1 Furst

2 Ace - can I have some of what you're on baby.  You da man posting machine.

3 And it is a coal powered car, so whats not to like/

4 Forty miles on a charge. I could drive it to work, but I couldn't take the highway. I would get in great shape by pushing it home.

5 Oh no, it doesn't use coal. It uses pure, clean electricity generated by unicorns. As we all know, electricity is beautiful and green and completely non-polluting.

6 I'm still waiting for my windmill car, with accessory Skittle-fueled engine for when the wind isn't blowing.  Wasn't that in the Inaugural Address?

7 Hey we already paid 14 billion to develop and retool to make this thing, a 41,000 dollar sticker price for a two seater withalmost  no back seat seems downright frugal.

8 I read At Hot Air that GM wants the government to sell all their stock in the company. Why? Fuck you, that's why.

9 The original reason for the Volt - to bias out the cars people actually wanted to buy from GMs CAFE numbers - is almost worse then this foolish ecological crusade.

10

I am not one to defend our Dear LeaderÂ’s ham-fisted takeover or the private sector but are we going a little too far here? We ship $400 billion dollars aboard every year buying oil. Some of that money goes to friendlies like Canada but the vast majority of it goes to thugs like Chavez and prop up the Iranians. Not to mention the effects that sending that many dollars abroad does to our currency.

The Volt is expensive and certainly is being used as a prop for a failing administration, but shouldnÂ’t we be encouraging these kinds of technical innovations that encourage less use of oil?

11 I mean my Eagle Talon, all wheel drive, 305 horse power, two seater with almost no back seat cost me - huh, 21,000 dollars. Or about half what this gubbmint motors POS  will set you back.

12 Mike H, the simple answer is no.

13 And everyone driving it will be high on 'SMUG'. (see south park)

14

I wrote about this the other day after DrewM put up some knowledge on the subject.

15 shouldnÂ’t we be encouraging these kinds of technical innovations that encourage less use of oil?

A true free market would reward the inventor of "pure clean energy" far more than the government ever could.  If you have a new source that's better, what are you waiting for, government subsidies?

16 Forty miles on a charge. I could drive it to work, but I couldn't take the highway. I would get in great shape by pushing it home.

Posted by: fluffy at August 06, 2010 03:31 PM (4Kl5M)

But think of all the great suspense movie plot points.  The heroine thinks she's gotten away from the serial killer only to find that she forgot to plug in her volt the night before.

17 Toyota's Prius sells 50,000 units a year and they lose money on each one.  Too few to hit any economy of scale.

The Gov't, meanwhile, is doing a rollout of 10,000 of these pieces of shit.  Why?

I say 85% will end up in gov't fleets.  

18 [N]o matter how you crunch the numbers or the science, there's no disputing that this is a political car, designed to meet the demands not of an economic market but of an ideological one, directed by the collusion of big business and big government. In this sense, the Volkswagen and the Voltswagen have a lot in common.

Except the Volkswagen worked.

19 shouldnÂ’t we be encouraging these kinds of technical innovations that encourage less use of oil? On whose dime?

20 Mike H -

No.  Certainly not at the expense of taxpayer-funded rebates and subsidies. 

The market will provide all the encouragement needed for the development of these technologies.  If it was cheaper and more efficient to have battery-operated cars than to buy oil, it would have happened already.

21 I predict this car will be gone as soon as the government is out of GM.

22 shouldnÂ’t we be encouraging these kinds of technical innovations

A vehicle with no range that no one can afford is not an innovation.

23 Like the Beer Summit clock, will we see a little Volt logo on MSDNC in anticipation of its arrival?

24 I thought I saw a Volt commercial this week featuring Lance Armstrong riding behind the Volt. What they didn't show, was Lance passing the damn thing when the batteries go flat. Lance has more range, you know. So that implies that for Lance, at least, the bicycle is a more practical vehicle.

25 If I wanted blow 40K on a car that won't go anywhere I'd buy a Jaguar.

26 shouldnÂ’t we be encouraging these kinds of technical innovations

A vehicle with no range that no one can afford is not an innovation.

Posted by: Herr Morgenholz at August 06, 2010 03:40 PM (5aa4z)

It's a statement.

27 Mop and bucket man needed at 251 on the CNN poll thread.

28 Yeah, but some say that Lance has been 'charged up' himself.

NTTAWWT.

29 Toyota's Prius sells 50,000 units a year and they lose money on each one.  Posted by: Herr Morgenholz

Your sales numbers are off. They make 50k per month worldwide with a sales target of 400k, half of which is US sales.

30

Big Oil already has technology that would make oil obsolite, they just don't want to put themselves out of business. Sort of like how doctors don't really want to cure cancer.

 

I was told that Big Oil assasinated a guy who figured out how to make dilithium crystals in his basement.

