Topic: WorldNetDaily
It appears WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi knows as little about cars as he does about economics.
An Oct. 24 WND article states:
A $41,000 "all-electric" car heavily hyped by the Obama administration is now being dubbed a "fraud" because it requires gasoline for the driver to get anywhere, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Last summer, General Motors, commonly called "Government Motors" since the Obama administration takeover, unveiled the first of its "Obamamobiles," the Chevrolet Volt, a compact electric car."At the end of July, Obama allowed himself at a GM plant in Michigan to be photographed looking somewhat nervous and uncomfortable behind the wheel of a production-line model of the Chevy Volt," Corsi wrote. "Now it turns out the GM promotion about the Volt being the first truly all-electric car was just a lot of hype."
Corsi, unsurprisingly, gets things wrong. First, the Volt is not an "Obamamobile"; development started in 2006 and it made its first public appearance at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show -- both well before GM needed government intervention.
Second, the Volt was never promoted as an "all-electric car." It always had an internal combustion engine, as noted in the 2007 unveiling. What the Volt has that other hybrid cars don't is electric drive -- that is, an electric motor drives the car, and the internal combustion engine generates electricity but is not directly connected to the driving wheels.
Corsi also writes: "Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has scoffed that the $7,500 tax credit constitutes nothing less than an admission by the Obama administration that nobody wants to buy the Volt." In fact, GM reports that initial demand for the Volt is so strong that it's planning to boost production.
Corsi adds, "Even worse, TopSpeed.com reported that the Chevy Volt's 1.4-liter 80 horsepower engine will only run on premium gasoline." Corsi doesn't explain why that's somehow "worse," given that numerous cars on the market already require premium fuel. Further, the Volt uses premium for a reason, because of the way the motor is designed to be as small and as high-efficiency as possible.
With such easily discredited claims, no wonder Corsi couldn't get anyone to pay for his now-free (but still not functional to free subscribers) newsletter.
