Just over 1/2 of 1% of anything is a paltry number

… unless you are a fact-free Enviro-Mental – in which case it is cause to revel.

These (electric/hybrid) vehicles were 0.65 percent of total North American sales, again a best-ever performance.

If that’s a record – more than a decade and about $6.5 billion-in-government-subsidies-just-since-2008 into the experiment – it may be time to end the experiment.

Does lead Enviro-Mental President Barack Obama think so?  Not so much.

Obama’s Goal: One Million Electric Vehicles By 2015

Some car manufacturers, however, are reaching this eminently logical conclusion.

GM rolls out new electric mini-car at LA Auto Show [Doubling Down on Failure]

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is giving its Chevrolet Spark a jolt of electricity.

An all-electric version of the mini-car will debut this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It goes on sale this summer in California, Oregon, Canada and South Korea, where it’s made. Other markets will follow.

Unlike the Chevrolet Volt sedan, which can run in all-electric mode but also has a backup gas engine, the Spark EV is a pure electric. GM won’t say how far the car will go on a charge, but says it will be a top performer among the small number of EVs available. The current leader, the electric Ford Focus sedan, can go 76 miles on a charge.

Read more at hosted.ap.org …

Is it any wonder GM stock is tanking? Who wants to drive a golf cart?

Wheel chock for the semi that just hit you.

Before a Single Battery Is Produced: Plant that got $150M in taxpayer money to make Volt batteries furloughs workers

“Had it been private investors rather than government bureaucrats making the decision, there either would have been a reality check about the industry.”

- Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center

But since it’s just taxpayer money non harm, no foul…. give them the money.

FNC reports:

President Obama touted it in 2010 as evidence “manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States,” but two years later, a Michigan hybrid battery plant built with $150 million in taxpayer funds is putting workers on furlough before a single battery has been produced.

Workers at the Compact Power manufacturing facilities in Holland, Mich., run by LG Chem, have been placed on rotating furloughs, working only three weeks per month based on lack of demand for lithium-ion cells.

The facility, which was opened in July 2010 with a groundbreaking attended by Obama, has yet to produce a single battery for the Chevrolet Volt, the troubled electric car from General Motors. The plant’s batteries also were intended to be used in Ford’s electric Focus.

Production of the taxpayer-subsidized Volt has been plagued by work stoppages, and the effect has trickled down to companies and plants that build parts for it — including the batteries.

“Considering the lack of demand for electric vehicles, despite billions of dollars from the Obama administration that were supposed to stimulate it, it’s not surprising what has happened with LG Chem. Just because a ton of money is poured into a product does not mean that people will buy it,” Paul Chesser, an associate fellow with the National Legal and Policy Center, told FoxNews.com.

The 650,000-square-foot, $300 million facility was slated to produce 15,000 batteries per year, while creating hundreds of new jobs. But to date, only 200 workers are employed at the plant by by the South Korean company. Batteries for the Chevy Volts that have been produced have been made by an LG plant in South Korea.

The factory was partly funded by a $150 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. LG also received sizeable tax breaks from the local government, saving nearly $50 million in property taxes over 15 years and another $2.5 million annually in business taxes. Landing the factory was hailed as a coup when shovels first hit the ground.

Pentagon buying Chevy Volts to ‘green up’ military

Hey it’s Obama’s military now… What did you think they would do to support Obama Brackwards….

The Pentagon is buying Chevrolet Volts to help “green up” the military—while propping up sales of the bailed-out automaker’s most politicized car.

The Department of Defense began purchasing the struggling luxury electric car, which retails at $40,000, this summer as part of its goal to purchase 1,500 such green vehicles. The Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, Calif. purchased its first two Volts in July, and 18 more vehicles will come shortly to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, where Air Force One is based, according to military magazine Stars and Stripes.

Insight: GM’s Volt – The Ugly Math Of Low Sales, High Costs

General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.

Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.

And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others.

GM’s basic problem is that “the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced,” said Dennis Virag, president of the Michigan-based Automotive Consulting Group.

And in a sign that there may be a wider market problem, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi have been struggling to sell their electric and hybrid vehicles, though Toyota’s Prius range has been in increasing demand.

