Analysis: Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers $250,000 Per Vehicle
**Written by Doug Powers
The Audi president called the Chevy Volt a “car for idiots,” but because the average Volt owner earns $170,000 a year and the average American couldn’t afford to buy it if they wanted to, it sounds more like the taxpayers are the ones who have been played for fools:
Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.
The Volt subsidies flow through multiple companies involed in production. The analysis includes adding up the amount of government subsidies via tax credits and direct funding for not only General Motors, but other companies supplying parts for the vehicle. For example, the Department of Energy awarded a $105.9 million grant to the GM Brownstown plant that assembles the batteries. The company was also awarded approximately $106 million for its Hamtramck assembly plant in state credits to retain jobs. The company that supplies the Volt’s batteries, Compact Power, was awarded up to $100 million in refundable battery credits (combination tax breaks and cash subsidies). These are among many of the subsidies and tax credits for the vehicle.
[...]
The $3 billion total subsidy figure includes $690.4 million offered by the state of Michigan and $2.3 billion in federal money. That’s enough to purchase 75,222 Volts with a sticker price of $39,828.
Any Volt story that references the Trabant for reasons of comparison is worth a read.
In many cases not only are taxpayers subsidizing the Volt’s manufacturing and incentives, but also its outright purchase for use in the public-sector fleet. The government purchases a little padding for the sales numbers:
(h/t Drudge)
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Yes, he is a racist. The Human Race.
No, “half educated” is about 4 times Jackson’s egikashin.
Hey, You know I’m all about saving gub-mint money. Let’s give away new Ferrari Italias and we can save $50K/vehicle! Me first!!
Does the Volt come with heated bumpers? I remember Trabant offered that option, so your hands didn’t freeze when pushing it in wintertime.
Maybe Obama will instruct GM to rename it “Barack” and then instruct every federal office to buy 1000 of them.
I’ve had nightmares about Sheila Jackson Lee since yesterday’s thread and now your bringing her up again.
1.) Are nightmares caused by Sheila Jackson lee covered under Obamacare.
a.) Under what section?
What about depression caused by Marxist rulers?
1.) Is covered under Obamacare?
a.) What section?
The Chevy Dolt. And who said government can’t do it better?
I believe that would be under ‘vivesection’.
Count me in Hiraghm.
When you have no competition and Democrats will extort taxpayer money to bail out your crappy company every time it fails, then why would you actually need to build a proper automobile?
The jackals are about to get a snout full of tusk from the American taxpayer.
Hangfire #62:
I’ll do you one better: I’ll buy a GM vehicle when the University of Idaho Vandals meet the Florida Atlantic University Owls for the BCS Championship.
Hangfire:
BTW, Idaho(2-10) is in the WAC. Florida Atlantic(1-11) is in the Sun Belt Conference. Both are non-BCS conferences. Make your on deductions.
Send me 50K and I won’t buy one.
Today only – for 100K I won’t buy three!
Hiraghm:
Remember: greens are like watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside. And they’re stupid too.
Is there a reason the government is getting into the business of making cars? Nazi Germany got into the business of making movies. Nobody went to see them. The German people opted instead for Grade B movies left over from Hollywood. With nobody buying these Volts, how did the insipid oligarchs of the failed Nazi era ever seep into the land of the free and the home of the brave?
swede:
For 250K, I can get a nice pimped out all wheel drive vehicle, two ATVs, two Sea-Doos, the trailers to carry them, and have money left over for a full size Mercedes. On the other hand, I could go second on your Ferrari idea. Either way, a dream comes true.
How very generous of you! ( I suggest the Auto-Czar take you up on that before you change your mind? ) Get a chance, go on the EPA Mileage site and you might find yourself very surprised. Just b/c Trabannabe’s are dinky enough to require (2) trips to the grocery store is no assurance you’re getting killer gas mileage?
The Mini-Cooper and Chev HHR downright shocked me.
A cool quarter million for a car that operates primarily on coal. Epic stupidity.
The beauty of the Volt is that it is preferred car for government fleets. If the government is buying them, they must be good.
AHh but the Nazis gave us the ultimate V (vengance) weapon as its only accepted legacy…..
the Volkswagon Beatle.
