Get ready, Chevy Volt due this November. Update!!!

[1969chargerrtse]

Sorry to disappoint. 

I was in a frisky mood at the time, thought I'd shake you up a bit.  I've been good for a few months, no thread locks or anything.    I was on a roll at one time, but kinda cost me a friend so overall it wasn't worth it. 

[TUFCAT]

Hey man don't worry about nothin!  I'm glad you're still hanging out with us.    You've got a beautiful T/A and I'm envious.

[JB400]

Darn, I was hoping this thread would be forgotten.  When this election gets over, don't be surprised if the gov. backed rebates  drop on this car.

[1970Moparmann]

Funny how GM wants to get the Government out of the car business.    My liberal friends are going to go nuts. 

[Ghoste]

Some would argue they already are.

[1969chargerrtse]

Hey man don't worry about nothin!  I'm glad you're still hanging out with us.    You've got a beautiful T/A and I'm envious.

You be da man! Thanks so much, really appreciate that. You were always a good friend since day one.  
I took it out yesterday ( top down of course ) to run my daughter to Cheer Leading.  It's really a nice car and has cool enough looks and sound that I'm still having fun in an American Muscle car classic (classic to me anyway).  Keeping it in the Air chamber keeps the black shiny, so that worked out well because I was worried about constantly cleaning the black paint. The house was sided and it's all good.  What I really like is getting 3 times the miles out of my gas for cruising.  Nothing could ever replace owning a 69 Charger, but it's a close 2nd to me anyway.

[Ghoste]

You shouldn't drive either for the mileage.

[1969chargerrtse]

You shouldn't drive either for the mileage.

You know what I mean. At 8 mpg and 4.35 a gallon it was very expensive to take a cruise as often as I did. Now I'm in the 20 mpg range. My thrill is the ride, I'm getting more thrill time. Wise guy.

[Ghoste]

I wasn't really kidding, I understand your point but I wasn't really kidding.

[1970Moparmann]

GM, government not discussing share sell-off plan

The U.S. government will eventually sell its 500 million shares of General Motors stock, but the automaker has not proposed an official plan for the Treasury Department to sell off its shares, a source familiar with the discussions said.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Treasury Department rejected GM's request earlier this year to sell its remaining stake with a combination of a public offering and a GM share buyback plan. The government still owns about 32% of GM's common stock.

GM and the Treasury Department discuss the company's progress, but the source said the automaker has not made a proposal for when and how the government would reduce its stake.

If the government sold all its shares at today's price of about $24, taxpayers would lose more than $15 billion on the $49.5 billion GM bailout. Treasury wants the stock price to rise at least to a level that would reduce taxpayers' loss.

GM shares have risen more than 25% since closing at a post-bankruptcy low of $18.80 on July 25, but they're still down more than 27% from the initial public offering price of $33 in November 2010.

The decision to hold or sell the government's shares has political implications. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he would immediately sell the government's stake upon taking office. President Barack Obama's administration has said it's not meddling in GM's affairs, but wants to get more cash for taxpayers.

Analysts say the government could cause GM's stock price to decline if it sells all its shares abruptly.

"Dumping the shares would never make sense," Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Timothy Massad said on CNBC last week. "We've been very disciplined and always looking at how can we exit quickly, because the government is not a hedge fund, and it shouldn't be a long-term investor, and it shouldn't hold stakes in private companies. But we also have to maximize taxpayer returns."

GM is posting strong profits in North America and Asia, but continues to lose money in Europe. .

"It's Treasury's decision on when and how much to sell," GM spokesman Greg Martin said. "We're busy building cars and making sure our business progress continues."

Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Nesvold said it's highly unlikely that the government will offload its GM shares before the presidential election on Nov. 6. The government is in the "tricky position" of weighing when to sell GM's stock when "they just feel it's undervalued."

"On the one hand they didn't go into it as an investment, they went it into it to save jobs," Nesvold said. "Is the government's primary mandate here to maximize the proceeds or is it to make sure the economy is stable? I would argue it's the latter."

Analysts want the Treasury Department to map out a plan to liquidate its stake in GM, eliminating a key factor that has discouraged some institutional investors from buying shares. But they want the wind down to take place in an orderly fashion.

If GM were to buy back shares, it would probably retire them, "which would be accretive to earnings," Nesvold said. He added that it would boost GM's ability to recruit executives. The U.S. currently caps GM executive pay, but those restrictions would end once the government sells shares.

Nesvold said long-term investors will get a boost when the Treasury sells.

"Anytime you can eliminate an overhang for a major shareholder, that's a positive," he said.

[JB400]

1 more reason the idiots in washington have no business in detroit.  How much more are we going to lose on the other bailouts?  They have no sense and we have no cents.  Let's hope everyone has sense in november.

