General Motors Green Revolution!!

[Zander]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

 

[MaggieMae]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

 

[westwall]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

The game is about efficiency. The company that builds the best car for the dollar will win.
EV's are horribly innefficient. They are toys for the rich if you havn't figured it out yet. A Tesla will set you back 100k right now, they hope to be able to sell one for 60k. I don't see your average family plunking down the cash for a BMW M class for a limited use vehicle, do you?

You can buy a real nice mid sized sedan for 17k that will do everything you need it to do for your average family and even if the price of gas rises to 5 bucks a gallon it will STILL be far cheaper than your average EV over a life of ten years. Do you not get that?

 

[Trajan]

Don't worry, Obama & the Democrats will make sure the Chevy Volt sales pick-up so they can pump & dump their GM stock onto the unsuspecting public. First they will run up oil prices & then they will use tax dollars to pay corporations to buy a bunch of Chevy Volts to up those sales figures.

GE Buys 12,000 Chevy Volts, Taxpayers Get Charged


BTW GE Capital also got a $Billion from TARP.

so thats 10K in subsidies we have to lay out. the charging stations are also problematic ala where to put them, the power required, cost, pay to install and maintain them etc etc...

In Alaska, for years the shopping malls have set up their parking lots with plug-in capability so vehicles can keep their engine blocks warm and batteries won't go dead. I assume that's an expense shared by the private retailers. I don't see locations for plug-in stations as being a problem at all. I'm sure there was a time when people were concerned where telephone polls would be located, too. Now we don't even notice them.

I am sorry, but I don't think telephones polls are not an apt analogy.

Absent the extreme conditions in Alaska in the lower 48, collectively, I'd say it is indeed a private venture. that doesn't seem to be the case or how some local gov's in conjunction with the fed's are or would go about it.

 

[Sallow]

do you mean every parking meter would have a fast charge plug in station?

Yep

and how would you propose going about that?Exactly?

In NYC? Shouldn't be all that difficult.

 

[Trajan]

What I'm getting from this thread, a day later, is that it's not acceptable that the federal government subsidized GM to develop the Volz as a startup venture, an alternative to burning gasoline, but it appears to be perfectly acceptable that the federal government has subsidized oil companies for decades, although extraction and production of oil has been a proven industry for well over a hundred years. Got it.

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

if they can build a product, GM OR those foreign entitles that are marketable, I am all for it.

we don't get back in the game funding boutique automobiles, that's for sure.

and your post ala oil subsidies for exploration etc. is a strawman imho, in that the differences say the royalties etc. paid by the oil co's back to the gov. if they pull oil etc. don't exist in the automobile marketplace.

 

[Trajan]

Yep

and how would you propose going about that?Exactly?

In NYC? Shouldn't be all that difficult.

I think you've skip several posts, as in how exactly?

 

[Trajan]

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

The game is about efficiency. The company that builds the best car for the dollar will win.
EV's are horribly innefficient. They are toys for the rich if you havn't figured it out yet. A Tesla will set you back 100k right now, they hope to be able to sell one for 60k. I don't see your average family plunking down the cash for a BMW M class for a limited use vehicle, do you?

You can buy a real nice mid sized sedan for 17k that will do everything you need it to do for your average family and even if the price of gas rises to 5 bucks a gallon it will STILL be far cheaper than your average EV over a life of ten years. Do you not get that?

I posted info. that speaks to the cost per unit watershed 30k is a big one.

 

[Sallow]

and how would you propose going about that?Exactly?

In NYC? Shouldn't be all that difficult.

I think you've skip several posts, as in how exactly?

Well, I am not an electrician..and I don't work for Con Edison..but there seems to be plenty of street lights.

I don't think the tech to construct charging stations/parking meter hybrids would be all that far from what goes into them.

 

[Trajan]

yea ok then.....

 

[MaggieMae]

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

The game is about efficiency. The company that builds the best car for the dollar will win.
EV's are horribly innefficient. They are toys for the rich if you havn't figured it out yet. A Tesla will set you back 100k right now, they hope to be able to sell one for 60k. I don't see your average family plunking down the cash for a BMW M class for a limited use vehicle, do you?

You can buy a real nice mid sized sedan for 17k that will do everything you need it to do for your average family and even if the price of gas rises to 5 bucks a gallon it will STILL be far cheaper than your average EV over a life of ten years. Do you not get that?

What makes you think the hybrid cars won't go through a number of improvements, the manufacturers will figure out cost saving measures, and eventually the cost will come down just as it does for any new invention? My first computer, a satellite desktop with bulky dual disk drives which tied into a mainframe cost just under $12,000 in 1977. Fast forward through 35 years of improvements, popularity and demand, resulting cost cutting at rocket speed because of competition, and you can now buy a laptop to carry under your arm that does a gazillion more functions for under $500. I expect the same thing will happen with electric cars.

 

[Trajan]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

 

[MaggieMae]

No Maggie - This thread is about the Volt's failure to sell - period.

GM has a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, requires tens of millions in tax incentives to sell, and which has sold less than 1000 units since its roll out.

