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Chevy Volt Not Green Enough For California
thecarchik writes "The first two plug-in cars from major manufacturers will go head-to-head on warranties and lease prices: $350 a month for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, $349 for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Now the choice shifts to other measures, including electric and overall range, as well as the plug-in perks that states like California offer to early adopters to encourage them to opt for electric cars. This is where it gets interesting. While California loves the Nissan Leaf, current regulations deny Chevy Volt buyers two significant perks: a $5,000 rebate, and permission to drive solo in HOV Lanes."
Apparently California can't afford to pay government employees, but can afford to give money to people who buy electric cars?
This takes away any sort of "green" cred the vehicle had. Whether it's actually true what Calif. believes or not isn't the point. People will PERCEIVE that the Volt isn't "green" regardless of where it's sold in the US.
Sucks to be them.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I agree it makes no sense, but it doesn't make sense in the Prius vs Volt comparison. The Leaf vs Volt comparison makes perfect sense. The electric vehicle gets benefits the hybrid doesn't. The article is spending so much time trying to convince us that a hybrid that could be driven as an electric should be treated as such.
Really, the answer is to drop all the regulations and incentives and bump the tax on gasoline and diesel by $5 per gallon. Why tax someone and refund the tax on hybrids that get worse mileage than some smaller cars? Why create all the tax and refund process in the first place? Just tax on usage, and let the rest go. The Free Market will figure it out. People will use less and pay more attention to economy of what they buy. And that will close the budget gap for CA as well (unless done at the national level, in which case it will go a long way towards closing the budget deficit).
Learn to love Alaska
The Prius does not quality for the same rebate as the Leaf because it's not a zero-emissions vehicle. It qualifies for a lesser rebate because it is partial zero-emissions. The Volt qualifies as neither because the requirements are pass-or-fail, and the Volt fails.
I'm sure the manufacturers of diesel-electric locomotives, boats, submarines, and heavy trucks would all disagree with you.
But, the HOV lanes are underutilized by "real" carpools - another outcome of failed social engineering. We might as well use that concrete for something.
If that results in too much congestion, just change the HOV rules to require that a "carpool" automobile be a non-commercial vehicle not currently in commercial use containing at least 2 (or 3) LICENSED drivers who are not directly related (spouses, parent/child). That would get rid of many of the cars that currently use the lanes and free up even more space to use the HOV lanes for other social engineering purposes like promoting environmental causes. A mother driving her kids to school is going to "carpool" anyway. Most spouses driving together will do it without the HOV lane incentive.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Good for whom? Or what?
Traffic engineering is about vehicles and passengers, not about what kind of car. Encouraging owners of gas-powered single-occupant-vehicles to switch to hybrids doesn't let the road carry more vehicles. Nor, since an SOV's ratio of vehicles to people moved is 1:1, you wouldn't increase the person-carrying capacity, either.
HOV lanes increase the number of people a highway can carry when the vehicular capacity has been reached.
As for the 'environmental' benefit of letting hybrid owners use HOV lanes, if you let electric or hybrid vehicles into the the HOV lanes, then you just free up more capacity in the general traffic lanes for non-hybrid cars that pollute more.
How much fuel does a hybrid save you at freeway speeds, anyway? Is it as good as the 50% or 66% reduction from carpooling? In fact, wouldn't it be better to put the hybrids in the stop-and-go traffic and let the gasoline-powered cars use the HOV lanes?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
A $5/gallon tax would just about cover the externalized costs of gasoline -- the environmental destruction, the foreign policy costs of keeping cheap oil flowing, the social costs of automobile-centric planning. A "free market" only exists when such costs are brought into the equation.
Unfortunately, we've spend so long making public policy decisions based on externalizing such costs that to throw them all in at once would be highly destructive. We need to implement such as tax gradually, maybe over ten years; 5 cents a gallon the first year, then 10, then 20, then 50, then 75, then a dollar, 2 dollars, 3, 4, and up to 5 dollars in the tenth year; with proceeds earmarked at mass transit projects and buybacks of inefficient vehicles. That'd be about right, if we made a WWII-level all-out effort to move to sustainable transportation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This is due to the Prius using a vacuum sealed container to keep a heat transfer medium heated, which is used to keep the catalytic converter up to temp. I don't believe the Volt employees this method. Want cheap? Get a Leaf. Want nice, get a Model S. The Volt? Not very good from either cost or luxury.
California is full of idiots who keep electing uber-idiots to office.
Sorry, this is a clear case of typical short-sightedness of politicians. They pass legislation without thinking half a thought about it (heck they pass it without reading it). The result is stupid stuff like this.
(ie: crux of the problem, the Volt's motor is NOT low enough emission for California's liking. So they totally dismiss the fact that said motor will run far less often than an average motor.)
If they passed the law based on an avg. miles per year and the waste emitted on a yearly basis, the Volt would easily make the muster. This is akin to the problem some states had with the Prius. People could not register their Prius' because they could not pass the state emission tests. Because the testing equipment was incompatible with a hybrid vehicles operation. So wait, we have a cleaner, more fuel efficient vehicle but can't register it because of EMISSIONS testing. WTF.)
Let's not even get into the fact that my Prius must run the motor for a few minutes, wasting gas, in order to warm up the catalytic converter. Thus, if I am taking a 5 minute drive down the street. I have to emit extra pollutants thanks to environmental regulations. Our government should have made an exception to having to have the catalytic converter warmed up, and allowed for a gradual warming.
Just stupidity....worse, we elected this stupidity.
Guess that makes us (Americans) stupid!
So let me get this straight; You think that the government could never organize something like Slug Lanes, and yet the government is the one who set up the HOV lane on the highway in the first place. The government is instrumental in the smooth functioning of slug lanes!
You should consider taking a step back from your anti-government ideology and realize that just like any large organization, sometimes things are done right and sometimes they are done wrong. Government is no different from any other large bureaucracy.