Now is the time at SDA when we watch the giant snowball of stupid gather momentum…
Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as US$49,000 on each Volt it builds…
Not so fast, Einstein. If you can’t turn a profit, then go for volume!
The Pentagon is buying Chevrolet Volts to help “green up” the military—while propping up sales of the bailed-out automaker’s most politicized car.
Yeah.
(h/t trappedintrudopia)
Obama’s Lada.
Except that whoever figures out an economical electric car first, will own the market. Will it be GM, or one of the other major manufacturers, or a newcomer like Tesla? Who can say.
But the fact of the matter is that we are using petroleum at an ever increasing rate. And regardless of whether or not you’re one of the lunatics who seems to think you know better than every single major scientific body on the planet in not believing that climate change is the result of our energy use, you should at least acknowledge that we’re probably going to run out of cheap gas in the not-to-distant future.
In 1981 a PC that was about as powerful as a digital watch cost about $3000. Now you can buy a netbook that is about 1000X more powerful for around $300. See how that worked? Advanced technology was once expensive, but eventually dropped in price. It only dropped in price because companies had the vision to develop it.
Once again, your lack of vision and foresight astounds.
Oh hey, but what I really came here for was to snottily post this link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/tuition-fees-rising-faster-than-incomes-and-inflation-report-warns/article4535869/
And say something like “hashtag of the entitlement generation”… but then say, oh whoops, kids today are getting kinda screwed and are not in fact the entitled ones.
Go peddle your drivel somewhere else John. That is unless you can provide a factual argument. One that justifies the initial, and continual production of the Volt.
Bear in mind that IBM made money on each 1981 computer sold.
It’s people who think just like you do, who made/ make the decisions to pour gazillions of taxpayer funds down any of 47 climate change ratholes.
#U€¥ +?F
“In 1981 a PC that was about as powerful as a digital watch cost about $3000”.
The difference, John, is that it didn’t cost the PC maker $52,000 to create and sell a $3000 PC.
Just finished Stephen Job’s bio. When asked about the influence that the computers had had during his life he commented on how little they had influenced education thru the classroom. I am sure that if he had lived he would have tackled that issue. He stated that there was no longer any need for textbooks and that cirriculum could be student specificlly designed and interactive.
I bring this up as particularly in Canada, unions still carry a lot of political power, especially in education and health care. Politics supercedes the economics of the Volt as they do in much of our societies.
I hope all the ME hawks get a volt to park in the Pentagon parking lot.
Re: “Spread out over the 21,500 Volts that GM has sold since the car’s introduction in December 2010, the development and tooling costs average just under US$56,000 per car. That figure will, of course, come down as more Volts are sold.”
File this under “no shit, Sherlock”. I wish GM well but there is no way they will make a profit on such vehicles until they have proven to customers they will be reliable, cost less to operate over the long term and solve the issue of battery replacement given batteries finite lifespan. Then there is also the obscene subsidy required to sell the car.
I discussed the battery replacement issue with a GM rep at the recent Toronto auto show; the response was “we expect the cost of replacement batteries will have dropped substantially within the next 5 to 10 years” (I’m paraphrasing). My response was “put that in writing”.
Nice car though. I met an owner who was very happy with how it drove.
Meanwhile Toyota has a profitable plug in hybrid and Nissan has a profitable all electric vehicle. Obama is a genius I swear!
“Except that whoever figures out an economical electric car first, will own the market.”
Electric cars are _simple_, any small industrial economy can make one within months if they care to. Heck I’m pretty sure you could re-tool any small car into an electric one for little money if you needed one in a hurry.
The single/only problem with electric cars of major engineering/scientific note is that battery technology stinks. Specifically it’s power density (the amount of energy it stores per Kg) is so much less that petrol, and the time it take to recharge so long, that it’s wholly uncompetitive for most purposes.
“think you know better than every single major scientific body on the planet in not believing that climate change is the result of our energy use”
As a matter of fact, very few _scientists_ (outside those being bought by government money) believe this, since the solid evidence is WILDLY inconclusive one wonders what cool-aid you’ve been drinking.
