Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

I have posted over and over on this thread -- mostly in response to 93Devil -- that markets are the best barometer of demand for something. The Chevy Volt has been a failure in the market -- even with subsidization and random inducement to try to get people to buy it. The thread has gotten into why that is so. They don't make good economic sense -- they fail on the marginal utility relative to price test. You don't save nearly enough on gasoline, quickly enough, to make up for how costly the cars are. People seem to want to argue against that, but it's not just me asserting it. The cars sell for a loss to GM. And they are heavily subsidized by our government, on top of all the subsidization it put into developing them. So they don't even sell at close to a break-even price. And even with that, they have not been able to sell very many of the cars.

When I pointed out that our government has thrown a lot of money around corruptly behind an agenda to sell these cars, when DEMAND would create a market for the cars if they made sense, you were the one who resisted that suggestion -- for example, when you tried to suggest this is somehow related to how the Toyota Prius became a success, and made a contention, which is not backed up by any fact, that the Japanese government subsidized the Toyota Prius (a successful car because it offers a large market of people a lot of utility at a price that makes sense to them) the way our government subsidized an agenda to sell EVs -- something that just isn't true.

So now you essentially agree with me, I guess. If EVs make sense, we don't need to be adding to our national debt with bags of money being handed out corruptly (and being used wastefully in large part) to try to push cars into a marketplace. Tesla has been in business since 2003 -- and didn't need subsidization from the U.S. government to try to successfully market EVs, right?

But stepping away from that thing that we now agree about, apparently, you have also made a statement about the potential demand for the Model S. I am asking you -- using reason -- who exactly are the people with too much money and too little sense you expect to buy a Model S? What is the utility you think it offers, when you can buy an Audi or a Jaguar or a BMW for less money and not get the range limitations of the Model S? And who are the people you think might derive that utility that I am having a hard time predicting?

You bolded what I said. You think there is a market of people with FU money and a love of EVs that is going to buy these things? Who do you think comprises that market?

And even if you do, again, isn't it outrageous that THIS nonsense is one of the things we are saddling ourselves with national debt for?

 

I KNOW this was running through your head as you typed that, Cran.

If you weren't, you are going to curse me when you can't get it out of your head for the next week.