31 Some of that money goes to friendlies like Canada but the vast majority of it goes to thugs like Chavez and prop up the Iranians.


Venezuela supplies ~10% of our imported oil.

32 "The early electric vehicles, such as the 1902 Wood's Phaeton (top image), were little more than electrified horseless carriages and surreys. The Phaeton had a range of 18 miles, a top speed of 14 mph and cost $2,000. Later in 1916, Woods invented a hybrid car that had both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor."

90 years and billions of dollars later, Obama's extended the range 22 miles and increased the cost 20x.

33 If I wanted blow 40K on a car that won't go anywhere I'd buy a Jaguar.

Oh, snap!

34 So that implies that for Lance, at least, the bicycle is a more practical vehicle.

But I'd guess his ex-wife uses some sort of motorized vehicle to cart around his kids and their groceries.

35 Let me see.  $33,000 after the "take my ugly kid to the prom" bribe.  $17,000 for the gas-only version.  I'm not sure what the mileage is on the gas-only version, but I'm guessing you could drive a long way on the gas you could buy for $16,000 (and more than 40 miles at a time, too).

36 It's the batteries man.

Can't get the weight down on a cheap, strong power storage device.

First person/company that can build a cheap long lasting power storage device that can deliver big amps/volts for decent interval wins a big, big prize.

You have to wonder why after 200 years of studying and building batteries, they aren't any better.

37 Your sales numbers are off. They make 50k per month worldwide with a sales target of 400k, half of which is US sales.

Whoops.  You're right.  I was quoting an article I read a few days ago at one of the auto mag websites.  Apparently their "full-of-shittedness" lives vicariously through me.

38 You have to wonder why after 200 years of studying and building batteries, they aren't any better.

Pesky laws of physics.

39 Air powered cars are the future.

40
I was told that Big Oil assasinated a guy who figured out how to make dilithium crystals in his basement.

Me too, read it on Above Top Secret!

41 38

Well that, of course. I mean in general; why hasn't anyone tried to find a better way to store electricity. (or maybe I should say why hasn't anyone found a better way to store electricity).

Come on, yankee ingenuity and all that? We're the folks that won't take 'can't be done' for an answer.

It must be BIG LEAD BATTERY MAKERS that are stifling innovation.

Yeah, that's it, another conspiracy.

42 Well, at least Mitt Romney isn't driving on of these around. This really is "the people's car". We, the people, are on the hook for as many of these as GuvMo produces, we are on the hook for all the subsidies, and we'll probably subsidize every failed or worn out battery pack that the government motor pools go thru when this thing goes into full production.

43 Look for Mitt to start wearing bib overalls and a straw hat and going 'aw shucks' pretty soon.

Sheesh. Give. It. Up.

Dude, you're never going to 'relate' to the 'common man' and he's never going to relate to you. How about trying some straight talk and some honesty instead of trying to do 'whatever it takes to get elected'.

We're tired of politicians like that, can you say Tea Party?

44

Like the EV1 that GM tried to peddle in the California market," Kenneth Green, an environmental scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, says, "the Volt is a vanity car for the well-off that will be subsidized by less well-off taxpayers at all stages, from R&D to sales and to the construction of charging stations."

No wonder the EV1 failed.  You had to peddle it.

45 FDR had noblesse oblige down to a science.  Mitt could try that.

46 dammit

47 But dude.. how soon you forget.. it was Bolt, the Transformer that turned into the Chevy Volt that helped turn Optimus Prime into the Super Transformer to help beat The Fallen.

48 That's it.

We need to rename those powerplants.

Call them "Nuclear Unicorns".

49 Let's start paying government employees and government pensioners in Volts instead of cash for a win-win. Here you go dude, $81,000 cash equivalent. Happy Electromotoring!

50 Ugh. And these people have the chutzpah to claim they represent "the people". And what's even sadder, about 50% of "the people" believe our Democrat rulers do represent them.

51

"You have to wonder why after 200 years of studying and building batteries, they aren't any better."

Amen to that. If I had all the $ I've spent on batteries over the years for my son's various gadgets, I could probably afford a Volt.

52 Too bad that 'electric' car is powered by coal and oil fired electrical generating plants.  Maybe the price should include a dispensation from Pope Al Gore I of the Church of Global Warming.

53 Forty miles on a charge. I could drive it to work, but I couldn't take the highway. I would get in great shape by pushing it home.

Posted by: fluffy at August 06, 2010 03:31 PM (4Kl5M)

But think of all the great suspense movie plot points.  The heroine thinks she's gotten away from the serial killer only to find that she forgot to plug in her volt the night before.

Posted by: WalrusRex

 

In the AoS version, the Moronette heroine makes a narow escape by switching out the batteries from her 'personal' device. Or in LauraW's case, she turns her hump scratching device on her attacker and he is obliterated.