There are only so many elements in the periodic table that can be used to make a battery and store energy. Like Fred2 said, there is no great mystery as to why electric cars have not advanced in over 40 years. It’s kinda like the internal combustion engine, improved yes, but not by a great leap.
Learn some physics John, then squawk about your BS (which applies to CAGW as well)
Thanks, Fred. Saved me some energy typing a response to John.
I had the pleasure at learning from a true conservationist/scientist/reasearcher in school back in the dark ages. He pointed out that historically any time some yahoo says we’re ruinning out of something, either (a) we find more, (b) we find a better way to make do with less or (c) we create another alternative. He cited many resources that were deemed ‘going away’ that were even more in abundance 10 years after blaring warnings. Or we found something else that worked better.
This man was a leader in solar energy/alternative sources, and knew then that energy storage for when you needed it was the 1st key, and effecient use of said energy was the 2nd key, and effective delivery of said energy to the end user was third.
Petrol-based energy is and will be number one for so many reasons for a long time to come.
“The problem with flower children in the 60’s is that they grew up to be blooming idiots” (anon.)
The Volt is basically a very expensive boat anchor. There is no way GM is losing only $50k per unit off
the dealer lot when you consider the whole thing was built with government slush funds. Then there is the
small matter of energy transmission and production investment needed in place before the supposed day
when a million bright eyed enviro families rush out and each buy two of these gems every year. This will
happen at the same time coal fired power plants are being demolished? And windmills are falling apart?
And solar taxpayer ripoffs are being sold for scrap?
“The Pentagon is buying Chevrolet Volts to help “green up” the military—while propping up sales of the bailed-out automaker’s most politicized car.”
These sales are NEW money injections into the double down of Stupid. Obama could provide Golf Cart Batteries to those of us keeping Score.
The Pentagon should not be paying for Material the Government has already paid for.. >3 times..
John, your statement is unscientific:
“And regardless of whether or not you’re one of the lunatics who seems to think you know better than every single major scientific body on the planet in not believing that climate change is the result of our energy use..”
You see, your validation of your claim of AGW rests on two axioms, both of which are totally false.
The first axiom is your claim of ‘every single major scientific body’ agrees with AGW. This is demonstrably false and has been shown to be false numerous times on this blog.
Your second axiom is your claim that any opposing views are due not to scientific data and analysis but to ‘lunacy’. This is also demonstrably false.
I’d suggest that you try to be more scientific and logical in your comments.
Didn’t the pentagon also get told to buy bio diesel or some other fairy fart fuel at some astronomical incremental cost?
Yeah… same crap happened in the mid eighties when the government tried to promote and boost the propane car as an alternative. There was fleet of garbage propane K-cars (Chryslers first attempt to reinvent itself) and they were truly garbage to drive. How many propane cars on the road now? So all of John’s talk about just wait and see is so much BS, if the market doesn’t like it- it won’t friggin sell no matter how much tax payer money is wasted on it.
@ John
“know better than every single major scientific body on the planet in not believing that climate change is the result of our energy use…..”
You are the perfect example of the brainwashing that clouds rational thought. The poster child of what Agenda 21 is working so hard to achieve. Unfortunately “your lack of vision” does not go beyond the garbage that has been pumped into you as your previous post on GOP bad and Democrats good showed. Pity that a good education and common sense are so incompatible. Common sense should tell you there are always 2 sides to a story. Study both sides and then make your own decision. You would probably see that the “lunatics” were right all along as the evidence the IPCC presented as fact is the genuine garbage. Of course that would take a bit of research on your part and brainwashed people are not strong on research. As far as tuition fees rising, cry me a river. Get a job to compensate. Experience the disbelief in your parents eyes that you are actually good for something.
The Chevy Volt has some startling parallels with JSF F-35 – government intervention, over-priced, limited range and riddled with technical issues.
Has vaunted American technology lost its way?
@ John
Watch this and then tell us what parts are wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ-4gnNz0vc
Sequester the Volt.
