"The Volt" May BE SCRAPPED!- NEVER BUILT!!

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

50,000,000 at 1000 each just pays off the principle Jammer.
Another 20,000,000 to pay the interest.

Anyone want to loan me 50 billion for 15 years without any interest?

I would build a car that would really change the game forever.

Chrysler was bailed out in the mid 80s to the tune of 1.5 billion.

They paid the load off with interest in a few years.

Lee Iacocca ran the company and they came out with the K car and the Mini
Van.

About a decade later Mercedes paid 38 billion for Chrysler and loss their butts when they sold a large part of their stock.

If you think the retirees lost a lot of money in GM's bankruptcy Jammer, you should look at what the shareholders lost.

Much of that stock was held by retirement funds.

What did they get?

Squat.

You must remember the song that went;

Tax the rich, feed the poor, until there are no rich no more.

We like to hate the rich, but in doing so we also hurt those who did all the right things only to see their financial security vanish.

Many retirement funds lost 70% of their assets in the market tumble from a high of 14k to the low of just over 6300.

We like to trash the oil companies, but you should really look at who owns the oil companies.

For every dollar the oil companies earned (ie worked for) the govt got 4 dollars out of gasoline and corporate taxes, and they didn't even pay the oil companies to collect that tax.

The Boston Tea Party was fought over a tax of 3%. When I was working at my shop, if I made more than $25k a year I paid 49.5% Federal, State and Social Security.

That doesn't include property taxes, local sales taxes, car registration taxes, or the meals tax at restaurants here that is over 10%, or any other of the numerous taxes that I can't even remember, like taxes on your utility bills, cable tv, and even the tax you pay on your internet connection.

Even at that exorbitant rate the govt still couldn't balance their checkbook., so they spent the taxes they had not collected.

If you or I did that we would be in jail.

regards
Mech

PS:

That same 50 billion invested in making cars more efficient would have solved the efficiency problem altogether. People would be lining up at the dealerships to buy cars that got at least twice your 45 MPG, and the American auto industry would be opening factories and hiring hundreds of thousands of people to keep up with demand.

We would stop bleeding between 200 and 600 billion dollars to the oil cartel and that same money would be in this country promoting economic growth and creating millions of real jobs.

My first attempt to contact a manufacturer was with GM. They chose to ignore any input. In doing so they dug their own grave.

You make valid points Mech, but lets not forget the autoworkers are/wear taxpayers and in many cases shareholders too. My father lost a lot when he had to sell GM. He kept looking at the technical side of the stock graph and thinking that what fell down had to go back up and he lost a lot of $$. So please, lets not forget all of the taxes the UAW members have paid in and their lost GM stock, or even bond, investments as well as losing a large share of their pensions and deep cuts in promised medical (I know it's not everyone's responsibility to give the retirees what the company gave away in CEO bonuses, but they got even a worse deal after putting 30 years in). And if there was not a so called bailout, how much do you want to bet they would of ended up on the Government fixed payrolls in one way or the other anyway.

It's just a bad deal for everyone, but I will not blame the union workers for doing what they were told to do only to find out after 30 years the company was so mis-managed they could hardly afford a haircut. The blame falls at the top, not the bottom. The UAW has been broken, their just a token now.

[gone-ot]

...Will Rogers said we've got "...the best government that money can buy..." not the "...smartest..." uh-huh, uh-huh!

[cfg83]

Old Mechanic -

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

...

My first attempt to contact a manufacturer was with GM. They chose to ignore any input. In doing so they dug their own grave.

Which other manufacturers have you gone to?

CarloSW2

[user removed]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Old Mechanic -



Which other manufacturers have you gone to?

CarloSW2

Do you know of any that would be interested in a meeting? They would be under no obligation but would be required to sign a non disclosure agreement.

It would be easier to name the ones that I haven't tried to contact, but without any reply you never know if they actually looked at the idea or just tossed it in the recycle bin.

In the last 5 years I have been to one Virginia US senator and had him contact the DOE.

