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America's biggest near-dead car company called in reporters this month to boast – boast! – about its willingness to lose money on its forthcoming electric car. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120890912345836455.html?mod=todays_columnists)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Chevrolet_Volt_-_DOE_PHEV_Grant.jpgHolman W Jenkins Jr - Wall Street Journal - April 23, 2008

The most ridiculous GM-bashing I've heard of - Ed

With the administration's waning days coming up, the biggest implication of yesterday's fuel-economy proposals from the Transportation Department is that officials will have some media bouquets to Google at their leisure when they leave office. How fun it will be to read about their boldness in speeding up the already ambitious mileage targets that Congress enacted last year.

But anyone who thinks the new schedule amounts to a hill of biofuel soybeans must live somewhere far beyond the Beltway.

The fitting Earth Day hoax from Transportation Secretary Mary Peters promises the average new car in eight years will get 35.7 mpg, up from today's 27.5 mpg. Don't bet the mortgage money on it. The fact that the world is "running out of oil" is no guarantee that gasoline will remain $3.50 a gallon. And if it doesn't, a scheme that, by the government's own forgiving estimate, would add up to $979 to the price of a popular model might quickly lose any semblance of workability. For one thing, such models will stop being popular and pile up on dealer lots if consumers decide the size and horsepower sacrifice aren't worth the fuel savings… http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120890912345836455.html?mod=todays_columnists

It's par for the course for this joker.

Holman Jenkins Jr. recently suggested in another WSJ article that Prius drivers do not reduce the consumption of oil/gas because the lower prices which result from Prius drivers leads to offsetting demand increasing among non-Prius drivers.

Yeah, I know. And the WSJ pays him.

But it's preferable to his housing crisis solution. His idea? Destroy the houses:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120709588093381941.html

Hi Chuck:

___Mr. Holman is the one in denial as gas prices continue to rise and supply declines begin to rear their ugly heads (we have not even seen that shoe drop yet), this dumb@$$ will be begging for anything but an FSP. I have to believe GM sees the same as sales of their most profitable units vanish into thin air with only one cause, that being fuel costs.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

GM intends to beat Toyota at its own game of selling bogus green symbolism to Washington and Hollywood

Whatever motivates GM to bring the Volt to market is fine with me.

These people don't get the demand that is not being met now. I was passed by 3 Yaris's and one Versa with paper tags yesterday. The used car lot by work is filled with trucks. Many co-workers are asking me about my FIT.

The Volt is GM's one chance to stay in the game. GO GM!

The only gripe I have with whe Volt is that it isn't in its second generation of production already. GM has been sitting on the puzzle pieces for the better part of a decade and will likely stall until they can't stall anymore.

As for this "journalist", I think he needs to lay off the meth for a little while. He's clearly living in some kind of fantasy land with this kind of illogic and short-sightedness.

Wow. WSJ usually has articles worth reading. This one must have been meant for April 1 not the 23rd. Obviously the author hasn't even performed a minimal amount of research to see that guzzlers are not selling and has some nostalgia for days gone by.

This jackass also has no understanding about R&D and how to make widgets. Is GM really only going to use their Volt technology on the Volt or do you think they might also use it on other types of vehicles they come out with?

I can't believe WSJ has a moron with no business sense writing opinion pieces.

There's something to be said about bringing a car to the market that is close to making economic sense. Over the entire lifetime of a Prius, the owner saves money by using less gas than an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle, despite paying a higher inital cost. When the Prius first came out this wasn't true, but it was close to being true with gas prices under $2 a gallon.

However this isn't true for the volt. Gas prices have to go way up for the volt to make economic sense over the life of the car for the buyer. Few people are going to pay $45,000 when a new Prius is sitting over there for about half the cost and still gets better FE, just doesn't have any electric range. The volt is a giant PR stunt for GM attempting to look green. Look at what Bob Lutz said: "GM had the technology to do hybrids back when Toyota was launching the first Prius, but we opted not to ask the board to approve a product program that'd be destined to lose hundreds of millions of dollars . . . We made that mistake once. We won't make it again." There is no other logical explanation except a PR stunt as there is no reason to push a car to the market that they know will loose money. People at the top of a business's goal is to make money, and the only way the volt could make sense to them is as a advertisement program, which so far has been successful.

One could argue that developing the volt will give GM the technology for better future hybrids, but if that was really their goal, why not just push engineers to develop the technology, why spent millions releasing a car?

Also, the prototype looks like it was designed to look cool, not be fuel effecient. You don't have to be a aerodynamics specialist to know that the thing doesn't have that great of a coefficient of drag. The Prius is successful not only because it is a hybrid, but also because many other changes were made to increase fuel economy, making the car more aerodynamic being one of them.

There's something to be said about bringing a car to the market that is close to making economic sense. Over the entire lifetime of a Prius, the owner saves money by using less gas than an equivalent non-hybrid vehicle, despite paying a higher inital cost. When the Prius first came out this wasn't true, but it was close to being true with gas prices under $2 a gallon.

