Saturday, September 01, 2012

GM's Volt Powerless To Resist Market Forces

By J.J. Jackson

GM has announced that it is shutting down and retooling the plant making their Chevy Volt because they are sitting on a three month backlog of proverbial ugly babies. That's right, GM has 6,500 of the boondoggles just waiting to be purchased [1].

How odd. I say this because every time I write an article lambasting the Chevy Volt, I get emails from an angry liberals claiming that the Volt is in such high demand. Why, they claim, there is even a waiting list. You can't, they tell me, just walk into a Chevy dealer and buy one of these highly desired vehicles.

Well, obviously you can! They're just sitting there waiting for some enviro-nut to walk onto the lot! But never expect a liberal to pull their head out of their butt long enough to actually learn the truth.

The facts are that sales of the Volt are so poor that this is the second time this year GM has suspended production [2] of the car that is a Democrat's wet dream [3]. The car that is both politically correct and politically incorrect at the same time, politically correct because it is powered by electricity but politically incorrect because that electricity comes from coal, is, not surprisingly, still not taking off. It is a sad day for those that dream of a command economy.

Of course, what did you really expect? The Chevy Volt was a car conceived in by minds that think like President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

Remember when the President whined about how business owners didn't build their own businesses? Instead, he claimed, they were only successful because someone else built their business for them? Well, that's the problem GM is having with the Chevy Volt. It was command to be. It was then built, promoted, subsidized the crap out of it when it becomes too expensive and no longer viable, and then even had tax credits thrown in to make it somewhat more desirable. Still, it doesn't sell.

GM let someone else dictate the car that they were going to build to suit political sensitivities. In the end, as is always the case, the Volt is powerless to resist market forces. Had GM adopted the strategy of building cars that people wanted to buy, rather than the ones the political left wanted to force people to buy, it wouldn't have to worry about having a three month backlog of Volts.

GM will retool the plant currently making Volts to produce the gas powered/guzzling V6 2014 Chevy Impala [4]. What's a V6 get these days? 20 MPG city? We know the 2012 V6 Impala gets just 18 MPG. The greenie weenies must be rending their garments right now.

[1] http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?date=20120827&feed=AP&id=15492668#scptid

[2] http://www.libertyreborn.com/2012/03/04/gm-suspends-volt-production-due-to-poor-sales/

[3] http://www.libertyreborn.com/2012/03/12/chevy-volt-a-democrat-car/

[4] http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/impala/2014/features-specs.html

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J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.

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