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The losses are a surprise to no one. I still say the US government should not allow this American icon to fail.It is the last remaining big manufacturer we have left. Trade agreements have decimated our manufacturing sector. I am sick of everything including American flags made in China.

Whatever may be done with the REST of the company, it is VITAL that the initiative to develop the long-overdue ALTERNATIVE-ENERGY paradigm being pioneered in the VOLT be PRESERVED. For it points the way to the actual ANSWER to"OUR" ADDICTIVE DEPENDENCY ON OTHER PEOPLES' OIL --- which is what is absolutely DESTROYING THIS COUNTRY'S WHOLE ECONOMY.

For those who may not yet have fully "caught on":

GM’s forthcoming Chevy VOLT is an ELECTRIC car with a battery that will carry it about FORTY miles. Thereafter, an INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE kicks in. But that (gasoline) engine is NOT coupled to the wheels MECHANICALLY. THEY are powered (only) ELECTRICALLY. Rather, It drives a GENERATOR that supplies the electric motors at the wheels. And if you erroneously imagine that no such vehicle can get above 30 miles per hour or get out of the back yard --- well, be advised! On the railroads, all modern MASSIVE LOCOMOTIVES, and also the VERY LARGEST SHIPS, are (and have for many years now already been!) actually propelled by ELECTRIC motors. And the speed record for ELECTRIC-powered cars out at the Bonneville Speedway is somewhere north of 400 Miles per hour the last I heard.

Now the thing is, statistics show that fully 75% of all automobile usage is “short haul” runs that would “fit” within the 40-mile “power budget” of the VOLT’s battery --- SO MOST OF THE TIME THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE WILL NEVER OPERATE! Ici voila!-: THREE-FOURTHS of all petroleum consumption to power automobiles SIMPLY, STRAIGHTFORWARDLY ELIMINATED --- PERIOD!

The battery would be charged from the power grid, or (better yet, eventually) YOUR OWN PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAY or WIND-POWERED-GENERATOR low-voltage auxiliary system, when the vehicle is not in use. Using ELECTRICAL power in such a way could render it PRACTICAL to DIRECTLY harness the abundant but intermittent / highly variable FREE energy that perpetually rains down on us from the sun --- which we “traditionally” WASTE! (The car battery DOESN’T “CARE” if it is charged intermittently or at a variable rate AS LONG AS IT GETS CHARGED UP!) Or absent such FREE power, about 80 cents worth of "grid" power would “fill the tank”. (Eight such charges, or $6.40 worth, would provide for 320 miles --- about the equivalent of a tank of gasoline THAT COSTS ABOUT FOUR TIMES AS MUCH!) Beyond that, fuel consumption would depend on how the car is used --- but for ORDINARY usage the internal combustion engine WOULD BE AT MOST ONLY MINIMALLY ACTIVE!

And one ALSO simply DISPENSES WITH (!) the whole elaborate TRANSMISSION and DRIVE TRAIN --- utilizing simple, relatively UNbreakable MAGNETIC-force (rather than complex, fallible mechanical) drive elements. (There is NO TRANSMISSION on a Diesel Electric locomotive --- we could not BEGIN to build a sufficiently heavy-duty clutch! That is why the whole ELECTRIC-motor paradigm was developed for very HEAVY loads in the first place.) So now, think of all THOSE savings too!

Above all, though, note that the VOLT is merely an adaptation to a MUCH LIGHTER application of VERY OLD, WELL-ESTABLISHED, HEAVY-DUTY technological concepts! The battery-powered car has been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile, and the Diesel-electric LOCOMOTIVE (and similar systems --- for example, on the largest ships) have been around for ABOUT 60 YEARS NOW ALREADY. There has obviously been no TECHNOLOGICAL reason why the adaptation to the mere AUTOMOBILE could not have been accomplished MUCH SOONER --- had “we” but mustered the wisdom and the wit to do so! People really should now be thinking about the “FALSE(!) economic” reasons why the alternative was not pursued earlier and how such rationales for not doing so now prove to have tragically MISLED “us”!

I submit that it would now be appropriate for "Government" to fund GM (at BARELY above subsistence levels) to sustain ONLY those "life functions" of the moribund "patient" that sustain RAPID, compelled revolutionary progress AWAY from the currently FAILING "business model"! That support needs to be VERY SPECIFIC, being purposefully directed toward ACTUAL IMPLEMENTATION, BRINGING INTO PRODUCTION, and more generally PUBLIC POPULARIZATION (through EDUCATION, and indirect tax-forbearance SUBSIDIZATION!) of such initiatives as the VOLT (and all its sure-to-soon-follow derivative progeny) --- and ALSO, more broadly, such OTHER "outside-the-box" initiatives as the Toyota / Hyundai / Ford pioneering of REGENERATIVE-BRAKING ENERGY CONSERVATION technology.

Indeed, it ALSO needs to begin to dawn on people that it will be advantageous to MARRY THE "REGENERATIVE-BRAKING" AND "ELECTRIC CAR" TECHNOLOGIES: doing so would about DOUBLE the RANGE of any battery-powered system, just as it doubles the efficiency (and hence also the range) of the all-gasoline-powered Toyota Prius (which has a 21.5 miles-per-gallon engine that ends up achieving around 45 mpg!). Maybe THAT is the initiative on which CHRYSLER should be funded to focus. (A little good-old-fashioned, "capitalistic" COMPETITION could be a very good thing!)

So: eliminate perhaps FULLY SEVEN-EIGHTHS(!) of all the importation of oil to supply gasoline to fuel "our" automobiles. And while "we" are at it, lets also CONVERT all those heavy TRUCKS to NATURAL GAS --- which “we” have (for now) IN ABUNDANT SUPPLY --- per the proposals being advanced by famed “oil”man T. Boone Pickens. Now THERE is FOREIGN OIL INDEPENDENCE for you! And it really COULD (and SHOULD!!) have been done MANY YEARS AGO NOW ALREADY!! (which, by the way, would have simply AVOIDED bloody obscenities such as those for “we” are now responsible over in IRAQ and elsewhere, which are what has actually ENGENDERED the murderous vengeance of an “al-Qaida”!)

SUCH are the sorts of initiatives that are needed to ACTUALLY IGNITE the "GREEN-COLLAR ECONOMIC REVOLUTION" which, if generally embraced, could INTELLIGENTLY, CONSTRUCTIVELY restore the economic health of this society (and would SURELY be preferable to any cockamamie WAR like the one whereby "we" "escaped" from the so-called "Great" Depression!).

Now if my ideas come across as HERETICAL, then so be it. But you DON'T successfully treat a patient who is DYING OF LUNG CANCER (if it is indeed possible to do so at all) by BUYING HIM OR HER MORE CIGARETTES! It appears that the OBAMA crowd is indeed smart enough to "get" that. EVIDENTLY THEIR PREDECESSORS WERE NOT!