[1969chargerrtse]

I wasn't really kidding, I understand your point but I wasn't really kidding.

Oh. To each his own I quess?

[Ghoste]

Even more off topic now, but according to that report, the government wants to wait for the share price to rise enough to reduce the taxpayer LOSS??  Whats the matter with wanting it to rise to a taxpayer benefit?  I know they can't control the market and they need to get out of the car business but the fact that the feds would use the word "loss" in their statement tells me they have already decided that a taxpayer loss is the road they are taking.

[1970Moparmann]

The Gov't shouldn't have given GM a cent to start off with.  GM was so screwed up with the current management and structure that they were pissing millions of dollars away prior to any hand out.  If GM went out of biz due to the mis management it had, so be it.  It would have been really sad, but it's called capitalism.   

I have met some awesome people while building my 68 and two of them worked at a GM plant.  The stories they told me where absolutely crazy about how GM was just throwing money down the tube in $1,000,000 increments.

[JB400]

Unfortunately, the government don't give a darn how much of our money they  until someone starts an investigation or until they want your vote.  Either way, we lose in the long run.

[Tilar]

The Roberts electric car gets 40 miles per charge like the Volt, and is 116 years old.

Might not ride as good as the volt, but it has a lot more class!

[1969chargerrtse]

The Roberts electric car gets 40 miles per charge like the Volt, and is 116 years old.

Might not ride as good as the volt, but it has a lot more class!

You and the article need to compare a car like that to the Nissan leaf or any other electric car.  The Volt is gas/electric, generator backed, best of both worlds.  I don't understand why that's not clear?  Constantly it gets compared to an all electric car. We all know the electric car was first but people liked how the gas car went further.  The Volt is not an all electric car. The comparisons just don't compare.Apples and Oranges.

[1969chargerrtse]

Why don't you show this picture instead?

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/electric-sports-cars-are-coming?icid=autos_2836

" Electric Sports Cars Are Coming
By Sam Foley of MSN Autos

Most people associate electric powertrains with vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf — practical engineering marvels that are about as exciting as wet tofu. But electric motors can produce stupendous amounts of torque for some serious get-up-and-go. For the most part, prices for cars with that kind of grunt are still in rarified territory, but that's starting to change as the technology evolves and more competition arrives."

Some of you really need to take a reality check. The future is changing and you can't deal with it. You're gonna be like the old timers that still rode their horse when cars were zooming by.

[Tilar]

Why don't you show this picture instead?

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/electric-sports-cars-are-coming?icid=autos_2836

Because it doesn't impress me.  Just the fact that billions of our tax dollars are going to the private sector to develop a way overpriced product is why something like the Volt is such a turn off.  Let GM or someone else perfect it with their own money and then if it impresses me, I'll consider it. Leave my tax money out of it.

[Ghoste]

We KNOW the future is changing.  The debate here has been about your constanly berating us what a fantastic vehicle the Volt is and how its setting these insane sales records that penetrate a million unit industry into the thousands.  The Volt is a subsidized hyped up press release and thats all it is.  The future is changing on that I agree but I don't think its changing into a hybrid Volt-like thing in every driveway.  That seems to be something you can't accept.  Why is my crystal ball any worse than yours?

[JB400]

I'll agree with all three of ya.   The future is coming.  Electric powered cars are going to have a niche.  But, they're going to get stuck in the big, overcrowded cities where a lot of the activity goes on anyway.  Hybrid cars are going to be more for the long distance, over the road commuter.   But, the main source of energy is either going to come from bio fuel or hydrogen.
What kills the Volt, is the dark spot on the White House carpet.  I've never seen one, so as for the quality of the car, I've no idea. I'm not going to call it fantastic though. I think if Chevy renames it and give it different styling to get it out from under the White House cloud,  than the Volt is going to be more excepted.  But, that ain't going to happen until Government Motors gets out of General Motors.

[mauve66]

put a 16hp chainsaw motor on one and watch those weeds fly from those rototillers

[1970Moparmann]

Was just announced today that GM is going to REDUCE the price again on the Volt.  So, Government Motors will probably go back up to $60k in debt per car sold. 

[Ghoste]

But golly, why would they have to lower the price?  After all its a huge sales succes with the total units sold skyrocketing each month and smashing the previous records by leaps and bounds.

[1969chargerrtse]

But golly, why would they have to lower the price?  After all its a huge sales success with the total units sold skyrocketing each month and smashing the previous records by leaps and bounds.

If you go back to the very start of this thread and read all your, and the other comments of how the Volt won't happen , let alone sell any, then by the sales records climbing month after month, your comments fit perfect and true.  Only problem is you can't see that?
All I do is counter the foolish comments made, nothing more.  I've always said I think the generator idea is cool nothing more.