However this isn't true for the volt. Gas prices have to go way up for the volt to make economic sense over the life of the car for the buyer. Few people are going to pay $45,000 when a new Prius is sitting over there for about half the cost and still gets better FE, just doesn't have any electric range. The volt is a giant PR stunt for GM attempting to look green. Look at what Bob Lutz said: "GM had the technology to do hybrids back when Toyota was launching the first Prius, but we opted not to ask the board to approve a product program that'd be destined to lose hundreds of millions of dollars . . . We made that mistake once. We won't make it again." There is no other logical explanation except a PR stunt as there is no reason to push a car to the market that they know will loose money. People at the top of a business's goal is to make money, and the only way the volt could make sense to them is as a advertisement program, which so far has been successful.

One could argue that developing the volt will give GM the technology for better future hybrids, but if that was really their goal, why not just push engineers to develop the technology, why spent millions releasing a car?

Also, the prototype looks like it was designed to look cool, not be fuel effecient. You don't have to be a aerodynamics specialist to know that the thing doesn't have that great of a coefficient of drag. The Prius is successful not only because it is a hybrid, but also because many other changes were made to increase fuel economy, making the car more aerodynamic being one of them.

Isn't it a bit premature to say the Volt will cost $45k and won't be aerodynamic or make any economic sense? Right now, this all seems to be speculation. I'm no GM fan, but I also don't want to discount their efforts and am interested in seeing what the Volt actually ends up being.

Wow. WSJ usually has articles worth reading. This one must have been meant for April 1 not the 23rd. Obviously the author hasn't even performed a minimal amount of research to see that guzzlers are not selling and has some nostalgia for days gone by.


This is a very common response to WSJ items that seem "out of place". There's an explanation.

The WSJ is a fantastic paper that is full of quality information and great reporting.

WSJ Columnists, especially those on the Op-Ed page, are either political hacks, blindly ideological, or both. The WSJ reporters make it a consistent point to differentiate themselves with WSJ op-ed columnists.

"The WSJ editors lie without consequence.........Here ruining people is considered sport."

- Suicide note of Vince Foster (1945-1993)

GM should work on the FE of their entire lineup of vehicles too! Not just show off in a Volt!

WSJ Columnists, especially those on the Op-Ed page, are either political hacks, blindly ideological, or both. The WSJ reporters make it a consistent point to differentiate themselves with WSJ op-ed columnists.


And I suppose this will get even worse since News Corp. acquired it. Maybe some of the FOX monkeys will start writing for WSJ to cut costs and make sure that it is "fair and balanced."

Luddite Lutz and his Volt.

How can anyone top that for a comedy act?

Prove me wrong, GM.

Harry

"For some number of dollars, GM can afford to bribe consumers to drive Volts off the lot. That is, if doing so frees GM to build and sell other cars bigger and more powerful than the cars its rivals can afford to build under the CAFE rules. "

Bribe me please!

The Volt is such a joke. Oversized, overpriced, and overhyped.

It's not a cure all because of its laughingly limited range, and it will still burn gasoline once those batteries are run down.

If you plug it in, you're plugging into a coal and oil-fired power grid.

And you can bet it took a LOT of oil to manufacture and ship those Volt's to the dealerships.


And I'll just kindly point out how the second-gen EV1 with the NiMH batteries could go over 140 miles on a single charge...

I think Jenkins' article is bang on the mark.

I think he's stating that GM is going through with the Volt project for two reasons:
1. "to beat Toyota at selling bogus green symbolism to Washington and Hollywood"---it's already gotten tons of PR for GM and it's not even running yet.
2. "it would free GM to build and sell bigger cars than rivals could afford to sell under CAFE rules"--- ie: do an end-run around the CAFE rules and continue selling high-profit-margin guzzlers.

I don't think they're building it for the planet nor for the consumer's economic well-being. Jenkin's reasons make sense to me.

Isn't it a bit premature to say the Volt will cost $45k and won't be aerodynamic or make any economic sense? Right now, this all seems to be speculation. I'm no GM fan, but I also don't want to discount their efforts and am interested in seeing what the Volt actually ends up being.

True, if the volt costs 20 grand I'll take it all back. I've read other articles that say the volt will cost between 40 and 48 thousand dollars. This article being one of them: http://www.egmcartech.com/2008/04/01/chevrolet-volt-could-cost-up-to-48000/. I also don't want to discount their efforts, but then you have no-name companies like Aptera coming out with a $30,000 car with 120 mile all electric range and expected mpg close to 300. Granted, the Aptera is not the size of a normal car, but the volt is no where near to offering the same deal at it's price. Also, what kind of car company releases a prototype 2 years before its production and then makes major changes? GM should be fairly committed to a car's shape 2 years in advance. If major changes are required that's bad system engineering.

Also, what kind of car company releases a prototype 2 years before its production and then makes major changes?

GM had no intention of ever putting the Volt into production. The prototype was purely a concept car.

Now they claim they will put it into production, but there are reasons to be skeptical. Pricing it @ $48K will effectively kill it off, something Lutz will use when he continues to fight CAFE standards, and lobbies for the repeal of those standards.

While GM plays their soap opera, other car makers are serious about providing fuel-efficient cars, and will trounce GM in the marketplace.

Harry

Since it's purchase by Murdoch owned NewsCorp, the state of columnists at the WSJ is only going to get worse and far more reactionary than thoughtful. It was Rupert's longtime dream to buy the WSJ and turn it into a right wing mouthpiece on the same turf as the New York Times. It looks like he has succeeded. :( Too bad for the thoughtful readers of the WSJ. Where do they turn now, Barrons?