GM boosters like Marcy Wheeler love the Volt. They also like to compare it favorably to a Prius, as seen in that article.

Which of course means that they’re morons.

Yes, the Volt has finally made, in a very limited fashion, its real world debut. The results? Somewhere between ‘pathetic’ and ‘utterly hilarious’. More on that after an introduction.

Let’s start with the obvious: the Volt is a dirty, dirty car, not a green one.

There are a few things about plug-in hybrids that should be explained before any discussion of their merits. Number one is that the US generates the preponderance of its energy through burning coal. Although newer coal plants are much, much cleaner than old ones, there is simply no such thing as ‘clean’ coal. At all. Ever. It’s a fantasy.

What we don’t get from coal, we mostly get from natural gas and nuclear power. Nukes wouldn’t be so bad, if the US had a competent regulatory environment and adults running the show to deal with the waste issue. Nukes are, after all, basically carbon-free in emissions terms. The waste from fission plants is a real pain, however, and as yet we have no coherent national plan to deal with it, so it just piles up in random collections, waiting for, someday, Yucca Mountain to open, or some other site to stash it.

Not that this stops us from using the power plants in the meantime, because we’re idiots.

So, firstly, plug-in hybrids get their juice mostly from coal, which is filthy. In fact, it’s so filthy that running a plug-in hybrid on electricity is slightly worse for carbon emissions and the environment than running a Prius on gas.

From this figure, it is clear that the carbon intensity of the generation technology plays a
significant role in the total GHG emissions from PHEVs. In 2010, current coal technologies
result in 28% to 34% lower GHG emissions compared to the conventional vehicle and 1% to
11% higher GHG emissions compared to the hybrid electric vehicle.

(Page 7)

That’s the first way in which your plug-in is worse for the environment than a gas hybrid, but not the only. Plug-ins like the Volt rely on lithium-ion batteries for their energy storage. Really, really big lithium-ion batteries. There’s just one hitch:

Lithium is rare, expensive, and in the future can only be obtained in quantity through strip mining the third world. Bolivia in particular.

Oops.

This is bad for the environment, obviously, and awful for indigenous people. But the real kicker for the US is that it’s terrible politics as well. We’re trading, in essence, Saudi Arabia for Bolivia. That’s a winning strategy.

So a plug-in hybrid like the Volt is, right out of the gate, an awful idea for the environment. It runs on dirty coal juice, mostly, and it uses an extremely rare material extracted from the third world for its batteries.

But what about the performance of a specific bad idea? How does the Volt fare in real world tests?

Not well. First, check out its fuel economy:

It all depends on how you drive. Suppose you have a 20-mile round-trip commute, and you plug in your Volt every night when you get home (a full charge requires as few as 3 hours). Congratulations! Your fuel economy is infinity, because you’ll never run the battery pack down all the way. But if you have a 100-mile commute, you’ll be driving at least 60 miles a day under gasoline power, so you’ll have to refuel on a regular basis. And in an Edmunds fuel economy test of a Volt with its battery depleted, the car returned only 31.4 mpg in mixed driving. That’s far below the typical fuel economy provided by regular hybrid vehicles.

31 miles per gallon. My Prius, which is last generation, gets, in the real world (I’ve verified this myself), up to 48 mpg on gas. It varies a lot by weather and road conditions, but in the very worst, coldest, most slippery winter conditions it still gets 35-36 mpg. On old tires.

So when it runs on electricity, it’s dirtier than a Prius, and when it runs on gas, it’s dirtier than a TON of cars.

But the Volt has even more issues when you talk about winter driving:

CHICAGO It’s a tough week to be the guy who led development of the Chevy Volt’s battery. Consumer Reports says its tests showed the battery’s range is a paltry 23 to 28 miles in cold weather, far below the 40 miles originally promised.

“The financial payback is not there,” said Jake Fisher, a senior automotive engineer at Consumer Reports Auto Test Centre. A hybrid, he said in an interview, would make more sense. (The Volt — which runs as a fully electric plug-in vehicle and switches to gasoline power once that battery is depleted — cost Consumer Reports $48,000 at a dealership before a $7,500 federal tax credit. Toyota’s Prius is about half that price.)

…

Batteries that are too cold are reluctant to release electrons, and batteries that are too hot don’t live as long. In electric vehicles, that means charging more often. In an extended-range vehicle such as the Volt, that means the vehicle will switch over to gasoline sooner than it would in moderate temperatures.

To deal with this problem, auto manufacturers like GM and Ford sandwich their batteries’ lithium-ion cells with materials that can heat or cool the battery when it is in danger of growing too hot or too cold. But that technology only goes so far.