GM’s quandary is how to increase sales volume so that it can spread its estimated $1.2-billion investment in the Volt over more vehicles while reducing manufacturing and component costs – which will be difficult to bring down until sales increase.

Tehe doom of the quest to sell something people don’t want to buy … Liberalism. when was the last time in the last months, you drove down to the Chevy dealer to look at a Chevy Volt? Ah that’s the problem.

What’s That Smell? It’s GM, Cooking The Books — Sizzling

Not good, Government Motors and Union retirement co, is not doing what it’s supposed to. It thinks it’s supposed to give jpbs to people and support the community. When it’s really supposed to build and sell cars people want to buy. Chrysler is doing fine, so far. GM, not so much so.

GM posted better quarterly numbers today than analysts expected. Instead of jumping on the news, the GM share is down at the time of this typing? Why? Analysts and financial reporters quickly caught on to an old trick that has an air of despair: GM delayed spending into the next quarter.

Says Reuters:

“General Motors posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit as its loss in Europe was not as bad as feared, and its results were boosted by delayed spending in North America.”

GM reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, the consensus estimate expected $0.79. GM’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.6% on a year-over-year basis.

The street quickly caught on to the shifty shifting of expenses and profits.

Again, Reuters:

 “However, GM, which delayed the spending to the third quarter, said its average profit outlook for the second and third quarters combined in North America would still be the same as previously forecast, suggesting analysts will need to cut their estimates for the third quarter.

GM had previously said its second and third quarter operating profit in North America would be similar to the $1.7 billion it reported in the first quarter. It earned $1.97 billion in the second quarter, implying it will earn about $1.4 billion in the third quarter, analysts said.”

Analysts also don’t buy that things are suddenly peachier in Europe. Said Jefferies analyst Peter Nesvold:

“I feel like Europe will continue to be a black hole until we’re at least able to frame the magnitude of the downturn. They showed some nimbleness in this quarter that they have not shown so far since the new GM went public. People will remain skeptical though before they want to give them any credit.”

Why not get rid of models no one wants to buy, like the Volt?

Obama Boosts GM With Fleet Sales; Localities Buy Police Cars With Federal Money

When you’re Government Motors, we have no competition.

The things you can do, to make dismal results look cool … OK, so who is fooling who?

General Motors announced an increase in government purchases of 115% in July. This follows June’s jump in government fleet sales of 79%.

Just what’s going on? GM has claimed that it is localities (mostly for police vehicles) and not federal purchases driving the increases, but aren’t localities struggling with their budgets? Why do the nation’s police forces all of a sudden need new vehicles?

A little research uncovers that the Obama Administration is once again being generous with federal grants to localities to purchase new cars, with one of the primary end recipients of taxpayer money being GM.

Spreading the wealth. The feds give the money to local governments so local governments can by Government Motors cars. Hey did you know Government Motors still owes $42 billion on their bailout?

Any large increase in federal purchases of GM vehicles would be criticized, but giving taxpayer money to local police forces to buy the cars is defensible. Hides the truth.

It seems dubiously orchestrated that GM would make sure that they attributed the unusual increase in government fleet sales to localities rather than federal purchases. It’s almost like money laundering where taxpayer money gets filtered though grants to localities and then gets back to GM via purchases of police vehicles and such (this is also a trick that has been used to promote the Chevy Volt).

It’s like how teachers unions hide that the teachers unions all support Democrats, with their raises they get from government. Money laundering.

Of course, the grants for law enforcement will be defended as a noble spending of taxpayer money to fight crime. But why did localities all of a sudden need to buy about double the amount of vehicles that they did last year?

Hold on to your hats as you hear how Jersey City bought $12 million worth of new vehicles with federal grant money and then said the vehicles would not be used on a regular basis.

So, by hook or by crook, GM will be selling vehicles and proclaiming how successful they are as Obama continues to campaign on that same “success.” With $50 billion of taxpayer money handed to them and such “success”, you have to wonder why GM’s share price has gone from a $33 IPO price down to the current $20 range. More importantly, you have to wonder how America can continue to afford to throw money away to help give the perception that GM is an Obama success story.

I wonder how many people know what is really going on …. And the Union Workers all cheer.

