Reading the headlines this morning, I see where General (Government) Motors has decided to halt the production of the Chevy Volt. They say they were looking to sell 45,000 Volts this year and so far, through 2 months, they have sold 1626. By my calculations they are behind schedule by 5,874 units or 13% of projection. This after General Electric (I’m sure you remember GE, the company that is such a huge backer of our current White House occupant, the company that took tax dollars and sent production to China, the company that paid NO taxes last year, the company who’s president was on President Obama’s jobs council and sent jobs to China, that GE) told their employees who drove company cars or were given car allowances, they would only be able to drive Chevy Volts. Any thing else the company wouldn’t pay for.
Now the Chevy Volt was touted by GM and our current administration as this wondrous end all, be all car. One that would run on only electricity, save the environment, cure cancer and defeat islamo-fascism, Now I’m certain that the build quality of the car is acceptable. I haven’t heard of the bumpers falling off or there being unacceptable gaps where parts come together. The fact that the car will just catch on fire is probably due to inherent design flaws rather than shoddy construction. So don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not ragging on the folks who actually build the cars. But lets face facts. Who the hell wants to spend $45,000 on a car that can go about 35 miles on a single charge? I couldn’t make it to work and back on a single charge. While my employer is an OK outfit and is in fact a quasi governmental agency, I don’t believe they are going to install a charging station for me so I can charge the damn thing up and get back home, and even if they did, I’m willing to bet they are going to make it a pay station. They may be willing to pay for my coffee, I don’t think they are going to supplement my commuting expenses. Shoot, if they would do that, why not have them pay for my tires or 70% of my insurance since to and from work is probably about 70% of my mileage.
Let’s face it, once again, government central planning can’t dictate what the consumer is willing to pay for in a society where they still have free choice. Sure, in the old USSR everyone drove a piece of crap Moskvitch or Volga, but then they didn’t really have any other choice. Here in the US, we are not forced to drive what our “betters” might want us to.
When free choice is at play, the market will dictate what will be successful.
Now a conspiracy nut might think that the current administration was trying to rig the game by colluding to raise the price of gas in order to force the market to seek something like the Volt. They might look at the fact that our current President’s energy secretary is on the record for wanting American gas prices to be similar to those in Europe as being confirmation of same. They might take the Presidents own words of not wanting the price to rise so fast (not that he didn’t want it to rise, he just didn’t want them to rise so fast) as further verification. (Fast rises make people mad ya’ know, while slow gradual rises don’t engender hue and outcry.) This same nut might even look at the Administration’s active efforts to hold down domestic oil production so we would be more dependent on costly foreign oil as more evidence.
Once again, Big Government Radical Leftists in conjunction with the Radical Environmentalists (you know them, the folks who used to be the communist/socialists before the fall of the USSR) have tried to socially engineer our country in the direction they think we must go. And yet again their efforts have proven to be 180 degrees out of phase with America.
Now I wouldn’t mind these libtards building and marketing these vehicles, as long as they did it with their own money. If they think their idea’s time has come, they should put their own money at risk and produce it. If they are right, they will become bazillionaires. And I will be happy for them. Honest!
But why do they have to use your and my tax money? I don’t believe the technology is where it needs to be for America to embrace an electric car. I’m not opposed to an electric car on principle. I’m opposed to it because it doesn’t meet my needs as it exists today. When you build me a car that will run 300 miles on a charge and will recharge in 5 minutes. One that is fun to drive, well then sign me up.
Until then, just put your leg warmers back on and get the hell outta my face and quit wasting my tax dollars.
Volt workers, I’m sorry you are out of work, but don’t blame the American public, blame the dumb ass central planner mentality that thought they could force this on the public in the first place. They should have spent the money and brain power on developing more oil here in the US at a cheaper price so folks would buy more regular cars. Then you would still be working building them.
Or at least that’s the way an old farm boy sees it.
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