Remember this the next time Obama’s bots hit Romney for criticizing the Volt and its lavish tax-funded subsidies.
Mitt Romney has been criticized for stating that the Chevy Volt is an idea whose time has not come. We have gotten to a stage in the election cycle where even the slightest of criticisms against the Volt leads to outcries of a right wing, “wrong-headed” conspiracy to hurt sales of the vehicle. What has not been reported is the fact that the Obama White House was the first to say that the car was not ready for prime time.
A White House viability report from 2009 states that the Chevy Volt “holds promise” but is “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.” Now isn’t it interesting that the Obama Administration knew the limitations of the Chevy Volt (which has not changed since 2009) during the first year of the President’s term but now that we approach 2012 elections Obama serves as Salesman in Chief for the car, even stating that he will buy one in five years? Anyone who now dares question the wisdom of spending billions of dollars on tax subsidies for the Volt is accused of having a political agenda and lambasted for criticizing an American-made car that will supposedly lessen foreign oil dependence.
The statements by the White House in 2009 are perfectly accurate. Even ex-car czar, Steve Rattner, has described the Chevy Volt as having “commercial clay feet.” The market has proven the White House statements to be true as sales for the vehicle have never materialized to the extent that Government Motors projected. The original assessment by the Obama Administration that would explain the low sales for the Volt has now been usurped by a politically based plethora of excuses to justify why taxpayers have committed billions of dollars to build a car that the majority of consumers do not want.
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