As a onetime target of the House Un-American Affairs Committee and founder of GreenerChoices.org (a web-based initiative meant to “inform, engage, and empower consumers about environmentally-friendly products and practices”), Consumers Union — the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine — has always been an approved source of the Establishment Left MSM.
So Consumer Reports’s harsh review of the green Chevy Volt caused a great many knit brows on Monday.
“When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle, and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy,” David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center, told reporters. “This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer.”
Indeed, the Volt has never made sense except to upper-class greens in need of a third car status symbol. The government’s $7,500 buyer’s subsidy is testament to the Volt’s limited market.
Even the Obama administration’s Auto Task Force in 2009 determined that the plug-in Chevy was a diversion from profitability. “While the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers,” read a Task Force report, “and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable.”
Yes, the Volt is a technical masterpiece. But so is every Chevy — from the heart-pounding Chevy Corvette to the lotsa-bang-for-your-buck, 42 MPG-highway Chevy Cruze. The Volt’s reason for existence is not profit, but to meet the federal government’s extreme fuel MPG mandates — a green Obama “transformation” forced on the industry and applauded by the MSM.
Of course the Volt doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s car designed by Washington.