Volt Fraud At Government Motors

If one wants a capitalist system to deal with environmental issues, or other problems which are now externalities, you have to create markets that internalize costs.
So, for example, you do cap and trade for greenhouse gases, or for other pollutants--creating a market price for them.

But most conservatives are against that now (even though conservative thinkers were prominent in creating these ideas).
The other options are government regulation, or allowing polluters to impact you (and everyone else) without needing your consent.

You might say, pick your poison, or pick your poison.

 

Maybe. I would say that a true competitive market would require getting rid of all subsidies (direct AND indirect). Just doing this might do a lot more for alternative energy than the battling one set of subsidies with a different set of subsidies.

 

Yep . . . Not wanting to have the "aftermaerket" look I ordered mine on Ebay, directly imported from Japan. This is what the Gen II stock EV button looks like, for those who've never seen it.:



If it wasn't for the fact that our daughter needed a better car (than the GM product we helped her buy), we'd keep it & add a 20 mile PHEV range to it. Our Gen II will EASILY get better mpg over the 1/2 dozen years and 100K miles we've owned it - compared to the Volt . . . and for a whole lot less money up front.
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I wanted a Volt, and I've known about it since the first press releases. I would have loved the original idea that the Volt was supposed to be, but what will come off the production line will be something completely different. This is not the good everyday car for your average consumer that was promised. If only it had a lower price, greater range, and better fuel efficiency.

 

Doesn't matter. I'm sure you have heard about the tragedy of commons.

What is good for a company or individual can be suicicidal for the society. It is interesting that some stick to laissez faire even in the face of stark realities staring at the face of humanity that need collective action.

BTW, what about the middle east energy "security" ? May be let the oil companies have their own armies & invade middle east instead ... ? Worked for the East India company ;-)

 

Nice pics! I read somewhere that when they put that original concept in the wind tunnel it was so horrible that they could turn it around backwards and not change the numbers much. It was a concept, people liked the idea so much they ran with it. But trying to tie the Volt we'll see in showrooms to that original concept is a stretch in reality.
The price is a hard sell, but I think the car's offerings have value. Commute to work, run errands, come home, charge. No need for gas Mon-Fri. Weekend trip to the beach? Mountains? Go for it, you'll burn some gas. Maybe you can charge at the destination, maybe not. Don't worry.
Let it hit the market and see what happens. The Prius had plenty of haters and detractors when it first came on the scene as well.

- D

 

The Prius is a success because it is a hyper efficient, REASONABLY priced midsize car! If it were smaller, failed to deliver on promised performance and cost $10k more, it would have failed miserably! I don't see how the Volt can can attract the number of buyers needed to stay in production beyond two years!

 

Well it's a free market so just stand back and watch. If you're proved wrong, then beers on you!

 

Again the Prius can't be plugged in.
The Prius can't can't go up 40 miles on electricity alone.
Your comparing a price of a completly different car to a prius it's just not fair. Alot of people pay over 30k for a prius. What it Toyota always had a 40 miles ev range. I bet you it would cost just as much as the volt. Again i'n not saying what car is better just that if the prius had a 40 miles range it would cost just as much.

 

Why not?

Price alone isn't the only purchase criteria anyway.

In fact, there's a slew of priorities... some of which enthusiasts don't want to address... like engine-efficiency & emission-rating... then of course, there's things like interior seating & cargo...
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Oh? Then why did you post a comment?

 

Just getting rid of subsidies doesn't get rid of externalities (unless you want to characterize the allowance of an externality as an indirect subsidy that the victim of the externality is forced to pay to the producer). And, FL_prius, you are not crazy to view pollution externalities this way.

But I am both troubled and amused by the way so-called economic conservative politicians have rejected market-based methods such as cap-and-trade for dealing with the greenhouse gas problem and other pollution issues.

Though they are responding to their constituents, which is one of the theories on which representative democracy is supposed to work. (Though not the theory of the conservative's favorite theoretician, James Madison, who hoped we would elect smart, virtuous people to do the needful, not the immediately popular.)

 

People are always going to compare what they have to something else whether it is apples to oranges or not. It helps justify their purchase. If you go to other forums they will likely be comparing theirs to the Volt even if it is a FFH or an IQ or an F150, etc etc.

