The Chevy Volt

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I just think it's pretty silly to believe that you can save money by buying a new car.

Well, if your car gets old enough that you're spending hundreds or thousands of dollars every month on repairs, then buying a new car will save money.

If one holds on to a new car for ten to fifteen years and maintains it properly it is works out well on a per year basis. I am still driving by 1995 Honda Civic. It runs like a champ.

ruveyn

I've generally heard much better things (particularly concerning reliability) about Japanese-built cars versus other cars.

Adding another shift is not a reaction to oil prices, but rather, increasing availability.



The Volt is supposed to be available nationwide before year's end but ordering your volt started yesterday. On average, between the states that it was available in, early adopters took in 1500 initial sales, but demand in these markets fell to around 500-1000 units a month. It's base price has fallen from the low 40 thousands into the upper 30 thousands which will bring a wee-bit closer to the leaf but is still priced beyond the point of relevancy and GM needs to sell a lot of these to justify even building this car with taxpayer dollars. If we magnify early adopters in DC, New York, Michigan, Texas, and California, to include all states which will probably not as eager to embrace the VOLT... unless GM finds a way to lower costs, units sold will not come close to making up the millions poured into bringing this car so early to market.

Isn't there an issue involving recharging them so that you need an electrician to rewire at the very least your garage and possibly your entire house.

No, Inuyasha, it is not an apple computer.

I think this is a chicken and egg argument. Electric cars make sense already, simply because there are more ways to generate energy for those cars. It means that electric are not locked in a specific technology or material.

It is of course true that right now it is all coal in the US for electricity. But the past is not the future. When US changes to a better means of energy production, like nuclear it would be most convenient to already have most cars electric, that would help us benefit from the new energy's features more quickly than waiting for the change before starting the slow migration.

Maybe so. But nothing smells so good as burning coal. Much better than cigarettes.

By the way, some coal (although less than previously) is used to heat homes. The Argonne National Laboratories still has a big old-fashioned coal-burning plant to heat all of the building on the site. There are ducts weaving around the site to bring heat from the coal plant to the individual buildings.

It looks like the war has already started in Thailand:

That would be the annual Songkhran, which Thai people celebrate by dowsing each other with water.

Keep having fun.

I live in one of the places where we had an actual water war thanks to corporate giants. It wasn't funny.

Thanks, I shall.


Probably not, but it's pretty harmless as far as humour on PPR goes.

The Chevy Volt is just another car. I'd prefer a Rhodes "car".

Saw this article the other day, which would be related to the Volt and other electric plug in autos.

"British Study: Electric Cars Not So Green"
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/06/13/br ... -so-green/

Excerpt:

The Chevrolet Volt got a write-up in this month's Consumer Reports.

If you're only driving 35 miles per day, and recharge the battery every night (and thus run on electricity alone), then your cost, based on national-average electricity rates, is 4 cents per mile.

However, for those of us who live in areas with actual winters, the electric heater is rather poor.

Once you've used up the battery and the motor kicks in, then you're only getting 29 mpg (compared to 44 mpg for a Toyota Prius or 40 mpg for a Honda Civic Hybrid). A 90 mile trip ends up costing more in a Chevrolet Volt compared to these two cars.

Plus, you pay up front about $20,000 more for the Chevrolet Volt than you do for either of these two Japanese cars.

I've already learned my lesson: DON'T buy American cars--just get a Japanese car. The Japanese make better cars, any way you look at it.

I thought Saturn made a good car. Very efficient, well built, cheap to fix, but apparently it was too efficient (from the owner's point of view). Not enough profit for the makers and so it goes...