NY Times: Electric Lemon

[Monte_RCMS]

lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=555347

NYT op-ed: The Chevrolet Volt is a government funded electric lemon

Washington Examiner, by Charlie Spiering

Original Article

washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/nyt-op-ed-the-chevrolet-volt-is-a-government-funded-electric-lemon-99633209.html

Posted 7/30/2010

Today, President Obama will likely tout the Chevrolet Volt, as he takes a victory lap around Detroit celebrating the ‘saved’ jobs thanks to the government bailouts afforded to the auto industry.

Edward Niedermeyer, the editor of ‘The Truth About Cars’ roundly trashes the Chevrolet Volt in a New York Times op-ed, arguing that it is a taxpayer funded mistake. Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants

NY Times op-ed article:

nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30neidermeyer.html?_r=1

Excerpt:

For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks … but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.

Nor did the government or G.M. decide to sell the Volt at a loss, which, paradoxically, might have been the best hope for making it profitable. Consider the Prius. Back in 1997, Toyota began selling the high-tech, first-of-its-kind car in Japan for about $17,000, even though each model cost $32,000 to build.

 

[didymus]

Here’s an article from Reason magazine for anyone who thinks electric cars of hybrids are actually good for the environment.

 

[Dale_M]

New York Times editorial:

By taking a loss on the first several years of Prius production, Toyota was able to hold its price steady, and then sell the gas-sippers in huge numbers when oil prices soared. Today a Prius costs roughly the same in inflation-adjusted dollars as those 1997 models did, and it has become the best-selling Toyota in the United States after the evergreen Camry and Corolla.

Instead of following Toyota’s model, G.M. decided to make the Volt more affordable by offering a $350-a-month lease over 36 months. But that offer allows only 12,000 miles per year, or about 33 miles per day. Assuming you charged your Volt every evening, giving you 40 miles of battery power, and wanted to keep below the mileage limit, you would rarely use its expensive range-extending gas engine. No wonder the Volt’s main competition, the Nissan Leaf, forgoes the additional combustion engine — and ends up costing $8,000 less as a result.

I’ve had doubts about the Volt for a long time. Not only does it cost too much, but its performance is far less than what Americans are used to, and this will seriously hurt its appeal. I think GM decided produce the Volt simply for prestige - they didn’t want Japanese car makers to appear more technologically advanced.

But I will argue against the NYT’s position. Perhaps the Prius only succeed because of the spike in oil prices, but if so, then the success of the Prius is a fluke. And GM could hardly use Toyota’s success as a strategy, because neither company could or can predict the next oil shock.

And I think Nissan is making a major mistake in not adding an internal combustion engine. Its electric range is too limited, and owners of it may find that the $8000 savings by not having a gasoline engine on board is a case of penny-wise, pound-foolish. I suspect there will be a fair amount of buyer’s remorse, when it comes to the Leaf and that will severely hurt sales after the first year.

 

[didymus]

I’ve had doubts about the Volt for a long time. Not only does it cost too much, but its performance is far less than what Americans are used to, and this will seriously hurt its appeal. I think GM decided produce the Volt simply for prestige - they didn’t want Japanese car makers to appear more technologically advanced.

But I will argue against the NYT’s position. Perhaps the Prius only succeed because of the spike in oil prices, but if so, then the success of the Prius is a fluke. And GM could hardly use Toyota’s success as a strategy, because neither company could or can predict the next oil shock.

As an outside observer (I don’t drive) I suspect the Prius became a look-at-me-I-love-the-Earth badge. Last year ?] they came out with a model that looked more like a normal car and nobody bought it.
What good is driving a Prius is nobody knows it’s a Prius?

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

I think GM decided produce the Volt simply for prestige

I think GM did it as part of an under the table deal to get bail out money JMO?

I heard on the radio yesterday that we yes me and you paid the Republic of Korea 150 million dollars to make the batteries for this Obama lemon.