{"id":490,"date":"2012-05-07T16:41:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T20:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=490"},"modified":"2012-05-07T16:41:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T20:41:01","slug":"the-chevy-volt-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=490","title":{"rendered":"The Chevy Volt in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

GM exported the first Chevy Volts to China earlier this year. A PR video Faces of GM<\/em> touts the electric vehicle as a perfect fit . The subtle message is that the newly restructured, profitable GM is–thanks to the bailout–actually creating American jobs by exporting cars to China. But there’s a lot GM is not telling you.<\/p>\n

Volt sales have been flat so far in the US. Washington recognizes that the Volt’s 40K MSRP is a bit pricey in the US and even offers a $7500 bribe to taxpayers who buy one. The sticker price in less-affluent China is $79,000. Don’t expect many of these to roll off the lot in Shanghai, especially at this price.<\/p>\n

GM is one of the top foreign automobile manufacturers in China, selling about 227,000 vehicles there through its joint ventures in April, compared to about 213,000 in the U.S. I certainly don’t mind production and sales in other nations, but a recently filed GM document titled Global Assembly Footprint<\/em> forecasts that 80% of its production growth over the next 5 years will occur in low-cost countries like the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) nations and Mexico. Moreover, the Chinese government is pressuring foreign carmakers to share technology and produce vehicles with a Chinese brand. While other carmakers have attempted to resist, GM was the first to comply by introducing the Baujun brand with Chinese partner SAIC last year.<\/p>\n

Here’s my problem: Taxpayers financed a bailout and GM responded by producing more cars abroad, sharing technology, and launching a Chinese brand. Executives even plan to export cars back to the US<\/em> in a few years. GM has already benefitted from CARS (Cash for Clunkers) and other government “incentives,” and Obama is calling for an increase in the Volt tax break to $10,000. To add insult to injury, a special TARP provision means that pre-bankruptcy losses can be counted against future profits, resulting in a potential additional taxpayer drain of as much as $45 billion down the road.<\/p>\n

If you’re looking for a definition of crony capitalism, you’ve found it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GM exported the first Chevy Volts to China earlier this year. A PR video Faces of GM touts the electric vehicle as a perfect fit . The subtle message is that the newly restructured, profitable GM is–thanks to the bailout–actually creating American jobs by exporting cars to China. But there’s a lot GM is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}