An article with a point of view that's hard to ague with.

I agree. Electric vehicles are a good start to reduce our dependency on oil. Not only does the Volt look good, electric vehicles are fun to drive. When I get one here it should start turning heads and will see more Volts and electric cars on the streets which is good. I am excited about the Volt

 

Not only does the Volt look good, electric vehicles are fun to drive. When I get one here it should start turning heads and will see more Volts and electric cars on the streets which is good.

My favorite new thing is making left turns from stop lights. Works best if there are two lanes and you're in the left lane. You have a lot of torque and for some reason the torque is more advantageous when making turns, probably because in an ICE you can't floor it when making a turn from a stop as you might when accelerating in a straight. Without being overly aggressive I'm around the corner and maybe 20-30 yards into the straight before the car in the right lane makes the turn. Yesterday I think I completely shocked a MB driver who had come roaring past me before the light.

I experienced this from the "other end" the first time I saw a Volt in the wild. The Volt was in front of me at a light in the right lane. When the light turned, it was around the corner before I even got started. It was also around the corner and down the straight well before first car in the left lane managed to get around the corner, leaving the Volt plenty of room to move across to the far left turn lane at the next light, which is maybe 50 yards later. It was awesome.

 

Quote from article: 'As noted in this report, the health benefits of previous standards have exceeded the cost of emissions controls by as much as 100 to 1'. I wish the GOP candidates would get the message, as they have attacked the authority of the EPA to enforce recently proposed FIRST TIME air pollution regulations for utilities. As is evident with the Tea Party holdout with the debt ceiling, those who put dollars above sense, are killing us, both fiscally and physically.

 

As is evident with the Tea Party holdout with the debt ceiling, those who put dollars above sense, are killing us, both fiscally and physically.

Come on folks, can we please keep the political BS out of this. All of us Volt lovers, on both sides of the political isle, realize that if anything is going to kill this car, it is political posturing, not the car itself. Let's keep the debt ceiling and all the other garbage going on in Washington out of it and let the car do the talking.

Dan

 

@DonC
Did you 18yo son hijack you account or something? lol
I know what yoiu mean though, the car plain makes you feel like a kid again...
WOT

 

Sorry dandet, can't disagree with you more. Not only has the Volt, and all it stands for, been attacked by far-right morons, the ENTIRE GOP field of Presidential candidates is following a party line of badmouthing the FIRST EVER set of pollution regulations for the POWER INDUSTRY and promising to GUT the EPA. Politics is very much present in the concepts of how EVs will be adopted in this country. You are kidding yourself if you think the Volt is not a political issue.

 

I agree with both of you. The Volt shouldn't be political and although I'm extremely politically aware I don't want this forum to degenerate into what a lot of the web is. However, since I am a "conservative" and a Republican I feel free to point out that my side pretty much sucks on energy/pollution issues especially when it comes to the Volt. And to make matters worse "we" totally misrepresent the Volt's capabilities. Let's face it, an overwhelming proportion of those people that bash the Volt are of one political persuasion and they are operating from an extreme amount of ignorance. Go to Red State or Free Republic and see what they say about the Volt. What you will come to understand is that they are extremely opinionated and ignorant. There's "political BS" and then there's the truth.

 

Who made the Volt into a political issue?

It wasn't GM, or the people who built it, or the people who bought it.

I don't see the Volt being bashed on "left wing" media, I only see it bashed on "right wing" media, often by the author of an anti-Volt article pushing an outright distortion skimpy on facts, who is then backed up by political zealots with nothing more than sloganeering and ignorant opinions. Glen Beck, Limbaugh, Fox News talking heads all attack the Volt. These people are not unintelligent, so they must simply be cynical and care more about a position than anything else. As a conservative, it makes me question everything they say about anything.

Plainly, the conservative movement has been hijacked by people who would willingly and enthusiastically kill the Volt and all it stands for, plain and simple. Reminds me of the Chinese cultural revolution that sacrificed common sense for distorted ideology. Burning the house down to save it does not work for me.

The Volt should be evaluated and treated for what it is: a car. Not a political football.

 

One more thing, and then I am done (at least for this thread).

At some point in my life, I would have called myself a conservative. As a naval officer, I voted Republican for 'job security', if nothing else. However, I have moved beyond a state of denial. The responses here are flavored with an element of betrayal by conservative thinkers. I suggest you, like I, move beyond what were previously trusted codes of conduct and no longer label yourselves in any way, shape or form with the same adjectives as Limbaugh and Beck. The Volt is a way of thinking that PROVES you are NOT conservative (anymore). You are PROGRESSIVE.

I understand, and endorse, that this is not a political forum. However, EVs progress with a set of conditions that destroy the old mores embraced by conservatives. Oil and coal, environment and pollution, etc, are viewed passionately in traditional left and right viewpoints. But in the world of the Volt, there is one unifying vision that discards monikers. We here are passionate about that vision. And we must ATTACK those who would distort that vision. And try as you might, you cannot ignore that it is the traditional conservative who is at odds with that vision.

If necessary, we must embrace history and realize that a political party is not set in stone. Lincoln threw his hat in with the newly minted Republican party and moved beyond the wishy-washy approach of the Whigs he had previously aligned himself with. The Whigs are dead..., dead and buried. Those who have hijacked the Republican party and marginalized the rest of us need to be voted into the same oblivion as those Whigs. It is time for a NEW political party for the rest of us. Instead of a jackass or pachyderm, we should use the Volt as our symbol. It may seem strange to use a consumer good, but do either of those two aforementioned animals really embrace an ideology as well as this vehicle?

 

The Volt is a way of thinking that PROVES you are .... PROGRESSIVE.

+1 for that.

Words have so many connotations. If we strip away the political overtones, and just focus on the dictionary definition ("favoring or advocating progress") then your statement nearly is a tautology. You simply wrote plain words of truth.

I think at the bottom of Volt hatred is GM hatred (i.e., bail-out hatred). Last week we heard this report (http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/04/news/companies/gm_earnings/):

General Motors continued its turnaround as it posted big jumps in both quarterly sales and profit that were much better than expected. The nation's No. 1 automaker, barely two years past its federal bailout and bankruptcy, reported Thursday that it earned $2.5 billion in the second quarter, nearly double the $1.3 billion it earned a year earlier when it was still a privately held company. It earned $1.54 a share in the quarter, far better than the $1.20 a share forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue soared 19% to $39.4 billion, as both the average pricing and the volume of vehicles sold improved.

Would anyone rather have these GM factories owned and operated by foreign interests (as undoubtedly would have occurred without our helping hand)?

I'm sorry, but I define GM's turn-around as a remarkable success deserving American pride, not blind contempt.

America still is the largest manufacturing country in the world.

Not all is lost... unless we give up.