Chevrolet Volt-ville

My first of many questions is how did this end up in Texas and not California? Austin is liberal Texas’ enclave. It’s the only place liberals have left is the seat of government. Where liberals go to die.

Maybe it should be renamed “Chevrolet Volt-ville.” The largest concentration of Chevrolet Volts in the country will play a key role in helping Texas residents in a 700-acre planned community as they test the impact of “smart homes” and other green technology, like electronic vehicles.

Well it is 700 acres, and no barbed wire.

GM calls it the greatest concentration of Chevrolet Volts in the world.

Sigh, with enough taxpayer money, maybe we can lure enough liberals inside.

“This partnership provides us with a unique opportunity to observe charging details with many real customers in a concentrated setting,” said Nick Pudar, an OnStar vice president, in a statement.

Unique waste of money?

OnStar and General Motors have become official partners of Pecan Street Inc., the country’s first nonprofit research and development consortia, where residents agreed to be part of a clean-energy smart grid test for sustainable living. The Mueller community, 3 miles outside Austin, provides a real-life lab for the automaker to observe charging patterns and how consumers and clean-energy technologies interact and support electric-vehicle charging. The project runs for five years.

Smart-grid, the liberals pretty sounding name for electricity rationing.

While Chevrolet made 100 Volts available, only 55 of the community residents took advantage of the various tax credits, including a $7,500 federal tax credit and a $7,500 rebate from Pecan Street on their Volt purchases. Those leasing a Volt for three or more years received a $3,000 rebate.

Nudge, shove shoot. The liberals progression.

So you get to drive around your little town? They throw food over the fence, twice a day.

“We’re gathering information from families’ vehicles throughout this community to find out the direct impact the Volt has on the grid and how to get drivers the lowest possible charging rates,” said Pudar. “This project will also help us develop future capabilities of the Volt and other plug-in electric vehicles.”

Why taxpayers are on the hook to help General Motors do product research is… not very surprising at all. But it should trouble GM, not to mention those who subsidize Volts, that they can’t move almost half of their stock in an eco community.

So, how much is this costing taxpayers — on top of the original Volt subsidies that is?

Pecan Street is funded by a $10.4 million grant from the Energy Department and more than $14 million in matching funds from project partners. Although Pecan Street oversees the consortia, it also includes researchers from the University of Texas, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Environmental Defense Fund. It’s housed in the University of Texas at Austin.

For now it’s been dubbed “Volt-ville,” but other names under consideration are “Begley-land” and “Gore-opolis.”

By the time it’s all over, “Another Defunct Federally-Backed Money Incinerator” will probably best apply:

Media Fail: Chevy Volt Makes NO Money, Costs Taxpayers Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Per Car

Hmm, so tell me, which investment has Obama made, with taxpayer money that has returned actual money to the taxpayets?

We know there are none of the green energy crap companies whihc did nothing but payback contributors and then go bankrupt. Now we find the turth of GM and the waste of money Volt.

The Jurassic Press is missing much in their reporting on the $50 billion bailout of General Motors (GM).  The Press is open channeling for President Barack Obama – allowing him to frame the bailout exactly as he wishes in the 2012 Presidential election.

GM the union health care company that also builds cars.

The President is running in large part on the bailout’s $30+ billion loss, uber-failed “success.”  And the Press is acting as his stenographers.  An epitome of this bailout nightmare mess is the electric absurdity that is the Chevrolet Volt.  The Press is at every turn covering up – rather than covering – the serial failures of President Obama’s signature vehicle.

The Press has failed to mention at least five Volt fires, myopically focusing on the one the Obama Administration hand-selected for attention.

The Press has failed to mention that the Volt fire problem remains unsolved.  Is it the battery?  Is it the charging station?  Is it the charging cable?  All of the above?

GM and the Administration don’t know.  And the Press ain’t breaking their necks trying to find out.

When do you think we will find out the whole truth?

What Happens To Companies Who Push Junk No One Will Buy: Engineers Cast Wary Eye on Role of Electric Cars

As an engineer, call me perplexed. Why would anyone drive a golf cart on the highway? Don’t they know how an accident would come out? What about “f = m * a”  don’t they know what that means?