“When you’re driving in the cold, you want heat. That’s going to shorten your range, no matter what kind of battery you have,” Fisher said.

Ah, GM. Glad you recognize, too late, the inherent physics involved here. Batteries need controlled temperatures.. and cars can’t provide them. Because you use cars outdoors.

Duh.

Any other problems we should know about?

“When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn’t particularly efficient as an electric vehicle, and it’s not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy,” David Champion, senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center, told reporters Monday.

…

Champion believes a hybrid, such as the less expensive Toyota Prius, may make more sense for some trips.

“If you drive about 70 miles, a Prius will actually get you more miles per gallon than the Volt does,” Champion said.

….

Champion called the five-hour charging period “annoying,” and he criticized the Volt’s heating system.

“You have seat heaters, which keep your body warm, but your feet get cold and your hands get cold,” Champion said.

Well, I guess the frostbite *would* deter Volt owners from driving their cars in conditions that expose its shoddy design.

Like winter.

In summary: the Volt is a car that requires you to strip mine the third world and suck down vast amounts of dirty power so that you can run a car that loses a third to half its electric range in the cold and then guzzles gas at 31 mpg while you lose circulation in your toes.

I’m so thankful there’s a massive $7,500 tax credit to encourage idiots to buy this thing.

I read this NYT piece myself early today and it’s making the rounds in the not-totally-corrupted side of the liberal blogosphere. Excerpt:

TRUCKEE, Calif. — When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks.

When she finally got into the house, it was empty. All of her possessions were gone: furniture, her son’s ski medals, winter clothes and family photos. Also missing was a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words “Together Forever,” that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert.

The culprit, Ms. Ash soon learned, was not a burglar but her bank. According to a federal lawsuit filed in October by Ms. Ash, Bank of America had wrongfully foreclosed on her house and thrown out her belongings, without alerting Ms. Ash beforehand.

The piece goes on to outline several cases, including one where the guy didn’t even have a mortgage (yet again) and the bank stole the house anyway:

In Texas, for example, Bank of America had the locks changed and the electricity shut off last year at Alan Schroit’s second home in Galveston, according to court papers. Mr. Schroit, who had paid off the house, had stored 75 pounds of salmon and halibut in his refrigerator and freezer, caught during a recent Alaskan fishing vacation.

“Lacking power, the freezer’s contents melted, spoiled and reeking melt water spread through the property and leaked through the flooring into joists and lower areas,” the lawsuit says. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

So to get this straight: banks will break into your home whether entitled to or not, whether you have a mortgage or not, and steal any and all of its contents as they see fit, including HUMAN REMAINS.

But we don’t need a foreclosure moratorium, right John Cole?

Schmucks.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s not only continues to do nothing, but allows the Fed (Bernanke was his choice, don’t forget) to block meaningful action to protect homeowners from thieves who are literally looting the dead:

Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve are fighting efforts to rein in widely reported bank abuses, sparking an inter-agency feud with the FDIC and the Treasury Department. The Fed, along with the more bank-friendly Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is resisting moves to craft rules cracking down on banks that charge illegal fees and carry out improper foreclosures. The FDIC supports such rules, according to an FDIC official involved in the dispute.

But we don’t need a national moratorium. I mean, they’re only stealing houses and dead husbands, right? Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Remember this from Mr. Balloon Juice himself, John Cole?

I’m not siding with the banksters, I just don’t understand what good would come from a national moratorium. Forty state AG’s are on the ball, what exactly could a national moratorium do? The idea is to stop the bad foreclosures, not grind every single transaction in this sector to a damned halt.

You aren’t hurting the banksters when you do something like that. You’re hurting every single buyer and seller in the market. It would be catastrophic.

Yeah I bet he’s hoping we’ll all forget it too. Though maybe, years after the all the ruined lives and stolen homes, we can get another wonderfully contrite apology which supposedly restores all his credibility. (Much like it brings back the dead from a needless war based on transparent lies)

After all, we can’t have the catastrophe of an insolvent bank eating some of their losses. Stealing a woman’s dead spouse is a small price to pay to keep this wonderful mortgage market going full speed.

Wow. I have only a little to say about this smug, sanctimonious, self-righteous piece of shit op-ed in the NYT.

Excerpt:

When these progressives refer to themselves as Mr. Obama’s base, all they see is themselves. They ignore polls showing steadfast support for the president among blacks and Latinos. And now they are whispering about a primary challenge against the president. Brilliant! The kind of suicidal gesture that destroyed Jimmy Carter — and a way to lose the black vote forever.