Krauthammer tonight reminded us that the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of the world with all our oil. If we would drill in the Gulf, Anwr, other states that have oil, shale, build the damn pipeline, this country would have an economic boom that would last for generations. AND we could tell the Arabs to shove their oil. And Obowma wouldn’t have to bow from the waist to the Saudi King (unless he wants to, of course). What the H is wrong with these people?? This country could be great again if we would just use our own oil!!! I strongly suggest a circular firing squad for the entire EPA…for starters.
The second thing (after giving all our states Obamacare waivers) our new POTUS must do is open up drilling…big time. AFTER abolishing the entire EPA, lock, stock and darter snail.
One footnote about the EPA…here in Minnesota we had gray wolves on the endangered list. So no one could touch them. NOW, they are everywhere, and are killing cattle and threatening other life forms. Yet, we are NOT ALLOWED to remove them from the endangered list and their herds are so big, they can’t sustain themselves. Kinda like Big Government, isn’t it?
The video provides us with the most sensible name for the vehicle. Lets call it the “E-2″ or “E Squared”. That would stand for “Electric Edsel”.
That’s how Carter saved Chrysler. Lee Iacocca gets all the credit.
Carter made an exec. order making the U.S. Military drive more fuel efficient 4 and 6 cylinder vehicles. Chrysler had the K-car.
I laughed out loud the first time I saw a 4-star Admiral pull up in the back of a Dodge Aries.
I have always wondered why I didn’t see more Ford Fairmonts in military service. They were a better car and cheaper, too.
You’re cheating. Those ATV’s and Sea-Doos and stuff were built by greedy capitalist pigs exploiting the working man for profit.
The Volts are built to save us all at the direction of noble government workers whose only concern is the betterment of America.
So cut it out. Be fair. Those greedy businesses made millions in profit. The government made nothing, sacrificing many millions of dollars for us. So there is no question who is moral and right.
Roland:
I’m moral and right. All my toys provide more jobs to hard working people, not to union fat cats. And they don’t cost a penny in taxpayers money. On the contrary, THEY GENERATE TAX REVENUES, up and down the supply and retail chains. And if Obowtome doesn’t like it, he can go lick the terminal on a Volt’s battery pack.
True. And that should be self-evident to anyone who isn’t insane or just plain evil.
Yet we have millions upon millions of Americans, even a significant majority of American voters in the last Presidential election, who vote as if time clock punching government bureaucrats are more moral and trustworthy and valuable to the society than entrepreneurs who risk their own money and invest immense time and energy and have to make customers happy every day or go broke.
Are government bureaucrats necessary? Sure. But they should be trusted about as far as you can throw the Washington Monument.
The mantra of left wing academicians since the 70′s under the last communist president we endured was that alternative energy is viable if we just give enough money to the colleges, and college born industries to somehow turn sunlight into gasoline. My idiot neighbor in the 70′s built a solar addition onto his house which then froze him during the cloudy short day winter, and cooked him during the sunny long day summer. When he sold the house, it had lost 25% of his purchase price because the new owner had to tear down the mess and build a new wall on his house. I hate to break it to the world’s smartest people, but the reason the world has been running on gasoline for the last 120 years is that no one has found a better more efficient source of energy. When we do, I guarantee the government won’t have to subsidize it’s production. We no longer ride horses, and when something which works comes along to replace the gasoline engine, we will buy it. Toyota has produced a vehicle which people are buying, and it doesn’t need subsidies. So is Ford. But gubmint motors needs that gubmint cheese to keep the unions afloat.
***
HI CHEAP_SEAT–#123. Don’t try to confuse “greenies” with facts! They don’t handle the truth well. They all seem financially and scientifically illiterate.
***
It is truly bizarre to hear our own Gubmint and its crony companies (G.E., Solyndra, Light Squared, G.M., Chrysler, et. al.) talk about “efficiency” and economic “benefits”. They always ignore the taxpayer subsidy costs and the true environmental impacts of their pipe dreams.
***
The engineering approach of “putting a box” around the system under analysis and accounting for all inputs and outputs and their total costs is never used. Because it would tell the truth about the alternate reality that these people live in.
***
As you point out–we got here because gas and diesel powered cars are so much better and economical than the “new reality” cars. Ditto for the power plants, chemical industries, etc.
***
John Bibb
***
But we don’t need to do the most economically efficient thing. We are rich. And we shouldn’t begrudge others (like the Chinese) who choose economic efficiency over ‘going green.’ They are poor.
“We were so rich we thought we could afford to be stupid.” – Western Civilization Epitaph.