RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

Paid 1.5B for what?

And all of that electricity came from wind and solar. We have already paid the $1.5 BILLION and the Volt is already becoming obsolete to their competition. Did you have to buy a charger?

smkettner wrote:

LindsayRichards wrote:
500 mpg is peanuts compared to the 1,000 mpg Fisker. See the article today that that GM (Government Motors) is losing nearly $50,000 per Volt produced. Unpatriotic.

Nobody gets 500 or 1000 mpg without using some other fuel source. The beauty of these vehicles is that other fuel is domestic. No war has been fought to secure our domestic coal, natural gas, solar, wind, or nuclear power. I look forward to the day we import no oil.

GM makes makes a marginal profit on every Volt that contributes to engineering and overhead. If you expect it to pay all those costs during the first 18 months it just will not happen. As long as sales continue to increase GM will make more money every month.

It is nice that a few of us can do the math. Some sharp folks here some not so much.

You are right though sorta like when I put in a new water heater, the first shower cost over 200 bucks the rest just cost the gas to heat the water LOL. Some folks get it some never will.
I have driven 1500 miles as of today, we have used 2.9 gallons of gas ... come on Linsay do the math 1500/2.9 = 517 mpg not counting the cost of electric. The electric = about 43.00 for the electricity.

I am happy you are happy I could be happier if my Dmax got even better mileage.

LindsayRichards wrote:
500 mpg is peanuts compared to the 1,000 mpg Fisker. See the article today that that GM (Government Motors) is losing nearly $50,000 per Volt produced. Unpatriotic.

Nobody gets 500 or 1000 mpg without using some other fuel source. The beauty of these vehicles is that other fuel is domestic. No war has been fought to secure our domestic coal, natural gas, solar, wind, or nuclear power. I look forward to the day we import no oil.

GM makes makes a marginal profit on every Volt that contributes to engineering and overhead. If you expect it to pay all those costs during the first 18 months it just will not happen. As long as sales continue to increase GM will make more money every month.

Fezziwig wrote:
Gee, Bumpy and Lindsay are SO smart we should stand back in awe of their superiority, except IT ISN'T TRUE! And even a dopey dame like Wonkette could see the truth:

http://wonkette.com/483744/no-gm-is-not-losing-49k-on-every-volt-reuters-just-fails-at-basic-business-math#more-483744

No, GM Is Not Losing $49K On Every Volt; Reuters Just Fails at Basic Business Math
...
If there’s one characteristic that distinguishes conservatives from liberals, it’s business acumen, right? Libruls may occasionally be able to sell some patchouli-scented hemp-based iPod cozies at the Lesbian Sisterhood crafts fair, but conservatives are the folks who REALLY understand how Bidness works! That’s pretty much the premise of every Republican campaign in the last 30 years, after all. So how is it that when a journalist made a pretty obvious error in a story, the supposedly business-savvy folks in the right-wing blogosphere went nuts passing on the story’s erroneous conclusions?

Here’s the skinny: A Reuters story on Monday featured this shocking lede:

General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds…

ZOMG, said the wingnutosphere, Government Motors (get it? get it?) is losing tons of money — our money!! — on every single one of those horrible cars that nobody wants and that Obama’s socialist vehicular commissars forced GM to build as a condition of getting a bailout with OUR MONEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Only that’s not, like, accurate at all.

As this International Business Times analysis points out — with the kind of patient tone one would use when telling a five year old that, no, the department store’s escalator will not eat your feet — the Reuters loss-per-vehicle estimate is based on crappy math that NO ONE IN BUSINESS WOULD REALLY USE. (Caution: Math follows. Do not be afraid. We understood it, and we were English majors.)

Reuters derived its loss-per-unit estimate by dividing the total development cost for the Volt (between $1 billion and $1.2 billion) by the number of Volts sold to date (about 21,500 so far), then adding in the estimated production cost per car (“between $20,000 and $32,000, a wide margin to be sure”) and subtracting the price for which each Volt sells (base price $39,145), which gave them that $49,000 loss figure.

Unfortunately, Reuters screwed the mathematical pooch in that first bit of ciphering:

The issue with Reuters’ math, though, is that it only takes into account the 21,500 Volts sold so far, as if GM would never sell another one. If that is taken to be true, then each Volt sold has cost GM around $55,000 in development costs. However, each Volt sold spreads out the development costs incrementally, pushing down the R&D cost per unit. GM has acknowledged that it has not yet sold enough Volts to break even, but it suspects that it will reach the break-even point by the time the second- generation Volt is introduced onto the market in about three years’ time.

Once again, we must emphasize that we are mushy-headed liberal arts majors, not business majors, but it seems like a pretty major fail to assume that the development costs of a new technology represent an irrecoverable loss. And the Reuters story even acknowledges (about halfway through) that the average per-unit costs for “development and tooling costs…will, of course, come down as more Volts are sold.”

But look at the capitalism experts at sites like The Blaze, or Free Republic, or Townhall, or the hideously named “Twitchy.com” — The typical comment goes something like this: “They’re losing $50K per car, but don’t worry, they’ll make it up in volume!!! HAW HAW HAW!” Um. Yeah. Actually, that is how development costs work. We thought you guys understood business?

The decision to develop the Volt, by the way, was entirely GM’s, and the program began in 2007. Just another example of time-travelling Obama interfering with private industry, we suppose.

