Bankruptcy is all but a forgone conclusion for GM next week. Since the government would then own about 70% of GM, the question presents itself, will the government scrap the Chevy Volt?
The Wall Street Journal recently did an examination of whether the government would scrap the Volt, and found that since it’s not in a position to start turning a profit any time soon it would be a good business decision to do so.
The government has turned itself into a bit of a two-headed monster though. One head wants to take GM and get it earning a profit again, while the other head is pressuring all automakers to make green vehicles like electrics and hybrids.
Considering this, Autoblog Green postulated that the government could be in a position to increase gas taxes to drive up demand for green vehicles like the Chevy Volt. Could both heads to accomplish their goals? Let us know what you think.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The govt won’t own 70% , but even if it did, that wouldn’t give them the power to dictate policy.
June 1st, 2009 at 12:48 am
The Volt is the only chance I will ever buy a GM car. Though I do prefer a pure electric, I certainly won’t buy any car without a plug.
With or without higher gas taxes, higher gas prices will drive demand for green vehicles. I believe we passed peak oil last year. From here on out, the amount of oil consumed will be dictated by the decreasing amount available to consume, and oil prices will rise to the levels necessary to destroy excess demand.
If the government were serious about kicking our oil habit, they would increase gas taxes. Tax policy should be centered around what we want to encourage or discourage and let the free market do the rest.
Oh, and the government had no business taking over GM in the 1st place.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:43 am
I think that the gov. should take over GM. The company has become a complete failure on all fronts. Most major downfalls being that they acquired too many companies and tried to manage it as one. Then taking their prices on their cars and making them ridiculously high. Why would u want to buy a Chevy for $50,000 when you can go buy a better car with better interior better looks and a higher name like BMW. GM is only about the money not the customer. The Volt was due to fail. They made plans for it to late for one. Ford started making hybrid cars years ago when they noticed the market starting to change. GM only started a little bit ago. Well too late!!! I understand that with total electric cars u produce no emissions from your car and don’t need to stop and go at gas stations, but right now with how America makes power is it really benefitting the planet. NO!!!! My point is that more than 80% of the USA’s power is coal, and oil. So if everyone would start driving an electric car tomorrow instead of us paying for gas and polluting the environment we will just be switching over to our power, and then the price on everything else we need like food, water, and etc. will increase. Yeah that seems real smart. Let’s brush it off to something else that looks like we’re helping. They need to find another fuel source that’s cheep and clean. Until then we have to make do. So yes I do think they should scrap it because it’s really not helping us. Why give people false hope.