The "O" Word
Conservative by Nature, Christian by Choice
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You Will Be Assimilated

February 29th, 2012 . by Cary

Obama(THHO) has decreed that we, the sheeple, should all drive the General Motors Volt. After all, it is electric (with a gasoline backup engine) and we all should know that electric cars are the future of transportation. So energy efficient! So inexpensive to drive! Cheap to fuel!

Let’s do some math, shall we? I know, Obama(THHO) doesn’t want us doing math and other stuff like thinking for ourselves, so let’s not tell him, OK? (that goes for you dhs bots, too, ok?)

Let’s start with my own vehicle for a starting point, ‘kay? We purchased a 1998 QX4 used in 2004 for about $18,000.

Yeah, it was a little high, but it was in pristine condition and Blue Booked for about 21k at the time. it had a tick over 50k miles on it. It is free and clear with no payment. It averages about 17 1/2 – 18 miles per gallon down hill with a tail wind. It has a 19 gallon tank. Let’s use an average of $4.00 per gallon (ok, fine – $3.999) for the sake of argument. At 17 gallons per week, operating costs (no insurance, repairs or maintenance costs are factored in here) are about $68.00. I have a 20 mile one way commute (24 if I need to swing by the warehouse on the way to work). This works out to about $.2285 per mile ($3.999/17.5), which means a daily cost of a warehouse run on the way and straight home after work would be $10.054.

The Chevy Volt must be incredibly cheap to drive, then, if it can be operated for less than that! Let me go out and plunk down $46,000 for a new Volt.

And a little more for a charging station. And even more for the storage fees needed to store the stuff on my side of the garage since TMBWitW sure isn’t giving up her side and park her Camry out in the elements.

OK, that was a little snarky. I’m sure I could find a cheap, HOA approved shed (less than six feet tall so it doesn’t extend above the fence) where I can store my table saw and other woodworking equipment.

Now – the commute. The QX4 has a cargo area with the seats down of 85 cubic feet. The Volt has a cargo area rated at 10.6 cubic feet. Hmm. That means my commute just went from 24 miles with a warehouse run to over 50, since I would have to make multiple trips to the warehouse. Eight, to be exact. 24 miles warehouse commute, two miles from warehouse to store means 24 miles plus (7×4) 28 miles for the extra runs equals 52 miles one way. OK, so I have to leave a lot earlier too, to drop MEG off at the babysitter and then get to the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store warehouse and the store and the warehouse and the store.

I received an email from my friend Dave T.:

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel’s Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Let’s see … after 25 miles, the Volt is running on a gasoline engine. It takes ten hours to charge the 16kwh battery. That would put a big dent in the day’s schedule, so the gas engine it is. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time after getting home before having to leave earlier the next day to get a full ten hours of charging done.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah – so, if you can’t count on the electric motor for more than 25 miles, then the vaunted Volt no longer gets the 95 miles per gallon on the electric motor alone. Once you figure in the 9 gallons of gas, the average drops to around 30 mpg. $3.999/30 = $.133 per mile. But wait! I forgot the electricity. 16kwh x 1.19 per kwh (the average cost of electricity) = $19.04 for a 25 mile charge per day. $19.04/25=.761 – $.761 per mile for twenty five miles, then $.133 for the remaining 47 miles works out to $19.04+($.133×47)=$25.291 per day.

So I need to sell my QX4 for about $2500, finance another $43,500 and lose an hour and a half of morning time to reduce my carbon footprint and drive the Volt, which costs more than two and a half times more to operate than my QX4.

If I was a liberal, left leaning DemocRat with Obama stars in my eyes, I might believe that this is actually a good idea.

I would like to take this moment to do two things: mourn the death of common sense, and thank Dave T. for the email that started this line of thought.

(just so you know, i am not selling the QX4 anytime soon, and i am certainly NOT buying a chevy volt. ever.)

Chat ya later…

cary

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