Excuse me: the Chevy Volt. Anyway, this is YouTube’s response to the concept of ‘parody:’
Particularly since it’s usually just the audio that they take down. Nonetheless, via ZeroHedge:
Chevy Volt – Building a Better Tomorrow from Ben Howe on Vimeo.
Tsk, tsk, YouTube. Tsk, tsk.
C’mon, Moe. You know the Googleplex is in the tank for Obama.
Mew
It’s too bad, really. I like the Volt as a car and a piece of technology. It’s a good design for the problem it’s geared to solve. A relatively short range electric car that has a gas powered generator to extend its range when needed. And it isn’t ugly like the Prius.
The economics of it kind of suck because of the costs of installing a proper home charging station and the price premium for the vehicle its self. You’d have to own it a looong time to make up the cost in fuel savings, even at $5 gas.
A real shame it’s a political football/albatross…
I’m sorry, what??? It get’s 25 to 50 miles on a single electric charge. That might not even get me to work. The fact that “the economics of it kinda suck” make it a pointless waste of time as anything other than a concept car used as a stepping stone to actual, usable technology. The whole battery catching on fire thing just makes it a dangerous, pointless waste of time. Without massive gov’t backing the thing would never have been produced like it has been.
The “….whole battery catching on fire thing…” is manufactured failure, by a federal agency. The battery disabling protocols published in the owners manual were disregarded in total, and then the car was flipped on it’s side and roof, in excess of the tests requirements. {” Hey,While we’re here…”}
Just as in Audi’s sudden acceleration, likewise Toyota’s{investigated by NASA and found to have no merit} and the NBC pick-up truck “tests”, this was and is a question few were asking. Per the manual, if you get in an accident,severe enough to even suspect frame damage, you are supposed to totally discharge the battery. NO Ifs,Ands or Buts. Was it done? N O P E !!
Video no longer available.
Boy, Obama really IS thin skinned….
Big difference chief, the acceleration claims were utter crap, the battery fire actually happened. And yes, I’m sure there are safeguards and procedures designed to prevent the fire. Such as the discharge. However, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an accident of any severity, but “holy sh*t! I better discharge my car’s battery!” probably isn’t going to be high on the list of things you’re thinking about. The car is junk, as evidenced by the single best test for success or failure of a new product: the Free Market.
BCochran1981: As I said, a SHORT range commuter car. If you lived in a city or not too far from where you work, most of your daily car use would be purely electric only. The generator allows you to make the occasional extended trip without worrying about where you can plug in. Yeah, the extended range gas mileage is not phenomenal (but not awful either) but that’s not the intended role for the car. I like it. It stimulates all the right places in my Engineering brain.
I really wish the Gov’t bailout hadn’t happened for all the usual reasons, but also because the Volt will forever be linked to a horrible blunder. I’d rather it got it’s chance to shine or fail without the taint of Socialism. But then, I like most things in my life free of the taint of Socialism…
I disagree. Maybe it’s just me, but I know far more people who live 20+ miles from work than those that live inside that radius. For those people that are the 20+ers, you might be able to get to work, but you couldn’t get home. Unless of course you ponied up for a charging station at work and had some way to hook it up.
The bailout isn’t what caused the Volt to fail as a product, it’s failure to perform as advertised did. We were led to believe that this was the wave of the future. We’d be saving the environment, cut our dependence on fossil fuels, GO ELECTRIC! By any measure, the Volt fails to live up to that.
I actually think the Volt’s biggest failure comes from its marketing. And here’s where the bailout does come into play. Instead of marketing the Volt as some sort of forerunner to the green utopia, market it as a safety feature. The commercial writes itself. A woman, driving alone late at night, realizes she’s running out of gas and is nowhere near a station. In a normal car, she’s stranded alone on the side of the road. But with the Volt, she’s got an extra 25-50 miles that she can go to find a station. Same with dad driving at night on the family vacation. Teenage daughter…the commercials are easy. I’m a husband and I have two daughters. I can promise you something like that would catch my eye. Market it like they did run-flat tires. But the gov’t funded this thing and used it to push a message.
I never thought much would come of it since the technology just isn’t there yet. I’m most amused that this was the big answer to Detroit “building the cars no one wants to buy” (pick-up trucks, SUV’s) so now we’re going to revolutionalize the way people drive with an electric car that costs twice as much as a normal one and has the same range electric cars were able to achieve in 1915 (1915, seriously). Has anyone accused them lately of “building the cars no one wants to buy”?
Yes BChochran1981, I was in a Life Threatening accident, thank you very much, T-Boned and my fault entirely.Thrown through windshield on opposite side of car,no belts on, and I paid for it, Large. Thankfully for me, little needed to be accomplished except for junking out the remains.
If you pay 35 k for a car you are seen as kinda’ responsible,NO? New Tech & dealer should prompt you to read the manual and more.{“HH-MMM let’s go through this, shall we…”} The money did not just appear and you are assumed: not stupid. So why would you suggest same?
The battery fire happened days, if not weeks, after the test occurred and the testers had a responsibility to follow procedures as written, which they apparently failed to do.
{Am not Chief. Just Large, slightly chubby,bearded Brave.}