When the federal government bailed out General Motors, you may remember that we were told the government would transform GM by moving it away from manufacturing big, gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs (you know, the vehicles that were actually making a profit) and instead make sure that GM rode the real wave of the future: electric cars.
Well, here’s where the wave of the future has taken us: GM just shut down the assembly line of its electric car, the Chevy Volt, for five weeks because demand for the Volt is making the Edsel look like a roaring success. Observers are divided over whether the Volt has flopped because of its limited all-electric range, its high price tag (despite massive government subsidies), or the fact that its battery might have a tendency to catch on fire.
The Volt is just the latest commercial failure for “green” technology. We are in the middle of what you might call a global warming bubble. It is a failure of the global warming theory itself and of the credibility of its advocates, but also a failure of the various “green energy” schemes proposed as a substitute for fossil fuels.
Several automakers are readying various forms of hybrids. I am convinced that the principal reason for this is government pressure. I shudder to think of the fallout from the Billions wasted on this folly. I just hope I’m wrong.
They said they’d fixed the fire hazard problem…