 

The first statement is a really good comment. It's really hard to classify the ability to dump CO2 out of a plant as a subsidy or an eternality. Either way, some "motivation" needs to be provided to the end users (citizens and industry) to reduce.

There are more ways for Cap and Trade to fail than to work. The ability to find loopholes and corrupt the intent while meeting the requirements has been done many times successfully (Think CA utility deregulation). This is shaping up the same way. When Wall Street Firms are BIG supporters, I know that they are lining up for the money to be skimmed, not the CO2 to be reduced. I would consider much more direct market approaches, with fewer avenues of corruption, to be better. To me step 1 was the correction of subsidies.

As always, there ends up being a polarization between extremes once it gets political. The concept and execution of "cap and trade" worked well for the Montreal Protocols and other constrained markets that avoided becoming a purely political issue. However, in this situation Cap and Trade is being shaped by politicians.

From hindsight, the various state mandates that xx% of a utilities output at 20xx will be renewable seems to work best. Everyone knows the rules, the cost is spread out, there is no significant corruption, and the utilities are free to pick the optimum technologies to achieve the end result.

 

Yes, I know that by shedding BILLIONS of GM's old toxic sites via bankruptcy, that the paltry 1.2B counts as "profit" ... because GM will never have to fix their mess. I know that if legally, the Feds don't cash in GM stock during a quarter that GM shows 1.2B inflow, then the ledger shows profit. That sort of slipperiness with the truth is so bad, that the SEC considers fines against GM, when their ads tout "we paid it all back".

So if a GM lie is less than a year old ... then it's worse? If GM said Volts would go 100-200mpg ... but the statement was over 12 months old ... it doesn't count? Every one is entitled to their opinion, and many don't count lies in that fassion. Still ... recently, GM was touting the Volt as an electric car. But that flys in the face that it CAN be strictly driven by the ICE ... and THAT disclosure did come out less than 12 months ago. The recentness of GM lies doesn't matter to many, because lies are a part of GM history ... even w/in the past 12 months.

True ... the nation's woes are never cause by "all of us". It's a figure of speech ... meaning a whole bunch of us. But our leadership still reflects the majority of us. All of Germany weren't Nazi party members ... but still ... look what happened in the 1930's. IOW, apathy has to be a substantial part of the majority in order to breed what it breeds in our leaders - BOTH parties.

 

Well, since both the Volt and Prius are hybrids they will compete for that segment of the market. It would be better if we had the PHEV Prius out to compare with the Volt, but that battle is still a while off! I'm sure Toyota could have compromised the interior with a giant, expensive battery pack, but for some strange reason decided to go with five passenger seating and ample cargo space! And yeh, you can load up a Prius north of $30k if you want and can afford too, but the majority of Prii sold are the II and III's. The Volt starts at $41k, but I have the feeling most of the cars available at first will be the loaded versions, plus rampant gouging, will put the average price at well over $50k! This is a niche vehicle for well heeled gadget addicts, not a mainstream product that will fill supermarket parking lots!

 

KGALL COMMENTS
Can't say I think that won't work--but it is government regulation. And it results in indirect subsidies--there's a demand for a product that doesn't exist otherwise, which directs money to the sellers of the products.

And it only deals with utilities--a huge issue but not the only one when it comes to global warming.

My point was a bit more satiric--that conservative thinkers came up with cap and trade for good free market reasons. But now conservative politicians and business groups are against it --
basically because it imposes on their constituents the costs of what they are doing.
Hey, it's the price of democracy.

 

The points stated above are valid. Note that Government Regulation would apply to the Cap and Trade Rules as well, so I think that the real answer with any approach is determined by the details much more so than the label.

Very true as well, but it's the democracies that are bringing the problem to the world's attention, so including that aspect, the price is still worth it.

 

The "Tragedy of the Commons" can be avoided. It is precisely this "tragedy" that makes me follow closely how overfishing throughout the world is being handled. We are not out of the woods by a long shot, but a very significant number of national and international efforts are underway to stop this disaster, many of them working, many not yet.

If this worldwide fishing problem gets (mostly) solved, then there is hope for us yet. Keep in mind that overfishing requires telling lots of countries (mostly Asian) that they cannot do all the fishing the claim they need for their population. As a result, it is a tense international effort, not a US effort.