54 The Volt Dance , ripped from Iowahawk . Government spending at it's finest .

55

Well that, of course. I mean in general; why hasn't anyone tried to find a better way to store electricity. (or maybe I should say why hasn't anyone found a better way to store electricity).

Come on, yankee ingenuity and all that? We're the folks that won't take 'can't be done' for an answer.

It must be BIG LEAD BATTERY MAKERS that are stifling innovation.

Yeah, that's it, another conspiracy.

 

Wir haben eine similar problem. It war eine , wie sagt man auf Englisch? Ah! A bitch!

56

wait a minute ... government directing private business activites ...  hmmm ...  when have we seen that before in history ?

 

57 Some of that money goes to friendlies like Canada but the vast majority of it goes to thugs like Chavez and prop up the Iranians. A majority of the oil we import comes from Canada and Mexico. If you include the stuff we make ourselves, about 1/5 of the oil we use comes from the Mid East and other nasties.

58 Mike H, where is your electricity coming from?

59 Oh...I'm sharing this one.  Most of the folks I know drive at least heavy halfs, and they are not going to be pleased about subsidizing weenie little eco cars for weenie little, rich hipsters (even the horse people with liberal leanings have an inate hate for the green car movement...they're also kind of on the fence about the oil thing, even the hippie ones...can't pull a horse trailer or hay wagon with a Prius, paying for gas on the dually is getting costly).

60 And let's we "end our oil addiction" and start producing and buying more of these bad bays. So what then? As everybody's pointed out, they use this thing called electricity. Great, almost all of our electricity is fueled by homegrown resources. But oh no, here comes the big bad EPA to tell us that CO2 is bad for us, so no more coal. So now we have to switch fuels. And the only practical alternative in the near future is natural gas. Right now, that's okay, because we produce over 90% of what we consume of NG, but what happens when we start increasing our consumption by 50% or even higher? How much longer are we going to sustain our consumption via domestic resources? In 20 years we're having the same exact conversation about NG as we are now about oil. Whoopsee.

61

10  I think we should look into those technologies, because it's probably in the long run a pragmatic idea.  However, (big "however") this idiotic electric car charade is (like man made catastrophic global warming) just that: a charade, a theater that lines the pockets of a certain elite group, is not practical (either in actual usage or cost efficiency), and really does not do anything "green" (batteries? green? really?).  It also serves to put yet another twist to the economic and totalitarian vise in which the little people are presently trapped.

So, as long as we even think "well, this could be a good idea" -- much like the manbearpig warmening carbon credits -- we will be overlooking the solution to real problems while creating others.

Except for the glitterati; they'll be making money hand over fist.

62 And the EPA is refusing to grant 'green' status to electric plants fueled by scrap wood because burning wood releases carbon dioxide.
This may be the death of the 'biofuel' movement if it is extended to bio diesel and alcohol fuels.

63

So, ummm, is there some sort of alternative energy source that I can plug my car into?

'Cause if not, I'm thinking my local DWP is going to hit me with some really high bills after I keep re-charging that car in night after night.

Oh, and where do you get rid of the used batteries?

64 Instead of a siphon hose in the trunk, you care a 200' extension cord.

65 Just when you thought the pinnacle of automotive gheyness had been reached with the "new" VW Bug complete with plastic dashboard sunflower, Toyota ups the ante with the Pious.

Smart Car picks up the gauntlet, fills it with nickels, and just fucking lashes everyone across the grill with their contribution to unmanliness, the Smartfor2.

Maybe this is just misdirected American exceptionalism. Maybe Obama was tired of foreign countries leading the world in production of gay-ass microvehicles that engender hairy-backed, beercan-crushing, hobo-skull splitting rage in any American that has two testicles to rub together.

I mean, look at him - he IS a giant pussy. Maybe he's finally putting his skills and position towards the achievement of a discrete goal - to build the wimpiest, most useless piece of expensive monkey shit this planet has ever seen. And isn't that an accomplishment of a sort?

66 What I'm hearing is they have a $17,000 car with a $24,000 battery.

67

"Like the EV1 that GM tried to peddle in the California market," Kenneth Green, an environmental scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, says, "the Volt is a vanity car for the well-off that will be subsidized by less well-off taxpayers at all stages, from R&D to sales and to the construction of charging stations."

The section I bolded is absofuckinglutely wrong. GM did NOT try to "peddle" the EV1 in the California market. The sole function of that car was to create a usable database for the study of what was then- nearly 20 years ago- the feasability of an all-electric car. It wasn't feasible then, it isn't feasible now. The Volt started off as another experiment by GM, and became their 'salvation'. The development was sped up by the Feds in an attempt to say "See? We're doing something!". Sorry, but 40 miles on a charge is no better than the Lectric Leopard, with with what was even then decrepit technology. Dependence on a gas motor to keep the party moving along is no better than the Briggs and Stratton experimental hybrid from 35 years ago. The DOT and the EPA needs desperately to pull their heads from their asses and note that current clean diesel technology is a far, far better bet.