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

if they can build a product, GM OR those foreign entitles that are marketable, I am all for it.

we don't get back in the game funding boutique automobiles, that's for sure.

and your post ala oil subsidies for exploration etc. is a strawman imho, in that the differences say the royalties etc. paid by the oil co's back to the gov. if they pull oil etc. don't exist in the automobile marketplace.

The royalties are now treated as taxes which can be written off dollar-for-dollar. Read this:

What Obama should know about ending oil subsidies | Grist

 

[Big Black Dog]

it took a lot of GREEN to buy my 2010 Chevrolet Avalanche and it takes a lot of GREEN to fill the gas tank but I love it. It's a great ride.

 

[Trajan]

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

if they can build a product, GM OR those foreign entitles that are marketable, I am all for it.

we don't get back in the game funding boutique automobiles, that's for sure.

and your post ala oil subsidies for exploration etc. is a strawman imho, in that the differences say the royalties etc. paid by the oil co's back to the gov. if they pull oil etc. don't exist in the automobile marketplace.

The royalties are now treated as taxes which can be written off dollar-for-dollar. Read this:

What Obama should know about ending oil subsidies | Grist

are you referring this?

All of this matters, because in the 1950's, the Saudi Arabian and other Persian Gulf governments wanted to increase their share of oil revenues from U.S. based oil companies, and were considering raising their royalty payments. Royalty payments are like licensing fees that oil companies pay to the countries they drill in for the right extract the oil. The IRS treats them as a deductible business expense.

The U.S. State Department, eager to keep the Saudi government happy and the oil in the hands of U.S. companies, negotiated a deal whereby the governments would raise their royalty payments the companies had to pay them, but to reclassify them as income taxes. In the end, these governments collected more money from the oil companies, but the oil companies got a dollar-for-dollar reduction in their U.S. tax liabilities, so that the net effect was a reduction in U.S. tax revenues -- to the tune of $15 billion total in just the years between 2002 and 2008 -- while the oil companies themselves came out no worse, or perhaps slightly better off.

 

[Sallow]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

 

[Trajan]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

we are decades from creating a battery with the memory and changer capacity for a car and the ability to integrate it, that will make it marketable. if you have something, please share.

 

[westwall]

And I've already said that GM didn't expect it to be profitable immediately. I guess I'll have to find that article now. However, are we supposed to just sit around while China, Japan and South Korea start reaping all the profits (and jobs) down the line? At what point does the United States get back in the game--regarding just about EVERYTHING?

The game is about efficiency. The company that builds the best car for the dollar will win.
EV's are horribly innefficient. They are toys for the rich if you havn't figured it out yet. A Tesla will set you back 100k right now, they hope to be able to sell one for 60k. I don't see your average family plunking down the cash for a BMW M class for a limited use vehicle, do you?

You can buy a real nice mid sized sedan for 17k that will do everything you need it to do for your average family and even if the price of gas rises to 5 bucks a gallon it will STILL be far cheaper than your average EV over a life of ten years. Do you not get that?

What makes you think the hybrid cars won't go through a number of improvements, the manufacturers will figure out cost saving measures, and eventually the cost will come down just as it does for any new invention? My first computer, a satellite desktop with bulky dual disk drives which tied into a mainframe cost just under $12,000 in 1977. Fast forward through 35 years of improvements, popularity and demand, resulting cost cutting at rocket speed because of competition, and you can now buy a laptop to carry under your arm that does a gazillion more functions for under $500. I expect the same thing will happen with electric cars.

Oh they will and i have no problem with hybrids. I have a huge problem with EV's. The grid would need to be rebuilt to support any significant number of them. That will cost a few billion, then you would have to build a couple dozen more power plants and the chances of the enviro crowd letting those through is slim. The problems with EV's are enormous.

Hybrids, though I don't have a problem with. I would like to see them use a better battery tech and that will come. Hydrogen vehicles (if the hydrogen seperation issues can be rectified) would be the bee's knee's however. Zero pollution at the pipe and hopefully very little in the making as well.

 

[westwall]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

 

[Sallow]

we are and I am fully behind massively funding R&D into those very mechanisms that will make the elect. or hydrogen car a marketable reality. However, we are pursing it and any honest scientist in the know, will tell you, we are decades away.
When it becomes viable, you will see a massive influx of free market entrepreneurs and established co's moving to make it happen.

Naw.

It's big oil that wants to squash this baby quick.

We aren't "decades" behind this tech. China's got a car ready to roll out..and several countries have hydro cars.

Why is it you folks allways blame Big Oil? The oil companies are heavily invested in this tech too or hadn't you noticed. The oil companies aren't stupid. They realise that they need to work on alternatives. Oil and Natural gas are however vastly more efficient in production and application. Until that nut is cracked "green" alternatives are allways going to price themselves out of the realm of the average family. That's just simple reality.

Well..maybe because they effectively squashed the first iteration of the vehicle.

The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration.

A portion of the film details GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no consumer demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and destroy them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed. GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists, including actresses Alexandra Paul and Colette Divine, are arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.

Who Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia