GM offering loaner cars to worried Chevrolet Volt owners

GM offering loaner cars to worried Chevrolet Volt owners

content.usatoday.com...

General Motors is contacting every owner of a Chevrolet Volt to assure them the extended-range electric car is safe to allay fears it could catch fire after a crash.

In addition, GM is going to give any owner who still has concerns another GM car while the federal investigation of Volt is underway.

In each, the car's lithium-ion battery heated up or caught fire after a severe crash. But the fire didn't break out immediately. In some cases, it took weeks

In total, GM has made more than 11,000

(visit the link for the full news article)

Great news. Tax payers footing the bill for potentially 11K loaner cars due to what is obviously poor engineering/quality assurance testing on the Volt. I gather they just crush the cars and dispose of them after the crash tests.

Sooner or later one of these is going to burst into flames in somebody's garage and people are going to be killed.

Should that happen, who gets sued? Take a look in the mirror, because its you.

Perhaps they will recind the "North American car of the year" award the Volt got last year.

The government should keep their hands out of private firms. What happens at or to a private enterprise should never affect the general public.

[url=http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/11/gm-offering-loaner-cars-to-worried-chevrolet-volt-owners/1]content.usatoday.com[/url ]
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by dolphinfan

Put differently:

"Folks, we screwed up so bad on this car in our bid to get it "out the door" that it is now being investigated by some government department or other due to safety concerns. We're really really sorry, but more importantly, filthy stinking rich. Thats why we can afford to give you a completely different car, just in case, and only for the time being while the investigation is pending. When we have oiled enough government officials palms behind closed doors and possibly made secret minor alterations to our technology, you can rest assured our marketing and production departments will be running on all cylinders again."

Hey, they coulda just called it Lemon? They can produce voltage too

General Motors is one of the least ethical organizations in North America . . . . no . . . in the world. They are disgustingly over-focussed on profit at any cost.

If that means putting hundreds of thousand of workers on the dole, they'll do it, and if it means risking the lives of customers to duck their responsibilities in making a safe and quality product, they'll do that too.

The only time they pretent to be concerned is when they have their greedy corporate hands out looking for us tax payers to bail out their decades of inability to manage a good dump, let alone what they (and they along) claim to be a world class organization.

The government should have let them go down in a smoking steaming pile of crap instead of bailing them out with our tax dollars.

Just look at what the market is doing to their stock. If they were better, stronger and more appropriately managed, you'd figure up would be the only way for their stock to go . . . . nope . . . the only thing that lags worse than a Volt is the GM stock.

Go figure.

the electric car could be the most important thing for humanity right now

come on oil trolls bring it!

no more oil wars
no more pollution in the air
no more putting $200-$300 for gas a month

oil kills more than batteries!

Originally posted by dolphinfan


Great news. Tax payers footing the bill for potentially 11K loaner cars due to what is obviously poor engineering/quality assurance testing on the Volt. I gather they just crush the cars and dispose of them after the crash tests.

Sooner or later one of these is going to burst into flames in somebody's garage and people are going to be killed.

Should that happen, who gets sued? Take a look in the mirror, because its you.

Perhaps they will recind the "North American car of the year" award the Volt got last year.

The government should keep their hands out of private firms. What happens at or to a private enterprise should never affect the general public.

[url=http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/11/gm-offering-loaner-cars-to-worried-chevrolet-volt-owners/1]content.usatoday.com[/url ]
(visit the link for the full news article)

where does it say taxpayers will pay for the loaner cars in the article??? gas burst into flames not batteries they just overheat...and ah yes the Government should let private firms regulate themselves that always works out well...

reply to post by answerisquestion


Perhaps you are right. The challenge with the electric car (along with other "green" technologies) is that the science is not there for mass usage. Energy storage, e.g. batteries are a common problem throughout the industry.

The government has to get rid of this notion where they can make bets on firms or technology and invest heavily in specific firms to kick start this industry. Not only is the practice rife with corruption as evidenced by recent examples of hundreds of millions of dollars being thrown in a rat hole, but the practice absolutely kills innovation by providing such a huge leg-up for certain firms that the smaller players don't stand a chance. Why would you take a chance on a small firm that may stretched thin financially when you can use the product of a firm who has massive government loan guarantees? You would not and people aren't.

Investment in these technologies is critical and perhaps there is a role for the government in funding some of it, particularily in the start-up invention stage. Streamlining the patent process for these inventions and cutting some of the red tape and easing the burdens of gaining capital investment such as the elimination of Sarbanes/Oxley would be areas the government could assist. To the extent that the government has the support of the tax payer to invest directly in these technologies, the government should have absolutely no say in who gets the money. Independant groups of our best minds in engineering and pure science should represent the government in a totally transparent manner and make these funding decisions, dolling out small amounts of money through the proof of concept phase and once scientific and market knowledge are clear (or at least not totally vague) continue to fund.

If you were investing in these firms, would you throw a single player like Solyndra $1/2 billion? No. You would give $10M to 50 firms and see where real innovators can take the technology.

This notion that the government can guide, influence or direct any level of innovation is absurd and has been repeatedly proven to be exercises in corruption and idiocy.

reply to post by dolphinfan
looks like they made a big bet already for the future of batteries in electric cars www.nytimes.com...

wonder who gets the mining rights?

the electric engine has been around for decades... so saying the technology is not there is false...people suppressing the use of them is true (ie: who killed the electric car great movie all should watch)

Originally posted by answerisquestion
reply to post by dolphinfan

 

looks like they made a big bet already for the future of batteries in electric cars www.nytimes.com...

wonder who gets the mining rights?

the electric engine has been around for decades... so saying the technology is not there is false...people suppressing the use of them is true (ie: who killed the electric car great movie all should watch)

Thanks for the article. It's gonna be a race between China and the US to see who can suck that country dry first...

Originally posted by answerisquestion
the electric car could be the most important thing for humanity right now

come on oil trolls bring it!

no more oil wars
no more pollution in the air
no more putting $200-$300 for gas a month

oil kills more than batteries!

Uhhhhh. How is most electricity generated in the US? You might want to rethink your statement.

reply to post by JIMC5499


ahaa you beat me to it,

second line

Originally posted by blackrain17

Originally posted by answerisquestion
reply to post by dolphinfan

 

looks like they made a big bet already for the future of batteries in electric cars www.nytimes.com...

wonder who gets the mining rights?

the electric engine has been around for decades... so saying the technology is not there is false...people suppressing the use of them is true (ie: who killed the electric car great movie all should watch)

Thanks for the article. It's gonna be a race between China and the US to see who can suck that country dry first...

they all work together China does the mining we provide the security
www.dailyfinance.com...

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by answerisquestion
the electric car could be the most important thing for humanity right now

come on oil trolls bring it!

no more oil wars
no more pollution in the air
no more putting $200-$300 for gas a month

oil kills more than batteries!

Uhhhhh. How is most electricity generated in the US? You might want to rethink your statement.

ahh yes you are correct you can faze out nuclear and coal and use hydro solar even the sewage from your city to create clean electricity it is already being done imagine all the jobs created changing the infrastructure here is a great report of how Germany is already doing this www.cbc.ca...