Volt Birth Watch 184: Obama Administration To Buy First 100 Volts
Way back when the Chevy Volt was taking center stage in GM’s case for bailout (as in give us one, or you won’t get the Volt), the Obama Administration’s task force on autos was not amused. “While the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable,” was just one of the knocks the pols gave the then-mule-stage Volt. And even though the Nissan Leaf has since proven that the Volt is also “much more expensive than its pure-electric peers” the White House’s official car guys have changed their tune.
The Detroit Free Press reports that the Obama Adminstration will buy the first 100 Chevy Volts… because unlike most Americans they can afford to pay non-commercially-viable prices for their green-mobiles. Oh, and did we mention they own the company too? That might have had something to do with it. And though it’s nice to have customers for your overpriced green image machines, this announcement sees to confirm once and for all the Volt’s inherently political raison d’etre. And to think that the folks who put Government Motors back together again nearly killed the Volt in the first place.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
Actually I think they should mandate that ALL government employees especially congress drive Volts. That way they get to experience first hand what the industry they forced us to buy and the policies they are trying to cram down our throats produces. I don't think they would like any better than the rest of us will. I have no hope for a successful Volt.
More executive branch window dressing. This will provide a sound bite and a photo op and nothing more. Hope they all go to IRS auditors. Beta testing first gen GM technology should be very 'interesting' as the old Chinese curse goes.
Part of this is the buy American initiative that the gov't has and they desire to have more hybrids. 100 cars is a drop in the bucket for sales of the Volt and cars that the US gov't will buy this year.
There's more to this news item than TTAC carried. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033103892.html GSA is also buying 5600 hybrid vehicles as a part of their annual purchase. Edward Neidermeyer - care to put in a FOIA request to get the list of what GSA is purchasing for their total fleet sales? I think Farago did that last year to see what the spread is, what they mean by hybrids, which manufacturer, etc.