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all. They know how it feels to be unemployed and unable to buy your children Christmas presents. They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

White progressives, hell, ANY PROGRESSIVES are used to ‘getting it all’? In.. America? God, Ishmael Reed must be the dumbest motherfucker alive. We’ve had 30, I repeat because literacy and history are obviously not his strong suit, 30 straight, continuous years of uninterrupted conservative governance, and progressives have been ‘getting it all’? Are you high? I seriously have to wonder. You can’t make an assertion like that and not be either profoundly stupid or in an altered mental state.

The second part is, of course, that white progressives must be inherently selfish. How dare they criticize a minority president, what with having gotten it all (at some point, in an alternate universe). How childish to oppose new NAFTA deals that will cost 159,000 jobs, or a foreclosure crisis that, amongst other things, is destroying the black middle class? How dare they want the EPA to act on climate change and smog instead of punting? How dare they oppose the ridiculous Obama tax cut deal, which will raise taxes from their current rates for 1/3 of Americans, the vast majority of those the working poor?

Wow. How selfish! How conceited!

It’s truly astonishing to see an argument that, because racists who don’t like black intellectuals might not like a black president showing some spine, we on the left have to shut up and ask for nothing from said black president because maybe someday the racists will like him?

Look, Obama had to know, if he’s not terminally stupid, about these stereotypes when running for office. He knew he’d have to work to overcome them, and he chose to take the job anyway. Using those backwards ass stereotypes now, as a shield to prevent legitimate policy criticism, is simply outrageous, hypocritical and passive-aggressive in the extreme. What if past Presidents had acted this way? What if FDR had said, ‘Well, I want to enact some major economic policies, but if the Republicans inform the public that my legs are crippled, I’ll surely lose re-election because of prejudice. Time to cut taxes instead!’

Fuck you with a rusty coat-hanger, Ishmael.

Naturally, this has led John Cole over at Balloon Juice (Motto: Dead-enders for life) to fawn over the piece because it gives him a wedge to attack his own commenters and anyone who dares criticize Dear Leader, using the old ‘We’re not saying you (racists) are racist for attacking our guy on the merits, we’re just saying you’re childish and far too immature to see his great wisdom. Also, you’re probably racists.’ tack.

Again, fuck you John Cole. And hey, while we’re at it, how’s that no-need-for-a-foreclosure-moratorium thing working out for you?

What with the banks outright theft of homes moving into what I can only describe as domestic terrorism:

One such suit was filed in March by Pennsylvania homeowner Angela Iannelli. She was up to date on her payments when, she says, she arrived home in October 2009 to find that Bank of America had ransacked her belongings, cut off her utilities, poured anti-freeze down her drains, padlocked her doors and confiscated Luke, her pet parrot of 10 years. It took her six weeks to get the bank to clean up the house.

Not only do they break in and vandalize homes, even the wrong ones, to further their reign of terror, they sell homes they don’t own:

A funny thing happened to DeBary resident Russ Vas Dais as he was about to buy a foreclosed home: He learned the bank selling him the house didn’t actually own it.

Fannie Mae had foreclosed on the property but, in an apparent paperwork problem, never took ownership.

“It was quite shocking to learn the bank didn’t have title to it,” said Vas Dais, who had worked in the real-estate sales and appraisal business for 18 years. “I just felt that there are a lot of incompetent professionals who aren’t paying much attention.”

And I guess since we don’t need a moratorium, the little people don’t deserve lawyers either, which explains why Treasury refuses to allow TARP funds to help out anyone but the banksters:

There are foreclosure mediation groups and activists, like NACA, who are setting up face-to-face meetings between lenders and borrowers. There are successful advocacy groups like ESOP in Cleveland, also mediating on behalf of homeowners. And there are the lawyers, foreclosure defense attorneys who have uncovered virtually every seedy game the servicers and the banks have been playing, who have effectively represented their clients.

If anything, the government should strongly support these efforts. The status quo is hopelessly broken, and it threatens economic recovery. The Treasury Department should demand that banks stop the rush to foreclose, and having effective representation for borrowers goes a long way toward that. But when given the option to allow TARP funds to be used for legal aid for foreclosure victims, the Treasury blocked it.

Here’s a lovely sideshow of the devastation that the banks get to wreak, thanks in large part to jackasses like Obama and Cole and Ishmael Reed.

Oops, I guess going out and documenting the horrors that Obama’s policies and Administration have allowed, nay, aided and abetted, why, that’s selfish and intemperate. How dare we want to get it all?