Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Government Motors, again

According to this article, GM doesn't intend to make money on the Chevy Volt.
General Motors doesn't have any money to play around with these days, but new CEO Fritz Henderson is willing to let at least one vehicle program's fiduciary requirements slide. Even though Henderson said recently that all GM models will need to "pay the rent," the money-losing Chevrolet Volt program will not be held to that standard. Apparently, the Volt is kind of like that really cool, constantly broke college roommate that never got kicked out because he had the best music.
How is it that Chevy can research, market and sell a car that they know won't make any money?

Oh, yeah! They're using government money. That is to say, my money and yours.

The quicker GM goes bankrupt and gets sold off, the better for the American taxpayer.

1 comment:

Rivrdog said...

I predict that the Volt will never make it to the showrooms on GM's timeline.

Current pre-production testing on the prototypes has revealed that GM was far too optimistic on it's claims about the vehicle's battery, which is delivering less than half the "mileage to first gas engine use" figure of 40 miles that they touted in all their ads.

There is probably severe throat-cutting in the advertising division right now, trying to come up with a workable plan to tell folks that the car won't make it into town and back on a charge.

That makes it no better than the Prius, which, despite it's way-too-spendy battery, still reduces the fuel demanded for overall driving by a significant amount.

Baby steps first. That is the lesson that GM needs to learn. What GM should have done is produce a vehicle with similar stats as the Prius, and get it out the door for $15-20K.

Now they are going to be stuck with a lemon of a plug-in hybrid that only the green ego people will buy, instead of the millions which need to be sold.