7 thoughts on “Obama’s GM”

  2. I wonder if they stuffed the channel last year? It could be a sudden drop in demand or it could be that they didn’t report the full inventory on dealers’ lots last year. It’ll be interesting to see if they actually sold as many year 2011 models as they claim they did.

  3. And then there’s this:

    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.

  4. The irony in this will kill ya:

    “Rattner has posted a “clarification” of his remarks that only reiterates them. (“[W]e might have asked ALL of the
    stakeholders in the auto companies to make deeper sacrifices in order to preserve jobs and the profitability of these companies for the future.”)”

    This was a clarification of the previous statement when Rattner said, ““We should have asked the UAW to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay.””

    So that’s the deal huh? It’s perfectly reasonable when the government asks UAW workers to take a cut to improve profitability.

    But let the company heads try that and they are greedy bloodsuckers living off the sweat of the oppressed workers.

    Analogously:

    Anybody notice that when the liberals are in trouble they…

    CUT TAXES!

    Or at least make it look like they try.

    A direct admission that in actual fact they know it’s the right thing to do as well.

  5. The Volt seems to get people going, but I am wondering about whether anyone out there shares my concern for this on.

    Of all the auto makers selling cars in this vast U.S. of ours and in the Great State of Wisconsin, only GM has this feature where the keyless entry system lights up the backup lamps. That is, all manner of different car makers, U.S., German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, sell cars, many with a clicker to get into your car, but only the General, or should I say, especially the General turns on the backup lamps in this non-standard way, because, they are GM and they kind of do things the GM Way.

    I guess I understand the logic of the feature in that a GM owner can find their car in a crowded parking garage whereas Ford owners are walking in circles wondering where their car went. Also, the backup lamps are a kind of caution indicator to other drivers, and maybe fewer GM owners will get flattened walking out to their car.

    On the other hand, whenever I see backup lamps light up in a parking garage, a slow down or even stop to let that driver back up. Yeah, yeah, the person backing up should really check if the coast is clear and yield to any other traffic, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and the First Law of Driving is Don’t Bend Metal and worry about the right-of-way later. In crowded lots and parking garages, a person backing has limited visibility, and I think that it is both good courtesy and good driving to let someone who flashes backup lamps complete their push-back, and if I am backing out and see someone coming, I will hold off on putting the transmission in reverse and pushing back until I am ready to actually start backing.

    So what happens is I see backup lamps light up, and I am standing there waiting for someone to push back as they come strolling across half the parking lot with that stupid, smug, Hey Look at Me I Bought a Late Model GM Car Ain’t I Patriotic or Some Such Thing.

    So then the backup lamps on a GM car are like Crying Wolf in the fable — you cannot tell if someone in a GM car is actually backing up, unless you study whether their brake lights came on prior to the backups, but I have seen GM cars even with ambiguous indications on that score.

    OK, there ought to be a law about that I say! Actually, there is in the State of Wisconsin. Displaying backup lamps without the transmission being in gear is, for better or for worse, against the law in Wisconsin — it is an equipment violation, and the General is breaking the law by selling cars here.

    I tried complaining about this to our liberal-Democrat Member of Congress in the Wisconsin 2nd, and this got as far as being forwarded to some GM suits, who sent back one of those annoyingly patronizing letters about “being receptive of consumer input” and “taking this into consideration in their upcoming models.” I am not a consumer of your product, suckers, I am an innocent 3rd party who is affected by this, and does the fact that you are breaking the law enter into your product planning in any way.

    So I guess I could write to Ray LaHood, but unless anyone has been flattened because they were confused by this, fuggetaboutit as the fix-is-in-with-GM and the Feds. I suppose I could go at the State level, but the Karma around here is that the Walker people are not into this kind of crusading-consumerism which is a thing associated with the likes of Lefties like the hapless Elizabeth Warren.

    But am I the only person even slightly bothered by this, at all. I mean, there is a law on the books about backup lamps, there is an effective rationale for that law in terms of uniform meaning of lights on cars and not giving a false warning that a car is backing up. Moreover, GM seems utterly and completely above the law at this point, even if it is a quibbling equipment violation. Any thoughts? Or do we worry about the Volt and give GM a pass on their non-standard lamps?

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