Our country is big, roads are wide, speeds out of necessity are high. Accidents are brutal at those speeds. Higher mass cars fair better, for their occupants. Liberals and their large Limousines are not really affected. They are of that class, you see, where cars come with professional drivers. Like with guns, which come with professional bodyguards, in their little insolated world. It’s not real.

In my local area a trip to Home Depot would involve about a 50 mile round trip. In need of a 8 hour recharge. But if I had other stores to visit, tough luck. I would be particularly hard on an electric car, I would also run the air conditioner, as this week the temperature will be over 90 for the rest of the week.

So being smart and not wanting to end up in a “flat little car” I take a pass. Not because the electric car doesn’t work, but it simply does not do what I want of my car.

Did you know that GM turned down the Volt for production, saying it was not viable. Yep, they turned it down. Then along comes Obama … gonna buy himself a Union health care company that builds car as a sideline, to fix it. A two for one in his small undeveloped mind.

Now the engineers are noticing that no one wants one either.

Auto-industry marketers are stepping up efforts to tout electric cars and plug-in hybrids to regulators and consumers, but at a gathering of industry technologists here, senior auto-company executives offered a sharply skeptical view of electric cars, predicting they will remain a marginal part of the U.S. market well into the next decade.

In presentations Tuesday and Wednesday at the annual Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress, senior auto-industry executives in charge of technology strategy, research, and regulatory issues delivered the same message: Barring an unforeseen breakthrough that significantly drops the cost of automotive batteries, this is a waste of money, and everybody knows it.

Getting down to basics … At the meeting, Mr. Winegarden presented a chart comparing the amount of energy delivered by a given volume or mass of fuel. According to the article, “On his chart, lithium-ion batteries, used in electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf and GM’s plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, were ranked close to zero compared to gasoline and diesel fuels, which delivered the most energy for the least amount of weight and cost to the consumer. ‘The rumored death of the internal combustion engine is premature,’ Mr. Winegarden said.” I guess Mr. Winegarden hasn’t been paying attention to GM’s spin on what a technological wonder the Volt is.

Other industry executives were also aware of the limitations of the much-hyped Chevy Volt along with other lesser-hyped EVs. Also from the piece, “Robert Bienenfeld, senior manager for environment and energy strategy at Honda Motor Co.’s U.S. arm, said that by 2025, a customer who buys a plug-in hybrid could wait 10 years to recover the added upfront costs, compared with a 2025 car outfitted with a more efficient gasoline engine and transmission. The payback for an all-electric car would be even longer.”

It only requires a little common sense to understand the limitations of cars like the Volt. Consider that the vehicle has a battery power source that weighs about 450 pounds and takes up a good deal of passenger and cargo area. An internal combustion engine is still utilized as a back-up. If you charge the lithium-ion based power source for 10 hours you can move the vehicle the equivalent of what about one gallon of gas can move a conventional vehicle. The good news is that you can save about two dollars a day and make up for the additional cost of the vehicle in about twenty years.

The limitations of the Chevy Volt have not stopped proponents from touting the vehicle as a technological marvel.

I still fail to understand how a car that cost twice as much as a conventionally powered vehicle and only saves about a gallon of gas a day by traveling about 30 or 35 miles on a charge before switching to premium fuel is such a “technological moon shot.” Ever heard of diesels? Probably not. It appears that politics is playing more of a role than herd mentality as supporters continue to attack any critics of the Chevy Volt. The crowd that normally wants the wealthy to pay their fair share now supports subsidies to rich buyers of the Volt and other plug-in vehicles. Low consumer demand, however, belies the media hype for the vehicle.

Look, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or an honest GM executive (something I was beginning to believe was an oxymoron) to realize that the Chevy Volt in its present form is doing practically nothing to save America from foreign oil dependence. Taxpayers are paying a ridiculous price to help cars like the Volt succeed, if you consider selling a few thousand cars a month a success. Congratulations to Mr. Winegarden for coming clean about the limitations of EVs and the Chevy Volt. Now, if only he can talk some sense into Obama-appointed GM CEO, Dan Akerson.

And as soon as Obama leaves, the industry for this unwanted crap will go with him.