Strangely, it seems like maybe the crazy libruls might understand manufacturing a bit more clearly when it comes to this story:

As the blog InsideEVs pointed out, rather sarcastically, in response to the Reuters feature, “In a related news item, I heard that Ford has delivered the first dozen C-Max hybrids, and it cost the company about $500 million to develop the program, and therefore Ford is losing $41,666,667 on every copy they sell.”

So remember, conservatives understand how businesses really work. And math is hard.

Do I have to wave a "sarcasm" flag?
bumpy

Your source (wonkette.com) is hardly credible and is unknown to regular folks. Reuters is hardly a conservative source and is well known for being liberal. The fact that wonkette 9is that really their name) calls them conservative makes them even more unbelievable. Just how do you explain that the 120 day on the shelf inventory,the three plant shut downs, and the doing away with the second shift? Face it, it is a dog and they can't even give them away at these very low leasing prices where they are guaranteed a big lose. 59% of them have been bought by municipalities. The public isn't buying them. My town spent $18,000 on two charging stations that remain unused after over a year. I do like the fact that you are starting to look things up on the internet. I might suggest using normal sources instead of all of this left wing stuff.

Gee, Bumpy and Lindsay are SO smart we should stand back in awe of their superiority, except IT ISN'T TRUE! And even a dopey dame like Wonkette could see the truth:

http://wonkette.com/483744/no-gm-is-not-losing-49k-on-every-volt-reuters-just-fails-at-basic-business-math#more-483744

No, GM Is Not Losing $49K On Every Volt; Reuters Just Fails at Basic Business Math
...
If there’s one characteristic that distinguishes conservatives from liberals, it’s business acumen, right? Libruls may occasionally be able to sell some patchouli-scented hemp-based iPod cozies at the Lesbian Sisterhood crafts fair, but conservatives are the folks who REALLY understand how Bidness works! That’s pretty much the premise of every Republican campaign in the last 30 years, after all. So how is it that when a journalist made a pretty obvious error in a story, the supposedly business-savvy folks in the right-wing blogosphere went nuts passing on the story’s erroneous conclusions?

Here’s the skinny: A Reuters story on Monday featured this shocking lede:

General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August — but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds…

ZOMG, said the wingnutosphere, Government Motors (get it? get it?) is losing tons of money — our money!! — on every single one of those horrible cars that nobody wants and that Obama’s socialist vehicular commissars forced GM to build as a condition of getting a bailout with OUR MONEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Only that’s not, like, accurate at all.

As this International Business Times analysis points out — with the kind of patient tone one would use when telling a five year old that, no, the department store’s escalator will not eat your feet — the Reuters loss-per-vehicle estimate is based on crappy math that NO ONE IN BUSINESS WOULD REALLY USE. (Caution: Math follows. Do not be afraid. We understood it, and we were English majors.)

Reuters derived its loss-per-unit estimate by dividing the total development cost for the Volt (between $1 billion and $1.2 billion) by the number of Volts sold to date (about 21,500 so far), then adding in the estimated production cost per car (“between $20,000 and $32,000, a wide margin to be sure”) and subtracting the price for which each Volt sells (base price $39,145), which gave them that $49,000 loss figure.

Unfortunately, Reuters screwed the mathematical pooch in that first bit of ciphering:

The issue with Reuters’ math, though, is that it only takes into account the 21,500 Volts sold so far, as if GM would never sell another one. If that is taken to be true, then each Volt sold has cost GM around $55,000 in development costs. However, each Volt sold spreads out the development costs incrementally, pushing down the R&D cost per unit. GM has acknowledged that it has not yet sold enough Volts to break even, but it suspects that it will reach the break-even point by the time the second- generation Volt is introduced onto the market in about three years’ time.

Once again, we must emphasize that we are mushy-headed liberal arts majors, not business majors, but it seems like a pretty major fail to assume that the development costs of a new technology represent an irrecoverable loss. And the Reuters story even acknowledges (about halfway through) that the average per-unit costs for “development and tooling costs…will, of course, come down as more Volts are sold.”

But look at the capitalism experts at sites like The Blaze, or Free Republic, or Townhall, or the hideously named “Twitchy.com” — The typical comment goes something like this: “They’re losing $50K per car, but don’t worry, they’ll make it up in volume!!! HAW HAW HAW!” Um. Yeah. Actually, that is how development costs work. We thought you guys understood business?

The decision to develop the Volt, by the way, was entirely GM’s, and the program began in 2007. Just another example of time-travelling Obama interfering with private industry, we suppose.

Strangely, it seems like maybe the crazy libruls might understand manufacturing a bit more clearly when it comes to this story:

As the blog InsideEVs pointed out, rather sarcastically, in response to the Reuters feature, “In a related news item, I heard that Ford has delivered the first dozen C-Max hybrids, and it cost the company about $500 million to develop the program, and therefore Ford is losing $41,666,667 on every copy they sell.”

So remember, conservatives understand how businesses really work. And math is hard.

LindsayRichards wrote:
500 mpg is peanuts compared to the 1,000 mpg Fisker. See the article today that that GM (Government Motors) is losing nearly $50,000 per Volt produced. Unpatriotic.

but if they lose $50,000 per Volt produced, I think they make it up in volume.
bumpy

Give it a rest, Lindsay.

We all know you hate the Fiskers and the Volt, in spite of testimonials from actual owners and actual drivers.

500 mpg is peanuts compared to the 1,000 mpg Fisker. See the article today that that GM (Government Motors) is losing nearly $50,000 per Volt produced. Unpatriotic.