The "Green Car" Con - Again - BLOG - Global Warming Hysteria

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Aug192009

The "Green Car" Con - Again

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 05:25PM

GM's Chevrolet Volt due for release late 2010Here's an excellent piece on GM's upcoming (late 2010) "economy" car the Chevy Volt written by Eric 'Car Guy' Peters and published recently at American Spectator. Here's the opening:

We live in incoherent times, but maybe someone can explain it to me: How does a $40,000 "economy" car make economic sense?

The $40k is the price GM will reportedly charge for its all-electric Volt sedan -- due out in late 2010 as a 2011 model. Unlike current hybrids, which mostly get going on their internal combustion engines -- with their battery packs and electric motors providing a supplemental boost -- the Volt will be propelled entirely by electric motors and batteries. The small onboard gasoline-burning engine is only there to provide the power to charge the batteries. It is basically a generator -- and is not connected to the drive wheels at all.

The Volt is thus touted by GM as being capable of returning as much as 230 miles per gallon, since it is for all intents and purposes a fully electric car that carries its recharger with it. (The Volt can also be plugged into regular 110 volt household outlets.)

But, $40,000? That is almost exactly what you'd pay for a new BMW 335i ($40,300) and not too far off the asking price of a new Mercedes-Benz E-Class ($48,050). These are fine cars, but not exactly marketed to people who are concerned about their pocketbooks.

Forty Thousand Dollars. That is a lot of coin. Even with a government subsidy (on top of the subsidy GM has built into the car's price) expected to be as much as $7,500 (thank you, fellow taxpayer), the potential Volt buyer is looking at a bottom line price that is right there in the entry-luxury range -- and roughly three times the cost of a new econobox.

Does it compute? Well, let's see... .

For the rest of this excellent piece go here. (Great demolition job, Eric).

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Reader Comments (18)

I have trouble with the math re the "Volt" automobile. It is supposed to go 90 miles on the battery charge, which is about 30kwh. This is equivalent to 40 HP hours. If it take 2 hours to do the 90 miles, the car uses 20 HP. To do 90 miles in 2 hours the car goes at 45 MPH. Thus, we are to believe that we can drive a car at 45 MPH with a 20 HP motor. Unless the car weighs next to nothing, I don't see how this is possible. Note also that lights, heating, and A/C will use a significant portion of the battery charge.

Also, the electricity must be generated somewhere using fossil fuel (for the most part). By the time you generate electricity in a thermal plant, transmit it to the home, and recharge and discharge the battery, the overall efficiency is about the same as if you had used the fuel in an internal combustion engine in the first place.

What is needed is objective analysis of these schemes rather than a stampede of zealotry.

September 5, 2009 |

ted rado

Great article, thanks for posting this
There's a really good article on this site about hybrid cars, see http://www.zintro.com/topic?name=Hybrid+Vehicles

September 23, 2009 |

mary

do you know then price $40k for this car is very low couse rest of people on the world working for americanos?
shame!

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October 4, 2009 |

2012

Still the same old head in the sand reaction to climate change from the US. It's just too much to expect the fat, overblown US popolation to take even a tiny step to reduce their excessive consumption of everything.

October 15, 2009 |

Robo

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January 16, 2010 |

FunnyDevil

I agree that an "economic" car that costs $40,000 is not a great investment during a recession, but is one car really going to make a huge difference when people don't have the money to buy it and the car still runs off of gas to generate enough electricity to actually run the car?

January 28, 2010 |

Realtree Girl

As far as the Volt goes, that was an engineering hurdle that GM should have pursued quite some time ago, but decided that the fully-electric cars were the way to go. Now, years after the so-called death of the electric car, GM finally decided to engineer the car that recharges a battery on a gas engine instead.

For more information check out this article:

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache%3AiOYlw7TaMTkJ%3Adogandlemon.com%2Fmedia%2FGeneral%2520Comments%2520PDF%2FReality%2520Killed%2520the%2520Electric%2520Car.pdf+Reality+killed+the+electric+car&hl=en&gl=us

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