68 $41,000, about as much as the average American makes in a year,

That's about as much as the median American makes. The average is way too low for that "about."

Over 40% of people with employment income gross under $25k/year. If you include the people who don't, the average is in the twenties. (There's a big lump at about $30k, if those numbers seem off to you.)

That's where all those "half of Americans have no retirement savings" headlines come from, not from people being irresponsible idiots. You can't save any of nothing. And almost no one can afford a Volt.

69 And I don't think we'll be running out of easily recovered oil in the next millenium, Mike H.

A SINGLE blown well bukkaked the entire Gulf of Mexico's coast. We'll have enough gas to fuel our space tanks and murder-bots when we eventually discover another inhabited planet and take their shit.

70
Mike, that's a good question. If the government were also encouraging the development of sources of electrical power that didn't require the burning of imported fossil fuels (like, for example, fission nuclear energy), then ramping up demand for vehicles like this would make sense. As it stands, all the Volt does is shift around where the carbon is burned, but does nothing - zero, nada, bupkus - to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. And it does so at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

Subsidies for the Volt are simply a handout to Government Motors, and its true owner, the UAW. Billions in handouts to Democratic Party allies: yeah, that's how to achieve energy independence. Not.

71 I've always thought that finding a way to harness methane as an energy source would be a good idea -- and a fitting one.  Think about it: a world run on garbage and shit...it's poetic damnit.

72

Think about it: a world run on garbage and shit...it's poetic damnit.

Untill you light a cig...

73 For you , Jane , cause I'm a giver .

74

I've always thought that finding a way to harness methane as an energy source would be a good idea -- and a fitting one.  Think about it: a world run on garbage and shit...it's poetic damnit.

Imagine it- people who are believed to have shit for brains could propel themselves to work...with their minds.

75

73  LOL!  See? See? My idea wasn't so out in left field after all!  A truly shitty car!

and I thank you Mr. Kitty!

76

"I've always thought that finding a way to harness methane as an energy source would be a good idea ..."

St Regis Paper Company (and others for all I know) harvest the methane by-product of pulping and use it to power their inplant vehicles.  Interestingly, our local natural gas company reconverted their propane powered vehicles to gasoline after only a few years.  I never found an employee who was willing to talk about it.

77

Over 40% of people with employment income gross under $25k/year.

Posted by: oblig.

 

Whaaaaaat?  Really?  That must include highschool kids and stuff like that, right?

78 If you want a really green vehicle, you should hold out for an SUV with a nuclear powerplant.

Strontium-90 pebblebeds. 45 years between refueling.

79 The main difference I can see between the two is the VW beetle running gear was essentially born and proven to WORK in the crucible of war and largely the technological vision of one man.  The military Kubelwagen was used by the German military on all fronts and proved itself a viable military utility vehicle every bit as useful as the Willies Jeeps.

The Volt was birthed by committee, tested and proven in the halls of congress rather than on the battlefield, and will prove about as useful as an electric fork.

80 Hey!! I find my electric fork very useful.  And Laura W probably uses hers as a hump-scratcher.

I think the right thing to do  is to pass a law that everyone who gets a govt paycheck [that would sort of include me] can never ride in any vehicle except a Volt for any trip of under 100 miles.

I'd just love to see Henry Waxman, say, sharing a Volt with John F'n Kerry and Nancy Pelosi for about 100 miles.  [Bet you could sell that on Pay-per-View.]

81 Oh,  and I really, really want a car powered by a pebble-bed reactor.  Really.

82

......a veritable '64 Pontiac GTO with a Jarvik heart.
Bound to be a hit with the NASCAR groupies on
the Upper West Side.  "Sheila, let's get one and
make our statement, oy!  Barak is a prophet!"

 

 

83 If they could take your car away, they would. 

Michelle just vacationed in Spain, costing us about what the average family makes in six years.  Who elected her anything, and why are we paying?  Al Gore has several mansions, a houseboat the size of a Coast Guard cutter, and the largest carbon footprint on the planet.

When people act like its a problem, I'll start to believe we may have a problem.  In the meantime, I'll drive my car that doesn't pollute much (that's what the sticker said when I bought it) and doesn't use much gas (because I have other uses for my money, like valu-rite and hobo-bait.)  Oh, and wait for November.  Because I can't wait to let my elected officials know what a great job they are doing.

84 http://minx.cc/?post=304366

85 laptop batteries, power tool battery power tool battery,