WyBlog

The Pension Plan Which Makes Cars lays an electric lemon

When Pravda The New York Times calls your shiny new electric car a "lemon" you'd better make sure it comes in bright yellow. Unless of course you're the United Auto Workers Pension Plan doing business as Government Motors. Then the joke isn't on you, it's on the U.S. taxpayer.

So the future of General Motors (and the $50 billion taxpayer investment in it) now depends on a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car.

Look for the union label!

I've said this before. GM is no longer a car company; GM is a pension plan which happens to make cars. The auto buying public is not their target market; their one and only "customer" is the United Auto Workers.

The 2011 Chevy Volt looks nothing like the sleek concept car introduced with great fanfare at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. It's the car only an assembly line hack (and the retirees who came before him) could love. They'll happily build as many of these turkeys as the government will force us to buy, just so long as those pension checks keep coming every month. And at 41 grand a pop you've gotta believe the main cost component isn't parts; it's labor and retiree benefits.

Remember riding in the backseat of most American cars when we were kids? Nobody wanted to sit in the middle, consigned to "the hump". Well the Volt hasn't got a middle seat at all. The battery runs lengthwise through the car so "the hump" is chest-high.

That's a problem Toyota licked in the 1960s. But thanks to UAW ingenuity the Edsel has been repackaged as the eco-warrior's hairshirt-mobile of choice.

For all the money we've shoveled into GM they ought to be giving the Volt away. Maybe if they throw in a UAW retiree to wash and wax it every weekend it'll even pay for itself.

Posted at 21:12 by Chris Wysocki   [/rants]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: GM UAW Chevy-Volt   |   Tweet