You have to wonder - if the US Gov't instead took that 2.6B$ and said, 10k$ to 20k$ of Tax Credit towards EV or PHEV cars for ANY American, ANY car.

How many Prii's would then be converted, and how many more Prii's would suddenly sell? Or Ford Escapes?
The boom business HiMotion & others would get? The huge push for LiPO4's?

*versus*

2.6B to build only 20,000 units of Volt, and GM still does not make any profit ?

Let me get this right... Tax payers are suppose to help develop the Volt and pay $7,500 tax credit with every Volt purchase. So that GM can profit in the future?

To date everything GM has asked for in the past 12 months they have received. The worse that can happen is that eventually someone says 'no.'

Wow... This makes me feel good that I sold my 2 GM products I had and bought 2 Toyotas! I think that GM should just give up and sell off their company, if they really are in need of THAT much money to build things that are useless then why bother? Oh I forgot all the upper-cuff management need more money! DUH, silly me.

There is a proven formula for success here in the U.S:

1) Listen to what the Government recommends or tells you to do.

2) Ignore them and do the opposite of what they say.

Keith

A $40,000 PHEV econobox is gonna sell almost as well as did the original Honda Insight. If GM goes to market with their "Converj" $45,000 PHEV Cadillac instead they might actually sell a useful number of them. The only reason the Volt is what it is, is that Rick Wagoner thinks that fuel economy and electrics are for eco-weenies and other losers.

Am I the only one who wants the government sponsoring America's lead in car technology?

The Prius was thought of as an expensive luxury for eco-freaks, but it was actually a great bet for Toyota and a win for lessened oil dependency and a better environment!

I hate GM more than anyone, but I at least recognize its importance to thousands of employees in Detroit and its place as being one of the only footholds we still have in domestic manufacturing. Hopefully cars like the Volt will help turn the company around!

Hilarious Keith, but forgot to add :

3) Unless Government forces your CEO out, in which case you must submit to the all powerful "Dark Side"

Maybe. The government has put an enormous amount of money into the big car manufacturers and it has made the problem worse instead of better. Meanwhile, Tesla Motors has been pioneering an electric car industry with vastly less help.

What is the result of all the money put into fuel cell vehicles?
What is the result of all the money put into H2 infrastructure?

Yet,
Did the government sponsor the Volt?
Did the government sponsor a high mpg Hybrid for GM, Ford, Chrysler?

You need to help me out here. How does the government "sponsor" a lead in technology when the only thing that the car companies want to do with the money is make exotic toys?

say what ya want, but a well built, reliable plug in that gets 30 miles EV range will sell at $40,000 which is just about what a Pri would cost if converted.

my big question, can GM deliver?? i am betting the answer to that is no. after all that has happened over the past decade, if they could not understand the need to rush the car to market, they NEED to fail

One point you might want to consider - it's not unreasonable to assume that the money spent by the Bush Admin on Fuel Cell vehicles and Hydrogen power in general was simply a billion dollar smokescreen that allowed the both the US Government (Bush) and Detroit to kill off more promising hybrid (plug-in) car technology started under the Clinton Admin.

As for Tesla, if you spend some time reading a variety of sites - such as this one or greencarcongress, the concensus is that it will be some time before all electrics are ready for prime time. However, inexpensive 75+mpg short range hybrids PHEV10 (maybe PHEV20) are pretty much ready for mass production. The debate likely is what Government policy in terms of incentives and/or a dramatic change in regulations (i.e., increasing CAFE mileage standards to >50mpg) needs to occur to quickly move the US fleet to >50mpg? Tesla is a distraction that isn't ready for primetime. A short range plug-in Prius is the real deal that will scare the you know what out of the oil companies, the middle east (our enemies) and whatever's left of old Detroit.

Let's not forget the billion of tax payer dollars spent in Partnership for a Next Generation of Vehicles (PNGV).

Strike #1: PNGV
Strike #2: Hydrogen

Will Voltec = Strike #3?

IMHO, part of me says we ought to give this 3rd chance due to the change in leadership.

Another part of me see a flaw in the Voltec premise. Yes, 40 miles EV range will cover over 70% of American commute with no use of gasoline.

However how many percent of those 70% really need 40 miles range? How about those only need 30, 20, 10, 5 miles? Are they expected to pay extra? I would say there are more people live within 5-10 miles than within 30-40 miles.

There is a limit to Voltec to scale down the range due to the full power requirement to acclerate without the help of gas engine.

Nothing wrong with a 40 mile range plug-in once the battery technology is ready. At the present time, low cost, lightweight, and high energy density batteries necessary for a sub $25K PHEV40 aren't available. However, reasonably priced batteries with about a 10mile all electric range appear economically viable in the very near term and will offer around 75 mpg for most typical commutes assuming they are paired with a Gen III Prius. As pointed out above - the better question is what's stopping the US Government from pushing the US fleet - at least with regards to new cars - towards >50mpg in the next few years? Why not???? The technology is pretty much ready.

If US government were to use Prius, nothing is stopping. The issue is that there is no car that gets 50 MPG from the US manufacturers. The closest is the Ford Fusion hybrid but it gets less than 40 MPG. If Ford were to make Fusion PHEV-10 to get 50 MPG, it will cost around $30k+.

Incompetence and conspiracy are hard to distinguish from a distance. But now since GM is about to implode due to decades of losing market share in all segments, the verdict is incompetence. GM not only ignored high mpg hybrid cars, they ignored ALL small cars. (e.g. The Aveo is made in South Korea.) In essence, rather than keeping competitive in all car segments, they completely abandoned all small car segments entirely for the high margin bubble market. No way you do that and remain a worldwide leader...if you manage to stay in business at all.

I've kept up with Tesla. The key point I was focusing upon was that Tesla was not a government supported effort. The only limitation facing Tesla is financing and building the production facilities. Right now they have leading edge vehicles in a market that the major manufacturers (including Toyota) thought was just a niche. Where is Toyota's electric car?.....and why is it taking so long to get a PHEV Prius? Obviously Toyota can waffle as well at the other manufacturers.

GM is important to Detroit as Crack hoes are important to dealers. Drive around Detroit some warm summer evening ... see if you can distinguish it from Fallujah. It's a mess.

I hope GM makes it specifically for the Volt. But if they go belly up and scrap out the Volt, the way they did the EV1? There are better things in the pipe line.
Behold:

http://priuschat.com/forums/other-cars/60247-aptera-spotted-in-wild.html#post825238

I'm putting money on these guys.

The Volt is just the GM Precept, dusted off. The waste was the hydrogen fraud that killed PNGV. It was the PNGV that helped inspire engineering of the Prius and Honda hybrids.

Bob Wilson

From what I've read, battery technology is the only thing holding back PHEV's. Perhaps the better question is why or what will it take to make the battery (lithium) for a short-range PHEV commerically viable? Is the problem sort of a chicken and egg - which came first syndrome. The battery manufacturers aren't investing and ramping up volume production to get the costs down until the Auto manufacturers start building PHEV's - and the auto manufacturers won't build PHEV's until the battery costs come down. Hence, is this a scenario where the US Government could jump in and with a focused strategic investment (in PHEV battery manufacturing) plus some regulation - namely much higher CAFE standards - and break the deadlock?