Rush Limbaugh and the Volt
 

Those of you who get all excited whenever someone talks smack about cars should enjoy this. Another great commentary on Rush Limbaugh's uneducated automotive rants!

http://automotivetraveler.com/jump/2260

it really is time for people to stop watching FOX news it really is a bunch of bull****, as for rush....eat another mcdonalds burger and robbins dohnut and do this all u want but please just shut up, there are real people out there dumb enough to belive you and they are because they are too dumb to do research

Rush is an idiot when it comes to alternative energy. I tend to be conservative, but if hybrid and fully electric vehicles lower the demand for oil and thus oil prices, I have absolutely no problem at all with them.

I will never be prepared to pay $41,000 for any car. GM has been in the too little to late business for several years now, and their competition has passed them up in many ways. While GM frittered away the Camaro, Ford perfected the Mustang. But I guess since its now Goverment Motors, the press has to be behind anything they do, considering years of the elite auto mags always picking foreign makes as the best cars it seems odd.

I wish the Volt well. As it rolls out its overpriced, and underpromised, and at least 5 years behind its release date. Sounds like the grand dissapointment that was the Cobalt. 3 years waiting on that and boom, its a Cavalier with less imagination.

And for those who say look there are $7500 tax grants and such if you buy it. Where does that money come from? Oh looks like I bought a Volt and didnt realize it.

Lets see if the Nissan Leaf sells more than the Volt. Another unpractical car where I live.

And since this post went way off the reservation in regards to talk about the VOLT........

I also fee sorry for those people who HATE things like Fox new, Rush Limbaugh. Funny how I never see anyone post things like "turn off that John Stewart" or "Keith Oberman". (that guy who use to be on sports center and was relevant) I guess one day I will be smart and hate everything so I can be in the hate filled minority. It must be great to wake up every day and hate and be angry.

I guess today you cant think for yourself, listen to other opinions for what they are and decide what is accurate and not. I have yet to follow the crowd, because sometimes you find the crowd is really an unrully mob.

I will go back to my search for a 1974 Caprice Estate Wagon.

I'd argue that they've been too late for decades, but that's about where we end our agreement.

General Motors ISN'T "Government Motors." GM was in a bad situation that they could not extricate themselves. A window of opportunity opened and GM took it by declaring bankruptcy. This let GM get out of ancient and uncompetitive deals but required some outside help, which included a loan from the government. In just two years, the government's holdings in GM have been halved...and the rest will come in time. The government does not, nor has it ever, run GM. "Government Motors" is a nice little term used by hyper capitalists who don't understand economic or business. I've never been a fan of GM, but GM is currently in the best position it has seen in more than 30 years....probably much longer.

The press does NOT have to be behind whatever GM does. Why would the government having a stake in a company...any company...force the press to write good things about them? Especially since so much of the press is owned by foreign companies?

How do you figure it's "at least 5 years behind its release date?" The CONCEPT was introduced to the public four years ago in January. So how would they have promised to release it a year before the concept?

Not going to happen. The Leaf has a range of less than 100 miles whereas the Volt can travel over 300 miles between refueling stops. This is far from impractical for just about anyone in America.

Funny...really. John Stewart picks on politicians and reporters who don't seem to learn....conservative or liberal. Rush Limbaugh spews half-truths to an audience of people willing to suck up anything he says as gospel. Case in point: did you read or hear what Mr. Limbaugh said about the Volt? He assumes that his audience is stupid and that they don't have a mind of their own....or he's simply stupid himself. I'm making the assumption that he believes his audience is stupid and that he's a brilliant capitalist. You'd never see John Stewart flaunt a golden microphone or puff himself up was the all-knowing diety that Mr. Limbaugh portrays himself to be. Yes, I believe it's an act...one that's making him TONS of money from the unwashed masses who follow his every word.

Unwashed masses who believe GM to stand for "Goverment Motors" or use terms like "Obamacare" or "death panels." These people who can't read a newspaper without thinking that anything pro-goverment must be written under the authority of the government.

But I digress.

Read about the Volt. Again, I'm not a GM fan and I've tried to put together a negative piece on the Volt. It's far from perfect but it's not worth tearing down either. It's not the radical next step that GM portrays it to be (or that the first-generation Prius was), but it's another option in the need to have more fuel efficient cars on the road.

Not a surprise.

Rush Limbaugh is for entertainment purposes only as are most radio personalities
I would hope that anyone looking to invest in electric vehicles of any manufacture is doing there homework via multiple sources and not just based on hearsay...
Do some reading on the EV1 from the early 90's GM was on the right track but got blinded by greed of easy profits from gasoline engines...

In 2000, electric cars were billions of dollars from being competitive vehicles and there weren't billions of dollars to be made from them. In that way, I don't see it as greedy as much as it is good business sense. That said, the EV1 was a spectacular car...I drove an Impact in 1995.

The problem with the EV1 was that California dropped its electric car mandate. In the mid-1990s, GM was requiring large retailers of cars to sell 10% of their fleet as zero-emissions vehicles. As the deadline approached, it became obvious that the technology wasn't there and the market was there to support 1 out of every 10 cars being expensive, short-range electric cars. GM, along with Ford, Chrysler, Honda, and Toyota, dropped their electric car plans.

With the EV1 GM had a "working" vehicle and its my belief that if they would have stayed focused on the technology they would have been way ahead of the game and would have had the volt ready to go when gas was $4+ a gallon... and could have easily commanded the $40k price tag... gas is now down to $2.50 and the volt is going to be a hard sell to the masses...
That's not good business sense that's short sightedness looking for the faster buck...If the Volt was available in 2008 GM would own the EV market right now.
As it stands now the Asian's are building it cheaper and will once again be king of the American vehicle market...

EDIT: If the Volt would have looked more like the concept vehicle, GM could easily get the $40k...

But the Volt isn't an EV...it's a hybrid. Gas right now has a nationwide average of about $3 a gallon, and rising.

GM's been working on electric car technology for more than 40 years, so I can't say their devlopment has been "short-sighted." Giving up on the production EV1 made sense at the time since there was no incentive to sell a $40,000 electric car, especially when gas was about $1.50/gallon. Selling/leasing a few hundred EV1s a year makes no business sense unless you're expecting gas prices to rise above $5, and there were no signs that it was going to happen in 1999. Even Toyota, Honda, and Nissan abandon their EV plans in the late 1990s.

Short-sightedness can be called on GM's (and nearly everyone else's) focus on big, gas-guzzling trucks when it had to be expected that gas prices would rise sometime.

GM's development of EVs, had it been continued at the same pace as it as in 1994 probably would not have created any breakthrough today...there are dozens of companies working on new batteries for many years and the needed breakthrough hasn't happened. GM would have had to introduce the Volt a decade ago in order to be ahead of the curve, and they weren't about to do that.

the electric car is a miss conception there is nothing cleaner or cheaper about the whole deal elec car drive up demand for elec which drives up our elec bills then we have to dig up alot more coal to burn for electricty as we pollutes the hell out the air we breath!!!!!! just to pay $5.000.00 more for the car start with.alot cheaper and cleaner for gas burner