Topic: NewsBusters
Seton Motley turns in another fact-challenged rant about General Motors in his Dec. 4 NewsBusters post, this time centered around the picayune complaing that the Chevrolet Volt tops customer-satisfaction surveys. It doesn't take long for Motley to whine about "government money" being spent to develop the Volt, which he insists is "a lot like the Obama Phone."
Actually, the current federal program of subsidized phone service was created in 1996 and expanded to cover cell phones in 2008, before Obama took office. It's funded by surcharges on phone bills, not the federal government.
From there, Motley launches into more false or misleading claims. He whines that "more-than-$3 billion-in-federal-government-subsidies-alone" on the Volt, ignoring that development of the Volt began in 2007, well before the government got involved with GM.
He also claims "The Volt costs GM $89,000 to manufacture." In fact, GM has pointed out that this number includes development costs, which are spread over the vehicle's lifespan -- meaning that amount per vehicle drops with every Volt sold -- as well as use of the vehicle's techology in other GM products, which will spread those costs out even further.
