Do you smell something....? http://vimeo.com/37540767 As much as I am a GM person, I'm not a Volt fan, and this is Funny! -Mike
It's tough to find all the smells coming from Washington.....until they condense a little of it into one place! Maybe the American public actually IS getting a little smarter. Think I'll go down to the local GM dealer now and sit by the new car lot and watch the fireworks. Who needs the 4th of July??
With the amount of tax payer money going into every one of these things, we should all get a set of keys to every one sold.
Come to think of it,you're right. The only ones I've ever seen were on Chevy dealer lots. I've never actually seen one on the road or in a parking lot.
Electric cars are the future................... All your gas guzzlin' long roofs are destined to dino-ville...
The GM/Chrysler bailout was in 2008, signed off by President Bush. But don't let that fact get in the way of blaming President Obama for it.
It was a funny video.....but. I tend to ramble a bit so I'll try to keep this in a way that makes sense and my 2 cents: 1. Finally someone has produced an electric hybrid that makes sense. Since the Volt now Fisker makes one with the same technology. a. I think it makes more sense for a hybrid to run on electricity instead of a regular drive train supplemented by electricity (all other hybrids). b. Burn they did but only after 20 days after the test accident. The cars were both destroyed in the test. It's not like the cars would be in your garage. 2. The Volts are small and when used as intended they get an average of over 600 mpg. Most people drive less than 30 miles each way to work. With a battery range of 60 miles the engines almost never start. The big hazard is that todays gasoline shelf life is under 60 days. After that it starts getting yucky. 3. The Fisker is big and has a much longer range than a Volt. At $102,000 it's a tad expensive. Bud Rutan stated 7 years ago that it did not make sense to build a hybrid that runs on gasoline supplimented by electricity. He said the opposite makes more sense. And it does, proven by the Volt and now the Fisker. 4. If the price were closer to $30,000 for the Volt I think I'd buy one. In the end unless there is some major breakthrough on battery technology the electric cars aren't going to be around much longer. I don't think a pure electric car is all that practical but hybrids like the Volt and Fisker will stay around. The drive train configuration makes sense. The ultimate problem is that Bolivia's supply of Lithium is finite. It will run out so there needs to be another way to make storage batteries. Lithium batteries have more capacity and are lighter than Nickel-Metal-Hydride batteries. Unfortunately nobody is going to make station wagons. Let's say affordable station wagons anymore unless Hyundai can keep the Elantra Touring sales up. It's unlikely that Hyundai will put a hybrid drive train in one as the sales are typically low. We can slam the government all we want for paying GM or any other company to develope new technologys but that's the way it's been done for 75 years. How many people think that 2012 cars would be any different from 1940 cars if it wasn't for government intervention and investment? My next point is: What if we let Chrysler and GM fail and liquidate? Just in jobs alone the two companys are responsible for 2,500,000 jobs in US. Another 600,000 in Canada. What about engineering and manufacturing capability that would have been lost? There is so much that the auto makers have engineered, dreampt up and made available to the public that has nothing to do with cars. Ford for one (who didn't take salvation money) invented "green" technology in the 1930s. They were using plant based fabrics and plastics 80 years ago and still do today. Who built 90% of vehicles and aircraft for WWII? The country cannot afford to loose any more capacity so government investement with our tax dollars is good. The debt is bad and now that has to be addressed. Who here would own a home by paying cash? Not many. The "loans" that GM and Chrysler got. 19.5% interest is being charged. Fiat, when they got control of Chrysler has paid in full 6 years earlier than scheduled. Little known fact. GM has paid back a heck of a lot of money and still owes about 2 billion. Remember 19.5% interest. The auto companys do a heck of a lot more than make cars for profit. Ford and GM both played large roles in the space programs. Not just the big names like Grumman, Morton Thyacol, Douglas etc. Without them we'd be nothing like we are in this country and the government has always leveraged the technology and engineering offered by the car companys Off rant now. But that video was funny...
I agree with everyone else. This car is a total joke. I don't know why they are trying to advance any new technologies. If a 460 Ford making 220hp hauling a 5000 pound car around worked in 1975 it sure as hell still works in 2012. They should just build cars like that and watch sales take off!