My 1st district Congressman US house of representatives.

Tried to contact Charles Gray head of the EPA hydraulic hybrids group.

Every US manufacturer through owners of local dealers., who know me and think the idea has true merit.

Many Japanese manufacturers.

When your efforts bring no response whatsoever, you never know if you really "contacted" them in the first place.

If you know someone who is interested I would welcome any assistance in arranging a meeting.

Efforts to promote were always dependent on an issued patent that was actually real intellectual property worth considering.

Since it seems like after 5 years of efforts that may actually happen, then the next threshold is to produce a working example that demonstrates efficiency.

The cost of a functional prototype is very high. I have one built without the adjustable journal feature.

regards
Mech

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Many retirement funds lost 70% of their assets in the market tumble from a high of 14k to the low of just over 6300.

Lost? Only if you were silly enough to sell at the bottom of the market. Sure, the market goes up and down, that's why the old adage about "buy low, sell high". Now if you'd been investing for a while - say 10 years or more - and didn't panic-sell everything, then (at least if my accounts are a guide) you'd be a) more than halfway back from the recent low, and b) even at their lowest, you'd still be ahead.

[user removed]

No money in the market for the last 15 years. We made 11k on 5.12% CDs last year.

Yes lost, for many who watched their life savings disappear and bailed at the wrong time, something they did not know when they bailed, and something you do not know could get much worse than 6300. I had a freind whose uncle lost $150k in that 1929 crash, equivalent to millions today.

The crash of 29 saw stock prices take 25 years to recover.

I tried to get the wife to let me put money in our local utility when it dropped to 26 per share. It's now at 34. We could have bought 10,000 shares.

The question is where will it be in another year, or 5 or 10.

if you know all those answers you are a very wealthy person.

regards
Mech

[MadisonMPG]

If you know those answers, you are going to prison.

[Christ]

RE: Losing money

My Uncle, a truck driver all his life (after military) keeps only a small percent of his paycheck, investing the rest in (insert investment here) "just to try it out".

Recently, he made an investment just as the market was falling, and nearly the instant he signed the paper, he lost around 1.2 million dollars. 7 days later, he came back to break-even (after fees, taxes, etc.), and 7 days after that, he came up by almost .5 million, at which point, he sold, and bought .5 million in gold and futures. He repeats this process often.

It's nice to know that I have a rich Uncle... and he won't even give me any.

Consequently, when gold fell dramatically awhile back, he scoffed at losing about 600,000 dollars (US). The only reason he still has his money from investments over the years, is that he never really cared if he lost it or not.

As long as he's got enough to support himself, he understands that he's better off than most of the rest of the country. With no direct family, and no house/apartment to maintain, he doesn't spend much on keeping himself supported.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Yes lost, for many who watched their life savings disappear and bailed at the wrong time, something they did not know when they bailed...

Look, whose fault is it if people panic and do something stupid? The information people need to invest sensibly is out there, readily available - indeed, shoved in your face in every prospectus I've ever seen.

I'm more and more convinced that the only applicable comment is one I saw on a recent article about a guy in Canada who broke into a tiger enclosure at the zoo: "So many idiots, so few tigers".

[elhigh]

Getting back to the Volt, GM, and whether we should throw good money after what may be bad:

Vote with your pocketbook - buy a Fusion Hybrid. Proven, viable, available. If it weren't, you couldn't buy one.

I think the most telling statement I've read of all the above posts is the one that speaks to what $50B could've bought, if it hadn't been spent on floating GM. Well, sure that much money can buy a lot of R&D. But if GM isn't there to do the R&D, then who? Ford is already doing their own. Toyota has a few bazillion sunk in hybrid projects, Honda's off in left field brewing up next-gen fuel cells and Mercedes is making minivans that look like fish. So in effect, isn't our $50B actually going to R&D and sky-high mileage numbers, just like we want? Granted, we have to buy the bathtub with the baby, but we are ultimately getting desired results. It's just costing more than we'd rather pay.