Posted by
Warner Todd Huston on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 12:40:07 PM
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every time we turn around these days President Obama is
touting the idea that the "future" of America lies in green energy
and one of those greenie ideas is an Obama favorite: electric cars. Not to let
him down, Government Motors has obliged by pushing the Chevy Volt as the car of
the future. But thus far the future looks a lot like GM's present; a whole lot
of failure leaving a whole lot of questions.
While Obama continues to tout his -- meaning our --
investment in GM others are not so sanguine. For instance, billionaire Warren
Buffet has invested in a Chinese electric car company instead of putting his
considerable investment acumen to use with the Chevy Volt. Buffet may be a dolt
on taxes, but apparently his investing senses haven't gotten any spark from the
Volt.
One of the reasons that Buffet went for the Chinese company
is that some of its technology seems superior to various systems of the Chevy
Volt. According to Forbes,
Buffet has targeted the company because the, "car can travel 186 miles,
more than the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, on a single charge with a top speed
of 87 miles per hour."
Naturally, sales of the Chevy
Volt are dismal and have been for
quite some time. Sadly, some reviewers are saying that the Volt is
overly
flashy and techy and isn't
a good value for the money, so no help for GMs sales record there.
Even lefty profs at Berkeley could see that the
Volt was a horrible investment. Berkeley physicist Leon J. Schipper,
for one, was not enamored of the Volt.
Analyzing the Chevy Volt, the new sedan that is supposed to
go 40 miles on batteries and then use a gasoline engine, he calculated that
because of inefficiencies in electricity generation, its fuel economy was no
better than a Toyota Prius hybrid running on gasoline, while its price was
roughly double that of the Prius.
"Does the extra $20,000 justify the overall fuel and
possible carbon dioxide savings?" he asked. "If two drivers switched
to Prius, the overall savings of oil likely would be larger than one driver
switching to a Volt, for the same money."
So, why should the American people sit idly by while GM
pumps even more money into the Volt, a car consumers don't want? Maybe because
wealthy
environmental activists think it's wonderful and seem to imagine that
sales will grow up from the ground as if by magic.
Great, isn't it? We have political considerations
programming GM instead of having sales and technological reasons guiding the
company We The People bailed out. Sounds like a good deal for the American
people's Government Motors, doesn't it?
When all is said and done, it seems that even as GM execs
are talking up the Volt, GM CEO Dan Akerson, a Chevy Volt evangelist who refers
to GM's newest EV as "not a step forward, but a leap forward," led
the kick-off parade at a recent event riding in…..a
gas-guzzling 1960 Corvette!
When he had a chance to tout his supposedly favorite new
car, Akerson instead went for an old gas hog that gets
12 miles to the gallon.
Whatever is going on, none of it sounds good for Government
Motors' Chevy Volt, now does it?