http://gas2.org/2008/05/07/vw-confirms-1l-concept-will-become-reality-in-2010/

All Electric and Electric Hybrids, look at the basic physics of overall energy consumption. The overall energy consumption is power from the grid stored in a battery and/or from a fuel. The overall energy needed to get a car from point A to point B is determined by its coefficient of drag and weight. From one US gallon of fuel or about 7.3 lb (using above as an example) it is possible to get 235 miles. Is it possible to get 235 miles out of a 7.3 lb battery, no? How much more would a battery weigh thus consuming more energy to go 235 miles? Therein the weight of a battery is an issue, energy costs be it from the pump or from your electric bill. Battery power is not green because it uses more energy. We should be talking about conserving instead of spreading it around, heck “spreading it around” now where did hear that from. Throwing more money at this problem will not solve it any time soon yet the stimulus bill has $2,000,000,000 for a battery. And now no more Chevy Volt?

We need a new government, heck what a mess…

This is why governments cant run businesses, the inability to think in the long term. Using this logic there would be no such thing as television, cell phones, or computers, or almost any other technological inovation for that matter.

Ford now owns the SUV and truck market. How is Obomba (the spelling is intentional) going to deal with that, the competition obviously cant be tolerated. Will he legislate the vehicles out of existance, or tax gas untill no one can afford to drive them.

The firing of Wagoner resulted in a five point jump in Obomba’s approval numbers. The usefull idiots are in the majority.

I agree government intrusion has significantly impaired the Big 3 to compete with other auto companies, but the lack of wage competition tied to productivity between the Big 3 is and still will be its downfall. When the UAW owns the employees of the Big 3, what incentive do they have to produce a quality product? Sure, the management could have said no to UAW contractual demands, but how long can a company sit idle costing millions of dollars a day when the public relations friendly, cheaper short term alternative is legalized extortion? This is a classic case of letting the inmates run the asylum coming back to bite them in the backside.

I know that spreading the blame to union leadership and employees is unpopular in a day where demonizing CEO’s for all the world’s troubles is chic now, but running under this business model is a text book loser. Competition fuels innovation. If the UAW thinks they know how to run an auto manufacturing plant, Ron Gettelfinger should be the next CEO of GM. I’d give that business model about 2 weeks before going belly-up.

On a side note: Obama announcing Chrysler had 30 days to finalize their deal with Fiat has destroyed any chance for a favorable outcome for them. Fiat will be able to ask for the moon and get it, plus a few tax dollars extra to take it off the government’s hands.

Central controllers are by nature risk-averse. And so the more of it we have, the more collective CYA behavior we’ll get. Why take risk when you can get paid for delivering the status-quo?

By no means am I an expert on the Volt or its viability. But there’s decades of evidence against the efficacy of central planning.

This is where the Obama experimant with GM will fail, I suspect that he did not like the GM plan because to many union jobs would be lost and he would rather run the company into the ground then suggest that some union jobs are lost. If it all goes south he can try to save face with the union and blame GM

We have heard, (not confirmed) that the government is doing away with all SUV’s and trucks…. Europe here we come in our little vehicles.

More likely, aborted. At nearly full term.

Go Figure…

I don’t know what their angle is on this one in the fascist takeover of this country, but it seems like the truly gov’t-esque answer should be “The Volt may not make money? No problem: subsidize the purchase price so it’s more affordable.”

You never know….. I can’t believe President CEO will let such a big chunk of votes go away. That’s it. Votes are more important that anything else.

5% of the people of the world (US) use 25% of the resources. When the jobs program that is big auto (and ancillary industry) dies, we shall be using significantly less.

Better tighten the belt.

Maybe the resultant shockwave will produce a “good crisis” worldwide large enough for TOTUS to fulfill the real (and larger) ambition. How does TOTOTW sound?