Guest
03-03-2012, 11:59 PM
Friday General Motors announced that it is stopping manufacture of the Chevy Volt for an estimated five weeks. The actual shutdown will probably exceed that since Volt sales are falling far short of projections and GM has approximately 2,500 Volts at dealers and an additional 5,000 in inventory.
GM initially projected Volt sales of 30,000 in 2011 – later revised the target to 15,000 and finally to 10,000. Actual sales came in at 7,700. GM started 2012 with projected sales of 60,000 volts. YTD sales have totaled 1,700 Volts despite heavy advertising, including a Super Bowl commercial, and a $7,500 tax credit to the purchaser of each Volt. At this rate, selling off existing inventory will take closer to five month than five weeks.
It is difficult, to say the least, to determine how much money we taxpayers have spent on the Volt to date. Initial expenses included $450 million to GM for development expenses and $150 million given to LG Chem in Japan for development expenses. Since then $200 million have been provided to GM by the US Government to pay for the Volt assembly line and the battery assembly line. An addition $150 million has been provided to LG Chem and an additional $100 million by the state of Michigan to build a battery cell manufacturing facility in Holland Michigan. Michigan has committed to an addition $25 million in tax credits for a total of $275 million for a facility that will provide work for 300 workers at full capacity. LG Chem will continue to do the development and engineering in Korea.
On top of this, the taxpayers have paid $60 million in purchase incentives. President Obama is now proposing increasing the incentive to purchasers of the car from the existing $7,500 to $10,000.
President Obama is proposing to eliminate oil company incentives. I fully agree with that, but believe it should be an elimination of ALL incentives to the energy industry. I do not feel that I am entitled to ask you to help pay for my solar panels, windmills, car, etc. and I sure do not want to pay for yours!
GM has recently announced that the second generation Volt will be developed in cooperation with China and China will produce the Volts for the Chinese market and provide significant parts (probably the engine and associated hardware) to the United States production.
The two other EV producers in the US – Fisker and Tesla have received similar grants from this country to produce electric vehicles. Both companies received the same purchase incentive of $7,500 per vehicle despite the selling price being between $100,000 and $175,000. We have subsidized vehicles for Leonardo DeCaprio and Justin Beaver. That doesn’t seem right to me.
GM initially projected Volt sales of 30,000 in 2011 – later revised the target to 15,000 and finally to 10,000. Actual sales came in at 7,700. GM started 2012 with projected sales of 60,000 volts. YTD sales have totaled 1,700 Volts despite heavy advertising, including a Super Bowl commercial, and a $7,500 tax credit to the purchaser of each Volt. At this rate, selling off existing inventory will take closer to five month than five weeks.
It is difficult, to say the least, to determine how much money we taxpayers have spent on the Volt to date. Initial expenses included $450 million to GM for development expenses and $150 million given to LG Chem in Japan for development expenses. Since then $200 million have been provided to GM by the US Government to pay for the Volt assembly line and the battery assembly line. An addition $150 million has been provided to LG Chem and an additional $100 million by the state of Michigan to build a battery cell manufacturing facility in Holland Michigan. Michigan has committed to an addition $25 million in tax credits for a total of $275 million for a facility that will provide work for 300 workers at full capacity. LG Chem will continue to do the development and engineering in Korea.
On top of this, the taxpayers have paid $60 million in purchase incentives. President Obama is now proposing increasing the incentive to purchasers of the car from the existing $7,500 to $10,000.
President Obama is proposing to eliminate oil company incentives. I fully agree with that, but believe it should be an elimination of ALL incentives to the energy industry. I do not feel that I am entitled to ask you to help pay for my solar panels, windmills, car, etc. and I sure do not want to pay for yours!
GM has recently announced that the second generation Volt will be developed in cooperation with China and China will produce the Volts for the Chinese market and provide significant parts (probably the engine and associated hardware) to the United States production.
The two other EV producers in the US – Fisker and Tesla have received similar grants from this country to produce electric vehicles. Both companies received the same purchase incentive of $7,500 per vehicle despite the selling price being between $100,000 and $175,000. We have subsidized vehicles for Leonardo DeCaprio and Justin Beaver. That doesn’t seem right to me.