Volt Sighting
This morning, I actually saw a Chevy Volt on the road. At least, I think I did. This marks the first time a more environmentally friendly car didn’t look stupid. Still won’t buy one or any vehicle from a car company that got bailout money.
Update: Maybe not:
The Volt at West is not for sale — not yet.
Charles West, dealer principal of West Chevrolet, said GM is only marketing the Volt in select areas of New York, California, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas. West purchased the new Volt from a dealer in D.C. who had several in stock.
February 3rd, 2011 at 10:15 am
Whenever I read about this I get excited necause I think they’re talking about the Toyota Volta, which is much cooler.
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:18 am
No hippie mobile for me no matter who makes it. I’ll stick with my big premium gas guzzling V8 thanks….
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:18 am
I have to disagree, there. The first generation Prius looked a lot like the concurrent model-year Echos or Corollas – I always had to look for either the nameplate on the trunk, or the unique little vent on the driver’s side C post, to tell for sure what it was.
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:20 am
They should have called it the CoalVolt.
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Ford, Honda and Nissan have hybrids that don’t look stupid. Buy one of theirs, instead. 🙂
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:45 pm
I wouldn’t know what it was if I saw one. I hear batteries don’t work so good in cold weather and you need the gas-motor anyhow.
February 3rd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Also, there’s the pesky fact that almost all of the early production will go towards filling the Fed’s quota.
The Feddle Gummint bought beaucoup Volts, and I presume they get priority over the dealerships.
GREAT POINT, ‘Crashr. I don’t know of the composition of the batteries in the Volt, but I DO know that an ordinary lead-acid starting battery loses half it’s discharge capacity at 0 degrees Fahrenheit. IF sufficient voltage were available to run the car from batteries, reducing the 25-30 mile max range by half would mean you couldn’t do a normal commute both ways on batteries.
February 3rd, 2011 at 2:46 pm
“Still won’t buy one or any vehicle from a car company that got bailout money.”
I would never buy anything from GM, bailout money or not. They’ve made nothing but junk since 1974.
February 3rd, 2011 at 4:32 pm
No photos? You forgot to swivel around your Droid, eh?
There’s no reason to think that someone from DC isn’t on a road trip or a “fact finding mission” or something.
February 3rd, 2011 at 5:48 pm
So why are we spending Tax Money for something we already own? Shouldn’t they just ship the cars straight to the Feds?
February 4th, 2011 at 4:43 am
Glad I come to this blog for gun news, not cars. Am I going to get schooled on how a Prius consumes coal again?
Obviously there are Volts outside the locations listed above. GM has test vehicles in multiple states, and private buyers have also moved them around. I know of at least one privately owned Volt here in WA.
Although I won’t defend Bush’s GM bailout, I applaud efforts to reduce the amount of cash we give to the Islamofascists. Osama loves your SUV after all.
There are plenty of states where you could drive an EV or EREV nine months of the year without seeing a single snowflake or burning an ounce of coal.
February 4th, 2011 at 9:18 am
No, i think that’s the Nissan Leaf.
February 5th, 2011 at 12:11 am
@ Ash
Ash is absolutely right, at least some one on here has half a brain to think with good lord. Many of the Volt owners have traveled over a 1000 miles on as little as 5 gallons of fuel in the dead of winter.
In addition, all of you so worked up about bailouts never understood that Toyota, Honda, Kia and virtually every major automaker in our market has received bailouts from their host countries, why? Because the major export nations of the world understand how critical manufacturing is to their economy, but you’ve all been so brainwashed by “free market” junkies you’ve never stopped to think that there is no “free market”.
Have any of you ever thought about which countries were hardly impacted by the “great recession”? Germany, China, Japan, South Korea, India even Vietnam. All of those countries are major export economies and barely missed a beat, while we’re still struggling to pull our selves out of it over 2 years later. The Bail out, though understandably hard to swallow, saved a key manufacturing base in this country and GM is producing some of the best vehicles on the market.
If there’s any bailout that we should be up in arms about it’s the bailout to the banks, but I’m sure most of you have no problem walking up to BofA today…
February 5th, 2011 at 3:11 pm
A business that is unsustainable and will require this again. No thanks. Not a dime.