Chevy Volt GM’s “moonshot”
Chevy Volt at LA Auto Show with early adopters
250,000 potential Volt buyers thus far
GM’s Chevy brand was the first LA Auto Show press conference this morning and the crowd was buzzing. GM seized the moment by bringing out a dirty Volt that had been driven by a few GM execs from Detroit to LA.
Calling the Chevy Volt the “most hyped” and “most politicized car” ever, GM claimed the Volt wasn’t just good for GM, but good for Michigan and Detroit. In fact, according to GM the Volt is analogous to a “moonshot”.
With 10 million lines of code, GM claimed the Volt was probably the most sophisticated car ever built and would be looked back upon as the car that changed it all.
Why? Because the Volt only costs about $1.50 per day to operate. Of course the Volt costs more than twice as much as a similarly sized car without tax credits, so its a little funny that GM’s Volt focus is saving money, at least for now.
Anyway, GM brought out a number of older white males – early adopters of the Volt in LA – and claimed there were another 250,000 potential Volt buyers – and the “marketing hasn’t even begun”. I can only imagine!
Then, not surprisingly, the focus quickly switched to the success of GM’s new heavy duty trucks and the Camaro – the vehicle the crowd was really waiting for judging by the response.
GM started out in the 1970s with EV designs that were improved up to the 1997 EV1…an electric car still not surpassed by much…(http://www.evsroll.com/GM_electric_cars.html)
General Motors has in the past strung along with big oil all right. The company now appears to be following along with big Government.
EVsRock!
I am less critical of the volt than originally because it appears that ONE path towards the future is a SMALL gas engine that powers an electric engine and it APPEARS to be more efficient than an ICE moving a gear train.
I know that ships are now being built without driveshafts … and the powerplant just creates electricity to power the electric engine that drives the propellers.
If the electric engines are indeed more efficient that ICE/direct gears… then we might be getting somewhere.
I can find many good things to say about the Volt, but calling it a “moonshot” was silly.
Another goddamn shell game by GM.