a hundred times as efficient as what we have now, and GM bought the rights from them, and then buried it?"
Some things never change. Like credulity.
Ah, but GM did kill the electric car, in the 90's. It was called the EV-1.
Look it up in Wiki, and be disgusted by GM, the Feds and the government of California.
Well, sure. I knew that. Surely you understand this legend is a different animal?
No oil company or GM defenses here!
If I've not said it all ready, you can buy a $20k car that gets 30-40 mpg. The Volt is $40k. $20k is a lot of gas to burn through before breaking even on expenses. And approximately eight years into it the car will have a $2000-3000 battery liability.
Every automaker receives tax breaks or some form of financial aid from the state and federal government. Mercedes got tax breaks, etc to build their plant in Alabama, BMW did in SC, Toyota in Kentucky, Texas, etc. It's why the Chevy Sonic and Buick Verano is being built in Orion, MI instead of Spring Hill, TN because the town of Orion and Michigan gave GM better tax deals than TN and SH. Ford got the same grant GM got for retooling their factories for green vehicles, etc.
This article is just another smear campaign against the Volt. Hate to break it to everyone, but every US built car has the government giving money to the automaker or some kind of financial aid. Every car in the world costs taxpayers something because every government gives companies some kind of financial deal to build their cars, parts, etc in their country, state, etc.
I would extend it to every freaking company gets this treatment. It's why Apple put their data center in NC. They got tax breaks from NC! Same with Boeing, Amazon, etc!
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Not yet. We have to wait until I get mine. My company is replacing all of its company cars with Chevy Volts. I should be getting mine sometime in the Spring/Summer. I have to wait until my Impala has a few more miles on it before I order one.
I've read about this in a few auto-blogs etc and I think the $250K number is very misleading - much as some of the unit cost estimates for the F-22 have been (though that program is in worse shape than that of the Volt). Also, like the F-22, the Volt is a political football.
The $250K amount arrived at assumes that all the subsidies from which the Volt may benefit will go solely to the Volt program and not to any other program, now or in the future. Both of these assumptions are very, very debatable. It is almost certain, for example, that the battery technology used in the Volt will find its way into other cars and non-automotive products.
It's pretty much certain that the Volt is selling at a loss right now, much as the Prius did early on. But the $250K unit cost estimate resides at the extremely pessimistic end of the range of guesses, and as such it's probably way off-base.
My biggest beef with the $250K claim is not that it seems inaccurate, but that the estimate appears to have been created with the deliberate intention of making the Volt seem like a financial disaster - and that this intention was politically motivated.
Yes, a froth-at-the-mouth editorial about a newspaper article that is 3 months old. Most Americans buy the vast majority of their consumer good from China (and many of our GM cars and trucks come from Canada/Mexico), so why is the controversial Volt the "last straw"?
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It also assumes the Volt will stop selling. That figure was calculated with the amount of Volt's already sold. As more are sold, that already misleading number goes down.
Not to mention GM is moving a lot of production back to the US. The Sonic is built in the US( only subcompact to be built here), GM is reopening their Spring Hill, TN assembly plant to assemble Equinox's to keep up with demand.
While I would not be surprised to see the Volt being assembled in China, it doesn't mean all Volt production is going to China.
It's also worth pointing out that the US has its own protectionist schemes like the Chicken Tax, which was designed to destroy VW's light truck sales and has remained on the books since the 60s, effectively preventing foreign manufacturers from selling light trucks in the US without some legal gymnastics. It's gotten so silly that Ford has had to also circumvent the same law (originially put in place to protect US manufacturers like Ford) in order to bring its Transit Connect commercial van as a "passenger vehicle", resulting in a bizzarre importation process:
That makes tremendous sense, right?
The Shame.
That being said, I'd much rather a Tesla Model S with one of their Glass Roofs. Support real innovation in Electric Car space.
No, not a failure. Awesome car. Test drive one. You will be amazed. This is not just another prius. The Volt is so much better, quieter, smoother. Totally worth the money. And with the tax breaks and the the ca HOV sticker...
Apparently not too many people agree with you.
USAToday.com said:
http://content.usatoday.com/communi...elling-chevy-volts-for-5-weeks/1#.T2ZGaZjYtno
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I test drove one at an auto show.
Was not that impressed tbh. Also, the interior for a 40k car should be better than what the volt provides
The problem with the Volt it that it misses the "sweet spot" financially. The Prius hits the sweet spot. In order to expand the electric/hybrid market you need volumes to generate the economies to scale to make batteries cheaper and a niche car like the Volt will not help that. You can almost buy two Priuses for the price of a Volt. Even if you never used a drop of gas in a Volt, the most a Volt will save you over a Prius is about $1200/year assuming you drove 15k miles/year. If will take a long time to pay for the $15K price premium of the Volt.
While electric/hybrid vehicles will help reduce gasoline consumption, they won't solve a lot of transportation needs. We should be encouraging diesel and natural gas powered vehicles.
While electric/hybrid vehicles will help reduce gasoline consumption, they won't solve a lot of transportation needs. We should be encouraging diesel and natural gas powered vehicles.
Coal is dirty and non profits want to stop using it, which I agree with
But they don't want us to use nuclear power either, despite the fact that it's the best way of creating energy known
Really just poking fun at impractical environmentalists.
The plan is to encourage EV owners to charge at night through Smartgrid programs and time of use metering.
Most people will drive their EV's during the day anyway so they're not charging during peak hours. They'll be charging at night when everyone's lights are off and everyone's asleep and load is small. Since the vehicle charging is off-peak, you don't have to build more coal plants. You just use existing infrastructure more efficiently.
Yeah that's because non-profits like Greenpeace don't understand what baseload generation is and think the US can run 100% off solar or wind.
The baseload choice in the US is either coal, nuclear, or natural gas. Everything else is supplementary.