Mike has a new Chevy Volt post over at Confederate Yankee. Over the past many months Mike and I have been blogging about the Volt (more Mike than me). Over these post we have highlighted issues such as initial cost to purchase the vehicle ($41K to $65K), how the estimated travel distance pre charge has been greatly over-estimated (dream world 100 miles per charge vs. the real world approximately 25 miles per charge, more if you don't use the heater, headlights, wipers, radio, power windows), and the life time cost savings (you’ll never break even).

Mike has been able to dig up another issue with the Volt. Seems that Cars.com has a Volt they are running through a series of tests and it recently was involved in an accident. It looks like the cost to repair the damage is pretty dang high. If you want to see what highway robbery cost, go visit the blog post.

Make sure you read the end of his post. He basically tells a commenter that he is not opposed to the Volt just to be opposed to something. He is concerned about the federal government mandating what we can buy. We the taxpayers own the maker of the Volt (GM), and this vehicle is not making a profit. Will the socialist in the White House force to purchase this car, even though it is priced in the mid-range lux vehicle market.

In other electric vehicle news I also want to point out that the taxpayers of California are out nearly three million dollars due to the closure of Green Vehicles of Salinas, CA. For $3M in grants from the City of Salinas and the California Energy Commission Green Vehicles produced exactly zero electric vehicles in the Salinas plant. No investors, outside the battery manufacturer, were willing to pony up any matching dollars. I think this just goes to show that people realize that the time is not now for electric vehicles.