The problems with nutters like John, is they never stop to think that the government subsidies that go to fund these goofy electric cars, is forcefully taken from a single mother, working in a minimum wage waitress job.
At the DNC, Obama claimed there was 100 years of natural gas supply in the US. Earlier in his regime, Obama said the US was the Saudi Arabia of coal.
The oil sands, by themselves, contain enough supply to last at least our lifetimes.
And Government Motors is making Chevy Volts because ….?
“… the government subsidies that go to fund these goofy electric cars, is forcefully taken from a single mother, working in a minimum wage waitress job.” Except that its not. This 50% do not pay taxes. There is another post on this earlier.
The solution to this problem,and I’m sure President Obama has already thought of this, is to outlaw the sales of all other cars in the U.S.
The Volt/Lada would then sell like warmed-over hotcakes,and Prez O would be the hero of the Republic once again for “saving the American auto industry”!
C’mon,Prez, you know you really wanna do it!
Yes, it’s important that if you’re losing money with each car that you sell a lot of them.
Just basic business sense, right there.
Chris, You only have to make around $16K (after deductions I admit) in Canada to pay income tax, and everyone pays sales taxes. The 50% who don’t pay taxes only applies to the US. The US has a more prgressive tax system than Canada, lefties heads can commence to explode any time now.
set you free said: “And Government Motors is making Chevy Volts because ….?”
Because there are enough math challenged retards like john @1:36am out there that the Volt is a pretty good vote-getter in the “blue” state areas of the USA. Or was, until all those hippy-dippy wingnuts started having trouble finding a job the last three years.
The Toyota Prius and the Nissan Leaf or whatever kick the Volt’s @ss for mileage and cost. For that matter the Volkswagen TDI diesel gets nearly double the mileage any of these hybrid POS cars at ten grand less than any of these cars.
You want -real- mileage, get a motorcycle or a SmartCar. (I freakin’ hate DumbCars but they do get impressive mileage.)
These old OKIES know about the chevy volt economic model. Several years ago, two old ARKIES decided that they would make a killing in the market. They saw how hich the price of watermelons in Arkansas was. They decided to go to Oklahoma whaer there were cheap watermelons and take them back to Arkansas and make a killing. They bought a truck and went to Rush Springs, in Oklahoma, and bought a whole truck load of 500 watermelons at $3.00 a melon. They drove them back to Arkansas and sold them to the local market (hence a killing in the market) for $2.00 each. They counted up their money and determined that they lost $500 on their 500 watermelons. Then with a burst of inspitation, equaled only by GM and obama, one said to the other “all we really nead is a bigger truck.”
Well, all obaloney need is a bigger truck!
Back in the 1980s and early 90s, the US government bought thousands of Chevy Blazers and Chrysler K-cars in order to “bail out” those money losing corporations.
The Blazers were OK, but the K-cars were cheap garbage. On the other hand, we didn’t need more than cheap garbage. I wouldn’t be critical of the decision if it were based on a needs analysis rather than political rent seeking.
hich = high
inspitation = inspiration
SBT
“Nice car though. I met an owner who was very happy with how it drove.”
Posted by: Cyclist at September 11, 2012 10:49 AM
No one likes to admit they did something really stupid. When it comes time to trade it in there will be no doubt. If he keeps it for 10 years he will have to write a hefty cheque to have it taken away.
Stupendous car, the Volt.
You can go anywhere you want, provided your round trip is about 35-40km.
So what do commuters do, travelling from Surrey to Vancouver do?
GO downhill and push on the return trip?
Brilliant engineering…..
THis would be like yelling “Free Edsils in the 50’s, only you have to by them with tax payer funded money , besides your own.
Typically, the leftard moron forgets that the Chevy Volt runs on EEEvil coal, or maybe even more EEEvil plutonium.
Using grid power to run automobiles is stupid, even in the context of AGW panic.
@ DanBC
There seem to be a few misconceptions here. The Volt can go approx. 300 miles after the 25-50 miles the battery will power it, once the gasoline motor kicks in.