Charles Lane of the Washington Post tore into the Chevy Volt recently, decrying it as a waste of resources and part of the reason why GM is in such dire financial straights.
Lane’s main points against the Volt focus on the cost of its production and the belief that it’s price tag won’t be balanced out by savings on gas without the cost oil skyrocketing.
He also pleads with the Obama Administration to keep itself from investing tax payer money into completing the Volt.
There has been a great deal of speculation on the Chevy Volt on both sides of the fence about how well it will sell. Hopefully we will at least see it produced if for no other reason than to see who was right.
What are your thoughts? Is the Chevy Volt GM’s life preserver or is it their pair of concrete shoes?
May 4th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Charles Lane is a moron. Evn if the Volt is a complete bust, its less than a billiob dollar development costs are hardly the reason that a company with a total debt over $40 billion is having financial problems. The Washington Post is unionized, so you’d think they would notice that GM is paying their unskilled/uneducated low output union workers over $125K per year, meaning they are paying about $5 billion too much in labor costs. I’d say that Lane is one pro-union dumb bunny.
May 4th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I agree with the above comment. The author has no concept of R&D. Agreed the first Volts will be expensive. Tetracycline when it came out in the late 1940s cost $.50/pill. Today it is far less. The Volt will lead to a change in the way America Drives, and its technology will be widely used. I for one plan to buy it as it is a beautiful piece of technology. Also, when gasoline again reaches over $4/gallon, and gasoline becomes scarce, the true value of the Volt will become apparent.