Government Motors

I hope I live long enough to see the 80s again, because beyond them will live the 90s. By my calculations, the 2010s will be the 70s. How can I tell? Lots of ways. And here is the harbinger of the 70s repeat. The Chevrolet Volt. It's environmental paranoia and its consequent emasculation of the American automobile. There is nothing quite so stark as the difference between concept and reality, and perhaps that will be the hallmark of the Obama Era.

Remember the Chevy Volt? That concept car that looked good?

This cretinous slugwort certifies the new fashion of ugly green at any cost econoboxes. It is the Pacer of the decade - except that at least the Pacer was affordable.

Nidermeier at the NYT spells it all out in painful detail:

For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.

Actually, this picture doesn't do justice to the ugliness of the automobile, which will only do 40 miles a day. Less than a guy like me actually needs, but. Well, there's a lot of buts. All cars are more than we absolutely need them to be as any Neocomm will tell you, comrade. If you only needed to drive 40 miles a day and aesthetics and other sorts of consumer and market satisfactions were taken off the table - well then any second or third-world country could build a perfectly acceptable automobile.

Now of course the Volt is a great deal more advanced than the Zapo 968. But try not to forget the Chevy Cruze, the non-ideologically bound version. Cheaper, faster, roomier, longer range. And less than half the price. Did I mention cheaper? My nickel says it performs better too both for the consumer as driver and businessman as profit-seeker. But the Chevy Cruze like all of those cars created in the bygone days don't pass the board of censors of the Obama Era. It doesn't get its little green stamp, and therefore is counter-revolutionary.

I hate to see America regress in this way when it's so perfectly obvious that the last time we started making Pinto Pony MPGs and Chevette Scooters that it was a hugely stupid idea. How long will we be stuck in 1974?